The boy didn't look at the fairies. He cast his furious and sad expression at an innocent holly bush that had done nothing to wrong him. “Queen Mab taught me how to fly,” he muttered. “She showed me, in Kensington Garden.” His eyes seemed so focused, as if they looked at the memory itself, not the holly bush in front of him. “And then I flew to Neverland.”
Gwen felt a chill pass through her heart and leave a cold residue behind. Peter had called for help, and no one could come to his aid. Some lacked the will, others the ability. She couldn't tell which stung him more. She didn't know how to comfort him, but it didn't matter. Proud Peter wouldn't have wanted her comforting.
Cobweb apologized again, but when her elegant words didn't draw Peter's eyes or response, she and Puck had little recourse but to bid him farewell.
Peter didn't answer their goodbyes. He didn't watch as they flitted back to the sky, back to England… a home and country so long abandoned, it didn't have any relevance to Peter at all.
Chapter 7
The hours seemed longer and shorter, slipping like sand through a bottle-necked hour-glass. Gwen helped where she could, but found her primary purpose in a role of moral support. Neverland's defenses depended on the rich imaginations building them, and Gwen couldn't compete with the vibrant whims of two dozen children. When she rigged nets, they laid inert on the ground, no matter how long she left them. She lacked the imagination to fertilize them into spring-loaded traps. Instead, she made sure meals got cooked, she washed the clothes in the dress-up chest, and she felt very grown-up for someone defending Neverland. She tallied the days, paged through Jay's sketchbook, and wondered, with a violent guilt, if she would really suffer so much if adults came and called an end to this magical vacation from reality.
But she still told stories, and every evening that the children gave her their unabashed attention, staring up at her and delighting in every plot twist and mysterious reveal, she felt at home in Neverland. At Rosemary's request, she had started the unfinished story of Margaret May and her magical music box, from the beginning. The lost children had never heard any part of the story, and Rosemary herself had forgotten almost everything besides the raven tree.
She knew she had three nights to tell it when she began that evening. Gwen tried not to worry that it might be the last story she ever told around Neverland's campfire. She had only uneasy sleep that night, and woke in the morning to a day much the same as the previous.
Dragging a basket full of dirty dishes to the creek, Gwen wished she had some more glamorous roll to play in this fantastic drama. She tried to find satisfaction in sparing the children their chores during this adventure.
The morning sun trickled down through the treetops and seemed a very dull gold by the time it reached her. The basket of metal and porcelain dishes weighed heavy in her arms, and her troubled mind weighed heavy in her head. Rosemary and Twill now led the sand castle team, and she knew Newt and Sal were hard at work expanding their tunnel system. The rest of the children had scattered all over, rigging booby traps and dreaming up other defenses. She didn't expect any interruptions on her way to the creek.
To be fair, she wasn't interrupted. When she stopped, it was not due to any stimulus or exclamation. She was simply overcome by the feeling that someone was watching her. Unnerved, she set her basket down and looked around. She didn't see anyone. Unable to shake the feeling, she looked up.
Resting on the bough of a nearby tree, a fat and striped cat had its eyes fixed on her. The orange creature looked a great deal like her old house cat, Tootles, whom she and Rosemary had left behind.
The cat wore a wide smile, with its teeth bared in full.
Gwen didn't even know cats could smile so wide. She'd seen her fair share of happy felines in person and silly cat pictures on the internet, but they always kept their mouths closed—or else they showed only their front teeth. This cat had an almost human smile fixed to its face. It certainly wasn't Tootles, and yet it reminded Gwen of her cat back home. She didn't like these strange new creatures appearing in Neverland. Did they really imitate the memories that informed her imagination, or had she grown so homesick she couldn't help but project Jay's tone onto mysterious voices and Tootles's fur onto foreign cats?
Since it had such a disturbingly human mouth, Gwen wondered if it might be able to speak. “Hello?” she asked it.
The cat grinned even wider, which in itself seemed impossible. “Hello,” it replied.
Gwen looked around again, almost hoping someone else would come along to verify what she was seeing. For the first time in Neverland, she felt like she was going crazy.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“That depends a good deal on who you think you are,” it replied.
“I'm Gwendolyn Hoffman,” she announced.
The cat twisted its head over. “I'm sure you are, but that wasn't the question. Who do you think you are?”
Confused, Gwen answered, “I know I'm Gwendolyn.”
“How?”
She was not accustomed to being interrogated by cats. “It's printed on my birth certificate.”
“Oh, but so much nonsense gets printed these days, one can hardly trust what one reads. Certainly you don't believe everything you see printed,” the cat replied.
“Well no, but—”
“Then again,” the cat interrupted, “if almost nothing but nonsense gets printed, it follows that you may be living in a very nonsensical world, at which point it is better to simply believe the nonsense than go crazy trying to avoid it.”
“It isn't nonsense! My name is Gwen!”
“That's a whole other sort of thought
