A Cold and Broken Hallelujah
I sighed and stretched my small arms out in front of me. The stars above shone mightily in the velvety purple night sky. We'd been sitting here for the longest time, just listening to that woman telling the story. I rolled my eyes in disgust and leaned back on the rose that I was sitting on. My tiny wings were spread out behind me, and glistened purple, blue, red, green and gold in the bright moonlight. I never understood why Peter always wanted to come back to this dratted window and listen to that blasted story. Already, we'd heard it near twenty times, and he kept on coming back for more. It always went the same; girl whines about doing work, lets some old woman make things better for her, a grand ball ensues, the girl loses her glass slipper, and then is made into a princess. Why would anyone wear glass shoes? I stretch my bare toes and wiggle them, happy that my feet have no shoes to restrict them. Really, humans with their ridiculous ideas and crazy made-up stories were enough to make any of my people sick.
Finally! The woman stopped talking and bid her children good night. We heard the children hop into bed, and then the door closed. I stood on a rose petal and stretched, glad that we were finally going to be underway. Peter looked up at me and grinned, his pearly white smile making my heart melt. His eyes shone bright green from out of his face, and in the moonlight, the hair that hung wildly about his face glistened like a halo. One of my yellow moth-like antennae twitched, and I felt sure that we would have been off, racing through the night sky, if the girl hadn't spoken next.
"John, are you asleep?" she asked, her voice floating from the cracked window. Peter stopped dead in his tracks and turned around to listen in.
"No," a boy's voice—John—replied, and in turn he asked, "Michael, are you asleep?"
"No," came an even younger boy's voice. I heard giggles from a child, and briefly was reminded of my birth; when the first baby laughed for the first time, it's laugh splintered into a thousand pieces and from there, the faeries were born. I'd been around ever since, dancing on the stars, skittering through the woods, and having grand adventures in Neverland. None of the Lost Boys could ever laugh like that; so few children could remind me of my birth, that I stopped myself, and sank back onto the rose in wonder.
"Would you like to hear the story of the real Cinderella?" asked the girl, and both boys gave quiet cheers.
"Yes, Wendy, please do!"
"Oh Wendy, you have to! It'll be better than Sleeping Beauty!"
Wendy, the girl, launched into her story. Peter and I both sat there in awe as she delved into a magical and mysterious place. I'd never heard a storyteller like her. She captured us with words and out imaginations. Everything she said was so exciting that we were hanging on her every word; each change of her voice came as a new thrill, and if I closed my eyes, I could almost see each thing she said playing out before me. The story was even better than the first; it had sword fights, magic duels, poison and intrigue. Cinderella wasn't a commoner, she was a queen in disguise, trying to hide from those who wanted to kill her. She had to marry the prince or else she'd lose all of her kingdom. I could only imagine the look on the boy's faces inside the room, as she whispered her tale in the dark, for when I glanced at Peter, the look of rapturous wonder made my stomach jump. I could feel my breath catch in my throat and I stared at him staring through the window.
As soon as the story was over, he jumped off the balcony as a breeze flung the windows open wide. I heard gasps as he sailed through it, and danced on the night air. The boys had pulled the covers over their heads, and sat, whimpering on their beds. Wendy, the girl, however, cocked her head and looked quizzically at Peter. I knew that she knew him, for all young children know who he is, and many of them wish for him to find them and take them away so that they may just be in his presence. Peter chuckled, and in the half-light from the moon, alighted softly on her bed frame. She tossed her mane of wavy dark hair, and for the first time, I felt the cold, cruel stab of jealousy in the deepest pits of my stomach and heart.
The girl's dark hair fell down to her mid-back, and in the moonlight you could see that her eyes were blue and green and brown, all swirled together and hypnotic looking. She had a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and when she smiled, the entire room seemed to be ensconced in daylight. But the most disturbing thing about her was that she wasn't entirely young. Oh no, you could tell that she was just beginning to become a young woman; that her face was losing its baby fat, that her body was starting to ripen, and I envied her, not just because she was everything I wanted to be, but because of the way that Peter looked at her.
She looked up at him with eyes full of curiosity and puzzlement, and I knew what she was thinking; she'd seen him somewhere before, but maybe it had all only been a dream. And it had been a dream, because Peter loved to dance in everyone's dreams at night; the old, whom he loves to torment with visions of what could have been if they'd come with him; the young, who seem to hang on his every word so much that many of them leave this world and somehow make it to ours; and those in between, who know him, but don't; those are the ones who get the worst of it, for they know that he'll never come, and they despair, but when he is in their dreams their spirits soar and they start to believe again, only to wake and find that it wasn't real. And then their hearts break. This girl, this Wendy creature, was almost one of the in betweens, but not quite. For she remembered Peter from her dreams, and I'm sure that she knew he would come.
A moment passed as they stared into each other's eyes, and Peter must have read something there; something that only a grown up could gather from a child's eyes. It must have startled him, because he jaw dropped, and he fled, taking to the skies, but not before Wendy had jumped out of bed and slammed the window shut on his shadow.