8. Peter
8
Peter
I didn’t stop running.
Not when I ran past clearings I played in with Timothy and Will and Jessie and Aurora.
Not when I leapt away from trees where I hid my things, the roots packed tight with blankets we would sometimes nap on when the sun was high and warm on our faces.
“Peter!” Jessie called as I ran on. “Are you okay?”
“Did you see him?” I heard Will bark out a laugh. “He looks even older now. He’s ancient .”
Was I? I didn’t know. There’d been a lot of sunrises and sunsets in my life, but every day went by like the one before it. Well, every day until Everett had come and things started to change.
I wanted to be alone, and I didn’t want to stop where anyone could find me. It wasn’t even the other kids that I was afraid of. It was?—
It was Everett, rushing out of his house and asking for my dad .
It was the idea that I’d ever had a dad at all, when clearly, somehow, I’d lost him. Was that a thing? There were lost kids and we played and it was great. But were there lost dads and lost moms, just like Everett’s grandma’s lost dog?
All the sudden, sadness crashed over me. It was agony —a branch laden with snow breaking overhead, that chill that got deep in your bones and left you gasping for air.
I hadn’t just lost Everett, I’d lost everything , and I couldn’t even remember having it. I never...I never had .
I’d had the kids and games and forever ; why did that feel so bitter now?
I folded myself into the roots at the base of a big tree and gasped into my knees. I couldn’t breathe. Was I?—
What happened when people stopped playing? What happened when they couldn’t breathe and couldn’t breathe and couldn’t breathe and finally, it was too late and they stopped trying?
Had it happened to me? Was it happening right then?
I sobbed into my legs, shivering when small, warm fingers brushed the nape of my neck. I stayed there, like that, knowing Aurora was beside me the whole time. I couldn’t stand to lift my head, to meet her eyes, to know that things were different and no matter how hard I wished, they could never go back to what they’d been before.
Now, I knew what it was like not to be able to breathe. I—I knew what it was like, not just to be lost, but to lose...to lose everything .
And I was losing them too! I was—I was going to be something beyond lost, and I was scared. I hadn’t ever been scared, not before Everett. Not before he said he was going away.
I’d pushed it down and down and down and all the while, I’d fallen into that hole I’d carved trying to bury my fear. It was closing over me.
My sobbing got louder, and Aurora whispered soothing noises, finally falling to her knees at my side, wrapping her arms around me tight, pulling me close. Did she know what happened after getting lost? Did she know what came next?
Sometimes, it’d seemed like she knew everything.
“It’s okay, Peter,” she whispered, her chin pressing into the top of my head. “I promise, it’s going to be okay.”
“No it’s not,” I whined, turning into her. My tears soaked the frills of her dress. “It’s going to be different. I don’t want—” I shivered. If I said the words, that’d make them real, and while they’d been hanging over me for a long time, I—I didn’t want them to be real.
“I don’t want to leave,” I choked out. “I don’t want to go.”
A fresh wave of tears swelled up inside me, and Aurora hugged me tight. “You don’t have to, Peter. You never, ever have to.”
My breath shook, but I nodded. Good. That was good. Maybe I just wouldn’t, and things would go back to how they’d been. Time would stop feeling heavy, and the hook in my chest that Everett had buried there would disappear, and I’d play. I’d be like I was, not grown up or growing, but just Peter.
“But I think you know it’s time,” Aurora whispered, her hand on my face, tilting it up. “And that’s okay, Peter. It’s good .”
“It’s awful,” I whispered back. “I’m scared.”
“Yeah.” She nodded, and there was sadness sparkling in her bright blue eyes that I’d never noticed before. “It’s awful and scary too.”
“I don’t want to be different. I don’t want to be alone.”
She shook her head. “You won’t be.”
I flinched. Did she mean Everett? “He left ,” I spat, angrier than I could ever be at her.
“He came back too, but I’m not just talking about your friend. Everybody grows up, Peter. We’re the weird ones, and we have a great time, don’t we? But it’s not forever and ever. It’s just for a little while.”
