Chapter 5
When was the last time Maggie Hart slept soundly?
In the span of two weeks, sleeping in the wilderness became a norm she never wanted.
She was forced to seek out safe canopies to make a small camp in, careful to make sure no lingering animal might seek her out curiously.
The sound of rivers and streams tried to rock her to sleep, but Maggie often found no relief.
Most nights, she was as solid as a statue, staring into the dark forest in front of her, always imagining what terrible thing lay within.
The inn was better. It took her a few nights to get comfortable enough in her room to even try to sleep.
The sounds of her neighbors in all directions were more frightening than she realized.
Thin walls stood between Maggie and everything else, and somehow the idea drove her anxious with paranoia.
After a while, she simmered down, becoming more and more used to the people that resided within the inn.
Most of the patrons were so pleased with Maggie’s nightly stew that they regarded her rather kindly in passing.
They kept their distance and nodded their heads with a polite regard.
But they were never comfortable rests. Maggie was usually tormented with dreams, ones that brought her hopes as high as the sky, before tumbling to the lowest of lows.
Somehow, she had the best sleep in weeks within her captor's arms.
The thought jolted Maggie awake.
That had to have been a dream, she thought to herself. Peter Pan? Neverland? It’s impossible! It’s –
A growing mass in the distance caught Maggie’s attention. She was pulled out of the nook her face was buried in, first noticing Sunny sleeping soundly along her stomach, and quickly remembered that she was in motion.
Ocean waves danced beneath them, only lapping up a short distance below Peter Pan’s feet.
If she concentrated hard enough, figures leaping and dancing beneath the sea could be seen, taking the shape of dolphins.
A few of them crashed through the surface and caught air, the spraying droplets catching in Maggie’s long hair.
Further on and approaching them rather quickly, was a jagged mass of land, the earth dark and maroon, littered with bushels of the fullest trees she had ever seen.
Rocks were erected menacingly on the outskirts of the island, acting as a sort of protective barrier to the raging sea.
The longer Maggie stared at the island, the more she realized that the world she knew had been left far behind.
Perhaps it was her innate ability to understand and weave magic.
Maybe there was another sense lying within her reach, one that was trying to tell her that the humans she feared would no longer be around to scorn her.
She didn’t know, but there was something different about these lands. Something inhuman.
Maggie’s heart skipped a beat.
Everything from the night before came rushing back to her, and suddenly, the feeling of her captor’s hands firmly grasped beneath her grew too hard to ignore.
With slow and thoughtful movements, Maggie inched back, trying to get a good look at him without giving her consciousness away.
She peered at him through the corner of her eye.
He was unimaginably magnetic. Perhaps it was the danger lying in the short, pale scars that were scattered across his skin like pretty stars, but something told Maggie that he wasn’t the dangerous sort.
What an ironic thing, she thought. My captor – not the dangerous sort.
Growing flustered with the back and forth within her mind, Maggie flinched too blatantly, and caught her captor's attention.
The man looked down with a welcoming smile, even flashing pearly white teeth.
His eyes twinkled the longer he stared, and Maggie grew still.
There was no doubting it: he was truly happy to see her awaken, as if they were old friends, as if they hadn’t spoken in ages.
The way his gaze held onto her made Maggie’s stomach flip with anticipation.
“Hey, you,” he said.
Her eyes went wide. “D-Do we know –”
“How did you sleep?” The smile that curled around his lips looked stunningly natural.
All she could do was blink at him for a few moments. Her fingers twitched nervously and found comfort in Sunny’s fur. Immediately, following a rigid pattern, Maggie petted the feline’s back in circular strokes, allowing her breathing to find a gentle rhythm.
Questions ran amok in her mind, ranging from whether the man was sane or not, or if she had lost her mind.
Further than that, there was the island that grew staggeringly large as they neared, and the events from before would tell her that it was Neverland, though that couldn’t be true at all.
And if that was Neverland, then the man carrying her would be Peter Pan.
Maggie held onto his stare, determined to have her suspicions affirmed.
Leaning on the side of being careful, she kept her focus on petting Sunny, and remained as calm as she could.
