But even as surreal as it all seems, the beauty of the island overwhelms—the staggering heights of the pink cliffs shot through with silvery veins of glittering crystal, the jeweled green of the jungle growth clinging to the rocky land. The flowers dotting the lush green with bright bursts of color are all more vibrant, more breathtaking than anything I’ve ever seen.
The sheer cliffs of the coastline soon give way to hilltops covered by a thick carpet of impenetrable vegetation. Everywhere below us, the jungle shivers and pulses with life. The broad glossy leaves of the plants ripple in the still morning light, their enormous flowers opening and closing like hungry mouths. But just as unmistakable as the beauty here is a feeling of danger so thick that it stirs in the very air.
Adjusting his course, Pan plunges into the jungle itself. He glides effortlessly along the canopy of trees, and then descends beneath their limbs, continuing along the jungle floor. Branches shift and move, creating a path through the jungle, as though the island is welcoming him home. On and on we fly, until it feels as though there will never be anything more than this green surrounding me, alive and threatening. Eventually, though, the trees ahead begin to thin, and I hear the rushing sound of water.
Pan chuckles at my gasp when we enter a wide clearing anchored by a towering waterfall. He touches down and gently lowers me to my unsteady legs, but he doesn’t release me.
Instead he leans in close, like he wants to tell me a secret. “Welcome to Neverland, Gwendolyn.”
How long ago was it that the Captain gave me those same words, not as a gift as Pan offers them, but as a threat, a warning? It feels so much longer than a handful of days. And with my memories of the time before so hazy, it’s hard to imagine I even had a life before my captivity on the Captain’s ship or before I was brought to this world.
I take a deep breath to steady myself and use the opportunity to look around. We are in the center of a wide, level valley. On one end, across a smooth, clear lake, water glints in the morning light as it cascades from a steep rise of rose-colored rock. And anchoring that rock is a towering waterfall that’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. The falls remind me of the tumbled tiers of a wedding cake and each step throws up clouds of mist that shimmer in the soft light. It’s like watching a living prism, the rainbows within the mist shifting and dancing over the many pools.
The Captain had tried to explain that we were no longer in the human world. After all I saw on his ship, after all I experienced, I came to believe him, but now, standing here in this place in the very heart of the island, my heart understands the truth. “This really is Neverland,” I say with a kind of strangled awe. And if this is Neverland, how much more could be true?
Pan takes me by the hand and leads me forward, closer to the edge of the mirrorlike surface of the lake. “Welcome home, Gwendolyn, my dear.”
Home.
A feeling of joy crashes through me, and for a moment I can’t help but accept the absolute rightness of his words. A longing wells inside me so startling, so complete, it shocks me.
Because this place isn’t my home. And I can’t let Neverland become my home. But there is something about the land around me that pulls at me. Calls to me in a way I cannot remember ever having felt before.
Covering my reaction the best I can, I gently pull my hand away from his grip and touch the stones at my wrist, forcing myself to remember my life from before. But the memories that surface are hazy and indistinct. And they aren’t easy or comforting.
I can’t seem to envision any of the places I’ve lived, but I can remember the overwhelming feeling of rootlessness, of being unsettled and out of place time and again. Of knowing that each move we made was only a stop—a pause that let me settle just long enough to almost get comfortable before I’d be uprooted again. But I don’t remember any of those stops ever really feeling like a home.
Even through the murkiness of my memory, I know I’ve never had a place that truly felt like my own. But as I open my eyes again and take in the beauty around me, Pan’s words of welcome echoing in my head, there is a traitorous part of me that wonders whether this could be the home I’ve been looking for. With all this beauty around me and the almost comforting pulse of the island beneath my feet, a voice deep inside me whispers, Would it really be so bad?
I step back from Pan, unsettled by how easily I almost let myself give in. The Captain had warned me about this—he’d told me Neverland would tempt me to betray everything I once knew. I hadn’t understood . . . not really. But maybe now I’m starting to.
I can’t forget who I am and where I need to get back to. I won’t let myself be taken in by this world again.
“Gwendolyn?” Pan asks, his voice filled with concern. When I don’t answer, he lifts my chin gently. “Are you well?”