The Lost Swan

Chapter 1

Some would say that Eva has had a hard life. Eva would say that her life was cursed from the moment she was conceived. There's obviously no other explanation for the tragedies that have befallen her. Being found on the side of a highway hours after being born, two failed adoptions, being separated from her twin sister, walking through her closet door and into an unknown land, the list goes on.

Though, she will admit that finding a jungle in her closet had been one of the best things to happen to her in a long time, even if she hadn't thought so at the time. She had found a home amongst the vines and trees, settling into her place as a Lost Girl.

Peter and his Lost Boys had been just as confused as she when she appeared in Neverland, not long after her sixteenth birthday. Eva thought she had been hallucinating, that she had read 'The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe' one too many times. It had taken several days for her to truly believe she was in Neverland. Peter flying her out over the water had helped her believe that the magic around her was real, him dropping her out of the sky from fifty feet in the air had solidified that belief.

She and Peter fought often in the early days. She wanted to go home, he didn't want a girl on the island, honestly it would have made more sense for them to work on a solution together. Then she saved one of the youngest boys from drowning and that had been that. The Lost Boys helped to build her a cabin of her own (more of a shack, really, but who is she to complain?) and she took on a more active role on the island.

The day she found Neverland, or, rather, the day Neverland found her, she had been planning to run away from the group home she had been shoved in. Her bookbag had been packed with her meager worldly possessions: her baby blanket (white knit with purple ribbon), two beat up and mismatched series of books ('Anne of Green Gables' and 'The Chronicles of Narnia'), a stolen MP3 player, the three pictures she had of her twin, and the news article detailing how she and her sister had been abandoned shortly after their birth.

While the MP3 had become useless upon her appearance on the fairytale island, the Lost Boys always begged her to read them her books. It was a nightly ritual, they would eat together, she would read a chapter of their current book, and then Peter would play his flute.

-

Eva and Colin sit in the middle of a clearing, the younger boy sitting in the girl's lap. Colin lounges back against her as Eva weaves vines together, attempting to make a shoulder bag. She is not yet sure if she's succeeding.

"Evie?" The four year old tilts his head back, brown eyes staring at her intently. She hums in response, eyes glaring at the mess of weaving in her hands. "Will you tell me a story?"

Eva tears her eyes away from her work, turning her attention back to her small charge. Smiling slightly, she sets the vines aside to wrap her arms around the boy, tucking him into her chest.

"What kind of story, sweetheart?" She begins to run her fingers through his hair as he snuggles into her.

"One of your stories." He says the statement as if the answer should be obvious. Eva rolls her eyes but a grin pulls at her lips.

"Hm, how about the first time Peter took me flying?"

Colin straightens, excitement filling his features. "Yes!"

Eva laughs, squeezing the toddler once more before leaning back against the fallen tree behind her. Colin resettles himself in her lap, playing with the hem of her shirt as she begins the story.

"Well, it was only a few days after I arrived. You remember how I came here, right?"

"Mhm! You went through your closet. Like Lucy!"