The idea of enraging the strange man clung to the back of her mind, especially with the never ending ocean still drifting directly beneath them.
“My sleep,” she repeated, seeing his pleasure grow, “was fine. Can I ask you something now?”
He grinned. “Sounds like a game.”
“S-Sure,” Maggie quickly said. As long as it gets him to answer me. “Is that Neverland?”
The man eyed the approaching island and looked disappointed. With an unamused shrug, he looked back down at Maggie with a bored expression. “Of course it is.”
Her finger pointed at him, trembling slightly. “So that would make you –”
“Peter Pan,” he interjected with a raised brow.
His flying faltered, the sensation causing Maggie to grip onto his shirt subconsciously.
“King of Neverland. Didn’t we discuss this already?
” His expression grew concerned – something that would’ve made Maggie laugh in any other circumstances. “Or are you unwell?”
“Unwell?” Maggie shook her head so hard it rattled. “Just needed to…” she searched for the right words to say, her mind already racing. “To hear it again.”
Peter’s perplexed expression remained that way for only a second longer, his concern not great enough to hold his attention for too long. He eyed the island with a growing excitement. “Well, I’ll tell you all there is to know of Neverland.”
Maggie watched him closely. “Is it truly full of magical creatures, then?” Not entirely a question required for her safety, but something she believed she needed to know all the same. After all, all children had heard the fairytales of Neverland, but no story suggested it might actually be real.
“Oh, yes,” he replied. “There are countless magical creatures there. More than you might imagine.” The corner of his lip perked up mischievously, his eyebrow waggling. “Things few humans have ever seen before.”
Her captor’s humor was entirely unexpected.
Once again, Maggie was far too blown away at her circumstances to even think of the words she needed to say.
For much longer than what was normal, Maggie only stared into Peter Pan’s crystal colored eyes, searching for the reality within the illusion she surely had been dropped within.
The only thing she seemed capable of doing was figuring out where exactly she was, and with who exactly.
Drawing in another deep breath, Maggie focused on the man and tried her best to remain as level headed as possible.
“I also wondered–”
“Another question?” Peter quickly asked.
She raised a brow. “I mean, wouldn’t you have questions in my shoes?”
That seemed to tickle him. Peter’s eyes twinkled and his grin grew into something more like a smile, one that warmed Maggie’s heart instantly. “You’re not wearing shoes,” he murmured.
Unnerved by the state his smile put her in, Maggie ripped her gaze away and focused on petting Sunny. Her heart hammered to an unnatural rhythm, but she shook her head and ignored the unsettling sensation.
A new mantra repeated in her head: find out the now. Go from there.
“Did you really kidnap me?” Maggie asked, bluntly, without charm.
But Peter did not take on the persona of a guilty man, nor one that twinged with the slightest bit of remorse.
Instead, he glowed once more, looking rather proud of himself and the predicament he put Maggie within.
“That I certainly did,” he exuberantly replied.
“And rather perfectly, might I add. Not a hair out of place – and that’s saying something for me.
But –” he paused, his eyes trailing down to the feline resting in Maggie’s lap.
“Besides the best friend, I suppose. Other than that, spotless.”
“He’s called a cat.”
“A cat then.”
A throng of emotions teetered on the verge of releasing as Maggie watched the King of Neverland practically brag about kidnapping her.
Her eyebrow twitched, something she inherited from her mother’s side of the family.
Irritation threatened to make her snap out at him, but she quickly remembered where they were, and how he could decide her fate in the matter of a single motion.
Regaining her calm composure and strengthening her pets along Sunny’s golden fur, Maggie eyed him coolly.
“Why did you kidnap me?” she asked.
For the first time since he had taken her from the inn, Peter Pan grew serious.
A shadow crossed his bright eyes as his thick brow became furrowed.
When he grew rigid in the face, his jawline became sharp and refined beneath his growing beard.
He looked like a marble statue, carved and chiseled into a creature capable of changing with the flip of a coin.
Peter thought for a moment before he spoke, the nature of his flying growing more tense. “I’m sure you believe you know Neverland,” he began in a low voice.
“Well, I –”