"So we lost him," said Salima quietly. Only silence answered her. Her friends from the hospital didn't have much to say about the death of the man who was the most famous patient in Great Britain. For the last several decades they took care of him with devotion they could show to their own grandfather. Or their own son – somehow, when they thought of James Barrie, the image of the young boy he once was seemed to slip in their mind, replacing the one of an elderly gentleman they knew well – or at least, whose old weakened body they were familiar with.
The old man never woke up from the coma that he had sunk into after the accident that winter, so many years ago where he would he would eternally remain a child. An eternal child sleeping his eternal dream. And now the dream was finished. Finally, after seventy-four years of deep sleep, the dreams, whatever they could be about – only Salima and the Lost Children who were home now knew this – ended. They tried to save his life for the last time, help him once more, making his existence longer, but it wasn't possible. For a moment it seemed that they succeeded but no, the screen of the machine the man was plugged to showed just a flat line. The attempts of reanimation were over. There was nothing more left than to cover his face with his quilt which Salima did before they left.
Now she was standing with a small circle of her friends and coworkers, still shivering a bit. Not only because the death of her famous patient made an impression on her although it had indeed. However she was used to death being a doctor, nor because she knew soon she'd probably have to face the journalists from some tabloid who would arrive here like gloomy vultures and would put a microphone under her nose to interview her about the last moments of the life of Mr. Barrie. No, the reason of her fear she was feeling at this very moment was quite different and to check if she was right being afraid she had to go home.
James Matthew Barrie felt free. Yes, the feeling of this amazing freedom was mixed with mild sadness that his life, even if limited to the monotone whiteness of this small separate hospital room, was getting near its end, but the feeling that encompassed him at this last moment of his life as his bodiless spirit was floating above the room observing the efforts of the doctors, was the one of total and absolute freedom. Absolute, euphoric freedom that only grew stronger in him as he saw the familiar bluish fog formed in a shape of tunnel, this time, not a door. He didn't need to summon the portal; it was like it found him on its own. Taking one last look at the doctors, he entered the tunnel.
As he was floating through the tunnel, a new feeling was added to the mixture of the ones he was experiencing. The one of awareness of anything connected with Neverland. Out of a sudden the man knew what was going to happen to the Lost children (and one small pixie who went a long path from a plush toy to an entity of flesh and blood). And to Neverland he was now going to be a benign ghost of. He knew now what shape the transformation of it was going to take. He knew it exquisitely well. He smiled slightly, with a smile which made his face look like a face of some benign divine entity could look like. The face of a young man; if he could look at himself at this moment, he would see himself as a young man now, not older than his twenties. The body of an old man wasn't trapping him now. But even if he knew, if he was able to take a look at his now youthful face, he wouldn't care – there was another thing he was thinking about now. The new Neverland and its transformation. The man saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Now the tunnel with a light at its end had a different meaning for him. The man smiled once more and entered the light.
The Neverlanders knew their end was getting nearer and nearer – with delusive slowness but inevitably. They could feel it with every breath they were taking. Not that it was causing them any problems but every passing moment, every second took their memories into oblivion, putting another set of memories into their minds, taking them into a different world – different from the one they were in now but also different than the one they left and which they almost didn't remember now. They were changing. They weren't wearing their animal skins they were wearing at the moment of their Neverland exodus but they felt animals more and more – a weird feeing which though they couldn't reject.
"What a fluffy fur you have, Peter," said Nibs, smiling a slight dreamy smile, as he reached his hand towards his friend, feeling not the human skin under his fingers but the softness of the fur he was seeing in his imagination. If someone was able to see them, they wouldn't see anything else than just a group of children but what was changing their perception of the world was a power strong enough to make them see the images which weren't there. "Pretty fur, so glistening and what a nice shade it has… like honey.
Peter Pan smiled back. "Yours is pretty too," he said in a soft voice. And your ears… they are pretty and long as well…"
Tinkerbell was lying apathetically in Wendy's lap. She was touching her fairy wings, having her face also adorned with this dreamy delicate smile of a lotus eater; just smiling and stroking her fairy wings… wait – her wings were not the fairy pair of ones but they were covered by bird feathers. She didn't feel like changing her position on Wendy's lap… which now wasn't an ordinary lap; Tinkerbell was resting now in some sort of skin bag which was very fitting Wendy. There was still a lot of place in the bag; someone else could fit in as well – maybe young Michael? His face, covered with delicate brown fluff, like the one which covered the face of Wendy, his sister (who now, in this new form, was so much more similar to him; quite like their sanguinity wasn't the one between of sister and brother but rather mother and her young son) reflected youth and innocence.
They all looked so different. Small Tootles with his very pink skin and big ears looked nothing like the boy he was now but it was him, with no doubt. Slightly in his fur covered with a stripe pattern. Cubby on whose face was now a strange expression of eternal depression frozen – the boy seemed the embodiment of pure gloom.
The change was almost complete. There was no time left for them in this very world but… well, maybe some other world was hiding something for them and they only needed to enter it to find it? They were lying in apathy, able to look at each other and themselves, not remembering who they were. Not even the very term "Neverland" wasn't able to elicit any memories on this land from them.
Salima was walking quickly home, fearing of what she could see there. She managed to avoid staying in the hospital as her friends were convincing her to – after all, as Dr. Kimball and Dr. Merring – the one Slightly was based on by Barrie – light heartedly said, there was not such a good chance to see their photos in some tabloid in the closest future – Dr. Merring phoned one of those newspapers to inform them about Barrie's death. A great treat for a newspaper like that, no one needed to tell her this but she wasn't going to take part in any of it. For her, the most important thing now was going home to see what was happening with the children. Were they alive? Or maybe the energy animating their so real looking bodies so far hadleft them, leaving the empty husks behind at the moment of James Barrie's death? She cursed at herself that she didn't tell them before how to use the phone. She could phone them to ask how they were feeling… actually, even if she phoned them just now, one of them would pick up the reciever to check why it made such weird noises, would hear her voice and try to answer.
