Keeping the Faith.
I had loved him since the first time his slight, boyish figure had graced my eyes. Peter Pan. Even to this day, his name fills me with love, the love you only feel in dreams, even though it has been almost ten years since I last saw him. I miss him and I almost wish I had never had left him. I wish that I was still in Neverland, still with Peter, and not in my home, with my husband and daughter.
Jane knows about Peter, through the stories I have told her. She delights in my story-telling, throwing her little pudgy hands up in the air with glee whenever Peter wins his latest battle. I feel like I am holding on to his memory this way, through my stories and my daughter. Jane shall hopefully remember them, and past them down, ensuring that Peter Pan is certainly not forgotten. He deserves to be remembered, not as the little boy that I fell in love with so very long ago, but as a brave man who protected my brothers and I, risking his life in the process. He deserves to be a hero, at least in fiction.
When Jane is asleep, Edward in his study, I take my tea in the nursery, listening to Jane's sleeping whimpers while I gaze out at the night sky, hoping to see a glimpse of Peter and his Lost Boys. They never appear though, and most nights I fear that I have lost my faith.
Tinkerbell appears one night though, and filled with glee, I allow her to fly around the nursery, watching her peep curiously at Jane, thumb stuck in her mouth, her brown curls spilled over the pillow. "She's my daughter," I say, allowing the faerie to land on my open palm.
"How are you Tink?" I ask, and she chatters quickly, bobbing her head. I smile down at her, her eyes gazing curiously up at my aged and lined face, no longer filled with the youthfulness I had possessed in my first and last visit to Neverland.
"And Peter?" I ask. Tears slip from her eyes, and she lowers her head.
"Oh." Jane stirs softly from her sleep, mumbling, "Mamma." I rush over to her, soothing her with a gentle caress and a soft kiss. Tinkerbell floats above me, her light casting Jane's face out of the darkness and into the light.
While I am occupied with my daughter, Tinkerbell flies away, barely making a sound as she flies out of the open window, back to Neverland. It isn't until I make sure Jane is asleep and turn around that I realize that Tinkerbell is gone, my last link to Peter. It is unsure when she will return, if ever. Faeries, especially ones like Tink, are known to be mysterious. If she returns, I will be waiting.
I wait up for a few more minutes, until Edward appears in the doorway and beckons me to bed. I compile, shutting the window with one last glance at the night sky, begging Peter to come soon before walking towards my husband, allowing him to place a gentle kiss on my cheek. We say goodnight to our daughter before shutting the door half-way, and walking to our bedroom.
Away, to our dreams. Dreams filled with images of Peter and his Lost Boys.
The next morning, as I am out walking, hand in hand with Jane, a rose petal falls down gracefully from the sky and lands on my head. Jane giggles, one of her chubby fingers pointing at the top of my head. She claps her hands together, giggling still. I smile down at her, and the rose petal falls off of my head, landing softly on the grass.
The young boys crowing from the yard next door reminds me of Peter and the Lost Boys, hopelessly young, but still, mature in their descisions at the same time. Jane laughs at them, paint smeared over their faces, but secretly I catch her looking enviously at their games, wanting to join in.
I wait and wait, hopelessly trying to defy nature's course, by smearing cosmetics onto my lined face, rubbing oils over the stretch marks on my stomach. I shall not age, and I will not let myself forget about Peter Pan, the boy who was never to grow up, to never age, to always look the same as he had once did, when he had first arrived at Neverland. I knew, that if Peter was to see me now, he would not recognize me, me, his Wendy, with the lines on my face, the hidden kiss at the corner of my mouth never seen, because I never smiled and my eyes, downcast as I wait for the inevitable death.
Jane had left, long ago, taking her baby brother, John with her, to live in London. There, she said, he would get the type of education suitable to become a lawyer. There they would stay, and here I would, alone in this great house with just my husband and our two cats for company.
As the years passed, Jane giving me two adorable grandchildren that I hardly ever saw, my eyes remained locked onto the open nursery window, Edward remaining in his study until the early hours of the evening. Unless I talked to the cook or our housemaid, I had no human conversation to fill the void in my heart.
That why, when my youngest brother, Michael asks me if he can visit, along with his wife, three children and two grandchildren, I eagerly agreed and threw myself into a whirl of cleaning. My two grand-nieces, Lucy and Harriet, threw themselves into my open arms, their mother smiling over the tops of their head, Michael's eldest son's, Peter, hand wrapped around her waist. Michael and I greeted each other with joy, tears streaming down my face as I embraced his wife, Elizabeth.
The children were settled into the nursery, Lucy in my old bed, and Harriet in her father's. Edward hesitantly appeared out of his study, tiredly rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. Michael and I, long after his three children, Peter, Marie and Katherine, had gone to bed, as well as his wife and my husband, talked softly in the parlor, asking each other when was the last time either of us had remembered Peter Pan. Michael told me that John had apparently already forgotten, and he was well on the way to forgetting as well. Sadness filled me as I realized that sooner or later, I would be the only one to remember Peter Pan, no matter how fuzzy my memories were becoming. I would always remember.
The next night, Peter and Annabelle went out, leaving me to mind the children. After feeding them tea made by Cook, I led them up to the nursery, smiling as they hid their little yawns with their hands. When they were settled in bed, the covers pulled up to their chins, I pulled out a book of fairytales from the bookshelf, settling myself on John's empty bed, pulling the dusty covers apart.
A story had not been told, in any way, shape or form, in this nursery for over twenty years. That's why, I think, when my cracked voice began to read, Peter Pan appeared at the window, his smooth, youthful face peering into the nursery, taking in myself, his Wendy on the bed, reading, and the two red-haired girls in the beds.
After the girls are asleep, I close the book, settling it down on the bed. Slowly, I run my cracked fingers over the lines on my face, feeling the wrinkles around my eyes and on my forehead. Michael had changed; his fiery red hair turning into a soft white. John, I imagined, would be the same, his need for glasses never-ending, the sharp way he spoke, as if he were right, and there was to be no questions about that not changed. I sigh, pulling the clip from my hair, letting the white wavy curls settle on my shoulders.
That's when Peter opened the window, as slowly flew in, settling down on the ground, his blue eyes looking up at me, as I run my hands over Lucy's face, tugging on the end of her hair.
I turn, closing my eyes, as I shake my head, walking over to the window to shut it. Peter appears at my shoulder as soon as I finish latching it, closing the curtains, the night-light on the dresser flickering in the darkness.
"Peter," I whisper, feel a faint touch on my cheek. "No, no, you cannot be real. After all these years, after all this time, you cannot be real."
"But I am," he crowed, Tinkerbell in his palm, the faerie sprinkling dust all over the floor with glee.
"You cannot be."
"I am, I am my dear Wendy. I am here, and how I have longed to be here. How I have longed to see you again, no matter how much time has passed."
"Peter," I whisper, turning at his soft touch, my hands feeling his face, his nose, and his cheeks. A smile graces my lips in the darkness, the hidden kiss appearing in the right corner for the first time in years. Even though I cannot see it, I feel the happiness it has brought for me so many years ago coursing through my body, warming my old heart.
And when I go to bed at midnight, after seeing Peter and Annabelle arrive home and checking on the girls, I go to bed with a happy heart.
And even though my family shall hate it, and sadness will overtake them, I die with a happy heart. Because even though I die now, my spirit, soul, and heart, live on with the eternally youthful Peter Pan. For he is my Peter, and I his Wendy, and he is the one that holds my hidden kiss, which is where it shall remains for eternity.