Disclaimer: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to J.M Barrie. No infringement
is intended and I'm certainly not making any money from this story.
Summary: Wendy is standing on the edge of a cliff, about to fall. The fifth in a series of
vignettes.
Author's note: Hopefully you've not given up on this... my muses simply refused to cooperate
where this story was concerned, but I'm slowly starting to get back into writing it, and I do
plan to finish it. And I promise the next chapter will be longer. Thanks for your reviews, they
help a lot at those moments when I get stuck :-)



The Heart of the Matter
by Hereswith

Peter, she had loved, and she deemed it possible that some small, hidden part of her always
would. It was not nearly so easy to determine, or put a name to, what she thought of Hook.
Captain James Hook, who had not died in the belly of the beast.

She had been entranced, at first, one dark and most unexpected night, with the stones
of the Black Castle beneath her, and the black-hearted villain in front of her, turning his
face into the wind. And that fascination, her sudden awareness of him, had informed all
of their later meetings, but it had not lasted, unscathed, through her adventure. The spell
had cracked, like glass in a mirror. Dwindled and cracked, the moment she saw the boys'
death, as well as her own, in those clear, cold forget-me-not eyes.

She had, she admitted, watched him fall prey to the crocodile with a grim satisfaction. It
was the fate he had planned for them, and thus perfectly fitting he should suffer it himself.
She had chanted just as loudly as the rest of the children and she had not wept, when he
was gone.

But what had cracked, it seemed, had not completely broken, and it was painfully obvious
to her, now, that the feeling had returned, stealing up on her in a different guise, as changed
in texture, shape and essence as she was, yet still as strong.

Had it truly been a dream and nothing more, she might have been far less concerned about
that fact. But she couldn't explain what had happened, could not begin to unravel the why,
the wherefore and the how. And the splinter, the tiny, red-tipped piece of wood, could not
give her an answer.

Sometimes, she was afraid. It was a peculiar fear, that scraped her skin, sending a flush
of goose bumps over her body, but didn't cut through to the bone. And because it did
not, it left room for other things, other emotions could surface, and foremost of these,
as so often in her life, was curiosity. She wished to speak with him again, fully as much
as she dreaded it.

There was, in some sense, a cliff and she was standing on its very edge, balancing there,
while the ground gave way under her feet. Stone by stone, and she could hear them fall,
clattering against the far off rocks. Grain of earth by grain of earth. She didn't step forward
and she did not retreat. She was Wendy, betwixt and between.

And she knew she could not stay forever like that.