Coralia 'Coral' Melody [Wanderer] ♥//

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The second star to the right
Shines in the night for you
To tell you that the dreams you plan
Really can come true

( B E H I N D A N A M E ) Coralia Melody
( S U G A R A N D S P I C E ) Female
( J U S T A N U M B E R ) Sixteen
( L O N G W A Y H O M E ) District One Wanderer




( S E C O N D S T A R T O T H E R I G H T )

It is a curious thing, the way a dream so vivid and beautiful can fade away to nothing at all in an instant. The way something so intense and powerful can dissolve the moment your mind wanders. No matter how hard you try to cling on to the faint whispers left behind, all you are left with is a jumble of disconnected images, as though you where never really dreaming it at all. That is what it is like for me, anyway. A tangle of broken promises never made, shards of a world left behind. Every night I dream of open beaches and emerald seas, and the sun glistening in the vast and open sky. What hurts more is that these dreams are all that I have left now. These snapshots of fairy-tale pirate ships and a dreamland where you never have to grow up. This was a place where I was not alone, where I was not trapped in District One itself. This was the only place where I was free to do as I pleased. So now, as I struggle to cling to the whispers left behind, I realise something. There are only my dreams. All I can see is the perfect swell that expands for miles and miles, the picturesque jungle-lands surrounding it, and the perfect streams and vallies that make up this world. The perfect world. The only place I know anymore. It's strange, really. When you awaken and the only thing you know for a moment is your dream. When you wait for your life to come flooding back. When it never does, and you just lie there as your dreams drift away into the night and you are left with nothing at all. All alone. No past. Just a present and the possibility of a future and a memory and a dream. One, useless, senseless memory fills me, and I am afraid. I know there is more to my story, more than this. But it is gone as if it where simply a dream. All I can remember is a time I somehow know is long ago. The smell of old books, from long before the rebellion. Fear in my heart. A man pressing a tattered old book into my hand. The memory is faded, however I somehow know which book it is. Peter Pan. The story from which all of my dreams come from. The one story I suddenly know I grew up knowing and loving and wishing for. Neverland. Where I'd never have to grow up. Where I could be free of Panem and it's entrapment. Where I could be me.

I blink my eyes open and let go of those last, faint and faded dreams. I grope desperately around in my empty mind for something to cling to,but there is nothing to be found. My eyes take only a moment to adjust to the light, and I start a little as a face stares down at me, much too close to my own. The face is rounded and wild, with a sharp, pointed nose and full, downturned lips. It is the face of a girl, maybe fourteen years old. She looks tired, worn, pale. Blinking, I frown up at her. Her face breaks into a grin. "Coral! You're awake! Oh my god, you scared me. Are you okay? Say you're okay. Please. Say it. Say you're okay-" I squint up at this obviously ecstatic stranger, who is still grinning down at me from much too small a distance. I lift a pale, petite hand and wonder at it. I do not recognise this hand. And suddenly I know that I know nothing about me, nothing at all. "Do I know you?" I ask the girl, raising an eyebrow and sitting up. Pain floods my head as I do so, and my eyesight blurs. "No! Lie down, stupid." There is affection in her voice, behind the demand, and I frown even more. Then her eyes grow wide as she takes in my words. "Do- do you know me? What do you mean, Coral? Don't mess around with me. Uh... your name. What's your name?" Gosh, this girl is thick. I'm starting to hope I don't know her, because already she's annoying the hell out of me. "Coral?" I try, my voice dripping with sarcasm. The girl embraces me, and it is all I can do to fight her away before she smothers me. "You remember. I thought for a second that you'd lost your memory and-" she speaks so fast I can barely tell one word from the next, but I manage to conclude something from her delighted jumble. "No, idiot. You just called me Coral. Now, who are you and who am I?"
The girl can tell from my tone that I am anything but messing with her. My eyes are filled with fear, despite my deathly tone. "You're Coral. Coral Melody. Oh god. Oh my god, Coral. I'm so sorry. I have to get mama. Wait here. I'm sorry. Oh god." The girl's voice is dripping with emotion, so thickly it almost sickens me in itself. I swallow, slowly propping myself up and wincing at the wave of nausea and pain that awaits me."Your mama? Wait. Who are you?" I reach out for her before she can turn and run to fetch this lady, and she looks back at me with such hurt in her eyes that even I feel like breaking into tears. Just for a moment. "Oh, Coral. I'm Marina. You don't remember me? I'm your sister. Your twin. Now, like I said, wait here and don't move. I'm getting momma." She leaves me with that, my mouth hanging open in bewilderment and surprise. Marina. The name rings no bells in my scrambled mind. Her face is as blank as a strangers. My eyes narrow. Could she be lying? No, the honestly in her eyes was baffling. I look around myself, trying to get my bearings on the sights I see. Concerete. A road. Buildings in the distance. A bare and barren landscape, made of concrete and bricks and stone. Everything grey in front of me, and a small field of dying grass behind. A high fence at my side, and blood running into my eyes from my head. My head. It pounds heavily and I close my eyes for a moment, trying to go back to that place in my dreams. It does not come.

