Checkmate

17. Scars and magic

Pan allowed Felix back to camp a few days later, the boy sporting a new gash across his face that had already healed into a scar, a small price to pay for his actions. Pan trusted him with very minimal tasks, but the lost boy was no longer allowed to even look at me without consequences. Despite said consequences, I caught his eyes wandering to mine every now and again, especially when he thought I wasn't looking. The boy tempting more than just his death if caught.

One evening, Pan scoured the island once again, the magic weakening by the day. The boys were sleeping after spending the entire day at the waterfall, a well-deserved day off. Only Felix and I remained at camp, clearing up after supper and rearranging a new arena layout. The evening sun was still warm and bright, even as the night approached.

Quietly I hummed the song the Felix, and I shared, my voice barely audible over the sound of the forest. After a few seconds, he started to hum it too. We both drifted off at the same time as our eyes met across the forest floor.

"I'm sorry," he mouthed silently. I felt myself smile sadly at the blond before nodding once and heading for a walk, leaving the rest of the cleaning to the lonely, lost boy.

I walked till the sun went down, fully sure I had walked the island twice over before the moon had reached its peak. "You're sad," stated the voice of someone appearing next to me in a cloud of green smoke, his step matching mine in pace.

"A little." Pan stayed silent as we walked. "How is your wound?"

"Aching, but healing." We took a few more steps, only the sound of the waves audible before he spoke again. "What are you sad about?"

"I was thinking of my mother." We walked a little more in silence as we both remembered her in our own ways. "I was thinking about everything she taught me."

"She could never have lasted as long as you have," he said finally, breaking the silence between us.

"Should I take that as a compliment?"

"Honestly, I think so," Pan admitted. Without looking, he took my hand as we walked a little further, the warm sea stealing our footsteps from the wet sand. "She was such a little bird. Timid, scared. She would have fallen down scared every time she saw me if she hadn't always been frozen in fear."

"Surely that made her brave?" Pan hummed, and we continued.

After a few more steps, he pulled us to stand still, his gaze on the bright moon ahead of us. "Would... would you like to see her?"

I almost got whiplash with how quickly my head snapped to look at him. "You, you can do that? Actually, see her, touch her? Hug her?"

"See her? Yes. Talk to her? Yes. Touch? No, I don't have the magic for that," he admitted.

"But talk to her? I can do that."

He nodded before slowly lifting his hand, mine still tight inside his grasp. "Ready?"

I smiled and nodded. "More than you know."

Instantly, he used his free hand to click his fingers and in the blink of an eye, we arrived in the foyer of mother's family home. I called out for her, but no one answered. Patiently, we waited until my gaze caught the amount of dust floating around the room and the thick layer on the floor. Our feet did nothing to agitate the thick layer of dust covering the floor, and we couldn't waft it from our faces. It was as if we were ghosts.

Once again I called out for her, eager to see her, hear her voice, even if I could no longer hold and hug her. Pan called for her too, the two of us both frozen in the foyer, our feet firmly on the mat that was used to wipe feet upon entry. I called again, yet still no one answered. The woman nowhere to be found. Exhausted and defeated, I allowed my head to rest on Pan's shoulder, finally feeling the tears fall.

My voice was as weak as I felt. "Is she dead?" My body betrayed me to break into deeper sobs. So, I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my head into his neck, unable to any longer face the empty house.

He sighed and tightened his grip around me. "I don't know." He seemed genuinely upset that he could not help.

Slowly I felt the heat of Neverland return as Pan returned us to the island, the two of us once again on the beach sand where there had been a mat not seconds before. Despite the still dark of the night, the warmth was like a blanket as the light of the moon illuminated the beach.

"Why did you want to help me?" I asked after a few seconds of listening to the sea. The waves lulling me into calm as my tears dried.

Pan shrugged at my question, unsure of the answer himself. "Maybe I wanted to apologise to her? Maybe I was curious to see how she had aged? Or maybe I just wanted to see you happy again after almost dying so many times on this island."

"To die would be an awfully big adventure," I muttered; my face still hidden in the crook of his neck.

"To live a life with you would be even more so."

I scoffed a breathy laugh. "Oh, hush." I pulled my head back to look at him, a smile on my lips. I assumed his words to be false, but after a second of silence, I felt my eyebrows twitch together at the sight of his gaze, his eyes still fixed on mine. "You...."

"How many times must I say it, Bethany?"

I sighed through my smile. "You never have before, Peter," I whispered, instantly besotted and not caring about the circumstances. At that moment, I fell for him, truly and deeply.

"Come." He stood, holding his hand out for mine. "The sun is rising."

He took us to the cliff top upon which we had fought, the one overlooking the entire island, the one on which he had stabbed me. In fact, one of my knives remained embedded in the ground from where it had been abandoned so many months before.

Arm in arm, we kissed and waited for the sunrise. Our attention switching between the sun and each-other as the sky shone many colours before finally turning a soft blue.

"Peter." He hummed in response. "Never let me leave Neverland?"

"Of course, darling." He lifted my chin with the crook of his finger. "I would never dream of letting you out of my sight." Suddenly I was aware of an extra weight around my waist, something familiar but at the same time strange. My hand reached down to find the hilt of my sword, finally returned safely. "Didn't think I would keep it forever, did you?"

"Well, you can keep me forever... if you'd like."

"Yes, my queen, I would like that very much." His head tilted as he tucked a stray tendril of hair behind my left ear. After a few seconds of absolutely blissful gazing, he lowered his lips to mine, but they never made contact.

"Peter?" I heard myself say before my vision started to blur. Peter pulled away and turned to face something, but my vision faded to black before I could turn to see what had caught his attention.