* * *
* Slip, more like. He won’t take that voluntarily.
* Just by the sheer colours of it.
* He says it like “ya,” not Old English “hear ye, hear ye.” It’s less refined than that.
? And I’m not even sure he is a human?
? Though he says it more like “aff”
§ Which means “above.”
* Which means “father.”
? Neither because of their wetness nor their shortness but because he feels like the sort of person I might like to look my best in front of. I’m not sure why.
? “Forbye,” I’d eventually find out, means “as well.”
* He is.
? Girl? Woman? Young woman? Older than me, for certain.
? If that is, indeed, what he said to her. It’s hard to know with that accent of his.
* Not my mother, per se, because they’re quite fond of rum in Belize, but a mother may worry.
? Right?
CHAPTER
THREE
I want to reiterate for you before I say what I’m about to say next that I am actually quite clever. I have a good grasp on the English language and a substantial lexicon under my belt, but even so, I don’t know whether I presently have in my vocabulary the kinds of words that would be necessary to communicate with you what Neverland is actually like. Nevertheless, I will try.
The island itself is divided into four sections, but it’s not quartered like pies are.
For lack of a better explanation, it’s shaped like a croissant and then quartered rather oddly. The bays and the beach run along the inner curvature of the island. and the curve is technically divided in to two, but not in a way that you can see it from the ground.
The part where Jamison Hook lives and the village is feels like summertime, and I’m led to believe that they call it Zomertierra.
The other half of the crescent looks and smells awfully like spring, and this is where Peter lives, and I’m told the First People of the island also,* and they call this Preterra.
Rimming both Zomertierra and Preterra the whole length of the island is Haustland, which is golden autumn all year round （whether or not they have seasons here, I’m yet to be sure）， but behind Haustland, bordering and overshadowing the entire island, is Vinterlun, mountains and snow. I think almost all the mountains on the island exist in Vinterlun with perhaps the exception of Mount Carnealian, which is on the far left of the island, and I think it could be argued it’s in the Zomertierra province.
Each province seems to slowly fade into the next, so you aren’t always sure where one ends and the other begins. There’s also an offensively turquoise bay that sits between where the Never Wood is and where Jamison Hook resides—not that we’ll be thinking of him again.
Peter did show me off a bit to the mermaids,? and not a single one of them spoke to me. Not one!
“Don’t take it personal,” he told me. “As a species, they’re not so friendly to your kind.”
“My kind?” I repeated.
“You know, a”—he nodded his chin at me as he lowered his voice—“girl.”
Quite fond of boys though, so it would appear. I might even go as far as to say that they’re uncomfortably taken by him, completely enraptured, lying on their bellies, chins in hands, staring up at him while he performed for them tricks, sometimes using me as a part of them. Balancing me on one finger. Tossing me high into the air and catching me right before I’d hit the water. He didn’t ask me to partake. I was just partaking, and I don’t think I minded because he’s Peter Pan, and it’s maybe the most brilliant feeling I’ve ever had, having his eyes on me, even if they aren’t entirely on me all the time. The one he calls Marin likes his attention a lot, and Peter seems to like giving it to her.
“You are ever so dreamy now, Peter.” She batted her eyes up at him.
He lay down, mirroring her, almost nose to nose. “I know I am.”
When the suns became close to setting and the mermaids started to complain about how the rocks were getting too cold to lie on, Peter whispered to me that he was bored and we should go, and that was fine with me, because if I’m being entirely truthful, I wasn’t all that mad on how the shadows make the mermaids faces look.
You want creatures like mermaids to live in your mind on a pedestal, stay up there all lofty and gorgeous. I shouldn’t care to see how they may go in the darkness, though I suppose that could be said and true about all of us.
I asked him if we could please walk to the Never Wood, as I’d have liked to have gotten the lay of the land （you know how walking helps with that）， but you should have seen the look Peter gave me when I did—you’d nearly have thought I asked him for a kidney—so we flew, of course. Because it’s what he wanted, and also it’s faster, which means it was probably the sensible choice.