"Coral! Wake up, mama's here. Open your eyes!" I obediently open my eyes, and the jarring brightness is gone. The sun has gone down a little, hidden behind the buildings to the west. I blink at the woman who is kneeling by my side, murmuring question after question. "What happened?" she asks, her voice unfamiliar, yet soft and comforting. I look at Marina, suddenly completely convinced that this isn't a hoax. I know where I am. District One, Panem. Yet that is all I know. Marina hesitates, before looking at the lady and beginning to cry. Her voice a hushed whisper, she kneels down beside me and speaks. "Coral was climbing the fence-" our mother draws in a sharp intake of breath and looks around in fear, but she does not interrupt. Marina goes on. "She wasn't going to leave, not really. I was telling her not to and she never does. Really, she wants to but she would never leave me here. She was just climbing it. She wasn't actually going to leave. Where you?" she looks at me, desperate for some confirmation of my motives, but all I can do is shrug. I don't know. I don't even know who I am, really. All I know is that my name is Coral Melody. I have a mother, a twin sister called Marina. I live in District One, and I was given a book about a magical land called Neverland long ago. It's not really much to go on. So I wait for the girl - Marina - to say more. She doesn't, she just gulps and rubs the tears from her eyes. Kind of pathetic, to say the least. "We'd better get you home," says my mother, after some thought. "Can you walk?" I don't know, but I don't really want these two strangers supporting me to a place I don't even know anymore, so I struggle dizzily to my feet and stumble a little. "Yes," I say simply, before struggling with my words. "I dont...I dont remember...anything. Who... I..." I stop, embarrassed by my inability to form a sentence. "You're Coralia Melody. Fourteen years old today. You live in District One with your sister and me and your little brother, in the richer side of town. When your father passed he left us with a whole lot of money. You love your family and..." my mother is staring intensely into my eyes, looking out for any sign of realisation as she speaks. None came, so she went on. "You love jewellery and pretty things. You're..." she pauses, as though she doesn't want to say what I am. Am I a bad person? I don't feel like a bad person. What if I am? The expressions of fear in my families eyes can't be fear of me, can they? I am suddenly overcome with a strange kind of emotion, a feeling of wanting to know but wanting to really start all over again. Wanting to be secure and loved. But these people love me. I know it, I can feel it in their steady concern and desperation to have me remember. So why is my mother unwilling to describe me? I let it pass, although this I don't forget.

Neverland is coming back. It is where I want to be. There I wont be confused or puzzled. There I can be happy. It's so pretty there. I wonder why I was trying to climb the fence. It startles me, because if I was really going to leave, what was I running away from? And if I was planning on staying after all, why would I be climbing the fence? A million reasons flicker through my mind, and I can only come to two conclusions. To make a scene - for attention, and to be honest I have no idea what I would be prepared to do anymore. The second reason, the one that would explain why I was leaving and where I was going, is more simple. To escape the boundaries of Panem and to never grow up. To like, like Peter, in a world that is the only thing I can remember. I ponder my current state of mind - who I feel like, and how those around me react to my every whim. I'm no Wendy. No Tinkerbell, either. No sheltered, quiet Tigerlily, and certainly no pirate. I don't know who I would be. A lost girl, perhaps? I certainly feel lost and alone right now. No, I'm not so guided by people, at least, I don't think I am. No. I'm a mermaid. I'm not sure if I can swim or not, but it's hardly relevant. I feel insecure, kind of vain and materialistic. Demanding and maybe even manipulative. I don't think it's all so bad to be those things. As I walk home I let the pain swallow me and I fall silent, wondering if the blood will ever stop flowing from my temple. I think of how much worse I could be, and decide that whoever I was before, I will be fickle and disloyal now. I didn't leave this place I so obviously wanted to leave because I couldn't leave my sister. I don't have a sister anymore, not one I know, anyway. So I am free to leave this place forever, and to be fickle and dishonest and loyal and materialistic as I like. I will never be forced to grow up, or take responsibility for my own actions, or the hearts of others. I've got to leave, before I start loving this family again, as I once did. To Neverland. I know how to get there.

When we reach the house, the blood has stopped flowing and my sister is looking like death. I realise then that that is what I look like - she is my twin, and looking at her is like looking in a mirror. Those wide and haunting eyes, those sharp features - they belong to me. The smattering of freckles on her upturned nose, the gentle, sloping curves of her slim body. Mine. It's vain of me, I know, but I am pretty. That is not the problem. The problem is that Marina is beautiful. I am standing, looking into the mirror to stir some kind of memory, but all I can see if someone not pretty enough. My eyes are not quite as piercing a green. My skin is just a shade too pale. My body supports just a little more extra weight about it, and I can already tell that my hair is a little less tame then hers. I look at her, and I see a million tiny differences. A million tiny things that nobody else can see. Things that I know make her so much more beautiful than me. I turn away from the mirror in disgust and set myself back down at the table, where my mother lovingly jabs me with a thermometer and declares me feverish. I imagine the moment I fell in my mind. Did I fall on purpose? Surely I could never have predicted this violet loss of memory?

