by Austin Chant
"I'd better knock," Peter said. "What if they think I'm a burglar trying to break in?"
"Don't knock," Tink shimmered back. "You'll scare them." She leapt from his shoulder and spun a thread of silver into the crack between the shutters, pulling the latch up. The window came open, and Peter tiptoed down to the nursery floor.
Michael was snuffling in his sleep. Peter's heart swelled. He'd used to hate Michael's snoring, but that was before he'd thought he would never hear it again.
"Peter." Tink sounded anxious. Her fur ruffled his cheek. "This is goodbye," she said. "Are you sure?"
Peter nodded. "I'll miss you, Tink."
She flew up and kissed him on the brow, tickling him with her feelers. He almost laughed, but he couldn't quite. There was a funny feeling in his stomach, like he was going to be sick; he was happy and frightened all at once.
"Good luck," Tink said softly. "Wish for me if you need help again."
Peter nodded, and she left him with a sprinkle of fairy dust in his hair. He turned to watch her go through the window.
On the way back from Neverland, he and Tink had come up with a strategy for revealing his return to his brothers and parents. He'd be in bed when they woke, as if nothing had happened, and then insist on everyone gathering round in the parlor to hear the story of where he'd been.
But he tripped over a pile of blocks on his way back to bed, and with a gasp, John sat up and stared at him in the moonlight.
"Wendy?" he asked. His eyes were red. "Are you a ghost?"
"No," Peter said, startled by the idea. "And I'm not Wendy, I'm—"
"I saw you fly past the window," John said. He was using his most logical voice, but there was a tremble in it. "That's when I knew you must be dead."
"I'm not. I can fly." Peter tried to hop into the air to prove it, but came down hard on his heels. "The fairy dust must've worn off already—but I could fly. I went away to Neverland, but I decided to come back because I missed everyone. I missed you, John." John was looking at him like he had two heads, and Peter couldn't get it all out fast enough. "First, I've got to tell you something. My name's not Wendy anymore, it's Peter. Like Peter Pan, but Peter Darling. And you've got to start calling me your brother. I am, you see, but I didn't know I could be until I went away to Neverland—and then I just was a boy, and I knew I must have been all along."
He paused for breath, and John tilted his head to one side. "That," he said, "doesn't make any sense at all."
"I know it doesn't, but it's true. I can't explain it." Peter threw his arms wide, hoping John would see the difference in him, how free he felt. "It's a miracle."
John looked doubtful. Peter could see him running through this new information, trying to understand it. "You do look like a boy," he admitted. "But it's dress-up, isn't it?"
"No. It's for real."
John studied him. Then he leaned over and nudged Michael, who could sleep through anything, until he whimpered and began to stir. "Michael," he said, "Wendy's back, and she says she's a boy now."
"It's Peter," Peter protested, but he was cut off. Michael, half-asleep, sat up and saw a ragged stranger standing in his bedroom. He opened his mouth wide and gave an earsplitting scream. John and Peter clapped their hands over their ears, but even muffled, Peter heard his parents' footsteps pounding up the hall.
A moment later, the nursery door flew open.
Mr. and Mrs. Darling, too, screamed at the sight of Peter. Mrs. Darling flew forward and seized him in a bone-crushing hug, then pulled back in horror to stare at the mud on his face and leaves in his hair. "Dearest, who did it?" she asked. "Who took you? How did you escape?"
"Nobody took me," Peter protested. He squirmed his way out of the hug, chipping a bit of dirt off his cheek with one finger. "I went to Neverland."
"And she says her name's Peter now," John put in.
"You ought to say his name," Peter added. "As I'm a boy."
There was a tense silence. Then Mr. Darling, standing above his wife and child, asked, "You went where?"
"Neverland," Peter said. "Like in the stories."
