Authoress note: There are too few "Finding Neverland" fanfictions in here and out there, that is a fact. Now I saw the movie a few days ago and I loved it, anyone for whom I reviewed might have noticed that, because I read every piece written about it. So now that there are not more to read, I will have to write my own one. Not one of these long stories, I am awful at them, but just a one parter.
Disclaimer: I owe not a single person in here. That is so, because of my extreme distaste of Mary-Sues. Not to offend anyone who wants to grab J.M. Barrie for themselves, just that I will not do it. Definitely not meaning I would not like to.
Dreaming has gotten harder. A few weeks ago, make-believing had been so easy. And then Sylvia had grown weaker with each passing day. How it had stung to watch her light grow dimmer and dimmer. She had been Tinker Bell, whose glimmer had ceased moment by moment. But no amount of clapping could have saved her. Noone had been able to take her poison from her.
There were times when it felt like an eternity, like all this had happened centuries ago and when I almost feared to forget certain things. When I panicked the second I could not remember the way her eyes twitched when she had laughed.
But there were hours when I felt her presence still lingering in her rooms, in her garden. When I smelled her perfume and saw her hair glitter in the sunlight. When she was so real that the world that surrounded me, was but a fantasy. Those were the hours I wished to stay in.
I had children to take care of now, for wonderful, loving boys, Michael, Jack, George and Peter. The death of their mother had had a devastating effect on them. Each of them mourned her in his own way, one more griveous than the other.
Michael simply did not acknowledge it, he acted as if nothing had happened, as if his mother was on a strange sort of holiday and would return in a few days. But he could not keep up his pretence for long and I worried about what would happen to him, once he accepted that she had died.
Jack cried a lot, he tried to hide it, but failed so miserably at it, that noone could help but notice. He wanted to stay in bed all day long and refused to eat. His eyes were swollen and seemed smaller from the lack of sleep.
George acted out his pain in aggressive tendencies. He tended to have fits of anger, during which he smashed decoration, though I noticed how he always picked the least expensive ones. Trying to appear strong and manly, the only sound of his pain was the cracking of cheap figurines.
Peter retreated into himself. He had stopped talking and simply did not react to questions or orders. His face was pale and haggard and he often stared into the nothingness. He pulled away from every offered comfort and hid in dark corners of the house. He avoided the garden.
They were my lost boys.
I longed to plunge into work, to write the pain off my soul into my notebook, but I failed. My mind was blank and devoid of ideas and full of hurt little boys.
Charles had told me he understood and I actually believed he did. He assured me that "Peter Pan" was a wonderful success and there was no need for me to write anything new for some time. Money would definitely not be a problem. Charles offered to visit and try to help, but I declined. Although I truly was grateful, for his true friendship.
But I accepted the six tickets for "Peter Pan" that Saturday.
When I told Mrs du Maurier about the tickets, the next day, she absolutely refused at first. "This play is only going to strengthen their pain, it will remind them too much of Sylvia and I am not going to have them attending." she scoffed immediately.
Like all of us, Mrs du Maurier had changed as well. If possible, she had grown even more into her sour, scolding, disapproving and stiff mannerism than before. Although we lived as a strange sort of family now, I had not once caught her crying since the funeral. But she seemed older and more tired.
I never would have believed to ever be grateful for the deeds of Captain Hook, but I was. It was her, who made Jack get out of bed, dress, eat and help in the household. She scolded George when he smashed another unimportant porcelaine figure and assigned him more useful tasks. Of course, the boys were not too happy about it.
"You are a heartless, old dragon. You never cry, you do not even care that mother is dead!" George once screamed in a fit at his grandmother. Clash. I flinched as Mrs du Maurier slapped George on the right cheek. Definitely not brutal, but in a way that signified finality. "Go to your room and think about what you have said!" she told him in a way that would have made the bravest man do her bidding, not to mention a small boy.
I wanted to intervene, but this time, I knew I had no right to. I watched her hand, with which she had slapped her grandson, tremble and she fell into one of the chairs. When a tear appeared in her eye, I knew I was an intruder and quietly left.
Half an hour later, George silenty advanced his grandmother. She had already composed herself and was unsucessfully trying to put together the figure, which George had smashed.
"Grandma" his voice was small and fearful. She did not look at him. "I am sorry about what I said to you." he stopped. "I had no right to, I know you are sad about mom too." It was an awfully grown-up thing to do, to go back to Captain Hook on his own and apologize and I felt how proud I was of him. A nod was her only response and George fled the room.
But with all the power she had over the boys, Mrs du Maurier did not suceed in drawing Peter out of his reverie. And she seemed not to be able to talk to Michael and finally make him see that his mother truly was dead.
"We should ask the boys about going to the play." I told her with my most grown-up voice. It was time she accepted me as an equal, not as a sort of overgrown child. But did I really want to be like that, a sad, lost and lonely man instead of the boy who had had dreams and hopes and a fantasy called Neverland.
"Fine" she snapped "but only if all of them agree." I almost grinned for a second, before I called the boys. Such a "family gathering" was something new and through all their loss, they seemed curious as to what was about to happen.