“You haven’t left.” My voice shook when I said it, but Aurora had been there already when I—I didn’t even remember getting there, but some of the kids had come after. All—all of the other kids had come after. I hadn’t remembered that until right then, because once they were there, it was like they always had been. But they hadn’t.
First, it was just me and Aurora out here by ourselves.
“Not yet,” she said, blinking slowly, her chin tucked down a little. “You’re my oldest friend, Peter. I could never leave you.”
“And I can’t leave you! I won’t!”
She laughed, but her eyes were shining strangely and it broke my heart. “You’re not. You won’t. You can stay and you can change—I promise, you can do both. Just...maybe you won’t stay in the woods anymore.”
She had a point. The wind was colder than I remembered it ever being, the ground was wetter, the creatures out in the shadows sounded louder.
“Then where do I go?”
“There’s something out there, outside the forest, that you want, isn’t there? Maybe start there.”
“With Everett?” I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted. Sure, I nabbed the toys from Cider Landing and hid them away, but that was because I missed Everett. He was the reason I went back.
Aurora nodded. “He did come back. Not everybody does.”
I wanted to ask her if she really thought he still wanted to be my friend or remembered me. I had so many questions bouncing around in my heart, but Aurora wouldn’t be able to answer them.
Maybe I...Maybe I did want answers. So I’d have to go back and hear out the only person who could give them to me.
Before I left, Aurora pressed a coin into my hand, strangely warm and heavy. “For whatever you need,” she promised, folding my fingers around it.
It took me a long time to get back to Everett’s house. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go. My legs were heavy, and my toes were cold in the mud.
When I got back to Everett’s house, I saw him sitting on the porch, but I didn’t realize he was asleep until I got up close and heard the soft rumble of his breath. A bottle had rolled across the old floorboards, and as I sneaked closer, I saw he had something in his hand. A paper.
Gingerly, I plucked it from his grip, and there was an old picture. It was black and white, and the people were strangely familiar.
I stared for a long time, until I remembered her face. It’d started with honey cakes that she’d make and set on the windowsill. They’d smelled so good, so I would sneak up and snatch them, and she’d always bake more. I must’ve stolen a dozen before she caught me, but when she had, she hadn’t seemed angry. She’d just smiled and sat down on her porch and offered me another. She’d said my name like she’d always known me, and she’d asked me questions—where I slept and what I did and who my friends were.
I’d tell her everything, because we had such grand adventures. But sometimes, her smile would turn sad and she’d ask about my parents. I didn’t have parents, I’d told her. They were stupid. Parents didn’t let you play and made you do chores and go to bed before the sun was even down. I was glad I didn’t have parents, but I did like her cakes.
She said that she’d keep making them if I’d come back and visit her, so I did.
The last time I’d seen her, she’d had wide, pleading eyes. There were always purple circles beneath them, and her smile had been harried. It’d made me uneasy, when she grabbed my hands so tight and said that she was leaving. Her husband was making her leave, she said, and wouldn’t I please, please come with them?
I’d torn my hands from hers and run into the woods while she cried and cried. It’d been a long time before her husband had come to gather her up.
The next day, I’d watched from the shadows as he’d packed up his whole family—the sad-eyed woman and the dog and the young man in suspenders who’d loaded most of their luggage—and they’d left.
I could still feel her eyes on me as she looked over her shoulder. She stared unerringly, like she knew right where I was and would always find me, and her face had been so soft and so sad as they’d taken her away.
My breath shook on an inhale, and my hands shook as I gripped the paper, but I’d cried so much already. I didn’t want to cry anymore.
I sat down on the porch swing slowly, not wanting to wiggle it too much. I hadn’t figured out what to say to Everett yet, and I—I just wanted to sit there for a little while and pretend that it really was okay and I wasn’t alone and things weren’t changing too much.
The only thing that was different was that my friend had returned, and how could I ever be upset about that?
Biting my lips between my teeth to keep them from trembling, blinking faster than I wanted to, I leaned against his arm and shut my eyes, and if I cried again, it was only a little.