"Mama?" I ask, and the word feels wrong as it rolls into the nighttime air. We are inside now, but the windows are open. I shudder. My mother is by my side again in an instant, feeling my forehead with a cool hand. "Are you okay? Do you remember?" she pleads, and I am almost temped to say yes, just to take that look of agony from her eyes. "No, but it's okay. Can you tell me about myself?" It sounds wrong, I know, but I'm itching to know more about who I was only hours ago. The fragments I have managed to find so far simply don't make a picture. A reason. It's as though I've been dropped into a giant mystery. I fiddle with the corner of the table as my mother frowns and looks down. "Well," she begins, faltering already.
"You're very passionate. Good at getting exactly what you want. You love the old copy of Peter Pan your father gave you just before he died - you take it everywhere you go. You love being the center of attention and you love being right. As a little girl you always wanted to move to District Four, because you thought that that was where the mermaids live." She smiles at me fondly, with love that I cannot return. It's as though I am suddenly looking at the world through a strangers eyes - unable to feel the connections. Just a witness. Suddenly I am afraid that everything will rush back to me, all at once, and I am all the more resolute that tonight, after everybody has gone to bed, I will leave. I'm not sure how hard it will be, but I don't care.

I will find my Neverland. This is my only chance to have a happily-ever-after. Now, while nothing and nobody is holding me back.

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( I D O B E L I E V E I N F A R I E S )

Call me disloyal and loveless. Call me what you like. I don't know the people who expect me to be their daughter; their sister. They are just characters in this crazy dream. I'm sure, like the others, this one will fade away until it is only fragments and images - but for now the jarring pain in my head is a piercing reminder of the reality of the situation. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and wonder, more in curiosity than bitterness, why I and Marina share a room, still, at fourteen. The house must have at least five others, but she seems to regard this practise as normal. She sits, cross legged on her bed, looking at me expectantly. "Why do we still share a room?" I ask, without thinking, and she looks back at me with hurt in her eyes. "Because we want to. Because you want to." I can see my simple sentence has almost broken this poor girls heart, yet still I cannot place her face at all. She is nobody to me, yet I am everything to her. "I'm sorry," I say, trying my very best not to be snarky or biting. It's fine, though. It's cosy." I'm lying, but it seems to make her feel a little better, and she goes back to looking at me in that strange way. "Usually," she says, her voice a little wistful "we talk, late at night. We talk about boys and school and the games and father. We talk about everything, you and me. And then you read to me. You always have, ever since father died and stopped reading to us each night..." It takes me a moment to realize what she wants me to do, but obligingly I lift the corner of the mattress. Sure enough, I seem to have hidden the book there the night before. "I'll read. But I have a question, first." I look at her, and she nods. "Why didn't mama take me to a hospital? Might they be able to get my memory back?" I dont want it back, really. But I want to be able to see my fathers face in my mind when I walk away from the district forever. Maybe the doctors there could help. Marina, however, doesn't seem to agree. "How could we?" she says, closing the blinds and continuing. "You where trying to climb the fence. We couldn't have told them that; we'd be arrested and you'd be sent to be an avox." Her voice is thick with emotion and I know that all my sister wants is to take me to a doctor, but she can't. She's too afraid of the Capitol, President Snow, the punishment. The games. "Come with me, Marina," I say, feeling the first flicker of emotion for the girl. She shakes her head and points to the book, as though I ask her this every night. "You didn't even ask where I'm going," I say, but again she shakes her head. Softly, in a voice so quiet I'm not sure she even spoke, she whispers one word. "Neverland." I finger the pages of the book and begin.

