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Neverland is covered in ashes when Peter Pan steps foot on its soil again. Ice has crept over the ocean in his absence, and he can tell there was another thunderstorm from the way the ashes are dark gray rather than silver. When he lands on the beach, the ice begins to melt until there is nothing but red-tinged water stretching out for miles.
When he looks up, Pixie Hollow—the second tree on Neverland—is gone; also consumed by Neverland’s rage. Fairies are no match for an island born of magic. When Peter leaves the beach and reaches what used to be jungle, Neverland doesn’t show him images of fairies or mermaids or jungle cats. It shows him nothing but ashes and cinders and death.
Peter Pan is the last living thing on Neverland. Well—he, and the tree that bears Wendy’s home in its branches.
If he closes his eyes, he can still hear Wendy calling his name as he flies away from Wendy. He can still see her trying to pull away from him because she saw that he had new eyes.
(“Rumple’s looking for her, Peter”—how dare she take the side of the imp? How dare a stupid girl like Wendy Darling go against him, Peter Pan?)
When rage begins to simmer in his bones, he turns on his heel and strides toward the last tree on Neverland. With no jungle to weave through, it’s only a few hundred feet away, and he reaches it quickly.Peter stops in front of it and clenches his fists, calling to the island’s roots deep below. Neverland’s magic begins to stir, and vines begin to poke out of the ashes.
Peter, what are you doing? a voice cries in his head. Peter, no, you made that for her—
“Shut up!” he roars, and the vines burst from the ground to wrap around the tree’s base. He raises his hand, and the vines crawl up the trunk, tightening their hold. Wood cracks underneath the pressure, and he watches with a sick sense of satisfaction as the tree begins to splinter apart.
Neverland’s last tree crashes to the ground, the leaves smattering green across the island’s gray soil and the treehouse smashed to pieces. Glass from Wendy’s lamps and figurines from other worlds is scattered among the debris, and most of the furniture is broken. All he sees is a fallen tree and ruins of an empty bedroom.
“Get rid of it,” he orders, and turns away. When he waits a minute before facing the wreckage again, Wendy’s bed is being sucked into the ground. Moments before it disappears forever, Peter can swear he can smell vanilla and rain—smell her, one last time.
Then the moment is gone, and there is no sign that Wendy Darling has ever been on Neverland. He stares at the ashes that are left behind with a small smile on his face, and pretends he doesn’t hear Belle whisper oh, Peter in his ear.
He sits on the ashes a long time before he realizes that it’s daylight again. Neverland’s magic has been replenished—by Belle’s blood sacrifice or by his return, he can’t tell—but now it is strong enough to distinguish between night and day.
A new heart fuels us, Peter, the island whispers. Our old one had two masters.
It only takes Peter a second to realize what the island speaks of, and he scowls. My heart never belonged to that Darling girl. When the island is silent, he stands up and fists his hands. Do you want me to prove it?
Neverland does not respond, and Peter plunges his hand into his chest without a second thought. The pain makes him stagger, but he does not fall to his knees. He recovers his balance and waits for the pain to become a dull ache, pounding in time to the heart he holds in his hand.
Peter, Belle whispers. Peter, please, don’t do this. What would Wendy think?
Peter stares at the ashes below his feet and smiles as he pulls out his heart. Wendy Darling means nothing to me now, he thinks—and for the first time, the small, still voice in his head is silenced.
Though it is winter in Wendy Darling’s world, Neverland will never again have another blizzard.
When Wendy Darling sits at her windowsill, clutching a piece of paper in her hands, and chants “I believe” with her eyes on the second star, she expects Neverland’s shadow to fly through the window.
What she does not expect is to see her shadow climb through the window and sit on the window seat directly across from her. “Hello, Wendy,” her shadow greets, prim and proper at twelve years old. “How do you do?”
Wendy takes a deep breath and holds out the letter she’s written. “There’s a town named Storybrooke,” she tells her shadow. At the name of the town, her twelve-year-old self’s upper lip curls slightly and her eyes flash black for a moment.
