Katherine Black sat at her writing desk, her head reeling. "A proper lady", she thought in disgust. She had been sent to her room halfway through dinner for having an outburst. At dinner they had been discussing marriage, a subject very popular in her household. At seventeen, she was of perfect age. Dinner had turned into an utter disaster when she had told her parents her dreams of becoming a writer. When she had told them she wished to pursue a writing career, her governess had gasped in horror, while her mother had turned nearly as pale as the white tablecloth. Her father stared at her as if she had grown a second head. Her parents could not believe that their daughter could ever consider becoming a novelist.

"Writing is not the work of a proper lady," they had told her. A novelist holds no place in high society, they had said. They wanted nothing but the best for her. She had argued with them, something else a "proper lady" does not do. They were having none of it and told her that tomorrow she would start entertaining suitors. Suitors that they deemed appropriate for her, boring and ordinary. Suitors that would understand her dreams no more than her parents would. She had been sent her to her room, and there she sat thinking of some way out of this mess. As she sat, she heard the click of the lock on her door, and knew that she had been locked in by her father. Mr. Black loved her dearly, but he knew Katherine was headstrong and did not trust his daughter to remain in the house. In fact, he thought she might even run away. As she heard the lock click, she began thinking of all the possible things she could do to drive these possible husbands away. She decided that she would be obnoxious, rude and offensive to them, and hopefully, they would never want to see her again.

How she wished she were with her grandmother! Her grandmother was the only member of her family that understood her, that supported her in everything. It had been from her grandmother that she gained her love of writing. Ever since she had been a child, her grandmother had told her stories. They were fantastical stories of faraway lands, where the exotic ruled over the everyday; fairy tales, where the princess always lived happily ever after, adventures, where good always triumphed over evil, and of course her favorite, the story of Neverland, where you never had to grow up.

Neverland had always captivated her. Even as a child she would beg her grandmother to tell her more about the place. She could never hear enough of the beautiful mermaids, the mysterious Indians, the tricky Tinkerbell, the brave Peter Pan, and the wicked Captain Hook. To her, it had seemed like the perfect place.

One day she asked her grandmother where the story of Neverland had come from, and her grandmother's answer had surprised her. "Story? It is not simply a story. Neverland is a real place Katherine. No matter what anyone tells you, it is real. It is as real as I am." As she grew older, she came to believe that her grandmother had only been trying to protect some of her innocence, her imagination, her hopes, her childishness. She stopped believing that Neverland was real. But now, sitting at her desk, her mind began to wander back to Neverland. She stood from her desk and went to her bedroom window. She looked out at the dark sky and made a wish on the first star she saw. I wish I could find a way out of this, I wish Neverland was real and I was there. Anywhere but here. I would trade all of this away for a chance to be free from this place. She sighed and climbed into bed, dreading the tomorrow that was to come.

She soon fell into a deep sleep, dreaming. She was in a forest, searching for the source of a voice that was singing, the most beautiful voice she had ever heard. Unable to find the source, she stood still in the center of a ring of trees. The singing died away and she heard the voice speak to her. Katherine, tell me…are you really willing to give up your life now for a new life? Are you ready to leave this place? Is this what you truly want? Without any hesitation Katherine spoke: yes.

When Katherine's governess went to her room the next morning to wake her she was amazed to find the bed empty. The window was shut, locked from the inside and nothing was amiss. Her first thought was that the girl had run away, but she couldn't understand how Katherine could have gotten out and then locked the window from the outside. She knew that Katherine could not possibly have gone out through her door because her father had locked it. Mr. and Mrs. Black were distraught. Their only daughter gone missing!

The authorities were summoned, and they too thought that the girl had run away, even perhaps that she had been kidnapped. However, even they could not come to any conclusion about how Katherine could have gotten out of the house, nor how anyone could have gotten in to take her. In addition, if she had in fact, been kidnapped, why was the room in complete order? Surely, Katherine would have struggled against her kidnapper? It made no sense to any of them. It was as if she had disappeared from the room by magic.