prologue
It was the saddest and darkest building in all of London. The cold brick walls, with the uninviting wooden double-doors, the withered leaves and twigs on the yard and on the stairs. The cold and rough wind breezing through the sleepy city, the lights were the only thing keeping it awake. On the porch lay a baby boy, wrapped in a dirty old sheet. The full moon shining a light on him. It was a while until someone opened the door. But when they did, they sighed in both fear and delight. The old woman took him in her loving arms and ran inside, closing the door behind her after glancing around for the mother. But she was long gone.
»My dearest Peter. By the time you read this, you are old enough to know why I gave you away. I hope you understand that I wanted to give you your best chance.
Love, your mother.» read the note that was tucked in the sheet. The old woman felt her eyes build up with tears and soon enough one roll down her rosy cheek. She took the boy upstairs and laid him in a cradle. Ten other cradles surrounding little Peter's. She touched his cheek lightly with her finger. Looking in his dark blue eyes she knew. »You are a special boy, Peter», she whispered and smiled. She always had a way with babies. She always knew when they were about to cry or they were hungry, or if they just wanted to be held. She could spot the special and talented ones from the others. She didn't know how she knew, she just did. A certain tingle in her bones would tell her that this child will be something great. And she knew Peter was going to be something. She never had children of her own, but maybe she was just special too. An old nun working in a orphanage.
Over the years, Peter grew up. The old nun, Sister Monica, thought she was wrong about Peter becoming something great. She thought maybe she didn't have a gift at all. That she had just gotten lucky.
Peter did not seem great at all. He was rebelling and cruel toward other children. Sister Monica could not count the times Peter would hit or bite others, steal or run away. Sister Monica had taken such good care of little Peter, but she could not understand what went wrong. Why Peter was like this.
»Peter, grow up! You are acting like a child!» other nurses would tell him.
»I don't want to grow up!» he shouted and stuck his tongue out.
Sister Monica thought maybe there was something medically wrong with him. It could not have been her fault. She took Peter in her loving arms that cold fall night and she rose him like her own.
Every night, since Peter was five and a half years old, he got on his knees next to his bed, looked up at the sky from the window and he closed his eyes. He pressed his hands together and wished he could go in a wonderful land, where there were no adults telling him to grow up. Peter didn't want to grow up. He would have much rather stayed a child forever. So every night, for so many countless nights he wished for the very same thing. But every morning, every goddamn morning he woke up in that rock hard bed, staring at the crack in the ceiling. Tens of other children, their breathing synchronized, were sleeping in beds in the large room. At night he would lay awake and with good luck get a couple of hours of sleep. All those hours awake did not go to waste though. Every night, he closed his eyes and pretended to be somewhere else. On a far away island. A thick forest, with streams and curious animals. The Neverbird. It's battle cry would be a high note it sings when it attacks. Other times, it would rarely sing and would be bright blue and it would have a knife sharp black beak.