He drew a deep breath, preparing to launch into his full explanation again, but before he could speak Mr. Darling swept forward and seized him by the shoulders.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" he bellowed, his face red. His fingers squeezed at Peter's shoulders like he meant to crush them. "We thought you were abducted! Killed! Locked up somewhere by some degenerate who kidnaps little girls from their beds! We've had police crawling over half of London for a month! Your brothers thought they'd never see their sister again!" He punctuated each roar with a shake of Peter's shoulders. Peter had never seen his father so angry; all he could do was shake in his grip. "And now," George Darling snarled, "you're back to say you ran away? You thought ruining your family's happiness was one of your little nursery games?"
"I'm sorry!" Peter burst out, tears filling his eyes. "I didn't know what to do! I didn't think you'd be upset—"
"Oh, Wendy," Mrs. Darling said. She was weeping. "How could you think that? How could you do this?"
"It's a disgrace," Mr. Darling snapped. "Better that she'd been kidnapped. Explaining to everyone we know—and the police to boot—that she ran away and came back looking like something that crawled out of the sewer—"
Mrs. Darling clapped her hands over her mouth, tears streaming over her fingers. "They can't know, George."
"I'm back now!" Peter shouted, desperately trying to be heard. John and Michael were watching in stunned silence, flattened back against their pillows by the force of their father's anger. "I came back! I came back because I love you, and John, and Michael—" He could barely speak through the lump in his throat. "I thought you'd be happy to see me!"
"I'd have been happy years ago," Mr. Darling said, "if you'd have grown up and started acting like a responsible young woman with a single thought in her head. Neverland." He spat the name. "I'd like to know where you've really been, and how on earth you've been conducting yourself for the last month."
"I've been in Neverland!" Peter tore himself out of his father's hands and backed toward the window. "John knows! He saw me fly up to the window."
Everyone turned to John, who fidgeted nervously with his blanket. "I did see something odd," he said. "I thought it was a ghost, but…"
"I will not have her dragging her brothers into her delusions," Mr. Darling ground out.
"It's true!" Peter yelled. He was getting angry. "I'll prove it to you! Tink!" He spun around and sprinted toward the window seat. "Tink, I need your help—"
Mrs. Darling screamed. "George, what if she jumps?"
Before he could reach it, Peter's father lunged forward and swept him over his shoulder, carrying him from the nursery. Peter pummeled his father's back with his fists, but Mr. Darling's grip was like iron.
They locked him in the washroom down the hall from the nursery. Peter cried and kicked fruitlessly at the door for a while, but when he exhausted himself, pressed up against instead to listen to his parents talking.
"Something must have happened," Mrs. Darling was saying, low and anguished. "Someone must've done something to her. The boys aren't disturbed the way she is."
"Maybe, Mary. Maybe. I was against letting her room with the boys, you remember?"
"Don't start blaming me, George, please. I can't stand it right now. She loved them, and she wanted to stay with them." Even bruised and shut in the washroom, Peter felt a stab of guilt at the sound of tears in his mother's voice. "There must be something we can do to help her."
"I've heard of doctors who specialize in fixing people with… these kinds of problems," George grunted. "I'll call around in the morning. In the meantime, the boys must know not to say anything. And we'll keep her away from them. The last thing we need is another sick child."
Peter backed away from the door, his heart frozen.
He couldn't be separated from his brothers—half the reason he had come back at all was to be with
John and Michael. He scrambled to the sink and started the water running, soaping up his muddy hands.
When his mother came to the door, his face and hands were clean, his hair brushed as best he could brush it and picked free of leaves. The moment the door came open, he jumped forward and said, "I'm sorry for making you worry, mama. It was just a game."
Mary Darling's mouth fell open and she glanced at her husband.
"You don't need to send me to a doctor," Peter continued, in a rush. "And don't keep me away from John and Michael. I'll be good. I was just playing." He didn't have to exaggerate his tears; they came thick and overwhelming, choking him as he tried to get everything out. "I didn't mean to scare everyone. I'm Wendy, okay?"
"And what was all that about Neverland?" Mr. Darling said, dangerously calm. "About fairies and pirates and magic and things?"
"There's no such thing," Peter said, and squeezed his eyes shut.
*~*~*
He felt the cold before he was fully awake, shivers chasing him out of his dreams.
