Waiting for the Stars | ✓

Chapter Six

A/N: Song above called Neverland by Abstract. I love this song. And that poem thing Cara says below is from Neverland by Zendaya.
Enjoy!

---

As we soared above the town that never loved me

I realized I finally had a family

Soon enough we reached Neverland

Peacefully my feet hit the sand.

---

Cara Darling had grown up, no matter how much she did not want to.

Of all the ways to grow up, she had a fairly nice one. A man named Michael Carpenter, who had always been interested in her, had wanted to marry her. He was part of a rich family, and thus came with a comfortable lifestyle, and Miss Leanne deemed it good. So they were married.

Michael liked Cara's home very much; so they didn't move into his. He sold his old house and got a lot of money for it, money that he used to repair their new house, to fix the crumbling and to repaint the walls.

Because of their immense wealth, Cara had no need to work. She was the housewife, supposed to be gossiping with the other rich, lovely ladies down the street while the servants cooked dinner and did the laundry. She didn't do that.

Instead, she would go down to the forest. She loved walking through the trails and enjoying the scenery, the way the light played off the edge of a green leaf and turned it gold.

It was a nice time to be alone, too.

She walked through the trees, in the most peaceful of trances. It came over her much more than before, a music more beautiful than the sun, would fill her mind, and she'd get lost in it.

She gazed upon the trees and flowers, and she was so gentle and lovely that the animals were not afraid of her. Birds and rabbits watched her from afar; as she slowly traipsed through the woodland.

She turned about a bend, and watched a roaring river of ice blue tumble off a waterfall, gathering foam and lilies and filled the mind with the strongest feeling of quiet power.

The music grew ever louder in Cara's head and she closed her eyes and smiled, paying no attention to where she was going.

Come away with me...

Cara spun into the green-gold light of the sun, raising her arms.

Come away with me...

Cara stumbled through the underbrush, opening her eyes with delight, and she began to run through the trails, crashing through the leaves, following a voice that sang in her mind and played a pan flute.

Come away with me...

So she ran, laughing and listening all the while to the sound of his flute, the sweetest notes that trilled through the trees and made the birds soar into the bluest sky.

Come away with me...

And she stopped, standing over the edge of a cliff, her heart pounding.

Trembling, she took a step backward, looking outward.

The clouds gathered in the sky, opening a portal for the most infinite ocean. Cara stared into it, her heart filled with such a longing that it soothed even the fairy music strung on her soul.

Come away with me...

Cara looked down at the city below her, a place of people and bustling and bread and good smells, and as her heart slowly broke, she turned and walked away.

And again, she was immersed into the forest.

---

Cara never slept in the same bedroom as her husband, much to her husband's dismay and sorrow. She told him that she could only sleep in her own bedroom, alone.

Cara was working on fighting back the music, for she wanted, for once, to be normal, to be a normal, loving wife. Maybe a mother. Maybe she could continue the Darling line.

But she couldn't, no matter how much she tried.

For she had fallen in love with someone she had never seen, had become transfixed by the sky. She could not leave her window.

She could never shake the image of dancing with his shadow, of her mother turning into a pillar of rose petals. No one ever thought twice of her mother again.

She looked longingly up at the sky. She couldn't even sleep anymore.

"We could sail away tonight," she whispered. "On a sea of pure moonlight."

The music tugged at her mind insistently, and finally, she let go of herself, and allowed herself to get lost.

It swam through her ears and heart, and the wind blew in from the window and surrounded her in starlight. It reverberated against the walls of her room and exploded in her eyes like fireworks.

And she closed her eyes and spun and danced for the night, and the fairies clapped their hands and she laughed and did not think twice in her joy.

The door was thrown open and she still swayed.

The pair standing before the door looked shocked.

"She's mad," whispered Michael's mother fearfully, and her husband looked just as horrified. "Lock the room," he told his wife. "We can't have her embarrass the family."

And Cara collapsed.

---

Cara opened her eyes, laying upon a bed of skeleton leaves, a blanket of flower petals covering her body. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, wondering how on earth she had gotten on the ground.

Getting up and yawning, she stood, stretched, and walked over to the door. When she turned the doorknob, however, it did not budge.

Fear flooded her mind.

She banged insistently on the door, and she thought she heard a shriek from the opposite side.

"Let me out!" she demanded.

"The madwoman's awake, she's awake!" shrieked the same voice she had heard before. Cara's eyes widened. Her mother-in-law?

"Stay inside!" barked another voice, her father-in-law. "Stay where you are, I'm not afraid to shoot!"

"Shoot?" Cara asked in disbelief. "Where's Michael?"

"He's safe!" sobbed her mother-in-law. "He doesn't want to stay with you anymore!"

Cara shook her head, feeling all the more confused. "Wha—why? What on earth have I done?"

"You're insane, you're crazy! You talk to fairies and dance at night. You leave during the day and only come back in evening, we don't know what you do! You witch!"

Cara felt as if she had been struck across the face. She was silent.

"Don't try to escape, or the police will have you!"

Cara did not reply. She slid down to her knees and leaned her head against the door. Her room, once her only safe place, was now her prison.

She hugged her knees and wept.

She wept until she had no more tears left, and when there were no tears left, she went to stand by the window. He, the cause of her pain, he the light of her bleak darkness, was not there, nor was he ever there.

"Peter, am I too old to fly?" cried Cara. "Will you still take me, when I am no longer young?"

There was no answer, but Cara had not expected one.