'
All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!" This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.
Of course they lived at 14 [their house number on their street], and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there is was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.
The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.
Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him.
Mrs. Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a Brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces. She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs. Darling's guesses.
Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.
For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr. Darling was frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the edge of Mrs. Darling's bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses, while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what might, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at the beginning again.
"Now don't interrupt," he would beg of her.
"I have one pound seventeen here, and two and six at the office; I can cut off my coffee at the office, say ten shillings, making two nine and six, with your eighteen and three makes three nine seven, with five naught naught in my cheque-book makes eight nine seven -- who is that moving? -- eight nine seven, dot and carry seven -- don't speak, my own -- and the pound you lent to that man who came to the door -- quiet, child -- dot and carry child -- there, you've done it! -- did I say nine nine seven? yes, I said nine nine seven; the question is, can we try it for a year on nine nine seven?"
"Of course we can, George," she cried. But she was prejudiced in Wendy's favour, and he was really the grander character of the two.
"Remember mumps," he warned her almost threateningly, and off he went again. "Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay it will be more like thirty shillings -- don't speak -- measles one five, German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six -- don't waggle your finger -- whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings" -- and so on it went, and it added up differently each time; but at last Wendy just got through, with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated as one.
There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower squeak; but both were kept, and soon, you might have seen the three of them going in a row to Miss Fulsom's Kindergarten school, accompanied by their nurse.
Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had a nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children drank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. She had always thought children important, however, and the Darlings had become acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her spare time peeping into perambulators, and was much hated by careless nursemaids, whom she followed to their homes and complained of to their mistresses. She proved to be quite a treasure of a nurse. How thorough she was at bath-time, and up at any moment of the night if one of her charges made the slightest cry. Of course her kennel was in the nursery. She had a genius for knowing when a cough is a thing to have no patience with and when it needs stocking around your throat. She believed to her last day in old-fashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf, and made sounds of contempt over all this new-fangled talk about germs, and so on. It was a lesson in propriety to see her escorting the children to school, walking sedately by their side when they were well behaved, and butting them back into line if they strayed. On John's footer [in England soccer was called football, "footer" for short] days she never once forgot his sweater, and she usually carried an umbrella in her mouth in case of rain. There is a room in the basement of Miss Fulsom's school where the nurses wait. They sat on forms, while Nana lay on the floor, but that was the only difference. They affected to ignore her as of an inferior social status to themselves, and she despised their light talk. She resented visits to the nursery from Mrs. Darling's friends, but if they did come she first whipped off Michael's pinafore and put him into the one with blue braiding, and smoothed out Wendy and made a dash at John's hair.
No nursery could possibly have been conducted more correctly, and Mr. Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily whether the neighbours talked.
He had his position in the city to consider.
Nana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a feeling that she did not admire him. "I know she admires you tremendously, George," Mrs. Darling would assure him, and then she would sign to the children to be specially nice to father. Lovely dances followed, in which the only other servant, Liza, was sometimes allowed to join. Such a midget she looked in her long skirt and maid's cap, though she had sworn, when engaged, that she would never see ten again. The gaiety of those romps! And gayest of all was Mrs. Darling, who would pirouette so wildly that all you could see of her was the kiss, and then if you had dashed at her you might have got it. There never was a simpler happier family until the coming of Peter Pan.
Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.
I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island, for the Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose. It would be an easy map if that were all, but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needle-work, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still.
Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents, but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have each other's nose, and so forth. On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles [simple boat]. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.
Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very real. That is why there are night-lights.
Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had an oddly cocky appearance.
"Yes, he is rather cocky," Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had been questioning her.
"But who is he, my pet?"
"He is Peter Pan, you know, mother."
At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies. There were odd stories about him, as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened. She had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and full of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person.
"Besides," she said to Wendy, "he would be grown up by this time."
"Oh no, he isn't grown up," Wendy assured her confidently, "and he is just my size." She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she didn't know how she knew, she just knew it.
Mrs. Darling consulted Mr. Darling, but he smiled pooh-pooh. "Mark my words," he said, "it is some nonsense Nana has been putting into their heads; just the sort of idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it will blow over."
But it would not blow over and soon the troublesome boy gave Mrs. Darling quite a shock.
Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them. For instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event happened, that when they were in the wood they had met their dead father and had a game with him. It was in this casual way that Wendy one morning made a disquieting revelation. Some leaves of a tree had been found on the nursery floor, which certainly were not there when the children went to bed, and Mrs. Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy said with a tolerant smile:
"I do believe it is that Peter again!"
"Whatever do you mean, Wendy?"
"It is so naughty of him not to wipe his feet," Wendy said, sighing. She was a tidy child.
She explained in quite a matter-of-fact way that she thought Peter sometimes came to the nursery in the night and sat on the foot of her bed and played on his pipes to her. Unfortunately she never woke, so she didn't know how she knew, she just knew.
"What nonsense you talk, precious. No one can get into the house without knocking."
"I think he comes in by the window," she said.
"My love, it is three floors up."
"Were not the leaves at the foot of the window, mother?"
It was quite true; the leaves had been found very near the window.
Mrs. Darling did not know what to think, for it all seemed so natural to Wendy that you could not dismiss it by saying she had been dreaming.
"My child," the mother cried, "why did you not tell me of this before?"
"I forgot," said Wendy lightly. She was in a hurry to get her breakfast.
Oh, surely she must have been dreaming.
But, on the other hand, there were the leaves. Mrs. Darling examined them very carefully; they were skeleton leaves, but she was sure they did not come from any tree that grew in England. She crawled about the floor, peering at it with a candle for marks of a strange foot. She rattled the poker up the chimney and tapped the walls. She let down a tape from the window to the pavement, and it was a sheer drop of thirty feet, without so much as a spout to climb up by.
Certainly Wendy had been dreaming.
But Wendy had not been dreaming, as the very next night showed, the night on which the extraordinary adventures of these children may be said to have begun."

