by Liz Braswell
By the end of most days, her writing arm would ache like she had been battling thysolits the whole time.
But she kept herself going with hopes and dreams, with memories of severe deserts and voices that couldn’t be heard. Nothing she did, she reminded herself, was more dangerous than battling pirates—or more terrible than doing their laundry.
And on certain nights, when it felt right, when the moon was friendly and she didn’t recognize all the stars, she set out two cups of tea and waited.
And waited.
Of course, things happened at a different pace in Never Land, even if the years matched up. Peter Pan was a hard boy to keep in line. Promises over there could be put off for years when the promiser thought only an afternoon had slipped by.
“I have so much to tell her,” Wendy said to herself. “The protest outside of parliament where they hit me with that rotten tomato…and then that funny tree I saw growing at the botanical gardens that reminded me so much of rubyfruit!”
The mantel clock in the other room (humorously decorated with a time to change sign penned by one of her friends) continued to ticktock.
As midnight approached, Wendy sighed and stood up to clear the dishes. Again.
At midnight oh one, a golden glow appeared in her kitchen window.
Upon seeing it, Wendy’s face also glowed.
“Tinker Bell!” she sighed, and opened the door.
Liz Braswell spent her childhood reading fairy tales, dreaming, and going on adventures in the woods with her cat. After majoring in Egyptology at Brown University (and yes, she can write your name in hieroglyphs) she promptly spent the next ten years producing video games. Finally Liz caved in to fate and wrote Snow and Rx under the name Tracy Lynn, followed by the Nine Lives of Chloe King series under her real name, because by then the assassins hunting her were all dead. She is also the author of Stuffed and several other Twisted Tales, including A Whole New World, Once Upon a Dream, As Old as Time, and Part of Your World. She lives in Brooklyn with a husband, two children, a cat, a part-time dog, three fish, and five coffee trees—one of which has already produced a rather tolerable espresso. You can email her at [email protected] or tweet @LizBraswell or Instagram @lizbraswell.