But she ultimately concluded that the best choice was going home and checking the situation on her own. Her feet were carrying her fast to her small house near the hospital. She was glad that she managed to find a convincing excuse from staying with her friends to talk about Barrie's death. And about Natalie. The news was that the young woman had woken up from her weird half-catatonic state – only to start to claim that she lived somewhere in the Wood– this new idea replaced the one which made her claim she was a fairy. But Salima wasn't particularly interested in the fate of the young worker of the hospital and went out. Now she was heading towards home, with every step more and more unsure of what she was going to find in there.
"We are not where we should be," said Tootles in a bit more conscious voice, looking around.
"You are right, pig," replied Cubby in this new, gloomy voice, so unfitting him when he was still himself. He also seemed to recover from this new sudden weakness a bit.
"Don't call me Pig," said Tootles. "I'm not a pig. I'm…"
"Don't tell me this place is the one where we belong!" cried Slightly in his new, energetic voice, interrupting his friend. He too looked quite aware of everything that was happening around. He was fixing his eyes on something on the other side of the room that appeared a moment ago and seemed to softly seduce them, convincing them that they should come closer and then all of their problems would be solved. "If you aren't going to agree with me on this, then I'll bounce you all! I'll bounce you into this… this thing that is there!" With those words, the ex Lost Boy came nearer the wall to take a look. And his companions followed. To take a look at this mysterious, delicately glistening, swirling blue fog. It looked so tempting… so seductive, as if you could hear its sweet voice telling you into entering it, seeping into your ears. Just like in their other life they didn't remember any fragment of it now, the ex Neverlanders one by one, entered the fog.
Salima opened the door. If she came back half a minute ago, she would have seen the change that took place in the children. And that they couldn't be called children any more. The only thing she saw was the orange fur of Slightly, entering the portal as the last one and the last noise – the noise made by Tinkerbell's new wings. She never realized what she really saw. All that she knew was that her friends were most likely lost forever for this world after Barrie's death. And this was what she was almost sure of as she waited for them for the rest of the day and finally concluded when they didn't come back.
That night she couldn't sleep well, tossing and turning in bed, recalling her adventures with the children through and through. The next morning she came back to work to see her workmates on the first page of The Sun, smiling unnaturally, quite as if they were posing for the photo on a much more cheerful occasion than someone's death. Later that day, she went to a flower shop after work and bought twelve roses. White ones because white symbolized innocence. Like the innocence of the souls of children. The Lost Boys and the Darlings. And Jimmy, of course. Jimmy, the Eternal Child. Puer Aeternus.
Coming home, she attached small labels to them, ones with the names of the children and their ages. The ones she gave to them once – ordinary, not raising any suspicions names though none of the children were ordinary. Wendy (11), John (8), Michael (4), Johnny (9), Dave (9), Kevin (10), Chris (8), Mike (6), Peter (11), Lily (10) and Bella. Bella like Tinkerbell. It sounded like this, at least. Here Salima hesitated for a moment putting the age but finally decided on 15 – Tink's capricious behaviors made her think of a spoiled teen, Salima recalled with a sad smile. Now the names she once made for them could be of use. Now probably she wasn't going to see them anymore and those flowers were everything she could give to them now.
She bought two big bags of flower soil in the flower shop as well. And late in the evening the woman sneaked into the closest graveyard to, under the cover of the night hiding her well from others, scatter a small grave in the corner and put the flowers on it. In the moonlight, this symbolic mould looked quite like the symbolic grave it was. Maybe some person who would see it the next day was going to think that it was made by some eccentric old lady who made it for her numerous siblings or friends maybe who all died in some plague many years ago. Such things used to happen all the time back then.
Salima looked at the flowers for a few minutes and later, with a sigh, went away. She saw that the closest tombs to her symbolic one were ones belonging to very young children. Walter Stephen Matthews and Phoebe Phelps, these were their names. Young, innocent children, dead too soon but they at least had their parents who still remembered them. And the Neverlanders were going to be remembered only by herself and late Mr. Barrie's old friend. Salima sighed once more and came back home, going to bed earlier than usual but it was what she needed. She soon fell asleep. Barely a few minutes later the moon lit the smiling face of the woman on his face there was peace. The corners of her mouth were twitching slightly, like the dreamer was sleeping about something pleasant. If someone was there with her at this moment and could read her mind, they could see the vivid images of her dream – a dream about a little Indian girl playing with her friends in a land named Neverland.
But no one was looking at her at this moment. Neither her hospital workmates, nor her young friends (even if they could remember her now) nor even Barrie. He had much better things to do. Like observing with silent fascination the extent of the changes that took over the magical land which was once known by its inhabitants as Neverland.
Once – when was it? Nobody remembered; not they at least – they were children from the sunny Neverland; loyal friends who were spending whole days splashing in the warm waters of the Mermaid Lagoon and roaming the Neverwood in search for a new, great adventure. Those days, though, belonged to the past. The land they once used to live in sill was a sunny place in which you could have many adventures but it visibly changed.
The group of friends that came to exist in one man's in coma imagination wasn't bothered by this. They still could have fun and that was was really mattered for the entities dressed in animal skins who were playing in the wood like they never knew anything else than it. Animal skins? No, these were their real skins, real forms. Rabbit, donkey, bear and many others. But the fact of this sudden transformation didn't matter for them. What mattered was the fun they were having now in the wood conjured up by the vivid imagination of Barrie. Great fun, with no doubt. The greatest fun in the greatest place that could be. In the Hundred Acre Wood.
The End.
Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed this.
