His smile broadened as he reached for her. “Can I take your hand, Maggie?”
Something made her pause for a second, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. Perhaps it was the suddenness of his question, or if it meant hewasfrightened, or if he only recognized that she had been afraid all along. Either way, she knew she wanted to hold his hand all the same.
“Of course,” she murmured.
Their fingers intertwined within the same breath, the warmth spreading between them just as a sharp chill rose in the air. There was no path forward, but Peter walked with such a determination that Maggie assumed he already knew the way. The darkness within the woods only grew heavier the further they went, a crow’s sharp caw following close behind them.
“Is this a normal day for you?” Maggie asked.
Peter glanced down at her. “Huh?”
“Exploring a dark and scary forest,” she murmured. “Tracking down impossible to find ingredients for an impossible to cast spell.” She shrugged. “A normal Thursday?”
His laugh echoed through the woods. “I wouldn’t say that. Neverland’s all about fun, you know that.”
Maggie sighed as she looked around another time. Talking to him managed to calm down her senses slightly, but the fear didn’t fail to linger close behind. The more she spoke, the more scared she was that she might miss something in the distance.
“I wouldn’t ever have imagined doing something like this,” Maggie said.
Peter scoffed. “I doubt that.”
“If you knew what my life was like back then, you wouldn’t be saying that.” She shook her head and pressed her lips together, asensation that felt along the lines of grief beginning to take hold of her heart, though she wasn’t sure where exactly it had come from. “Everything was boring enough to put an entire country to sleep, compared to this life. There wasn’t a single interesting thing to it, minus Sunny, of course.”
Silence passed over them and Maggie remembered where they were. She glanced around, her hand growing tense within Peter’s. He tugged until she was facing forward once more.
“I don’t think your life was ever boring, Magpie,” Peter finally said.
She eyed him. “How would you know anyway?"
“Well, from all the things you’ve told me, of course!”
Maggie shook her head. “You can’t know that just from what I’ve said. And besides, everything I’ve said is boring! You didn’t hear me mentioning mermaids or whales with stars or –”
“Whales with stars…” Peter interjected in a murmur. “Do you mean StarWhales?” His laugh blurted out, causing a few creatures to leap from their spots in the trees. “They’re guardians of the small merfolk. Their light shines a path through the darkness of the ocean.”
Maggie waved a hand at him. “That’s my point exactly. There won’t be a single story I tell of my life that has anything to do with something as spectacular as StarWhales.”
“Well,” Peter drawled as he clicked his teeth together. “I’m not quite sure about that, Magpie.”
She stopped in her tracks, arm pulling free from Peter’s. He turned around to face her, looking incredibly oblivious. Maggie didn’t know at all why it was frustrating, why he was angering her, why she wanted to convince him that her life was nothing to smile at. It was an entirely sad ordeal, but she couldn’t stop herself, not even when they were in the middle of a dangerous forest.
“Do you know what isn’t exciting, Peter?” Maggie asked. “Finding places to call home, only for someone to discover your magic and force you to go on the run. I’d have cold nights with nothing to cover me besides the clothes on my back, with the stars watching me overhead. I’ve cowered in the rain without a lick of shade in sight. I’ve felt hunger span on for days, for weeks.”
Maggie was pacing in front of him without even realizing it, her heavy steps beginning to make a path within the dirt. “You know what’s uninteresting?” she asked again, the question feeling more targeted at herself more than anything. “Living a lie just to get your dream made into a reality, only to realize you were never worthy of it anyways, only for it to be ripped out, right from beneath your feet.” She stopped in her tracks, looking up to meet Peter’s steady stare. “That’swhat an uninteresting life sounds like, Peter.”
With his hands tucked into his pockets, he slowly began to stride toward her as he spoke with steadied, leveled words. “I am the King of Neverland,” he whispered. “Magical beings I can’t even describe with words built me the treehouse. Friends I have known almost all my life have remained by my side since day one, never daring to let me fall. There has never been a time when I needed to make food for myself, to clean up after myself.”
Peter was directly in front of her, looming over her without an ounce of intimidation. “You, Maggie Hart, are the bravest person I have ever met in my entire life. And you, dear baker, have the tale of a dazzling heroine at the center of your heart.”
Out of all the things Maggie expected Peter Pan to say, that was not at all on the list.
She never had the grace or patience to see herself in such a light. It was practically impossible after spending her life treading through the darkness to spot the shreds of light that managed to sneak through. But there, right in front of her,a brilliantly bright light was forcing its way into the dark, eliminating every shadow it managed to come by.
“Peter,” Maggie murmured. “I –”
The forest began to quiet down into a low hum. Not even the breeze brushed by the leaves or rustled the bushes. The silence grew so obvious that Maggie was glancing around wildly, searching for the cause for everything to fall so silent.
Steps echoed out from behind one of the trees. Dried leaves continuously crunched underfoot as a tall, crooked figure steadily approached. With the similar frame of a human, the creature had all the attributes of an aged tree. Sharp pieces of earthy colored branches were erected from his head to create a mighty crown, one that reminded Maggie of a deer’s exquisite antlers. The creature’s body was as green as the mossy grass that scaled the tree trunks, with thick slabs of rusty brown bark protruding from him here and there. Throughout the earthy colors were streaks of undeniable gold, sun-kissed and almost molten.
