“Moira?” Peter prods.
“Fine.” I lean back and try to arrange myself so I’m not poked to death by the chair. “Once upon a time?—”
“Oh, that’s lovely,” Curly says. It’s met by a host of “shhhh!” from his bedmates.
Peter glares at him, then turns to me with his brightest smile yet. “Please, go on.”
I start again and tell them all about the wicked stepmother and the most beautiful girl in all the land. How she took refuge witha pack of dwarves and quickly became a family, each of them looking out for each other.
When my voice finally falters, my eyes closing, I look over and see the men are all asleep. All except one.
Peter watches me, the glint in his eye somehow brighter in the soft dark as I finally succumb to sleep.
And this time? This time, I dream.
Chapter
Seven
Indeed, sometimes when Peter returned, he did not remember them, at least not well.
Iwake with a start and a headache. “Ow.” I reach behind me and feel my back, a sore spot along my ribs.
“I told you not to sleep there.” A twin sits on the bed, his eyes on me.
Wiping my mouth, I realize I’d been drooling—and more likely than not, snoring.
“Did a toddler make this chair?” I stand and stretch, my back aching and my tailbone equally sore.
“I think maybe Tootles made it when we were still little. He’s not much good at making things, though.”
“No shit.”
He snorts a laugh. “You talk like a mainlander.”
I glance around, making sure it’s just the two of us. “Is the mainland the real world? That’s the impression I’m getting here.”
“Depends on what you mean by ‘real’ I guess.” He stands, too.
How can you explain what real is to someone who lives on an imaginary island? “Okay, let me rephrase. Is the mainland where I live? Where I came from?”
“Yes. I think we all came from there at some point.” He puts his hands on his hips and taps his fingers. “I mean, I guess that’s how it works. Maybe for everyone except Peter. I don’t know where he came from.”
“Do you remember the mainland, then? Before you came here?”
He looks up. “Ah. Well, it’s fuzzy, to be honest. And Peter says we shouldn’t worry with things that happened before Neverland.”
“Why not?”
“Because Neverland is all there is for us. This is our home, and we love it.”
“Do you, though?” I try to peer deeper inside him, to suss out where he fits into this crazy menagerie my hotdog-addled brain has created.
“What?”
“Do you love it here?”
At that he cracks a smile. “Yeah. No one tells me what to do. Well, no one except Peter. That’s different. It’s not the same as having a parent bossing you around, saying you can’t do this or can’t do that. Here, I do what I want.”
