The submerged part of it is alive with coral and inhabited by the most glorious fish you could ever even imagine. Rainbow fish, shimmering fish, fish whose scales change colour as they swim. The way they move under the water, they sparkle like jewels, and I can’t help but frown as Peter casts out his fishing line.
“But they’re so pretty,” I pout.
He shrugs, indifferent. “You can kill pretty things.”
My face falters. “You mean eat pretty things.”
“Right.” He nods, sitting down on the rock, yawning.
Calla’s and my eyes catch. Funny isn’t it, the camaraderie women can find in the darker places we sometimes find ourselves in, which isn’t now! I’m nowhere dark. In fact, it’s impossibly light! And wonderful. I just—I suppose both of us each were the slightest bit silently uncomfortable with what Peter may have just inadvertently and probably accidentally implied and our minds will bury soon anyway.
Rye drops a crabbing net into the water and then goes and sits next to Peter, glancing over at him, equal parts confused and curious.
“I’ve got to ask, Pan.” He grimaces for a second. “How did you do it?”
Peter frowns. “Do what?”
Rye gestures to his form vaguely. “Grow…up?”
I shake my head at him. “Isn’t that the wrong question?”
They all look over at me.
“I mean—” I shrug. “The question really is how on earth did he stay young?”
“We’re not on Earth,” Calla tells me unceremoniously.
I roll my eyes at her, but then I hone in on Peter. “How did you do it?”
Peter’s eyes flicker with a sort of excitement that he gets when he knows something you don’t. He likes to have things other people don’t have. He likes to know things other people don’t know. To call it a superiority complex would be oversimplifying it. To say he loves control sounds incredibly harsh, but perhaps still it is more apt.
Calla doesn’t like how Peter’s looking at me, with his half-baked smile, like it’s a secret he’ll make me work for, and I would. There’s not much I wouldn’t do to keep him looking at me like that, because I’m sure his gaze is at least fifty percent comprised of the breadseed poppy.
A sound from the back of Calla’s testy throat and the mood breaks. “Everyone knows how he stays young.”
I lay my hands in my lap and sit up a bit straighter. “I don’t,” I tell her pointedly.
Peter stares at me a few seconds before he pats the ground next to him.
A little bit to annoy Calla and a lot because I just want to, I go and sit by him. He wriggles in closer to me, and we’re shoulder to shoulder.
You’d think maybe I’d be used to it by now—because we share a nest—that we’d brush up against each other at night, but he rolls as far from me as possible. Sometimes he builds almost a pillow wall that goes between us. The first night I asked him what he was doing, he said he didn’t want me to kick him in the middle of the night. I couldn’t tell whether he meant it in our metaphorical way or in a literal way, but ultimately the takeaway should be that he touches me less than you might have thought.
That sort of thing can do a number on your thinking when you watch him so easily touch someone else.
So sitting next to him on this magical, mysterious rock, our shoulders brushing when he moves his hand so it’s a bit behind my back, almost like his arm is around me—but not quite, because he wouldn’t, because he’s Peter Pan and that’s too grown-up—; but in this particular moment, I feel how I thought I’d feel this whole time I’ve been in Neverland, I suppose.
Peter leans in close to me and whispers, “I found it.”
I glance at him with waiting eyes. “You found what?”
He gives me a look. “The fountain.”
I frown a little. “Of…”
Calla groans again. “Youth, stupid.”
That makes Peter laugh more than I’d have liked it to, like he thinks I really might be, so I glare over at her. My feelings are wearing thin now. I’ve never felt stupid before. Never been called it so often either actually.
Also because Calla’s just mean for no reason.
“Did you really?” I ask, looking back at Peter—just Peter. I widen my eyes, make myself look more enraptured by his story than I am hurt by his disregard.
I will, in time, learn the art of this incredibly well.
Peter nods proudly.
I lean into his arm a bit, stare over at Calla as I do, and Peter swallows.
“Did you know on Earth that they think it’s in Florida!”
“What’s Florida?” Rye asks, and I give him a dismissive shrug.
“It’s just like a giant swamp and the bottom of America.”
Calla lifts an impatient eyebrow. “What’s America?”
I purse my lips. “The place where the queen doesn’t live.”
“A queen doesn’t live here either,” Peter tells me.
“We did used to have a king though,” Rye tells me. “A fairy king.”
“Oh.” I blink, interested. “What happened to him?”
Calla shrugs and so does Rye but differently—she shrugs as though she’s bored, and he shrugs as though he’s sad not to have the answer—but Peter drags his hand over his throat, holding my eye.
“Dead?” I balk.
Peter nods firmly.
“How do you know?” I look from him to Rye.
Rye sighs placatingly. “He doesn’t. It’s a long story.” He pauses. “It’s a bad story.”
“And I,” Peter straightens up, “have a good one.”
“Sorry,” I shake my head. “The fountain of youth.—Well, so where is it?”
Peter stares at me a few seconds before he tosses his head back and laughs. “Nice try.”
I blink at him, a bit in disbelief. “You’re not going to tell me?”
Rye looks past Peter to catch my eye. “He won’t tell anyone.”
“No one knows.” Peter shrugs. “Just me and, like, three grown-ups.”
“Well, who?” I ask, feeling annoyed about it in case I should like to be young forever.
Peter yawns. “Dunno.”
“So you just found it?” I ask with a frown.
He nods. “There was a nice shimmer to it, so I tried it, and then I just didn’t get old after that.” He lies back on the rock behind, but not before taking his shirt off and tossing it away.
He is regrettably handsome like this. Actually, he’s regrettably handsome whichever way you slice him.
I swallow and he notices, grinning up at me. “Kicked now?”
I lie down, facing him on my side. “Yes,” I whisper quietly.
He moves in closer towards me. “Good,” he whispers back.
Then there’s a big splash as Calla dives in. “Peter!” she calls. “Peter, come in. The water’s perfect! Your favourite kind of temperature.”
“Just a bit cooler than a cool bath?” Peter asks, sitting up immediately.
Calla is barely through her nod when he dives in after her. His head pops back up after a moment, and he sighs with a deep contentment.
Rye and I catch eyes, and he gives me a look.
“But still then,” I call to Peter. “How are you big now?”
He shrugs, shoving his hands through his hair. “I just didn’t take any for a while.”
Rye frowns, interested. “How long a while?”
Peter shrugs again and duck-dives under the water, and it feels incredibly deliberate and well timed. He stays down long enough that the fact that we asked him a question and he didn’t answer drifts gently from our minds, like a cloud floating through a portion of sky.