Peter uncurled stiffly from the position he'd slept in, huddled against a heap of Red Dog's old clothes and a mountain of gold coins. He hadn't closed the door to the treasure room; through it, he saw the lakeshore blanketed in snow, the waterfall turned to a monument of ice.
He'd been halfway hoping James would wake him up, having decided to stay with him; he'd thought, of all the places, this might be the one James would come to. He'd thought that, of all things, James might come back for his spider silk coat.
Peter didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but by the looks of the world outside, certainly long enough for James to leave Neverland. So James was gone. He was alone.
Peter rubbed his hands together against the cold, shuddering and willing himself not to cry. It was exactly as it had been ten years ago. He'd realized as a boy that Neverland was empty, that the Lost Boys who so resembled his brothers weren't really John and Michael, and then he'd known it wasn't worth it to stay. What was the point of being himself if he had to be alone?
He picked himself up and wandered out into the snow, wrapping his arms around himself. He remembered being wrapped up in James's coat, and bowed his head miserably, trying to remember the way it had smelled. It was the opposite of what he should have been doing, which was trying to forget.
If he could forget, he could find something worth having in this world. Otherwise, there would be no point in living at all.
Seventeen
The sea had turned to deep-green glass, stiff waves of ice rolling over the surface, cresting into icicles. Peter blew over it all on the bitter wind, finding Neverland white and soft beneath heavy snowdrifts. It was terribly quiet. The forest and mountains and hills and bays were all blanketed in frost, and their personalities were changed by it, warped into another world where the island was unmoving and stoic.
Mermaid Lagoon had frozen over, and Peter was afraid the merfolk had died or been trapped beneath the ice. But he found them sheltering inside a nearby cave, where the Lost Boys had lit a bonfire large enough to melt the ice.
They shrank from Peter as he flew in, staring at him like strangers. They were all present, except for Ernest.
"Where is he?" Peter asked.
"He left," Curly said tonelessly. "He said he was going home. It's Hook's fault. He came and told Ernest that we weren't real."
Peter stared at him, distantly hurt that James had taken something else from him, distantly horrified that he had never realized how much Curly resembled Michael.
Slightly, he thought, Slightly had looked just like John.
"Where did they go?" he asked.
"Ernest went down the shore," Curly said. "Hook didn't say where he was going."
*~*~*
Ernest couldn't have been gone long. His footprints were still visible in the beach, sunk deep and icy in the snow. He had gone off in a strange direction, circling around the cliffs where the shore was narrow and the sea pressed up against it. The cliffs had come down intermittently in the storm, leaving the beach divided between landslides of frozen mud. Peter flew above them, afraid he was going to see the trail of Ernest's footprints end beneath one of the collapsed cliffs.
But when he finally saw Ernest, he was sitting on a log with his wounded leg stretched out, staring at a particularly large section of cliff that had fallen and blocked his path.
Peter landed quietly beside him. He was still trying to think of something to say when Ernest glanced over, saw him, and yelped in alarm. He fell off the log, or would have if Peter hadn't jumped forward to steady him.
"Peter!" Ernest flushed as he said his name. "You're okay!" Before Peter could reply, he wrapped his arms around Peter's neck, pulling him into a bone-squeezing hug. Peter, startled, patted tentatively at his back and laughed a little. The hug went on for a long time—Ernest didn't seem to want to let go, and Peter allowed it, grateful to see him alive.
"Of course I'm okay," he said, when Ernest finally released him. "You didn't think I'd let the pirates get the better of me, did you?"
"Never," Ernest said, and broke into a smile. There were snowflakes clinging to his pale hair, his round eyes made gray by the sky reflecting on the glass sea. "Where have you been?"
"Nowhere," Peter said. "Where are you going?"
Ernest's expression changed. Peter saw him remembering, strengthening his resolve. "Home," he said.
"I thought your family made you unhappy," Peter said. "I thought they were trying to fix something that wasn't wrong with you."
