Chapter 17 #2
Laughter and tears passed between them as time seemed to slow.
Maggie had never felt more blessed in her entire life.
On one hand, she found someone who wanted to spend the rest of his life at her side.
On the other, her powerful witch Mother was only a few miles away, ready to pick up where they had left off at the first moment they could.
Maggie tightened her arms around both of them.
She did not know what she had done to have deserved such wonderful things, but all she could do was thank whatever higher power had granted her a fate like this one.
Hazel pulled away after a few more moments, swiping at her stray tears with the edge of her sleeve. “Luckily, I’ve got some tea already ready inside. Come along, you two.” She hooked her arm around Maggie’s, holding her close to her side. “There are some things I’d like for you to see, my dear.”
When they entered the cabin, Maggie was filled with the overwhelming sense of belonging somewhere.
At first she wasn’t quite sure what that even felt like, but as the sensation settled into the center of her chest, Maggie was almost brought to tears for another time that fateful day.
There wasn’t a thing she recognized in the house from her childhood, but she didn’t need to recognize it.
Everything felt like her mother, and her mother only meant one thing.
Home.
As Peter went into the kitchen, gathering the tea onto a wooden tray, Hazel led Maggie into a small library inside the cabin.
Tall bookcases sat at every wall, housing books until it was considered overfilled.
Recipes were scattered across a desk, ingredients left askew across the floor.
Hazel scooted things out of her way before landing on a wooden chest that had been stowed inside a closet.
She pulled it out by the handles, brushing away the dust from an inscription on the center.
Hazel ran her fingers along the letters.
“Marigold,” she whispered. “My favorite flower. I had planned on painting your nursery full of them, you see. It was what this room would’ve been.
” She grew wistful as she pulled a key off a chain from around her neck.
The iron key fit into the chest’s lock, and it swung open with a quiet exhale.
Maggie’s eyes widened. “A-Are these…?”
“All of your things,” Hazel murmured. She dragged her hand across the folded baby clothes, all ranging in shades of deeply emerald green to a bright and unforgettable pink.
She pulled out a stuffed bear, the tie around its neck slightly askew.
Hazel quickly righted it, pulling at the tie until it fit where it should.
She placed the bear in Maggie’s hands. “He would’ve been your first stuffed animal, my dear. ”
Maggie didn’t realize she was crying again until after the fact. She clutched the bear close to her chest, breathing in its warm smell. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into the bear’s fur.
“What did you say?” Hazel leaned in closer, though her expression seemed to say that she understood her quite well. “Whatever is there for you to apologize for, Maggie?”
“It’s been forty years,” Maggie said, choked up by her own tears. “Forty years! Aren’t you mad that it’s been this long? That I hadn’t found you yet? All this time, you –”
“Maggie,” Hazel said with a deep breath, her hands firmly grabbing a hold of her wrists.
“Nothing short of an otherworldly event could have changed what happened all those years ago. We were realms apart. If anything, it is you who should house an anger for me, for not finding you soon enough. I-I wish…if I could change…if there was a way to –”
Maggie let her arms fall around her mother for another time.
“Do not say that,” she whispered. “Do not regret this. I am grateful beyond belief. To have lived a life like I have, to have never turned to hatred, to the dark side of things despite it all – perhaps it was because I had a good mother like you all along. Guiding me, protecting me, raising me, even if you weren’t there. ”
“Dear me,” Hazel said. “I do not know what it is I have done to deserve you.”
Maggie looked back into the chest, gently setting the bear down within it before pulling out a few of the outfits lying on top.
The clothes looked to have been sewn together by hand, some with mismatched fabrics and embroidered flowers.
Every piece of clothing had an unique touch to it, making it far different than anything else.
“I’ve managed to keep everything in good condition,” Hazel explained as she pulled out a young girl’s dress. “I tend to take things out to let them breathe quite often. And, who knows, perhaps you’ll be able to use them for your baby one day.”
Maggie blurted out a sharp laugh, almost pulling a flinch out of her mother. She reached and touched her shoulder, her laugh lowering into a chuckle. “I’m sure you know as well as I that I’m a bit too old to have a child.”
Hazel eyed her oddly.
“What is it?”
Her mother backed away for a moment, her eyes cascading across Maggie’s frame before returning to her eyes. “Well then this is odd, isn’t it?”
“What’s odd?” Peter asked from the library’s entryway. He placed the tray down on the table as he drew nearer, one hand already reaching for Maggie.
Hazel shrugged. “My dear,” she began with a growing smile, “you’re already pregnant.”
“W-What?” Maggie looked up at Peter, but he looked just as perplexed as her. “D-Did you just say –”
“The King of Neverland is going to have a baby,” Hazel repeated.
Maggie found that she could hardly breathe anymore. If she thought before that there wasn’t any news capable of surprising her in such a way, Maggie was quickly proven wrong. The words hung in the air as her mouth hung open, words leaving her entirely.
Peter whipped out from beside her, his eyes as wide as a pair of balloons.
His bright eyes grew tinted as they welled with tears, an excitement beyond joy beginning to form in his gaze.
Never before had she seen him so overcome with emotion, so happy.
He reached into his pocket and retrieved a small dark case, one that pulled a gasp out of Hazel’s mouth.
“Marigold Broomlin,” Peter said as he lowered himself onto one knee.
The case snapped open as he revealed the ring that lay within, studded with a series of pearls that had been freshly collected from beneath the sea.
They shimmered and sparkled beneath the light, pulling more tears down Maggie’s face.
“I-I might’ve had this outrageously huge plan to propose in the sky, with all the Lost Boys involved, but I-I can hardly wait for that now.
You are more than everything to me. You were the dream I had always been searching for, the reason why I came to Neverland so, so long ago.
I waited all this time, and now I have no intention of letting you go. ”
He inched closer, eyes bright. “Maggie, will you marry me?”
Maggie placed an unsteady hand over her mouth as she wept. Her mother stood over Peter’s shoulder, watching with as much excitement as her. And without even needing another thought, Maggie spoke the words that would change her life forever.
“Yes, Peter. I’ll marry you.”