I frown and place the book back under my mattress. It suddenly occurs to me that I, too, am three floors up, and that I, too have been dreaming of a boy named Peter Pan, who might come through my window. I move to the window in an almost delirious mannor and unlock it as if by instinct. Then I cross the room again and curl up in bed. I do not sleep, and, at first, neither does Marina. She just lies there, eyes wide open, staring into the darkness. I ignore her, but inside I am breaking with every moment she does not sleep. After a while - I do not know how long - I speak. T"Marina, why aren't you sleeping?" She doesn't speak for a while, and just as I am about to roll over and check to see if she has fallen asleep after all, she replies. "Because I know you, Coral Melody. I know you don't know I know you, but I can see right into your head and I know exactly what you're thinking. I know you better than anyone, but I can tell you now that Neverland doesn't exist. I'm going to tell you why I'm not sleeping, because if you knew me like you did this morning, you would know. I won't sleep tonight because you're planning to leave. Because you don't remember me." I'm taken aback. All this time and thinking and planning and this girl could see every thought. And I thought I was hiding it all well. I frown and pretend to sleep. Maybe Marina will fall for it after all. I notice my bedroom for the first time, now, as I wait for her to sleep so I may leave. I notice everything I like - jewels on the bedside table, pretty wallpaper and soft carpet. Sea colours adorning the place, and fine furniture. There are many mirrors lining the walls, and many paintings of scenes from Peter Pan scattered on the walls. I didn't paint them, I can tell. Maybe it was Marina, maybe mama. Maybe my father before he died. It is only now that I spot the photograph, propped on my bedside table along with an empty glass of water, a necklace and a diary. A photo of me and my mother and father and Marina. It must have been just before he died, for I am already clutching the banned and sacred book to my chest and grinning happily. Mother looks tired yet cheerful, and Marina is smiling with her mouth, although her eyes don't show it. When you glace at the picture, you see a happy family. When you look closer, you can see the shifty looks the parents are giving one another, filled with an unidentifiable emotion. You can see the worry in the children's eyes, the dark, shadowy shape in the background. I wonder who is holding the camera. I move on to my father face, examining it closely. I have his eyes, his slanting jawbone and slightly large forehead. I have his color hair - a shade of honey blonde that is naturally dark at the top and vibrant near the tips. I smile and slip the photograph into my bag, along with the knife and the water and the food and the warm things and the matches. I'll need it all where I'm going. The next thing I wish to examine is my diary - surely it holds all the secrets to my life. It feels almost wrong to open it, though, like reading somebody else's diary and peeking into their head rather than my own. I must feel so safe here, to be able to leave my diary lying around where anybody could read it. I trust Marina, apparently. Slipping my diary into my bag I manage to silently pull my blankets from over me and look at Marina. Her eyes are closed, but there is no telling if she is asleep or not. I don't care, now. Dawn is coming and if I don't leave now, I never will. The necklace is cold around my neck, but maybe I'll be able to sell it someplace.

I will never see my sister again.
"Goodbye, Marina."

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( N E V E R I S A L O N G T I M E )

"Mrs. Darling screamed, and, as if in answer to a bell, the door opened, and Nana entered, returned from her evening out. She growled and sprang at the boy, who leapt lightly through the window. Again Mrs. Darling screamed, this time in distress for him, for she thought he was killed, and she ran down into the street to look for his little body, but it was not there; and she looked up, and in the black night she could see nothing but what she thought was a shooting star.
She returned to the nursery, and found Nana with something in her mouth, which proved to be the boy's shadow. As he leapt at the window Nana had closed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his shadow had not had time to get out; slam went the window and snapped it off.
You may be sure Mrs. Darling examined the shadow carefully, but it was quite the ordinary kind."

I am out. I am free. I am hungry and soaked to the bone and tired and sore. But mostly I am alive and still possess a tongue and both legs. Which is certainly a positive. As I walk, I recite passages from Peter Pan that are somehow carved into my empty memory. I can see them as I walk, the faces of the characters so perfect and certain in my mind. They comfort me as I walk, help me to forget the pain in my legs and the pounding rain on my cheeks. My hair hands in bedraggled clumps across my shoulders, and my warm wollen sweater has filled itself with water to a point where it is so heavy I can barely move beneath it. I am shaking violently, frozen to the bone, but still moving, determination in my eyes. Around me, the smells of rain and damp soil are all the penetrate my consciousness, and I almost feel like running all the way to Neverland. I can't, though. I am more tired than I can ever remember being and my head is burning, still. Mud steaks my cheeks and my stomach yearns for food, however I have nothing to give it. My numb fingers clutch my water bottle, holding it out in front of me to capture the rain-droplets. Puddles of water are pooling around my feet and I wonder why I didn't think to bring waterproof footwear. Only the words keep me going.

