Peter Pan was not a polite little boy. He was not thoughtful. He was not kind. He was selfish, arrogant and obstinate. Peter Pan was not a polite little boy. Peter Pan is dead. Hook killed him. With how it all occurred, I might as well have been holding the sword as it slid between his ribs and into his heart.
I have not thought of Peter Pan for years upon years. In fact, it has been over fifteen years since he crossed my mind. Even now I wouldn't have thought of him. But my eleven year old daughter, Jane, mentioned him for the first time. She had heard the story of my vanishing from children at school, and asked me if it was so.
"Well, my dear," I said, carefully, "I do not know if it is true or not. I don't recall much." My mother, Mrs. Darling, once told me it is wrong to lie, unless the lie will protect those you love from the bitter truth.
"Mother," Jane asked, her blue eyes filled with inquisition. "Do you think Peter will come to me? This is the nursery he found all those years ago."
I hoped not. For Jane's sake. Peter Pan was dead.
I still remember the smell of the sea in my nose on my final return to Neverland. I had aged much more then I had thought possible, nearly seventeen years of age. Seventeen. To me this mere years. But to Peter. To Peter it was ancient. He had not come for me himself this time. This time he had sent a fairy to accompany me. This time was different. This time, Peter was different.
Seventeen. I had managed it in years. Peter had managed it in months. Seventeen. Peter Pan had aged. Peter Pan had grown up. He was still not a polite young man. He was still selfish, arrogant and obstinate. But now he was older.
And now, now he was alone.
Slowly, Peter had rebuilt his legion of Lost Boys. And slowly, they had left him, once more. Some had become pirates, some had left for a promise of family, some had been vanquished by Hook's sword. All but Peter. Peter refused to leave his world of play and disregard. In a strange way I pitied the boy. That would be all he could be. A pitiable boy, afraid to step into manhood.
If you asked Peter, he feared nothing, feared nothing at all.
But I knew different.
Peter feared what most children look forward to. Growing up. At one point, I feared it too. But as I did so, I feared it less. Growing up was a part of life, it was unnatural to remain small. You became much like Peter Pan. Rude, selfish, uncaring. You remained childish for an unhealthy amount of years. This was the beginning of Peter Pan's downfall.
All those years that he was young made him invincible in his own eyes. He could never die, he could never grow old and senile, much as Hook was becoming in his age. But Peter was far more senile then Hook could ever be. Peter was blinded by his youth, his arrogance.
On that day, when I arrived in Neverland for the final time, Peter had left me alone while he went off chasing the currents. Never a thoughtful boy, he had just left off the shore, hovering in my fairy dust. But on this fateful day I heard a semi-familiar voice hail me from a small boat not far from where I hovered.
"Ahoy, Wendy!" called the voice, deeper then I had heard before, but still familiar.
I turned to peer at the small craft, and was astonished to find Jameson in the wooden rowboat. "Ahoy, Jameson!" I called, smiling. He was one of Peter's Lost Boys, almost two years ago, before he left the band to join the pirates. I'd run into him once on my return last year, and he helped me through the fairy woods. We'd parted ways amicably, and in good faith. "How goes the pirate's life?"
"Aye," he said, coming closer. "It is a brilliant life. Food and drink, and no Peter." I nodded decidedly, agreeing that a life without Peter held some appeal.
"I really can't speak of it, I still come here to clean his house for him. But one day I will have a life without Peter."
Jameson pulled the rowboat to a floating halt beneath me, and leaned back. "Would you like to see the ship?"
I frowned, and shook my head. "I can't go to that ship... Hook would kill me." Jameson shook his head but didn't respond. "Maybe you can answer a question for me... What happened to Peter? Why has he aged?"
Jameson cleared his throat, and reached up for my hand. I allowed him to help me sit down in the boat. "Well," he said, softly, his blue eyes filling with fear. "There's only one person who can answer that..." I stared at him. "Captain James T. Hook."
My heart flip-flopped. I shook my head. "I can't go there, Jameson." I jumped up. In the last bit of my fairy dust, I glided to shore and set down. "Perhaps I'll see you later, Jameson." I turned on my heel and started off across the beach to the woods that lay ahead of me. I had a tree house to clean.