My grandmothers always said that Peter Pan is a part of our family’s destiny. I suppose that makes sense. Were he to be some kind of generational destiny, that’s fine, but I suspect he’s more than that to me.
Destiny and fate, you think you can interchange them, but you can’t. Destiny is—I believe—impacted by you and your choices and what you choose, but fate is not. It’s concrete. It’s the occurrence of events beyond a person’s control, as though determined almost by a supernatural power.
There is a part to Peter that feels like fate, and I think that’s an important component for me, because I’m self-aware enough to know that I don’t like him all the time, yet there is a perceptible pull I have towards him, and it doesn’t always feel within my control.
This peculiar drift back towards him even if I were to try to swim in another direction—as though the universe is pulling me to where it wants me, and I do believe in the kind of universe that would do that…
On this planet, if the universe can raise a boy, it can surely fate some hearts, so this, I presume, is my lot.
“You’re not going to go, are you?” Peter asked out of the blue the other night.
I was playing a game of go fish with Rune, and I looked up at him.
“Go where?”
He shrugged. “Anywhere.”
Rune jingled, and I gave her a look to quiet her.
I give him a delicate look, still not quite entirely sure what he was trying to communicate.
“Um—” I gave him a gentle smile. “I’m sure sometimes I’ll go places.”
“But not away,” he clarified. “The others all left, but you’re gonna stay, right?”
I watched him for a few seconds before I suddenly felt myself nodding even though I hadn’t agreed to the thought in my mind.
He smiled, pleased with himself, and then flew out the window.
Sometimes it does feel like loving him is something that’s happening to me, not through me or in me. An external thing that’s disconnected from my day-to-day life and how sometimes I think I might feel, I always feel a different way eventually anyway when I see him call a cloud over to give a wilted flower some shade.
It’s fate. It has to be. That’s why it doesn’t bother me* when he’s off gallivanting with Calla or when he spends the day showing off to the mermaids, because it’s not the same. They don’t mean the same things to him that I think I do. He doesn’t share his bed with them, he’s not kissing them,* and they’re not who he comes home to. I think that counts for something, doesn’t it?
Rye is coming over today, and we’re going out and around in Preterra.
He said he wants to teach me how to forage so I can look after myself. I told him Peter said he’d look after me, but he just smiled and said he thought it would be a good idea just in case.
That made me frown a bit, because in case of what? But he tacked on a shrug at the end and said, “You know, in case you get lost or something?” I don’t know if he actually meant that or he was just saying it to soften the blow, but anyway, what blow?
I hide the book that Jem gave me like I have every time I’ve left the house. I’m enjoying reading about it all so much, learning about this land and how it all came to be, but I suspect for some reason that Peter won’t much care for it as, thus far, he doesn’t feature in it once. Which, actually, if we’re honest, it seems like someone was trying to make a point. I don’t know how old Peter Pan is. I don’t know how long he’s been the boy wonder of this little island, but for there to be a history book written about Neverland and Peter not to be included in it? Well, that feels rather intentional.
I’m wearing one of the outfits Bets made for me. It’s a little white boatneck blouse with tailored shorts, and just quietly, between us, I’ve liked the feeling of wearing the clothes that Jem bought me because I feel like I’m wearing a secret.
It all appeared to be wasted on Peter who, at breakfast, barely looked up at me. Yesterday, he flew to one of the towns on one of the other islands and fought a pirate to the death.
“For what?” I asked.
“For honour!” he cried, and the Lost Boys har-har-ed.
His real prize though, it seems, was the knife he took from the pirate.
The handle is silver and twisted. Some of it’s dark, some of it’s light, but how sharp it is feels of a particular concern, especially in the hands of a boy like Peter.
“Look how sharp it is,” he said to no one in particular at breakfast before he gently tapped his finger on the tip of the blade and immediately a drop of blood formed. “It’s magically forged,” he told us, and the boys “ooh-ed.”