"Nana had no doubt of what was the best thing to do with this shadow. She hung it out at the window, meaning "He is sure to come back for it; let us put it where he can get it easily without disturbing the children."
But unfortunately Mrs. Darling could not leave it hanging out at the window, it looked so like the washing and lowered the whole tone of the house. She thought of showing it to Mr. Darling, but he was totting up winter great-coats for John and Michael, with a wet towel around his head to keep his brain clear, and it seemed a shame to trouble him; besides, she knew exactly what he would say: "It all comes of having a dog for a nurse."
She decided to roll the shadow up and put it away carefully in a drawer, until a fitting opportunity came for telling her husband. Ah me!
The opportunity came a week later, on that never-to-be- forgotten Friday. Of course it was a Friday.
"I ought to have been specially careful on a Friday," she used to say afterwards to her husband, while perhaps Nana was on the other side of her, holding her hand.
"No, no," Mr. Darling always said, "I am responsible for it all. I, George Darling, did it. MEA CULPA, MEA CULPA." He had had a classical education.
They sat thus night after night recalling that fatal Friday, till every detail of it was stamped on their brains and came through on the other side like the faces on a bad coinage.
"If only I had not accepted that invitation to dine at 27," Mrs. Darling said.
"If only I had not poured my medicine into Nana's bowl," said Mr. Darling.
"If only I had pretended to like the medicine," was what Nana's wet eyes said.
"My liking for parties, George."
"My fatal gift of humour, dearest."
"My touchiness about trifles, dear master and mistress."
Then one or more of them would break down altogether; Nana at the thought, "It's true, it's true, they ought not to have had a dog for a nurse." Many a time it was Mr. Darling who put the handkerchief to Nana's eyes.
"That fiend!" Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana's bark was the echo of it, but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter; there was something in the right-hand corner of her mouth that wanted her not to call Peter names.
They would sit there in the empty nursery, recalling fondly every smallest detail of that dreadful evening. It had begun so uneventfully, so precisely like a hundred other evenings, with Nana putting on the water for Michael's bath and carrying him to it on her back.
"I won't go to bed," he had shouted, like one who still believed that he had the last word on the subject, "I won't, I won't. Nana, it isn't six o'clock yet. Oh dear, oh dear, I shan't love you any more, Nana. I tell you I won't be bathed, I won't, I won't!"
Then Mrs. Darling had come in, wearing her white evening-gown. She had dressed early because Wendy so loved to see her in her evening-gown, with the necklace George had given her. She was wearing Wendy's bracelet on her arm; she had asked for the loan of it. Wendy loved to lend her bracelet to her mother."

I sigh and feel my necklace around my neck, its cold, heavy weight constant and essential. It seems that I love all things that sparkle and shine, and already I have taken a liking to it's diamonds. I think of jewellery for a while, trying to distract myself from the rain hammering so persistently down upon my drenched body. For a while it works, but after a few minutes darkness begins to close in, and I notice the shadows lurking around me, dark and threatening. I cannot walk through the night again, I know, so I begin to look around for a place to sleep. I manage to shelter in a small, damp hollow under the cover of an old tree I do not know the name of. Maybe I did, once, but that information is lost to me now. It suddenly feels cosy, beneath the tree, and I decide to read aloud to myself. Maybe it will confort me, if it is the sound I have heard every night since my fathers death. I hope it will, because my body is almost paralysed with fear. I think of Marina back at home, and I wonder if she was truly asleep when I climbed out of the window to the ground. I ponder the possibility that she wasn't - that the rise and fall of her chest where simply a hoax. It occurs to me that maybe she was watching the shadows as I am now, realising that there was nothing she could do to stop me from leaving her, except maybe threatening to come herself. Perhaps that was what she was doing when I fell - saying that after all, she would come with me. In that case, I doubt I would have left. If I had loved her as she had loved me then I couldn't have put her in that risk. I swallow, thinking of the pain she must be in now. I begin to read in the dying light after building a small fire to keep me warm.

