The days had never been the same since Peter Pan left the island. With Captain Hook long since defeated and the Lost Boys in a new home on the mainland, Peter couldn't survive being alone. He was very much the little boy that he had always been and seemed to spring back after Wendy took her two little brothers home, but after a while it became evident that Peter missed Wendy. I even began to realize, much to my dismay, that he had grown to love her. My Peter Pan, in love with the Wendy Bird.
And so he left. With simple instructions to take my medicine and to stay out of trouble, and a hefty bag of pixie dust for his journey, he left, without a backward glance. Just like that, I was alone again.
I made do for a while; I tried to integrate myself into the fairy community to reconnect with those of my own kind. But it was always dancing, singing, making flowers grow, the likes. After a while, one grows tired of the constant melody of the forest.
Every once in a while I broke away to try to talk to the mermaids, hoping one would break the surface of the water and share some stories with me. But the mermaids were all the same: vengeful, dark creatures with a knack for shrieking at unwanted guests. How was it that Peter had been able to speak to them? How could he even understand them?
Days turned into weeks; weeks into months. I prayed every night that my Peter would return; even the return of Wendy would have been welcomed. It had been almost a year and I was growing very wary of life in Neverland.
It only took one fight with a neighbor fairy about my littering the cove with lost things I'd acquired on the shore to make up my mind about leaving Neverland to find Peter. I would be with him and Wendy, even if it meant becoming a household pet.
And so I set off, with a rucksack full of food and a tiny drawn map of London that I had bartered off of an elderly fairy. What was it that Peter had said to Wendy? "Third star on the left and straight on 'till morning!" So all I had to do were follow those instructions backwards. Head into the night…and third star on the left, no, right…
As fast as my wings could take me, I flew towards the dusk, and let the darkness overtake me. For a few moments I saw nothing, I heard nothing. I just felt my wings working hard to get to the stars. And then there they were. One by one they started appearing. There were three, and then four, and then twenty, and soon the whole sky was littered with stars. So how in the world was I going to find the third star on the right?
I just kept flying, hoping the right star would reveal itself. Suddenly, as if someone had adjusted the brightness, six stars began to shine more vividly than the rest. First, second…third star on the right. I altered my course and then flew straight for what felt like hours, until a serene looking blue planet grew out of oblivion.
Soon I was alighting on London, England, searching for the town depicted by my weathered map. When I found it, I searched for the house I remembered visiting with Peter to listen to the stories—all the true accounts—of the magical boy named Peter Pan.
The house stood, but not at all in its former splendor. I landed on a sill next to an open window where a young woman tended to the flowers in the flowerpots that brightened up the bedroom.
"Ms. Wendy?" the young woman called. My heart skipped. "Are you quite sure there isn't anything I can get you?"
"No thank you, Bathilda. My Peter will be home shortly." He was my Peter, I began to fume, but then realized this was no young girl that spoke. This was an old woman facing the end of her days. And she sounded distant, as if her mind were trapped in Neverland.
"Ma'am, Mr. Pan is no longer with us, don't you remember? He passed away last Spring."
That can't be…I just saw him last Summer! Ms. Wendy echoed my thoughts.
"No, dear, he's just out to pick up some more tea! "
"Ma'am…he's gone. I'm so very sorry."
"He's…gone? My Peter?" The woman began to sob and I pushed myself off of the windowsill with such force that I struck my head on the overhanging roof. I shook it off and sped towards somewhere more private, finally landing on top of Big Ben. If it was true, if living on Neverland had made me miss an entire lifetime of people on the mainland, then Peter Pan really was gone. He was truly an old man and his time had finally come. I laid in silence because I couldn't cry, I couldn't be angry, I couldn't even emote. I was alone.