Never (Never, #1) (6)

“But I was only gone for—”

“I’m ninety, Peter,” Mary tells him, and Peter Pan falls to the floor like a stone.

He looks up at us—first her, then me—and his eyes are brimmed with feelings that, as I’m staring down at him, I’m quite sure he can’t quite understand.

I don’t think to do it—it happens quite involuntarily—but I find myself dropping to my knees next to him. There’s something so desperate about him, so in need of all my focus and all my attention, and I feel him lifting out from my pocket the keys to my inhibitions.

I touch his face like I have no control of my hands anymore, as though they’re already his, as though they’re magnets to his face. “You don’t have to cry.”

He smacks my hand away and jumps up from the ground, wiping his face briskly with the bend in his elbow. “I wasn’t crying.” He glowers at me.

“Besides, Peter,” Mary says, and I know she’s trying to distract him. She does the same things to my snot-nosed little neighbour. “You too have grown.”

Peter Pan straightens himself up, and all unpleasant emotions seem to have evaporated as he grins at her.

“I know! Aren’t I so tall and handsome?”

“And insufferable,” I tack on the end.

“What’d you say?” He glances over at me, blinking and obviously not listening to me, which makes me angry and also (regrettably) a little bit more attracted to him.

“Daphne, darling.” Mary swats her hand at me. “Don’t be so piddling. He’s a dish.”

“Yes, girl.” Peter grins at me. “I’m a dish,” he tells me proudly.

Mary looks over at him, her old eyes all young again in wonder.

“Peter, why did you grow up?”

“I’m not all the way up.” He drifts up in the air, reclining back into it as though he’s on an inflatable lounger in a pool.

“But somewhat.” She eyes him the way only an old friend can.

Peter cracks his shoulders, then shrugs, conceding. “Had to.”

“Why?” I frown.

“So I could win the fights I have to.”

“And which fights are those?” I ask nosily.

Peter Pan glances at me with a look in his eyes that ought to alarm me but doesn’t.

“All of them,” he tells me, then breathes out his nose. “You’ll see.”

“Perhaps I don’t want to see,” I tell him for no real reason at all.

He floats down to me, and his eyes lock with mine. “You want to see.” he tells me, and I do. Then Peter claps his hands, eyes brightening. “Should we go?”

“Go where?” I blink.

Peter and my great-grandmother laugh.

“To Neverland, dear,” Mary tells me, like I’m the silly one.

My brow furrows, and I look at her like she’s mad. Which she is. I’m seventeen! God willing, I start university in a few months. I have my life planned. I can’t run away with a boy I don’t know.

I shake my head at her, and Peter rolls his eyes, impatient.

“Darling.” Mary touches my arm gently. “You must go with him.”

“Why must I?” I ask her quietly.

“You know why,” she tells me, and then she gives me this strange smile. It’s one I’ll think on for days and years and hours to come. When all time blends together into nothingness and the memories of my old life start to morph and fade like clouds being blown away across the sky, I will still think of that smile.

A blessing? Permission? A warning? The edges of her smile that may have told me which of the aforementioned it truly was will fade eventually, and I will wonder forever whether she was implying this is nothing more than a rite of passage or, actually, a birthright.

I glance over at him, and a sliver of me is relieved, I don’t know why. Like going with him is a pull towards destiny. And I don’t even believe in destiny! I believe in science and facts, not boys who are supposedly some peculiar part of my fate.

But here he is. Like they always said he’d be…

“What about my education?” I ask in a small voice.

“Your education will always be here.” She gives me a small smile.

I reach out and touch her. “And what about you?”

She gives me a sad, tired smile. “Soon I’ll be gone.”

“Where?” asks Peter.

Mary looks over at him solemnly and then back at me. I don’t think he understands, but probably it’s better this way—there are just some things you don’t want the sunshine to know.

“You must go, Daphne,” she tells me, her hand on my face. “Like I went and my mother before me…and Wendy after me and your mother after her. This”—and then she lowers his voice so that he cannot hear this part—“he is your fate, darling. That he’s here for you now, like this.” She gives me a strange and weighty look. “It is fate.”

My shoulders slump under the weight of it all, and she laughs.

She glances between Peter Pan and I. “Sweetheart,” she sighs. “There’s a universe waiting for you out there.”

“Yeah, girl.” Peter gives me a proud little smirk. “Come on.”