“And then what?” I ask him, catching his eyes and not letting them go. “Your mother was talking to a woman…”
“And then there was a gust of wind!” Peter declares dramatically. “The biggest gust of wind that there’s ever been in the history of time!”？
“And then what?” I smile over at him.
“And then I just rolled away.” He shrugs like it was nothing. “Away and away, down a hill and another hill until I was lost and alone.”
Funny, but there aren’t that many hills in Kensington Gardens. I don’t say that though.
“Were you terribly afraid?” I ask instead.
“A bit.” He shrugs again. “But less afraid than a normal baby would be.”
“So you were alone?”
He nods, his face different now. He blinks twice. “I was alone.”
I put my hand on his cheek, and he kisses me mindlessly, because I think he thinks a hand on his cheek means he must.
“And then Tink found me.”
I smile up at him. “What was she like?”
“Tinker Bell?” he asks, eyebrows up for a second before they go low again. “She was…” He trails to a frown. He swallows and wipes his nose, looking away a bit. I can’t tell whether he’s forgotten or he’s upset.
I watch him for a few seconds before I gently ask, “Where is she?”
“Hmm?” He looks over at me, frowning.
“Where is she?”
“Who?” he asks, and my face tugs.
I clear my throat. “Tink.”
He shakes his head. “You wouldn’t be allowed to call her that. Just I was.”
“Okay.” I nod. “But where is she?”
Peter yawns, stretching his arms up over his head. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, where did she go?”
“I don’t know!” he says loudly, sitting up.
“Well.” I look around, confused. “Do fairies die?”
“They can.”
“And did she?”
“Why would you ask me that?” He stands, arms crossed over his chest, and outside, the wind picks up. It’s quiet enough I don’t notice it in a conscious way, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
I stand up too because I don’t like the feeling of him towering over me.
“Why do you remember some things, but others you don’t?” I ask him carefully.
Peter shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean—” I shrug. “You don’t remember what you did tonight or what you had for lunch today—and they’re small, sure, that’s fine, forget them, who cares if you forget them—but how can you remember how you came here when you were a baby? Because no one can remember anything from when they’re a baby.” I shake my head at him, eyes wide. “No one at all, but you can?”
“I’m just clever, that’s all.” He starts to walk away.
Walk, not fly.
“But you can’t remember what happened to your best friend?” I call after him.
“Tinker Bell wasn’t my best friend,” he says without turning around, but he does stop moving.
“Of course she was.” I move off the nets onto solid ground.
He shakes his head. “She wasn’t.”
“Who is then?”
“No one.” Peter shrugs. “I don’t need one.”
I frown at him, a bit put off.
“Well, she was important to you, was she not?”
He shrugs again. “I s’pose.”
“Yet you’ve forgotten entirely where she’s gone?” I ask loudly and slowly.
“Yes,” he says back in the same tone, and his face pulls tight and ugly.
I’ve never seen him ugly before.
And it’s not the normal kind of ugly, where something is physically repulsive, which he could never be. It’s the other kind.
The waves are loud now. And they must be big because we aren’t on the water.
We’re not far from it, less than a half a kilometre back. The tree house isn’t built right on the shore, but I can hear the waves splashing up against the trees now.
“And what even happened to her?” I ask, shaking my head at him.
Peter scowls at me. “Why do you think something happened?”
I lift my eyebrows. “Well, did it?”
“I—” He scoffs, shaking his head. “No.”
“No?” I repeat. “Or you don’t know?”