Page 69 of The Never Queen

WINNIE

It’s decided that Mom and Hansel will return with us to Neverland. I don’t want to let her out of my sight. Not yet anyway.

Most of my life, I wanted to escape her. She was both too much and not enough for me. Once I moved to Neverland, I was almost relieved to be free of her. I didn’t want to think about her, I didn’t want to worry about her, and I didn’t want to repair my relationship with her.

It was a wound I knew would never properly heal and I wasn’t willing to consider what it would take to rip off the scab and start over.

I’m not sure where we go from here, but for the first time, I think I’m willing to try to repair what is, to see what could be.

When we arrive back on Neverland soil and I breathe in the salty sea air, some of the tension in my body fades. This is where I’m meant to be. I know that now more than ever.

With the sun close to rising, Pan says goodbye to us and disappears to his tomb, and I make him a promise to join him later.

“Will you take a walk with me?” I ask Mom.

She’s been clinging to Hansel’s side since the warehouse. I can’t tell if it’s because she missed him, if she still loves him, or if it’s something else. Maybe he, like Pan, has given her a feeling of safety and stability, something we both have been sorely lacking in our lives.

Mom follows me from the treehouse, down the worn path to the lagoon.

The spirits of the water are dancing just beneath the surface, more active now than I’ve seen them in a while.

“I forgot how beautiful this place is.” Mom kicks off her shoes and sits in the sand on the shore.

“The lagoon is probably my favorite.” I sit next to her, digging my toes into the sand. It’s warm on the surface, but cool just a few inches below.

With the summer solstice approaching, the lagoon is in full bloom with a rainbow of flowers. The longer I’m in Neverland, the more excited I am to see how it changes through the seasons, and how it changes along with us.

“Did you love him?” I ask.

Mom draws her knees up and folds her arms around her legs. “Yes.”

“And he broke your heart.”

“Yes.”

I take up a handful of sand and let the grains slowly seep out through my fingers. “I suppose I understand why he left. If dear Aunt Gretel had found out about me as a child, I wouldn’t have been able to defend myself like I did today.”

Mom nods.

“So I’m willing to forgive him. How do you feel?”

She’s quiet for a long time, watching the spirits twist in and around each other. Tonight they look pink and violet against the turquoise blue of the water.

“I never had a great love story,” she says and drags her hand through the sand between us. “When I was your age, I mean…you…before Peter Pan.” She pauses and takes a breath. “Sorry. My head is still a jumble. What was I saying?”

“You were talking about love.”

“Yes.” She smiles. “I thought I could outrun my past. By the time I was sixteen, my mother was dead. I was on my own. An adult in the eyes of the state. But somehow I wasn’t scared. I thought with my mother gone, she had taken the madness with her.” She laughs to herself. “Delusional! I was delusional!”

“No you weren’t. Because I thought the same thing.”

We laugh together.

A black bird swoops into the lagoon and lands on a drooping branch behind us, cawing softly.

“Hansel said you wanted to study art.”

She drags her index finger back and forth in the sand, drawing a star. “I liked art. It made me happy.”