1913

“Hello? May I help you?” A 30 something year old man wearing horn rimmed glasses opened the door.

“John? You’ve gotten so big mate! And you look so much older than you should be! I didn’t know you were coming!” The man was a bit uneasy at Peter’s response.

“My apologies, but my name is not John.”

“Oh, Michael? No way you could be this old! Man, what’s your skin care routine because it is not working out.”

“Who is it?” He heard a female nagging voice say.

“Just some,” the man paused and looked Peter’s weird outfit up and down. “Some mental case at the door.” Peter looked down, judging his own outfit. He knew it was weird, but tying it to mental health may be a bit drastic.

“Well get him out the door! He’s causing a draft!” the woman shouted.

“Wendy has really lost her motherly touch,” Peter said, hoping to diffuse the situation.

“Oh, you’re here for Wendy,” he looked him up and down yet again, “Well that makes sense.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter asked the man, but was drowned out by his own shouting.

“Wendy! You have a,” he stopped and looked Peter up and down yet again! Stop doing that man, Peter wanted to shout at him. “A friend here!” he continued. He finally stepped out of the doorway, motioning for Peter to come inside. He stepped inside and noticed everything was different. There weren’t the usual knick knacks around the house. It was completely different from the way it used to be decorated.

But the most astonishing thing about the new house is that it was now missing every photo of every member of the Darling family. He was about to question the man, who he presumed must be Wendy’s boyfriend or husband, why there was a serious lacking in Darling photographs, but was cut off from Wendy’s entrance at the top of the stairs.

She stood above him so much older than he expected. She was older of course, now around how old he looked in Earth years. But she still had the same features that she always had. Her brown hair that curled at the end was still tied in a ribbon, but the color of the ribbon was now a deep purple instead of blue. It didn’t seem to go as well with her clear blue eyes, but still worked. She still had a bounce in her step and had the look of constant optimism, the same look Peter always had. She looked at Peter through her piercing blue eyes, “Peter?” she asked as she ran down the stairs to greet him with a massive hug. Peter caught her in her arms and did a slight twirl, to which the man with the horn-rimmed glasses frowned up and was clearly upset they got in his way.

“It’s been too long! Longer for me than you, but still!” Wendy giggled while looking at the horn-rimmed glasses man, hoping he wouldn’t look too much into that comment.

“Peter this is Nicholas. He’s one of the tenets here.”

“Tenets?”

“Shake his hand, Peter,” Wendy said quickly dodging Peter’s comment, forcing him to be left wondering.

“Pleasure to meet you Nick!” Peter said as he extended his hand. Nicholas grunted and reluctantly took his hand to shake it. Wendy took Peter’s hand and began leading him upstairs.

“Let’s continue to catch up in my bedroom. Shall we?”

“Sure. Later Nick!”

“Hmhmm,” he grunted out giving a disappointed glare.

Just like the rest of the house, Wendy’s room was not what he was expecting it to be. His memories, though could be inaccurate, were that of a massive bedroom with 3 beds in it and artwork of various children’s tales lining the walls. What he walked into was a nearly empty bedroom with only one bed and dust lining the walls. Of course, he wasn’t expecting the same artwork on the walls, but he expected it to be the same in spirit. On the bed was a half-packed suitcase with clothes thrown inside, clearly packed at the last possible minute.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she shut the door behind them. “But I asked you to come at nightfall. And I thought you would come through the window!”

“It is night!”

“Hardly!”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“And who’s that guy? Where’s Michael and John? Are they not coming?”

“Michael and John are working out in the country,” Wendy explained as she went back to packing her suitcase. “Where mother resides.”

“Why isn’t your mom here?”

Wendy took a deep breath. “Peter, let’s just focus on getting out of here shall we?”

“But wait, I have so many questions, who’s that man here and what is this?” Peter said as he pulled out a copy of Peter and Wendy he kept in his knapsack. Wendy’s words and breath withdrew from her mouth.

“You found out about that?” Wendy said as she bit her lip. She clearly did not want Peter to know about anything.

“Peter, quite a lot has happened since you left,” Wendy sighed.

“I want to know everything!” Peter said eagerly.

“Sit down,” Wendy instructed, setting a darker tone than Peter was expecting. Peter was expecting some great story, but her tone told him he was about to hear a tale of sorrow.

“Father got extremely sick once we came back.”

“Sick! What’d he have?” Peter was quick to ask but Wendy put up a finger to hush him.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. He got sick, couldn’t work, and then passed away.”

