Disclaimer: Peter Pan, all characters, places, and related terms belong to J.M. Barrie.

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Fly with Me

The air holds a hint of magic. The island, Neverland, begins to grow drowsy and quiet as the day slowly slips into night.

The mermaids bathing under the waterfall in the lagoon retire to their underwater chambers, singing a final song. The Indians on the war path return to the village to enjoy a night of feasting. Deer, rabbits, squirrels hurry to their snug homes for the upcoming night, while wild beasts prepare to prowl for their prey under cover of darkness. The Neverbird settles herself over her young in her nest. The Jolly Roger, quiet and still during the day, stirs to life as the pirates come back from searching for the Lost Boys and their captain. The Lost Boys, hands and faces covered in berry juice from their supper, return to the house under the ground. They discover their leader is not here…again. Tootles and Nibs think they should search for their leader. The twins do not wish to go into the darkening jungle. Slightly accuses them of being afraid. Soon the argument erupts into a fistfight.

At this very moment, there are only two who are aware of Peter Pan's whereabouts.

The sun is almost completely gone for the day. His old eyes light on the small figure sitting atop the vast cliff on one edge of the island, accompanied by a tiny ball of light. The boy's arms are wrapped around his knees in an unsuccessful attempt to keep warm against the cold wind blowing about him. His hair blows wildly in his face. Yet the boy seems not to notice.

His hazel eyes are fastened on the sun, tracking it as it sinks behind the sea. The bright hues in the sky dim as the sun retires. The air turns cool, and the island turns into a land of shadow.

Peter Pan shivers as the wind becomes chillier. A confused frown wrinkles his forehead. He sighs, one hand coming to rest on his chest. Isolation wraps around him like a blanket as he stares at the sky. Stars one by one awake and twinkle down at him in greeting. Halfheartedly he waves to them. His gaze shifts down to the dark sea, shimmering in the starlight. Far below he can hear the waves crashing against the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

The cockiness, conceit, and playfulness slip off the boy as darkness deepens. A strange, heavy feeling of emptiness settles in the pit of his stomach. Peter had hoped the feeling would not come tonight; but it does. It has come each evening for more than a fortnight.

The boy does not understand this feeling, nor likes it. He is the heart of Neverland, captain, leader of the Lost Boys, visitor to the fairy court, and has cut off Hook's hand. Yet recently these things do not give him as much pleasure as before.

He tries not to identify and explain these foreign feelings tonight; he never has been able to before. Half-successfully pushing them away, he listens intently.

Perched on his left shoulder, Tinker Bell huffs and wraps her arms about herself. This is the seventh night she has joined Peter in his isolation here at the "end of the world," as the foolish mermaids call this cliff; she had been quite vexed when he started to simply disappear without a word each evening, not retiring to the boys' hideout until the darkest hours of the night. The pixie was very annoyed when no one could tell her what mischief the boy had fallen into, and she grew even more vexed when Peter refused to tell her where he went and did. She had finally found out when one day she flew at his heels without cease and followed him to this spot. But her questions remain unanswered. She has had little success in getting Peter to share his thoughts with her. He does not know how – refuses? – to try to explain what is wrong. Nearly all night he gazes at the stars and sea without a word, listening to the wind. All she knows for sure is that he is no longer the same boy she has known for so many ages. And then there is the matter of the wind…

"Do you hear it, Tink?" the magical boy whispers to his companion, speaking for the first time this night.

The fairy does hear, has been hearing it often, and wants it to stop with all her being. She hates it with a passion. But the wind continues to circle her and Peter Pan as it has each evening. And as the wind moves, it sighs a single word the tiny fairy cannot understand, yet is struck with terror by.

Wendy.

"What is a wendy?" Peter asks her, the wind, himself. "Oh what is it?"

He has gazed at the sun, stars, and sea in search for the answer to the feelings that weigh on him. Then the wind suddenly, unexpectedly, came with a clue to his riddle: wendy. Is it a thing, a person, a place? All the wind says in answer to his questions is "wendy."

