"I believe."

Her words are lost in darkness and blown away by the wind; the words she whispers every night. Joined with her words are truths and memories of children past, adults past, children present. The wind whisks away secrets and lies and hides them where they'll never be discovered.

For all the secrets, lies, memories, truths, words that you've whispered into the wind end up somewhere. The home for these shadows is Neverland, for that's what shadows are. The memories of your being, the truths, the lies, what holds you together, and what tears you apart. Neverland, for all its beauty and grace, is merely a shadow, merely truths and lies and memories and all things good—all things bad.

Neverland, coincidently, is exactly where a girl named Marie's beliefs went. It is where all children's go, to be heard by one boy; one boy and his shadow.

His name was Peter Pan.

Marie sat at her window that night, like every night, watching the stars. Waiting for her parents to return home was becoming tiresome, every night a night lost to her, just waiting. Waiting her life away, waiting for sleep, waiting for morning, waiting for death.

Her hands traced patterns in the fog surrounding the cool glass. It was November, much too cold for an open window, but she pulled out the metal latch despite the chill, chipping with white paint, out of the window, letting it tip forward into the night. The wind blew into her room, shaking the clothes hanging up on her closet door, awaiting the next morning's routine.

The ninth floor apartment she shared with her mother and her mother's boyfriend was small—a one bedroom, which Marie had somehow inhabited because her mother and boyfriend usually slept on the couch together. It was the smallest room in the apartment, which was incredibly small on its own, but Marie didn't mind. She had grown to accept it. She wasn't happy, but accepting, which was good enough for her.

The words came before she even knew what she was saying.

"I believe." She thought of her dreams, especially the reoccurring one she had every night—her toes dug into the sand of a beach, with blue waters that stretched around an island of green trees and vast jungle. Sometimes, when the light was just right, you could see the outline of a ship, dark against the horizon, with huge sails and bells that rang across the water.

She was alone, though. Always alone. Her and her shadow walked the beaches and wished for things, food, water, shelter, but company never came.

"I believe." She did, really. Hope for something better; hope that her family would come back together. She loved them dearly, but couldn't they be something more?

She believed in almost anything at that moment, truly, truly believed, and closed her eyes.

Nothing.

That was enough waiting for tonight. She slid off the old chair that was once her mother's sitting by the window and stood up, stretching her sore limbs. She was growing weary of waiting, watching, and all she wanted then was for something to happen. Anything to distract her from the object of death that grew nearer everyday—the object of growing up.

Her lips moved forward to blow out the single candle glowing in the room, but it blew itself out before she could. She stopped in mid-action, feeling a new cold draft blowing against her back and chilling her skin even through the material of her pajamas.

If one could feel a whisper, that is what she felt then upon her hand. A light touch that was so forced but so light, and so, so cold. She didn't want to turn around, fear gripping her heart, the same cold that held her icing her over.

Her head then moved, her body following it, shaking as she anticipated what she would see.

It was a shadow. A black form that seemed to have a hold of her, yet she could barely see where it began and where it ended. Two glowing eyes sat in the place of the head, watching her intently as it held her hand.

It emanated fear, yet Marie was not scared. Everything about this seemed cold and uninviting, but now, staring into these eyes, she could not bring herself to feel fear. Only a strange pity for the being in front of her.

Because though fear projected through the eyes of her captor, there was something else. There was pain. And pain, no matter in what being, was something she couldn't step away from. She cared too much about everything and everyone, she loved too much for her own good. She felt everything too deeply, so much so that perhaps this world was too much for her.

"I believe," she whispered, and grabbed the shadow's other hand. She inhaled deeply, and felt a tug on her arms. She was dragged to the window, and given one last look by the shadow. "Take me," she said, and she flew with the whispers and the lies and the memories that littered the wind like no one else before her had.