Chapter One
All children, except one, grow up.
That used to be the truth... but this is not the story of a child anymore.
You see, a long time ago, the young boy almost tried to grow up for a girl named Wendy. Then for her daughter, a girl named Jane, and her daughter Violet, Margaret, Mary... and out stretches the line of the Darling women.
As the years grew longer and the apparitions scarce, soon the Darling family forgot there ever was a boy named Peter who came for their daughters every spring cleaning. And then every other spring cleaning, then some springs. Until he forgot how short a year could be in this earthly realm.
Until the Darling family became the Mason family, the Fletchers, the Coopers, the Rinns... when the Darling family had mixed and dissipated into the Scottish, Irish, German, Polish lines that had started it in the first place... and no sight of the boy who once lost his shadow.
What they never knew, what they never found out, was just how much strain even a single moment in our world brought in the little boy's body. Years and years crammed into such a young mind, he would age every time he set foot here, without knowing. And so, slowly, the family came to be his doom. For there came a time when his body had turned 18, and he had not noticed time go by in his endless search for a mother.
One day, as he stood over the lake where the mermaids roamed and flirted and plotted, he looked upon the water and realized he did not recognize himself anymore. He did not remember the last time he looked at himself. Really looked. He had not noticed how much taller he was, how lean.
His blond hair... he was sure it used to be more fair. He contemplated his chiseled jaw, his arching eyebrows, high cheekbones, the slight shadow of a coming beard. All frozen in the magic of Neverland. But nevertheless present.
How could this have happened? He was sure this was not the way he had looked before. He was sure of it. He might not remember himself, his face from when he first came to Neverland, but he definitely did not look like that boy anymore.
He looked like a man.
Did the lost boys ever notice? Had they been hiding their notice of this slow progress of age like the writhing worms they would be without him? Were they that treacherous to not say anything to their Pan?
With a heart full of growing anger; a heart full of dark rage, he vowed to find the meaning of this growth, for he had never intended to be a man.
He would never be a man.
Never.
The answer came to him like a burst of pixie dust. He smiled; a frightening, crooked smile; the shadow of a half moon in the face of the darkening day.
"Felix," he crowed. "Round up the boys up for an announcement. I must make one last trip out of Neverland."