"Wendy…"

Tink places her hands over her ears when Peter tries out the word.

---

"Oh, I think so."

The voice gently tugs Peter awake. Groaning slightly, he stretches, almost falling off the stab of wood, too small for his long body, slanting out of the wall. Blinking sleepily, he props himself up on his elbows. Looking about the dark hideout drowsily, he discovers a girl sitting about a foot from him. She seems to be made of air, floating just above the ground, as she ripples like water and the boy can see through her to the dirt floor, a whitish glow surrounding her small figure. Her eyes are blue like blueberries; her hair is orange-red, a little past her shoulders. Her nightgown is white as snow.

"Aye, it is a lovely story," the girl agrees.

Filled with only curiosity, the boy sits up, watching the vision with interest. He has never seen a girl – besides the mermaids, Indian maidens, and Tink – so close before. From his small, hard bed he gives the girl a handsome bow and asks who she is. He is disappointed when she does not seem aware of him and speaks in answer to something he does not hear.

"Nana is a dear. We shall have her always." Her delighted expression grows serious as she listens. She frowns, deep in thought perhaps. "A wolf, I would like a wolf for a pet. She would be very beautiful with a silver grey coat. She would be very wary of strangers, but would be tame and loving towards me."

Peter watches the girl, wondering if she can help him, wishing she would see and speak to him.

"Flamingos! Pink ones?" she laughs merrily. "Truly." She smiles, and the boy notices the freckles dusting her nose and cheeks.

Against his will, Peter feels sleep beckoning to him softly, steadily. He frowns, irritated. He does not want to sleep. He wants to find out more about this strange girl. But slowly he lies back down. He shifts his legs and head so he can gaze at the vision. He closes his eyes for a moment, smiling slightly as he listens to unfamiliar, pleasant laughter.

When he opens his eyes again, it is day, and the vision gone.

---

Peter sees the girl again; each following night the vision appears. The boy now does not stay at the "end of the world" as long as before, though the strange feelings continue to weigh on him. He now makes the boys go to bed earlier, in the hopes the vision will come sooner.

Every night, sometime during the hours of slumber, the magical boy awakes to see the vision of the girl near where he sleeps. She always speaks to someone the boy does not see or hear. Usually she is conversing, while other times she tells a lengthy story. He observes her with curiosity, looking forward to seeing her again the next night.

For a week the girl comes. On the eighth night, Peter wakes up throughout the night, but the vision of the girl does not appear. It never comes back.

As the days and nights go by, Peter Pan descends into the most dreadful of moods, swinging from sadness to fury in an instant. Life for the Lost Boys becomes difficult with their leader. He seems to lose interest in their fights with the pirates and Indians. He now listens intently to the wind, which has fallen eerily quiet since the vision's last appearance. And he stays up late into the night, waiting for the vision to come; getting so little sleep, he is terribly tired and cranky.

Tinker Bell does not know what to do with him. She was rudely awakened early one morning by Peter, who demanded to know if she had seen the girl that had appeared in the hideout. She had scolded him, telling him he had only been dreaming. Though puzzled, Peter did not question her anymore about it. But she had secretly kept watch the following nights to see for herself. Yet she had always fallen asleep shortly after Peter went to bed and did not open her eyes again until the morning. The fairy never caught a glimpse of the girl Peter had asked about.

Yet there must have been something the boy saw, what with how upset he has become after the vision no longer came, supposedly. But Tink adores Peter and is certain he would not lie to her, not his fairy. But there is nothing she can do for him. How he desires her companionship changes from day to day; sometimes he enjoys her company like a child who will not be parted from a favorite toy, while other days he brushes her off with a non-too-gentle swat of the back of his hand. She can only follow him, as she always has.

---

Suddenly one evening without warning or explanation, Peter Pan leaves the Neverland. Sitting on the "end of the world," he has been watching the sun set. Tinker Bell is seated on his shoulder. When the last of the huge golden star vanishes behind the waves, Peter shoots off, nearly as fast as a shooting star. Tink is flung backwards and crashes to the ground. Despite being dazed, she quickly flies after the boy. She manages to gain on him a tiny bit. If he hears her calling to him, he gives no sign of acknowledgment. He just speeds on.