"Charles Frohman has offered me six tickets for todays "Peter Pan" in the first row. It is up to you, do you want to go there? You can refuse, there is no problem with that." I looked at them expectantly.
At first they were silent. Surprisingly it was Peter who spoke first "I would very much like to see it" he said, his voice thin and defeated, but sure of himself. Michael joined in with a happy "yes", Jack nodded slowly and George said "I would like to see it as well" after hesitating for a few minutes.
The childish part flared up in me, Peter Pan had hit a strike at Captain Hook, who clearly disapproved, the lost boys had decided to join him on his adventures. But the moment passed as quick as it had come. This was no battle going on and Mrs du Maurier was not the enemy.
"So you won, James" she glared at me, after the boys had gone to their rooms to get dressed. "Happy about it?" I wondered when I had been happy the last time, it had been the evenings I had played with Sylvia and the children, careless and free and happy.
"This is no war, Emma" I told her. "And no, I am not happy about it, it was the boys decision, not mine. You should stop treating them like small and helpless children, especially George, the have grown much faster than you believe."
She frowned. "They are children, they do not know what is best for them."
"And you do?" I was challenging her and I knew it. "Yes" the iciness in her voice increased "I do, I am their grandmother. And they are just children who need to be looked after or else they get lost."
"Like Sylvia?" I had overstepped my boundaries. With two words I had probably broked the small kind of acceptance we had developed during the last two weeks.
"This has nothing to do with my daughter!" she was getting furious. There was a strange sort of protectiveness in the way she had said it.
It is common knowledge that, no matter how much we try to deny it, there is always a part of both of our parents, inside us, a nose, the hair, eye-colour as well as in our personality. I could see so much of Sylvia in her boys, her kind and compassionate, silent, friendly and loving nature. The way in which she had hidden her illness was the same her boys hid their pain.
This would mean that a part of Sylvia would have to be in Mrs du Maurier as well and I had often tried to find it, but never suceeded. It made me wonder about Sylvias father, who I had never heard a single thing about, who seemed not only to be dead in body, but just as much in spirit.
"No, but it does with your attitude towards your own family." I was about a million miles ahead of my boundaries of speech. "My attitude is none of your concern!" How could you phrase such sentences in a fury?
"Oh, but it is. You might have dismissed the idea, but I am a part of this family now" and believe it or not, it felt good to actually say it.
"Definitely not by my decision." We must have looked like a pair of roosters fighting, as we stood there in the middle of the living room. "No, it was Sylvias and you will have to respect it."
"I will never know how she got the crazy idea to assign you as a guardian for her children." "Well maybe, she feared that you would either turn them into small quivering bundles of fear or worse, into smaller versions of your rigid self."
I was very grateful, when George came in at that moment and asked "Why arent you dressed? We have to go!" And his perfectly suited smaller brothers appeared behind him. How capable of taking care of themselves they had become!
"I am not going." Mrs du Maurier stated. Now, who was the child here ? But a part of me understood that I had dug my sword too deep into Captain Hooks pride.
"But you have to go!" Jack told her and Michael nodded. "If you stay here, grandma, I will as well" Peter forced out of his mouth. Everyone knew how he was the greatest fan of Peter Pan and very proud of his namesake.
They made me feel ashamed. I had shouted and behaved like a child, while they tried to engage their grandmother in some sort of "family activity".
Mrs du Maurier looked unconnvinced. "I am sorry about my behaviour" was forced out of my mouth. Somewhere Peter Pan yelped in agony.
"I am very glad, that you decided to watch the play tonight" Charles honestly told Mrs du Maurier who still looked like she had bitten into a citrus fruit. "It was quite a battle" I whispered into his ears and Charles smiled. "You seemed to have won" he answered.
Soon we were seated, the boys in the middle, me on their right and Mrs du Maurier at their left. The curtain rose and the crowd clapped. The writer in me could not help feeling proud at looking around the full theatre.
During the play my gaze often driften over to my companions. It was so obvious how much the boys missed their mother. George had his hands clenched together and tried to appear strong as Mrs Darling put her children to bed. Jacks tears ran down his cheeks as Peter told the Darling children about the liberty of flying.
"Mom will not come back, right?" Michael silently whispered to me. "No, she will not come back. But she will always watch you, take care of you, be proud of you and love you." I told him and he sniffed, finally accepting and crying.
I noticed Mrs du Maurier weeping when Tinker Bells light faded and noone in the entire theatre clapped with more force to keep her alive. Peter shyly offered her a hankerchief and she stroked the boys hair instead, as I had watched Sylvia often do it.
Sylvia. It hurt when I watched the lost boys saying how much they missed a mother.
"I hope you know how much I loved you" I silently prayed "how often I dwell on what could have been. If we had only had more time. If only you had stayed here with us." Something wet ran over my right cheek.
"But I guess there is no use in these what ifs! I want to thank you for what you have shown me, for what gift you have given to me, for the trust you put in me. Thank you for giving me a family!"
