As Peter Pan lay down to sleep that night not-so-long-ago, he had no intention of dreaming anything but good dreams filled with friends and adventure. The tricky thing about dreams, though, is you can't choose which ones you get.
Dreams are rather like the weather, you know. You might get a truly lovely one with rays of sunbeam shining down on your heart, beckoning you to come out and play. Or you might pass the night in the blissful, nothingness of dreamlessness.
But it is equally likely that a thunderstorm of a nightmare might blow in.
When Peter had a nightmare, it was even worse. Especially this one, it was a rumbling, grumbling earthquake of a beast that shook him to the core and set him crying long into the night.
Peter Pan's nightmares, you see, were memories; terrible memories that he had hidden away and forgotten long ago. But being forgotten doesn't sit well with such painful memories. Every so often, one will escape from where it was trapped and slither its way to where the boy Pan is sleeping.
In the days when Wendy Darling had come to Neverland, she had been the only one to notice the nightmarish memories as they ravaged Peter's mind and heart. Motherly girl that she was, she would take it upon herself to scoop up the small boy and hold him close until his crying subsided.
That first time had been a very long time ago, though. Now, there was no Wendy to comfort Peter, and the nightmare, a slithery, hateful beast, took full hold. And this is what Peter dreamed:
Peter leapt lightly through the nursery window of #14. The first sight that greeted him was Wendy lying in her bed. Her children had moved away long ago, Wendy had had her bed moved to the old nursery in hopes of clinging on to their memory for as long as was humanly possible.
But Wendy, in Peter's mind, no longer looked like Wendy. Her hair was as white and soft as fresh fallen snow; her skin as yellowed and thin as the pages of a hundred-year-old book. She had the look of someone half-awake and half-asleep, half-alive and half-dead.
She was such a picture of old age and death that Peter was appalled. His mouth hung open in shock as he went over to sit on the bedpost.
Wendy looked at him blankly with empty, elderly eyes. After a moment, her eyes gained the spark of recognition. "Dear me," she said, her voice retaining but a trace of the youthful glimmer that Peter remembered so fondly, "Bless my soul, it's Peter Pan."
"Wendy," Peter said, still distracted by how old Wendy was, "Margaret's nursery window is barred shut, and I can't find Jane to open it."
Peter had not visited Wendy for years; he had only been to see Margaret, Wendy's grand-daughter. He didn't realize how long it had been. He'd expected her to still have thick, cinnamon-colored hair, not this thing, white-as-snow stuff that now covered her head. And those weak, empty, half-dead eyes were a far cry from the bright, motherly eyes he had known Wendy to have.
"Of course the window's shut, Peter," Wendy said, not seeming to notice the confused way the boy was staring at her, "They're on holiday. It would be silly of them to leave a window open."
"What's 'on holiday'?"
"It means they went away for a while."
"But it's spring-cleaning! Don't tell me they forgot."
"They thought you forgot, Peter. You didn't come last year, or the year before that. They decided you probably weren't coming this year, either."
For a moment, Peter didn't know what to say. He'd had no idea he had missed two years. That last adventure must have taken a lot longer than he'd thought. "Well, Wendy," he said at length, "You'll have to come with instead, then."
Wendy laughed a little, an elderly, shaky old laugh, "Believe me, Peter, I would love to. But, sadly, I'm not a little girl anymore."
Again, Peter did not know what to say. It was true. Wendy was anything but a little girl.
Out of the blue, Wendy asked, "Peter, what are your exact feelings towards me? I feel as if I've asked you that before, but I doubt either of us remembers your answer."
"My feelings are that of a devoted son, Wendy," Peter answered dutifully.
Wendy nodded slightly, but seemed a little sad. Peter frowned, he couldn't understand it. "That's not what you want me to say, is it? What more do you want from me, Wendy?"
Wendy laughed again, "Peter, you built me my first house, introduced me to a fairy, showed me mermaids. You taught me to fly, for goodness sakes. The most I could ask of you now is just to stay her, with me, for a while. Trust me; I won't be here much longer."
