Chapter One - Windows
I do not own any part of the novel 'Peter Pan' by J.M Barrie and the following sequence is entirely imaginary.
A Waiting Game
Wendy's POV
"Wendy – Wendy! Wake up sweetheart!"
Wendy's blue eyes blinked open slowly, blearily. She swept back a lock of her blond brown hair which had fallen into her eyes as she slept. She stood unsteadily at her mother's direction, and was steered by Mrs. Darling into her own warm bed.
"No, mother... Please don't – I must stay by the window!" she pleaded with wide eyes and clasped hands. Mrs. Darling sighed and shook her head gently as she forced her only daughter to settle into her bed; this episode had been repeated a few hundred times... Every night in fact. Each and every night, when Mrs. Darling would come up to the nursery to check all the lights were out and all her children (born by her or adopted) were sleeping soundly, she would find Wendy asleep on the window seat, her head propped against her arms on the sill.
"My darling, we can't have the window open in the middle of January. You'll catch a chill, you know that," she told her daughter, as she did every night, merely changing the month as required. She pulled the blanket up around Wendy's pale chin, tenderly brushing her fingertips over her daughter's smooth cheek.
"But – He'll come back! He promised..." Wendy yawned, her eyelids drooping tiredly.
Mrs. Darling couldn't prevent the sad smile which touched her face. Her face tinged with heartbreak on her daughter's behalf, and she knew Mr. Darling had lost patience with Wendy around a year ago... Her daughter had taken to haunting the window when she had returned from her adventures just over two years ago. In Mr. Darling's mind, almost 15 was too old to still be in the nursery, especially as he now thought of her as very – yet endearingly - obsessive.
Even she thought Wendy was too old to believe in the fairy stories she had concocted as a young child, really; fairies, pirates, flying. Peter Pan. After all, even the boys had given up that silly fantasy. But Wendy was like a dog with a bone... She just wouldn't let it go, give him up. Mrs. Darling shut the window, and left the room.
Wendy's eyes shot open, as she cautiously sat up in bed. The lights were all out and there was no noise in the house after Mrs. Darling had shut her own bedroom door; she tossed off the blankets and swung her legs out of the bed. She tiptoed across the room and quietly unlatched the window, throwing it wide open. The freezing January chill hit her while she looked up at the stars, one star in particular – second star to the right, straight on till morning. He would come back to her, he would. She positioned her arms on the sill and set her head on top of them; her cheek pressed tightly into her nightgown. He would come back... He promised.