Then her transformation is pulled back, and Wendy’s shadow is sweet, smiling and more than happy to oblige once more. She takes the letter and holds it to her heart. “And to whom shall I deliver this?”
“There’s a man there, named Rumplestiltskin, but he’s commonly known as Mr. Gold. He owns a shop—I’m sure you’ll be able to find it. It’s very important that you aren’tseen when you deliver this letter. Can you do that for me?”
The shadow leans forward and grabs her hand. Though she has solid form, her fingers are ice and Wendy can see black tendrils writhing underneath her skin. “Of course, Wendy. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Wendy smiles and gently disentangles from her shadow’s grasp. “When you’ve delivered the letter, I would very much appreciate it if you came back here.”
“Whatever for?”
Wendy meets her shadow’s gaze and forces her smile to widen. “I’d like to visit Neverland again.”
Two things happen the next morning.
One—Rumplestiltskin receives a letter of six words (Belle is dead I’m so sorry) and closes his shop for the rest of the week. Two—Wendy’s shadow reluctantly grabs the hand of a sixteen-year-old girl with dying stars in her eyes, and takes her to Neverland for a third and final time.
Her shadow had told her what to expect, but Wendy Darling had not expected a wasteland instead of a jungle. Neverland’s soil has been cleared of all remaining ash, but there are no trees, no grass; no sign of life, anywhere.
The second thing she notices is that it’s daytime on the island. The last time she saw daylight in Neverland was ninety years ago, before Neverland’s magic began to fade.
When Wendy Darling steps foot on Neverland for the third time, she can see a silhouette of Peter Pan across the island, standing on Dead Man’s Peak, which is miles away from the beach.
The moment she looks up at him, she knows that he looks down at her—and when she blinks, he is gone. “Well, well, well,” a cruel voice she’d recognize anywhere taunts, and Wendy half-turns to see Peter standing before her, a malicious smirk on his face. “If it isn’t Wendy Darling. Can’t get enough of me, can you? The moment you’re free you come flying back.”
“What did you do to Neverland?” Wendy asks. The soil shifts in front of her, revealing a sharp bone poking out of the ground, and her stomach churns at the sight.
Peter laughs, though there is no humor in his voice, and his blue eyes look unnatural in the light. “What have I done? Neverland did this to itself. It wanted a fresh start. What are you doing here, Darling?”
Wendy clenches her fists, refusing to show her fear of this new Peter—this new Peter with Belle’s eyes, who looks at her as if she bores him; this Peter who has none of the qualities that make up her Peter. “I—I—where are the other Lost Boys?”
Peter’s smirk transforms into a snarl in half a second. “The traitors are back in Storybrooke, with their new homes and families to love them. They’re nothing to me now.”
She swallows hard and blinks away the tears forming behind her eyes. “What about Felix? He’d never leave you, Peter, I know it—”
“I killed him,” Peter says, shrugging. Wendy takes a step back, the lump in her throat expanding. Her mouth goes dry and she can feel her heartbeat in her fingertips. He can’t mean that. He can’t—“I needed his heart for the curse. It’s a shame it didn’t work out, but I always knew I’d have to dispose of him eventually.”
“Why?” she gasps. Her legs feel like jelly and she sits down on the black soil, a headache pounding in time with the heart that still doesn’t belong in her chest. Felix, oh, Felix—after all this time, I thought you were all right…
Peter crouches next to her, a feral grin on his face. Tears brim in Wendy’s eyes, but she refuses to cry. Not in front of him. “Does it hurt?” he whispers, a savage glee in his voice. “He’s dead, all because of you—”
Wendy doesn’t think before she slaps him. Peter catches her arm, and Wendy releases the sob she’d been holding in her throat and a tear falls to the ground. “You’re a monster,” she screams, and wrenches her arm away from her grasp. Already, a handprint-shaped bruise is beginning to form, and Wendy scrambles to her feet. “I don’t beli—”
Peter gets to his feet and clasps a hand to her mouth, pressing his lips against her ear. “Shh, Wendy.” He tilts her head toward the ground, where she had been sitting, and Wendy stops struggling.
