32. Chalk and darkness
Peter remembered the outline of her hand on that mirror. The mirror inside the tent, on the roof, under that rose-colored sky. The first glimpse he'd stolen of her, without even realizing it.
He remembered now because he saw it as he floated in his ocean of dreams. A slender hand, palm turned upward. Toward the sky. Toward… a coin. A silver coin? No. The moon.
Up there. Above the water. Above Peter Lake.
He was soaked. The cold waves nibbled at the skin of his face. Stroked his hair. Played with his clothes. And he watched the stars. The hand. Small and thin. As it palmed the heavens above, that wall of chalk and darkness. Patted the stars. White dust sprinkled down from up there and landed on his cheek.
The hair was red. More intense in color than hers. Than Beverly's. Her hair was not as bright, or as shiny, or as gracefully twisted. It wasn't this conditioned to the filter of dreams. It was wild and chaotic and curled on all sides. It sheltered the sunlight. Sucked it up like a sponge.
This hair… the hair of the girl palming the sky, leaving handprints of chalk in the darkness, was almost like a scarf. Like wool sprouted out of her head. It was not Beverly's. It couldn't be hers. He wouldn't recognize it as hers. But Peter didn't know anyone else with red hair. He couldn't piece together who it was that this could be. Other than… well… her. The pianist. The girl who made him breakfast and kissed his cheek on a river of ice.
He didn't see her face. She kept her back to him. She was far away, too. The sky was not close to the sea. Her head, her shoulders, her hand, hung from there like a chandelier.
And the water wouldn't make a sound. There were no floorboards to step over. No old wood to rest his foot upon. No way to make her turn around.
So Peter just waited out the night. Floated. Closed his eyes and thought of nothing at all.
The daylight scorched across the surface of the sea. And he woke up.
Author's Note: To anyone who's here today, thank you for reading. As always. It means a lot to me.
I just realized that I've rewritten and/or changed around 95% of the dialogue of the film since Chapter 16 - right after the "Breakfast" chapters, where I mostly kept the original conversation between Peter and Beverly and made only a couple of changes. I have been having fun creating my own dialogue and my own additional scenes. That's the nice thing about fanfiction: you have a map, a line to follow, so you know where you're going. But it's up to you how slowly or how quickly you travel down said path, or whether you deviate from the road and admire some other areas around the path, or what you do while you're on the way. I have fun writing this because it's just so... easy. I don't know. I already have a finished product. The movie starts and ends. I only take what already exists and just add onto it. And I have been adding a lot to it, you know it if you've watched the film. Things just come up in my head and I jot them down. I realize, "hey, I'd like this scene to change in this way, or this character to say this instead of this, etc. etc." And it's just fun. And nice.
Sorry for rambling. As you can tell by what I write, I like to ramble XD
See you next time. Have a great day. And, again, thank you for reading.