Ernest nodded. He looked down. "All of that was true," he said. "But I still love them. And I still want to live. Even if I have to go home and run away for real. I'm a grown man now. I could make it on my own." A small smile crossed his lips. "Maybe my parents missed me so much they won't mind if I'm not fixed."
"I'm happy for you," Peter said. He was, even though he felt empty of the hope that filled Ernest's eyes. Don't leave me too, he wanted to say, but it wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't make up for losing James, either. "You're right. You should go home. How do you get there?"
"There was always a corner in my room I walked into," Ernest said. "Around the fireplace—the edge of it looked like a cliff in silhouette. I'd step around it and the rug would turn into beach sand, and I'd walk across the rocks under the cliff, and then I'd finally see mermaids in the distance and know I was here." He gestured at the collapsed bluff that had blocked him. "It's on the other side of all this."
"I'll help you," Peter said. "Give me your hand."
Ernest did so, and Peter wrapped an arm around his waist, pretending not to notice the color that seeped into Ernest's cheeks. He kicked off and carried them both in a long arc over the fallen cliff, and then set Ernest down in the sand on the other side.
"There," Ernest exclaimed, pointing. The beach turned suddenly inland, leaving a rocky outcrop of cliff in silhouette, past which the forest was invisible. "See? It looks like my fireplace. I'll go around that corner and be home." He took a deep breath, turning to Peter and taking him by the arms. "Are you sure you'll be all right?"
"I'm always all right," Peter said, and knew it sounded like a lie. "I'll be fine."
"Maybe we'll meet again someday," Ernest said, and pulled Peter into another tight embrace. This time, when he let go, he turned quickly and didn't look back. He walked around the corner of the cliff and he was gone.
Peter didn't bother checking to see if he could follow, if he could watch Ernest vanish. He knew it would only make him feel more alone, and he already felt silent inside, muffled like the snow falling on the sand.
*~*~*
There was a flower growing in the place where Tink had died, poking up through the snow, a golden bud closed tight. Peter hunched over in the snow beside it, ignoring the damp soaking into his trousers. He stroked one of the petals.
He felt, as if in answer, a faint hum of magic from inside it. "Tink?" he asked.
"Not quite," the queen said.
Peter t
wisted around to see her floating down from a nearby tree. She landed on the bud, glistening in the bright reflections from the snow. "The fae are a part of Neverland," she said. "We return to the earth when we die, and something new grows from our ashes."
"Did I make that up?"
"Not everything is your truth," she said tersely. "Some things are just true."
Peter frowned, bundling his arms around himself.
"So," the queen said. "Are you to join us, Pan? You wouldn't be alone. Other dreamers have chosen to stay, and in time, the things that plague the human mind do cease to trouble you."
That was exactly what he wanted—or so he would have thought, before James. Now it sounded as hollow as everything else. "You can't really make it go away," he said bitterly. "Nothing here means anything."
"No?" Her eyes glittered at him. "Did it mean nothing to you to discover what it felt like to be surrounded by playmates who treated you as a boy? Do you regret learning what it felt like to fall in love with a man?"
"And now what?" Peter snapped. "I lost my family. I lost James, and Tink, and Ernest, and everyone. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be alone. What good was it to find out who I am and what I want if I had to be alone?"
The queen studied him for a moment longer. Then she fluttered into the air, wings chiming. "Come with me," she said.
She flew away, a warm light that cut through the snow. Peter almost didn't follow; he didn't want to see any more of her. But there was nothing else to do, and she was the only other living thing in sight, so he hauled himself to his feet and took off after her.
They flew high over Neverland, up to the mountain he and Ernest had climbed to find the fairy commune. They came down in the clearing beneath the dead commune tree, which was heaped with fresh snow. The queen landed in the crook of two tree branches, where the boughs had created a small shelter from the damp.
A little scroll was tucked into the wood, covered in silver dust that seemed to be repelling the snow.
"It's for you," the queen said. "Read it."
Peter reached up apprehensively and took the scroll, unrolling it. His heart jumped at the sight of the handwriting; it was Captain Hook's, but scratchier and less elegant. Peter sank down in the snow, gripping the letter in both hands.
