The wind rustled the oak leaves only enough to keep an empty silence from setting in. Gwen loved the way Neverland smelled at night. All the sun-warmed flowers and sun-ripened fruit radiated their aromas, but the cool breeze muted and mellowed the smell.
“I was thinking,” Peter announced. Gwen expected him to elaborate, but he didn't. Governed by instincts, whims, and the occasional burst of emotion, Peter did very little thinking. “And I could not stop thinking and get to sleep. So I decided that, if I had to think, I might as well think while watching the moon rise.”
He swung his legs as he sat, and the branch swayed with the motion. The slight rocking reminded Gwen of how she had felt aboard Starkey's boat, with the ship bobbing on the ocean water. “What were you thinking about?”
“I was thinking about your story,” Peter answered. “It was a very strange story.”
“How so?”
His brow furrowed, as if his precise feelings remained a mystery even to him. “I didn't quite know who the villain was. It seemed Margaret May was the hero, but then she behaved almost as bad as the first raven witch. Margaret May's real parents were quite awful, and the changeling sister was also awful, but she got better, so I don't know about her.” He thought a moment more, and then decided, “Everyone in it changed.”
He said changed with such scorn, the story's character arcs seemed like a personal affront to him. “You didn't like it?”
Peter made a face and replied, “It was a good story.” He shook his head and gave Gwen a stern look as he told her, “But don't ever tell me a story like it again.”
“Okay,” Gwen agreed. “I won't.”
“It was so complicated,” Peter declared, but Gwen knew he'd had no trouble following the story. He his complaint wasn't with the presentation of the narrative, but rather its structure.
“Sometimes life is complicated.”
Peter shook his head. “Mine isn't.”
“Some people's are,” she told him.
“Then all the more reason,” Peter explained, “to have simple stories and balance it out.”
The moon had almost finished rising, but it clung to the horizon like a child with separation anxiety. The sky was so vast and so dark—and the horizon was such a tidy, neat line.
“I think tomorrow might get complicated,” Gwen told him.
She expected a flippant line or another quick dismissal. It surprised her when Peter, still staring at the moon, answered, “Maybe.”
Gwen bit her lip and allowed herself to think of all the outcomes she feared most for tomorrow. “What happens if we lose?” she whispered.
“You don't need to worry about that,” he answered. “Losing isn't something that happens to people, it's something that's inside of people. And there isn't any losing inside of us, so no matter what happens, we'll be okay.”
She had to admit, she couldn't envision Peter losing. She could imagine no circumstance where he wouldn't just fly off, laughing all the way. Maybe she had something like that living inside of her too, just more cautious and a little quieter.
“What if they catch us though?” Gwen asked, her doubt persistent. “What if they take us away and we go back to reality?”
Peter gave her a thoughtful look before he announced, “Supposing they did, that would certainly be the most-disastrous-and-horrible case scenario, but if you and I had to go through it, we'd still be us, so I don't think even that would be so bad. As long as you're around to tell me stories, I don't see how anything can go too wrong.”
All at once, Gwen's misgivings calmed. Peter's confidence did not exist in the shallows of his demeanor—it went all the way down to his blood and his bones. He didn't just feel he could manipulate everything to his liking, he fundamentally believed he could survive anything. That, Gwen realized, was something they shared. She could be happy in Neverland, she could be happy in reality—all her confliction and challenges sprung from trying to decide between many desirable options. Old Willow had thrown her bones once and told her what her fate held: no matter what happened, no matter what she did, Gwen would be happy. And so would Peter. They would always be happy, because they had no losing inside of them.
Peter's cheerful expression muddied into something questioning and disquieted. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Looking at you like what?” Gwen asked.
“I have seen that look before,” Peter proclaimed. “Tiger Lily used to give me that look all the time. She still does—but it's a sad look now, even though it's the same. I don't know how. I don't understand it, and now you're doing it!”
A single laugh escaped Gwen, sounding more like a cough than laugh. She shook her head and looked in the opposite direction. “I'm not doing anything. I'm not even looking at you.”
“You were, though!” Peter told her.
“No I wasn't,” Gwen insisted, refusing to look at him. “I've never looked at you, I've never even seen you. I don't even know what you look like.”
“You have,” Peter argued, leaning over and trying to force his way into Gwen's vision without falling off the tree branch. “You've looked at me tons, and I know you know what I look like.”
Gwen scrunched up her face, still not looking at him as she teased, “You have long dark hair and bright blue eyes, right?”
“Gwenny, look at me!” Peter howled. He grabbed her arm with such desperation Gwen immediately perceived what his frightened expression confirmed: her taunting had actually panicked him.
She looked at Peter, amazed at how her ludicrous joke had disturbed him. “What's the matter, Peter?”
His tense shoulders lowered and he blinked back his panic as he held her eyes. “Don't ever do that again,” he told
