Wendy Darling had long believed in true love.
It embodied everything about her, this true love. The adventure, the romance, the complete spontaneity. She was every inch a woman, and something as magical and spell-binding as true love had Wendy's adolescent imagination captivated.
Wendy also had long believed that one should stay with their true love forever and ever. Nothing should be able to keep them apart. Nothing. Not age, not height, not race, not location, not even death. You should be able to accept the one you love for who they are; better yet, you should love them for just that. You should be able to make sacrifices for the one you love. You should always be with the one you love, if not in body, in soul.
But a certain boy was making her rethink all those thoughts and ideals she had been engrained with.
Peter Pan.
The boy who never grew up.
Loving such a free, young spirit was proving hard, especially since day by day, Wendy grew older, and day by day, Peter never seemed to change one bit. He had the same boyish laugh, the same pearly whites, and the same haughty, aren't-I-clever crow.
It was proving even harder, now that Peter was starting to notice Wendy's grown-up-ness. He had begun to beg her to fly back with him to the Neverland, the place where dreams were born and where time stood still. She could live forever with Peter there. Forever as young bodies and souls.
The thing was, though, Wendy wasn't sure she wanted to stay young forever. She wanted that experience of living life together, side by side. Going through the adventures of everyday society. Sure, they were gallivanting through the forests or fighting pirates to the beat of an Indian drum or dancing fairy dances to unwritten music…but they were adventures in and of themselves. She could imagine herself and Peter going through the birth of their children, pushing strollers leisurely through Kensington gardens, watching as the children delighted in the stories she told, raising them to be good people, playing with grandchildren endlessly on a big, open, green yard, sitting on a front porch, sipping tea, watching the sunset together, hands clasped together just as if they were young lovers instead of old souls, planning their next adventure instead of smiling down on their life and memories together.
But that could never happen.
Not with Peter.
He wouldn't, couldn't stay long enough to make a living here in London. It was against the riddle of his being. He couldn't love. Well, he wasn't supposed to, anyway. It was just a part of the magic that made Peter who he was.
Wendy was sitting in the nursery, and Michael and John were off bathing as the day outside them darkened into a starry night sky. Wendy was leafing through her old children's book, searching for a story to make over for John and Michael before they went to bed. It was their tradition, and even though Wendy had moved her bed down the hall, she never ceased to tell the boys a bedtime story every night.
Down the hall, in Wendy's big blue grown-up girl room, the window stood open, curtains blowing in the gentle wind, just the way Wendy liked it. Her mother was placing folded linens into Wendy's dresser when it happened.
Peter broke through.
He had grown used to coming to Wendy's new girl-room instead of the nursery. The window was nice and large and the window seat was just right for two small people. He came every night for his own bedtime story.
He landed softly on the windowsill, his feet barely making a sound. He saw the lady but she did not see him. His eyes narrowed at the grown up, and he gnashed his bright white baby teeth at her turned back.
Mary Darling took that moment to turn around and take a new pressed linen from the bed where she had originally placed them.
And then, she saw Peter.
She recognized him at once, of course. Her hand clutched at the golden locket around her neck and she tried in vain to still her racing heart. She hadn't seen Peter since she was a girl; surely he wouldn't recognize her.
He only saw the grown up. He moved toward swiftly, icily.
"Peter," she began. "Oh, how I've missed you!"
He froze. He knew her voice. He knew her movements and he knew her heart and he knew her heart and her mind and he did not want to admit to himself was he was seeing. It couldn't be. Peter had always been a proud boy and he hated to admit when he was wrong, nervous, or plain scared.
Right now, he was all three.
Wrong about the grown up, nervous about was going on inside him, and scared of what was going to happen next.
"Peter," she asked, hesitantly, obviously worried, "Don't you remember me? I'm still Molly, Molly Aster."
Peter shut his eyes. He didn't want to believe his ears or his eyes or his heart.
Molly Aster.
The last time he had seen her she was kissing his lips one glorious moment, then skipping off to her father, Ammm, George Darling, his lost boys, and her new life the next.
His beautiful, wonderful, daring, adventurous Molly Aster had become the lovely Mary Darling.
And Peter Pan wasn't so sure how he felt about that.