"And the little mermaid turned into the foam on the crest of the waves, but her soul was met by the daughters of the air, and they told her that she could enter heaven because of what she did for her prince," Wendy said, with an air of finality, to the semicircle of boys crowded around her.

"So she just dies? And that's it?" John asked, with a tinge of skepticism, and Wendy could see him push his glasses up the bridge of his maturing nose in the flicker kerosene lamplight.

Michael was whimpering, as he always did after The Little Mermaid, yet he continued to request it, arguing that it was one of his favorites. Wendy smiled softly, pulling him up into her lap.

It was getting harder and harder to lift him, each and every day, and it created some sort of dull ache deep inside her chest that Wendy couldn't seem to place. No matter how she tried to deny it, it seemed to creep up on her every corner she turned: her brothers, both Lost and otherwise, were growing up.

And so was she. Barely fourteen and her mother had already managed to start pinning up her hair, trading her cotton muslin for silks and impractical sheers. Cinching her narrowing waist with corsets.

"No, John… She became an immortal soul, which no other mermaid had ever done," she placed Michael down on his feet, standing herself, "Now, to bed. Mother'll get cross if we're late to breakfast in the morning."

Wendy heard a chorus of mumbled "'Night, Mother," as she locked the window. Her skirts were long enough for her to have to hold them up as she left the nursery, pushing open the door to her own bedroom. She grabbed her nightgown from her dresser, not surprised when she felt a swoosh of air fly past her as Peter came in through her window.

"Why does she have to die? Why can't the prince just love her in return? Like the tin soldier and the ballerina?" Peter asked, hovering over her bed. His voice was quieter than normal. He'd never understood The Little Mermaid.

"Because…" Wendy said, halfway sighing as she retreated behind her dressing screen, and Peter had to try not to look at the shadows as he heard her corset-laces slip through their brackets.

"I don't understand, Wendy."

She emerged, grabbing her hairbrush and sitting down beside Peter. He could feel the mattress dip with her slight weight as she brushed her wavy hair, curls falling down onto the white shoulders of her nightgown, "You… cannot force love, Peter."

He averted his eyes. He knew he ought to look at her when her voice got that soft and sad, but he couldn't bear it. Peter swallowed and turned back to her, watching her brush her hair with tired eyes.

He fell asleep there, curled up on her bed. It happened every night, and Wendy figured he was lonely in Neverland, with no new Lost Boys to order about and no pirates to run through, though she suspected he never admit to it if questioned.

She watched him, paler than normal in the moonlight and glow of her lamps. He'd grown too, albeit slowly, in his own Peter way, and she wondered when the magic of Neverland would finally halt his maturing, stopping it completely. Wendy wondered if it would be soon, when exactly the border between boy and man would be reached.

Wendy kissed his forehead, and he curled up against her. Sometimes he'd cry in the middle of the night, dreaming about having a hook for a hand and being stuck in a body that was far too large for him. Dreaming of growing up and being lost. Wendy would pet back his tousled hair, just as she had in Neverland.

In the morning, he'd always be gone, with one acorn kiss left on her pillow.