"She had found her two older children playing at being herself and father on the occasion of Wendy's birth, and John was saying:
"I am happy to inform you, Mrs. Darling, that you are now a mother," in just such a tone as Mr. Darling himself may have used on the real occasion.
Wendy had danced with joy, just as the real Mrs. Darling must have done.
Then John was born, with the extra pomp that he conceived due to the birth of a male, and Michael came from his bath to ask to be born also, but John said brutally that they did not want any more.
Michael had nearly cried. "Nobody wants me," he said, and of course the lady in the evening-dress could not stand that.
"I do," she said, "I so want a third child."
"Boy or girl?" asked Michael, not too hopefully.
"Boy."
Then he had leapt into her arms. Such a little thing for Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana to recall now, but not so little if that was to be Michael's last night in the nursery.
They go on with their recollections.
"It was then that I rushed in like a tornado, wasn't it?" Mr. Darling would say, scorning himself; and indeed he had been like a tornado.
Perhaps there was some excuse for him. He, too, had been dressing for the party, and all had gone well with him until he came to his tie. It is an astounding thing to have to tell, but this man, though he knew about stocks and shares, had no real mastery of his tie. Sometimes the thing yielded to him without a contest, but there were occasions when it would have been better for the house if he had swallowed his pride and used a made-up tie.
This was such an occasion. He came rushing into the nursery with the crumpled little brute of a tie in his hand.
"Why, what is the matter, father dear?"
"Matter!" he yelled; he really yelled. "This tie, it will not tie." He became dangerously sarcastic. "Not round my neck! Round the bed-post! Oh yes, twenty times have I made it up round the bed-post, but round my neck, no! Oh dear no! begs to be excused!"
He thought Mrs. Darling was not sufficiently impressed, and he went on sternly, "I warn you of this, mother, that unless this tie is round my neck we don't go out to dinner to-night, and if I don't go out to dinner to-night, I never go to the office again, and if I don't go to the office again, you and I starve, and our children will be flung into the streets."
Even then Mrs. Darling was placid. "Let me try, dear," she said, and indeed that was what he had come to ask her to do, and with her nice cool hands she tied his tie for him, while the children stood around to see their fate decided. Some men would have resented her being able to do it so easily, but Mr. Darling had far too fine a nature for that; he thanked her carelessly, at once forgot his rage, and in another moment was dancing round the room with Michael on his back.
"How wildly we romped!" says Mrs. Darling now, recalling it.
"Our last romp!" Mr. Darling groaned.
"O George, do you remember Michael suddenly said to me, `How did you get to know me, mother?'"
"I remember!"
"They were rather sweet, don't you think, George?"
"And they were ours, ours! and now they are gone."
The romp had ended with the appearance of Nana, and most unluckily Mr. Darling collided against her, covering his trousers with hairs. They were not only new trousers, but they were the first he had ever had with braid on them, and he had had to bite his lip to prevent the tears coming. Of course Mrs. Darling brushed him, but he began to talk again about its being a mistake to have a dog for a nurse.
"George, Nana is a treasure."
"No doubt, but I have an uneasy feeling at times that she looks upon the children as puppies."
"Oh no, dear one, I feel sure she knows they have souls."
"I wonder," Mr. Darling said thoughtfully, "I wonder." It was an opportunity, his wife felt, for telling him about the boy. At first he pooh-poohed the story, but he became thoughtful when she showed him the shadow.

I set down the book suddenly, reaching for my bag. Inside, I take out the diary and open it to the last page I wrote - dated a year back. Almost afraid to read the words of a self I no longer possess, I begin to read.

Diary,
Marina wont come with me. I don't want her to, actually. It's all too hard. If I take her, she could die. Yet I can't bare to leave her behind. So I'll stay. A few things happened today which changed the way I thought about my life a little. Firstly, I found out how father and mother met. I shouldn't have been, I know, but I found one of her old boxes of pretty nick-knacks and began to look through it, hoping for another bracelet to replace the one Marina lost at the reaping. I found letters. It turns out Papa was a peacekeeper back in the day. I never knew it, but he was stationed in Four before he met mother. Worked for them for fifteen years before metting mama here and moving in with her. Me and Marina where born a year later. He passed when we where five, and Poseidon was born the very next summer. Poor Posy never met Papa. He was an amazing man, I tell you, diary. Most of all he took me to Neverland, he gave me the book and read to me every night. That was the second thing I learned from peaking at the letter form papa to mama before they where allowed to marry. I found out where he got my book, all those years back. He confiscated it at the detention center, diary. Took it from a bumbling old fool who managed to accidentally kill a peacekeeper. It was given to him by his grandfather, from the days before the rebellion. I find it amazing, how people held onto that hope for so long. Neverland. Where you never have to grow up. I too have held onto Peter's hope. I never want to be reaped - never want Marina to be reaped. I couldn't bare to grow up and be responsible for what I do and say. Sometimes I simply can't help myself. That is why I want to run away. It's a shame I can't. I would belong in Neverland. I could watch the seas and live in all of my dreams. Maybe I'd be a lost girl - except I don't want to be lost at all. I want to be found. I think I'd have to be a mermaid - the water glistens so.
I'd better go now, Mama's calling me.