A small sapling—it could only reach Wendy’s knees at most—stands there, quivering in the wind and miniature leaves already unfurling from its paper-thin branches. Peter releases her and walks toward the sapling, crouching in front of it. “This is a pixie tree,” he says, and whirls around to face her. “How did you do that?”
“I didn’t—I didn’t do anything,” she whispers, taking a step back. The wind caresses her back, and she can swear that the breeze murmurs her name as it passes her. “I don’t know what happened.”
Peter vanishes and reappears in front of her. He reaches up to cup the back of her head, and Wendy doesn’t move. She stands unmoving as his other hand comes up and he brushes his thumb across her cheek, where her unwilling tears are still drying. Wendy watches him pull his hand away and flick his thumb. Her tear that clung to his thumb falls away and lands on the ground, where the island soaks it up.
It only takes another moment before a small twig sprouts from the ground, twisting, unfurling—and the end result is another pixie tree sapling. Peter sucks in a breath and glances back at her, releasing her head and stepping away. Wendy doesn’t wait for him to say something—she turns on her heel and runs.
His laughter echoes at her back, but she can hear the tinge of nervousness that taints his taunts. That fact is what keeps her going until the sun is on the verge of setting and she cannot see the beach any longer.
She keeps walking until she reaches the base of Dead Man’s Peak, then collapses against the charred stone. The wind brushes her hair away from her face, and she can feel the ground quiver underneath her.
She looks down at the soil pressing into her hands and takes a deep breath.Neverland?
The voice that replies scares and soothes her. It’s an echo of a woman’s voice in three tones; a voice she feels that she should know, but the memory eludes her. Wendy-bird, the island sighs, and another breeze tickles her face. We’ve been waiting for you to return home.
The island whispers its story in her ear, and Wendy stays awake through it all, even though night has fallen and the moon is high in the sky. It ends with Belle’s death and Peter’s resurrection, and then its silence hangs heavy in the air.
So Peter doesn’t feel anymore, she thinks. That’s why he’s so different.
Neverland sighs, a tinge of sadness in the sound. Instead of answering, the soil in front of her pulls away to reveal a dark shape the size of her fist. It’s almost completely black, but when she picks it up and turns it over in her hand—there is a large, bleeding gash down the center of the heart which pulses with scarlet light.
Her breath catches in her throat as she examines Peter Pan’s heart in her hands, but before she can reply, Peter Pan’s voice echoes across the empty island. “What are you doing, Darling?”
Wendy slowly gets to her feet and holds the heart close to her chest. I’m keeping your heart safe, Peter, she thinks, and lifts her chin. “Peter, come here.”
His eyes seem to glow in the darkness, but he’s powerless to disobey her. He approaches her until they are inches apart and she has to put a hand on his chest to stop him. Peter’s eyes are on her face, not his heart, and Wendy smiles at him as she puts his heart in his rightful place.
Peter lurches away from her and doubles over, leaning on the rock next to him for support as he paws at his chest and coughs. Wendy approaches him when his coughing fit finishes. Before she can walk around to face him, his hand shoots out and seizes her wrist, and Peter looks up at her.
His eyes are still blue, but they are no longer cold. Peter straightens and faces her, pulling her to him. “You came back. Why?”
Wendy takes a deep breath and meets his gaze. “You promised me you’d keep my heart safe. I needed to make sure that you wouldn’t break it.”
Peter raises his hand and strokes her cheek, but there is nothing gentle in the gesture. “You’re mine, Wendy-bird.”
Wendy shuts her eyes and lifts her head. “I know.” I am a queen, she thinks, and opens her eyes to brush her fingers against his face. “And you are mine, Peter Pan.”
Peter’s eyes burn blue instead of green as he grins, but she can swear that there’s something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. It’s not quite love—but it is awfully close to something like it, and that’s enough for her. She, of all people, knows that Peter Pan cannot love, or even feel anything close to love.
You’re wrong, Wendy bird, the island whispers in her ear, and there is glee in its voice. He does feel.
He feels for you.