"Are you going on holiday, too, Wendy?"
Wendy thought a moment. She seemed to rather like that way of thinking about it. "Yes," she said at last, "Let's think of it as that. I'm going on holiday, taking a break from the world."
"I'd like to give you a thimble before you go," Peter said, a little shyly. Due to the first time he met Wendy, he was still under the impression that "thimbles" were called "kisses" and that "kisses" were called "thimbles."
Wendy smiled, "I would love nothing more." Peter hopped down from his perch on the bedpost and went over to Wendy. When he kissed her lightly on the cheek, she said, "I will treasure this thimble forever." Then a blank look crossed her face, followed by one of concentration. "What was that oath the Lost Boys used to swear to?"
Peter recited it for her. The part that caught her ear was the ending: I will stay with Peter Pan, in Neverland, forever and forever.
She repeated that bit wonderingly. "Poor Peter," she decided, "You must get dreadfully lonely in Neverland all by yourself." Peter admitted that he was. The Lost Boys, you see, had abandoned Neverland. The temptation of finding a mother in Mrs. Darling had been too much to resist.
Wendy felt very bad for the original Lost Boy and gestured that he come closer. Peter knelt by the bed, his face next to Wendy's.
"I will stay in Neverland, forever and forever, with my darling Peter Pan," Wendy promised, as her eyes closed for the final time.
"Wendy?" Peter called, terrified of what was happening, "Wendy?"
"Forever and forever," she breathed out. A look of peaceful contentment settled over her, then Wendy Moira Angela Darling moved no more.
"Wendy?" Peter cried, "Wendy, wake up!" His voice took on the soft, pleading tone of a boy lost and left behind, abandoned and forgotten, "Wendy, please wake up. Please don't leave me, Wendy." Then Peter Pan placed his head in his hands and wept.
Wendy would never speak to him again, never tell another story, never smile again. Never. Never. Never.
The housemaid of #14 awoke in the middle of that night to hear soft sobbing. She got up and went to Mrs. Wendy's bedroom to make certain everything was alright.
In the darkened room, she could just make out the shape of a small figure kneeling at her mistress' bed, crying into the blankets. The figure looked up when it heard someone come in, and she turned on the lights.
For the first time, she saw the tear-stained face of the little boy clothed in a tunic of skeleton leaves. This boy looked familiar, though she had never seen him before. She couldn't think what he could possibly be doing in Mrs. Wendy's room and was about to scold him for it, but found it was impossible to be cross with such a face. This boy was the picture of Youth and Innocence lost its greatest love.
The harsh words she had been going to say wavered into a heartfelt, "Boy, why are you crying?"
It seemed as if no-one would ever greet Peter with anything other than those wretched words.
He stood and faced the housemaid, tears still streaming down his face. "I am crying, because my mother is dead."
With that, he leapt out the window, intending to run away, to fly to Neverland where he could forget.
But he found he could not fly. At that moment, he had no happy thoughts to lift his spirits above the stars. His heart, heavy as a boulder with grief, weighed him down.
The last thing he heard before plummeting to the ground three stories below was the housemaid's cry of horror when she found that Wendy Darling was indeed dead.
Peter awoke still crying, with absolutely no idea why. You see, Peter forgot he'd ever had a nightmare almost as soon as it was done with.
At that moment especially, he had no time to wonder what had caused him to cry. Adventure was calling to loudly to ignore. There were beasts to be slayed, treasure to be found, games to be played, fun to be had.
As he left the Home Underground, Peter looked up at the clear blue sky. Above him was a cloud in the likeness of a girl's face. It looked rather like someone he had met before, but he couldn't place where or when, or who exactly she was. The cloud had been there the day before, and the day before that, and seemingly forever.
Though Peter did not know it, the cloud was watching over him- Is still watching over him; staying with him, like an old friend, every step of the way on his adventures. Why, you ask? Because Wendy Moira Angela Darling is keeping her promise.