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The words I read break my heart so. I cannot bare to see myself to naive, so wrong. There is something about my words from a year back that do not fit with the tangled puzzle - but at least now I know who my father was, and where my book comes from. Sleep comes to me easily, and I let it take me. Maybe my dreams will show me some more of my stolen memories. I have two dreams. The first is more of a replay of the night I left, yet I know all the while that I am dreaming. That is strange in itself, for it feels so very real. I slip the bag over my shoulder and cross the room, pausing at the window to look back at Marina one last time. She is, as she was the first time I took this leap of faith, appearing to be sleeping soundly. So I swing my leg through the open window and feel the familiar scraping of brickwork on my uncovered leg. I'm only wearing nightclothes, but I was sure to pack more sturdy things. As soon as I am out in the night air, I feel better. There is a damp crispness to it, and although I do not know my own parents I seem to know that it will rain. I glance at the sky, and, hidden behind the darkness is a vast expanse of clouds. I frown, hoping that it wont be cloudy in Neverland when I arrive. The drainpipe is cold in my hands, scraping roughly against my pale skin, which itself seems to glimmer in the moonlight. Everything feels somewhat surreal, but I press on, pulling the window shut behind me and clambering down to the ground. I jump the last few meters, and stumble painfully on the concrete belong. Wincing, my hand to my head, I follow the path I took yesterday, back toward the meadow where I had been climbing the fence. My family are so afraid of these Peacekeepers, but I must have thought that that area was safe before I fell. So I follow the way, keeping out of the strange glow of the streetlights to avoid being seen. As I reach the fence, a great rumble echoes through the sky and the downpour begins all at once. I slip the toe of my shoe into the first loop of the fence, wondering why there is no electricity in it. Maybe they turn it off at night. I raise my eyebrow at my own stupidity and tell myself to stop thinking. The important thing is the the electricity is off. When I reach the top, a great flash of lightning lights up the District, and I hope nobody is there to spot my silhouette, outlined on the fence. Maybe the electricity is off - the streetlights have flickered out now. It must be the storm. I take my chance and clamber down the fence, finding comfort only when my feet hit the solid ground. That is when I begin to run, so quickly, my feet pounding the ground and my heart slamming into my ribcage with every ragged breath. But this time, in the dream, things do not go to plan. Heavy hands grab me from around the back, capturing me. I struggle, but it is no use.

The dream changes, as if my instinct. I am sitting in the corner of a dark room. Watching. My head plays words, the same words I know by heart. A boy stands in the room, and a lovely glowing light flutters about.

'A moment after the fairy's entrance the window was blown open by the breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in. He had carried Tinker Bell part of the way, and his hand was still messy with the fairy dust.
"Tinker Bell," he called softly, after making sure that the children were asleep, "Tink, where are you?" She was in a jug for the moment, and liking it extremely; she had never been in a jug before.
"Oh, do come out of that jug, and tell me, do you know where they put my shadow?"
The loveliest tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It is the fairy language. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if you were to hear it you would know that you had heard it once before.
Tink said that the shadow was in the big box. She meant the chest of drawers, and Peter jumped at the drawers, scattering their contents to the floor with both hands, as kings toss ha'pence to the crowd. In a moment he had recovered his shadow, and in his delight he forgot that he had shut Tinker Bell up in the drawer.
If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops of water, and when they did not he was appalled. He tried to stick it on with soap from the bathroom, but that also failed. A shudder passed through Peter, and he sat on the floor and cried.
His sobs woke Wendy, and she sat up in bed. She was not alarmed to see a stranger crying on the nursery floor; she was only pleasantly interested.
"Boy," she said courteously, "why are you crying?"
Peter could be exceeding polite also, having learned the grand manner at fairy ceremonies, and he rose and bowed to her beautifully. She was much pleased, and bowed beautifully to him from the bed.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Wendy Moira Angela Darling," she replied with some satisfaction. "What is your name?"
"Peter Pan."
She was already sure that he must be Peter, but it did seem a comparatively short name.
"Is that all?"
"Yes," he said rather sharply. He felt for the first time that it was a shortish name.
"I'm so sorry," said Wendy Moira Angela.
"It doesn't matter," Peter gulped.
She asked where he lived.
"Second to the right," said Peter, "and then straight on till morning."
"What a funny address!"
Peter had a sinking. For the first time he felt that perhaps it was a funny address.
"No, it isn't," he said.
"I mean," Wendy said nicely, remembering that she was hostess, "is that what they put on the letters?"
He wished she had not mentioned letters.
"Don't get any letters," he said contemptuously.
"But your mother gets letters?"
"Don't have a mother," he said. Not only had he no mother, but he had not the slightest desire to have one. He thought them very over-rated persons. Wendy, however, felt at once that she was in the presence of a tragedy.
"O Peter, no wonder you were crying," she said, and got out of bed and ran to him.
"I wasn't crying about mothers," he said rather indignantly. "I was crying because I can't get my shadow to stick on. Besides, I wasn't crying."

But I am crying. Suddenly I am awake, and I am crying so hard, my tears mixing with the rain. I am crying for mothers and shadows and Marina and myself. I am crying for Neverland. I pick myself up and look to the stars. Second star to the right, and strait on 'till morning. I begin to walk, tears still streaming down my pale and hallowed cheeks.








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( B E F R E E L I L B I R D )

Credit to Lalia for the template, Stare for the plottage. Face-claim is Natalia Vodianova. Peter Pan text by J.M Barry.

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