“No, of course not.” Gwen answered, drying her hands on a dishrag, “I didn't have a clue what I was doing back then. I don't want to go back to being a teenager, and I'm glad I didn't get stuck as one. I just miss the feeling of being engulfed in magic. I'm not in love with childhood anymore.”
Gwen expected a prompt response, some judgment or commentary from Lasiandra's quick mind, but she found her friend staring off at nothing. “I guess that just goes to show everything grows up and gets old,” she sighed. “Even our ideals.”
Gwen hung the dish towel back on the oven handle. “Did the stars tell you that, Andrea?”
“No,” she answered, looking outside at the night sky, a barely visible darkness beyond the glare of the window. “They haven't talked to me in a long time.” Her melancholy shifted back to Gwen. “We should get coffee this week and talk,” Lasiandra told her, drawing her into a hug. Gwen appreciated these hugs, these moments where she and Lasiandra stood on equal footing and could look each other in the eye. Just as the stars had predicted so early on, the two of them were great friends, in the end.
They wandered back into the living room. Peter was still fiddling with the puzzle box and talking with James, but James had ambled over to the wall where Gwen had hung the old charcoal portrait he'd done for her half a lifetime ago.
“You know,” he told Gwen, “when you got that thing framed, I kept expecting you to pull a Dorian Gray with it.”
Gwen laughed. “Do you have any idea how fast the Anomalous Activity Department would confiscate it if I did?”
Gwen might have aged, but not a day had passed for her portrait. It still showed her at that brilliant moment of youth she had suspended while sixteen. Since then, her face had grown and changed in subtle little ways until her reflection reminded her more of her mother's wedding photos than how she remembered herself. Some time would pass before wrinkles came crawling onto her face, but age had already sharpened her features and pushed the pudge out of her cheeks. Her smile and eyes had not dimmed though, and Gwen counted those as the only victories she needed.
Lasiandra announced her departure and pulled on her coat before hugging everyone goodbye.
“I should get going, too,” James admitted, glancing at the clock. “It's a bit of a drive, and Ashley will be waiting up for me.”
“Tell her I said hi,” Gwen told him, giving him a hug. “Thanks for coming out all this way to see me.”
“Always, Gwen.”
They let go of each other, but Gwen's shadow still held onto James. It was an inconspicuous gesture, typical of her problematic shadow. It hadn't strayed from her since the Anomalous Activity Department reattached it, but her shadow still acted up from time to time.
Something thudded upstairs.
“What was that?” Jay asked, staring at the ceiling.
Gwen slapped her hand against her face. “I knew I shouldn't have left all those books stacked up there.”
“You need an actual bookshelf,” Peter told her. “We should go hunt one down some time.”
James and Lasiandra, unconcerned with such plans, headed out. “I think I'm blocking you in, Peter,” James told him.
“That's okay. I'm not leaving until I figure out this puzzle box.”
Gwen laughed. “You'll be here all night—I haven't even managed it yet.”
“Where'd you get this thing anyway?” he asked her.
“Drive safe,” Gwen called as Lasiandra and James got into their cars. She tapped her foot in the entryway, covertly calling her elongated shadow back as it tried to follow after their friends. Gwen closed the door on the cold night. She and Peter waited a moment, making sure Lasiandra and James got on the road and drove off before they hurried upstairs.
The warmth of the living room faded away as they opened the door to the stairwell. They climbed up to Gwen's attic bedroom where, even in the coldest months, she always left the window open at night.
The cottage's roof sloped, and so did the wooden ceiling of its bedroom. The curtains fluttered, their white lace waving like white caps on the ocean. A heavy wooden bed dominated the room. A thick and colorful quilt covered the bed, but on top of its wooden headboard sat Rosemary. She grinned at the sight of her big sister, her smile spread wide and missing a single tooth.
Covered in ivy, her hair full of flowers, Rosemary perched in patient wait while a carmel-colored fairy buzzed about the room. “Are they gone?” Rosemary asked, her voice failing in its attempt to whisper.
“Yes,” Gwen answered. “It's just us, Rose.”
“Oh yippie!” she cried, leaping into the air and zooming to her sister. She opened her arms wide so that her impact instantly became a hug.
Gwen felt Rosemary's head beside hers, almost as if they were the same height while her little sister hovered in front of her. “Oh Gwen, you won't believe everything that's happened since I saw you last week!”
“Last year, Rosemary,” Gwen reminded her softly. “It's been a year now.”
“Oh,” she answered, a little dazed. “It did seem like an awfully busy week…”
The golden brown fairy tittered on, unimpressed by and skeptical of adults on principle. Gwen had long since forgotten the fairy language, but Peter remembered it like an unused mother tongue. “Hey,” he snapped at the insolent fairy. “Watch your little twinkling mouth.”
“Chickweed,” Rosemary scolded, “this is Peter Pan.”
The fairy's gasp sounded like a small glass bead breaking. He began making copious apologies, which Peter graciously accepted.
“We stole Twill back! He's on our side now!” Rosemary told Gwen. “We needed the dragons' help, because the pirates unleashed zombies on the island. They don't go in the woods anymore because they're afraid of the raven witch. She's really scary, but all us kids can fly faster than her, so she's not so scary to us. And the fairies can talk to her