Peter, if questioned, cannot say where he is going or why. He just knows he must go. He can no longer just sit and pout. So he flies, fast and far, until the world – brown, blue, white, and small – lies before him. He flies until he can see the great mountains, rivers, and towns. He descends so he is flying just above the rooftops of one large city.

It is the dead of night and nearly all the city is deep in sweet slumber. Smoke lazily rises out of the chimneys and drifts in the star-filled sky. An occasional carriage passes noisily through a quiet street. A few shadows walk along the wet cobblestone sidewalks. All houses are dark, save for a window or two in nearly each that is filled with a soft, warm, protective glow.

The boy slows in his traveling to peer into these windows. Peeking inside each room, he beholds children, asleep. Some are mere babes while others are about his size. He drifts from window to window in a lazy, cocky manner, until he comes to one and does not move on. The room is lighted by three nightlights watching over the three children tucked safety in their beds. Peter does not notice the first two children – both boys – but stares through the window at the third: the girl. Her eyelids hide the color of her eyes, but he sees the roses in her cheeks and the red-orange color of her hair. One arm is resting on top of the covers and her chest. The other is curled around her head.

"Wendy," Peter breathes with an unexplainable knowingness. Now he knows the answer to the riddle that has haunted him.

The first time he tries to open the window he is met with resistance; the lock is firm and unyielding. The nightlights brighten, trembling with uneasy excitement, suddenly aware of the shadow at the window, and call to each other "Be strong! Be strong!" The second time the boy tries, the window groans softly. Then the latch on the window moves. By a seemingly invisible hand the window unlocks. It bursts open when Peter attempts to push it up the third time.

"Be strong!" the nightlights cry. Their words become lost in the wind that race about the room, chanting "Wendy, Wendy, Wendy." The nightlights brace themselves but at last die a brave and noble death on their home ground as the wind invader overwhelms them. The room plunges into darkness.

There is not a sound or a movement. The children do not stir or awake from the commotion. They are far away in their dreamlands.

Peter floats slowly, gracefully into the room, his hazel eyes wide as he briefly inspects the quiet chamber. He hovers a moment over the two boys' beds before turning his attention to the girl. Crossing his legs Indian style, he comes down to rest on the foot of the girl's bed. For a very long time the boy gazes at her, cocking his head to one side from time to time. A slow cocky smile spreads across his face, and he nods his head grandly. He brings forth his pan pipes and plays them for the girl.

It is many minutes and many tunes later when the last note fades away and Peter plays no more. Lowering his pipes, he looks at the child. A happy smile is on her face. He leans forward, studying the sleeping girl. "You will come? Come fly with me?" he asks softly. After waiting several moments, the boy's face falls slightly. He puts away his pan pipes and floats into the air. "I will come and play again for you, Wendy," he promises.

Silent as a shadow, the boy glides through the air. He is halfway through the window when a thought tugs him back. He returns to the girl's bedside and carefully sets an acorn button in the palm of the girl's hand nestled against her hair. Another cocky smile graces his face. Then Peter goes through the window and makes for the second star on the right.

Tinker Bell comes out from behind the drapes, where she has watched everything. Leaving her hiding place, she flies to the girl, hovering about her inch from her face. The fairy stares at her hard but cannot see anything about her that has caused Peter such distress and to come looking for her. The bright light radiating off Tink becomes tinged with green. It is the first time the fairy feels jealousy, and the emotion consumes her. Before she follows Peter, she glares at the acorn button he left behind with the girl. She gives it a vicious kick.

When the tiny fairy clears the window, it soundlessly closes and locks. Slowly, weakly, the nightlights come back to life. They are battered and bruised, but they take up again their watch and can only speculate on what this all means.

Everything is just as it was. Except for the acorn button which has come to rest under the bed in the dark corner. It is never discovered, yet is a silent witness to what has begun.

THE END