Again, the Little White Bird!

[Ingwaz]

This is a re-post of a story I wrote and then lost in the crash...:( Hope no one minds me doing it again!!

[Ingwaz]

Again, the Little White Bird or, Wendy’s Return to Youthfulnes
A short by Katherine Brown. Based on the characters of Peter Pan by Sir J. M. Barrie



Wendy heard the children crying at first, but she couldn’t tell whether it was real tears or not. Pretend tears had been such a large part of her life for so long: and pretend meals, and pretend flights back to the place where everything seemed more real, hopeful, more....alive, than the places here in London. But Wendy had not flown for years, yet earth was waving goodbye. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed the children were laughing. Mocking? Or, glad? But she had forgotten how to fly. Nothing mattered anymore.

If only there could be one last glimpse of the sun coming over the Mermaid Lagoon–one last frolic inside clouds of gunpowder above the Jolly Roger. ‘But I am an old woman, Peter,’ she whispered quietly into her pillow. "I should have grown up years ago. It is too late,” a pause for a sigh, a breath of air; “I am a young woman stuck in an elderly, caged body. I am a child inside, you see, oh, thank you.” One of the many grandchildren she had came to check on Wendy, bringing a cool cloth for her forehead. “Gramma, who are you talking to?” The youngest one, Marie. Oh, maybe there is time yet for her to know, to understand. But would there be pixies for this beautiful youth? After all, nine-going-on-twelve was so very, very old. Wendy took the cloth in a happy way to hide her sadness, taking some of the granddaughter’s little fingers in hers. Deathbeds were so quiet. Listen, listen quickly now, girl, and sharply–

“My child,” said Wendy. “You must tell me, do you know where you go after you fall asleep at night?” Breath was getting hard. Little Marie looked frightfuly into her Grandmother’s shining eyes. “M-maybe I should get Mother,” she stammered.

“Ooh, no, she never did understand. But quick, he is upon us. Open the window, my love,” Wendy could feel herself losing hope of getting her blossoming grandchild to know in time. Jane never did speak a word nor raise a finger about Peter Pan to her children, she never was one for fairy tales. Oh, what little Wendy’s first born knew, what she did not pass on to the next generation!

“Don’t fluster, I’ll be fine. The window...” Sitting up on her propped-up pillows, Wendy patted the blanket next to her. Worriedly, Marie dashed the window open. A delicate smelling, cool breeze dashed through the room, daring to take the breaths’s away from the two gossipers. Marie sat up next to her Grandmother, putting her small hands around her neck. Holding on for as long as she was allowed.

“Don’t grow up, never! Let your body age, Marie, but never your heart or soul or eyes or ears, keep them clean and never listen to those who are so well-spoken. Peter Pan has no love for grown-ups, it is why he stopped loving me many years ago.

“Keep an eye out for Fairies and never, never stop believing! Some day maybe, you will escape the horribleness of my daughter, your mother, and fly away. You could become a Lost Boy –a Lost Girl, think of that! You will see the lands I have longed to see and smell and love again, all these years later–oh Marie, the quickening! Marie, the tinkling of bells!” Wendy reached her arms out to embrace the wind, her white and silver hair rushing out of her bun as to dance around her heart shaped face. “Keep the kiss forever in the right corner of your mouth, oh, dear, I see it so clearly!” The wind grew heavy and the blinds on the window whipped as the *******ial wind sang a familiar song of panpipes.

Just then, Jane and her husband–a no-gooder, in Wendy’s eyes, just like her own father: lost in stocks and pounds and numbers! New machines and the electronic lamps that had taken place all over the streets of the once Romantic London–dashed in. A few of the grown lost boys who Wendy loved dearly, their voices laughed and cried harder. “Mother, stop it, what’s wrong?” Jane’s green eyes lighted like trees–‘Nooo, don’t goooo!” Marie sobbed.

“You can find me, Marie, in the place you go after you sleep,” Wendy said. Could she go back? Was she really that old? Caged up inside was a little girl who wanted to go home, and Wendy knew this. It seemed within the seconds of her hovering over the bed, the very moments she started to fly out the window, that Wendy Darling had lost all her wrinkles and pain and age.

“But where would that be?” Jane sobbed, almost believing. Wendy, now young and blithe and ever-so-blond, laughed and skipped over the moon and flew away for forever to the second star on the right. Her impish giggles rang into the room as the panpipes grew louder, the tinkling bells roaring now like a church’s bells. “Never Land, my loves, Never Land!”