Peter’s jaw dropped. He wasn’t sure how to process this information. He had dealt with death many times in Neverland, but this hit so much differently. Peter had always held Earth as an escape for him and he would never have to deal with the loss he felt at Neverland. An extremely naïve belief for sure.

“It was very hard on the family. My father provided everything for us, and when he left, there wasn’t much we could do. It got to the point where we had to consider selling the manor.”

“Is that why there are others here? It’s not yours anymore?” Wendy smiled as much as she could. Peter could tell she was getting a tad aggravated with him, but he couldn’t help it.

“My mother thought the best thing to do would be to sell it and all of us move to a cottage in the country with my grandmother.” Wendy gave a big gulp of air to herself, knowing the next part of the story would be the hardest. “I came up with the idea of renting out the manor. Everyone in this house, is a resident and they pay for their rooms. I stay here and manage it, and everyone else is far out in the country and I send them money from the tenants.”

“Wendy this doesn’t make any sense for why there’s a play and book about me.”

Wendy nodded and went silent. She was clearly ashamed of whatever happened. “We found out after father passed that we couldn’t even sell the manor, because we didn’t fully own it yet. It seems father was behind on a few payments. Mother suspects he did it to afford more lavish clothes and furniture, to keep up the appearance that we were wealthy. Peter, you need to understand that we didn’t have anything to our name. My mother was unskilled, I was hardly out of school and Michael and John were still in school.”

“Wendy, I understand that you were in a bind. Okay? Nothing can make me angry at you. But I still need an explanation,” Peter said as calmly as he could to let her know, he was still her friend and someone to rely on.

“We had nothing, except for one thing, your story.”

“What do you mean?”

“I figured that our tales were valuable. And anyone would be excited to hear about them. But in this day, I couldn’t become a writer. It would take too long; publishers wouldn’t want me. There’s a cornucopia of reasons not to buy anything from me. So, I found someone who was interested and sold him it.”

“J.M. Barrie…” Peter stated.

“Every idea, every story, every fragment from our history together,” Wendy nodded. “I told him everything.”

“But I’m not a boy, and there are so many inaccuracies.”

“He, as well as I, took a few, creative liberties if you want to call it that. It was his story after I gave it to him. And some parts of the story I had to change to make sense to people of this world. No one here can understand what a starship is or what rocket boots are!” Wendy couldn’t help but laugh.

“A bit too far out right now huh?” Peter smiled, agreeing with her. Wendy returned the smile, but as she did, a tear fell out.

“Hey, hey,” Peter said as he brought her head to his shoulder. “It’s okay. I don’t care.”

“You don’t?”

“Of course not! You had to do what you had to do. Plus,” Peter lifted his copy of Peter and Wendy, “Do you know how awesome it is that everyone knows my story now? I’m famous! On a planet that I’m rarely on!” They both laughed. “Now, let’s get to Neverland!” Peter leapt from the bed, trying to bring up the mood.

“Okay, Peter,” Wendy said as she returned to packing. Peter looked around at the desolate room and now understood why everything was missing. Wendy only kept the essentials, because that’s all she could afford. He looked across the room and imagined John and Michael’s beds as if they never left.

“So, John and Michael? They’re not coming, are they?”

“I asked them, but they’re really busy with their new jobs you know?” Wendy didn’t even make eye contact with Peter. He couldn’t tell if it was intentional or not.

“Oh, no problem. Wendy, can I ask you another question?”

“Of course,” she said without missing a beat.

“If there are so many financial issues, why are you leaving? Don’t you have a manor to run or a job or anything.”

“I…mapped it all out. I figured I would save so much money not living here and everything could be sent to the family. Plus, I need a holiday anyways. A long one.”

“Well, I’ll definitely get your mind off this place.”

“Good, and hopefully when I come back everything will be better.”

Peter approached her from the back, and slightly touched her arm. She froze when he did. His mind wandered back to what Tink told him.

“Wendy, are you sure everything is alright? You’re not leaving for any other reason?”

“Nope! Just miss you and need a break!” She turned to Peter. “Is that okay?”

“Of course!” Peter leapt onto her bed and started throwing everything into her suitcase. “Let’s hurry this up! Neverland is a calling!”

“Peter get off my bed!” Wendy said playfully.

They packed up everything and headed to the giant window. He pulled her close and she held onto his torso. “You think you’ll be able to remember how to do this?” Wendy nodded with a grin. He could tell she was excited, not just to go back to Neverland, but to escape from all her worries. The hard-financial times they were in, the death of her father, and everything else she hadn’t told him. He would do just that, he thought as he activated his boots and flew toward the Jolly Roger. Everything would be alright, he thought.