“But were you, Peter?” Wendy heard herself ask.

He paused and then shook his head, not understanding.

“You could do whatever you wanted, play whatever make-believe games you could come up with, but lost kids were always coming and going—you said so yourself,” Wendy said. “And it was always just make-believe. Didn’t you ever want something…” She tried to find the right words. “Real? You never felt like you were missing … something?”

Peter’s celestial eyes locked on hers. “Not until I met you.”

There was a low rush in the pit of Wendy’s stomach. It was so sudden, so simply put, that she wasn’t sure she had heard him right.

He watched her carefully.

Wendy shook her head, trying to think clearly.

“You … what?” she asked.

Peter took a deep breath. “I was fine with what I was, what it was my job to do,” he told her, watching her intently. “Your mom was the first person I met who wasn’t a lost kid. She was the first person who became my friend, who didn’t live in Neverland with me. We would have pretend sword fights in her backyard, she would tell me stories, and I told her what it was like in Neverland. But, just like everyone else in your world, she had to grow up.”

This was the most Wendy had heard about Peter and her mom. “So you couldn’t visit her anymore?”

Peter nodded. “I had mostly forgotten about her after a while, too,” he said. “Your mom remembered me, but she forgot that I was real. When I decided to look for her again on a whim, I found you, sitting in this window.” He looked like he was struggling to find his words. The tips of his ears were tinged red, but he didn’t look away, so neither did Wendy. “When I heard you telling my stories, I felt like I had to meet you. I wanted you to see me, to see that I was real,” Peter said.

He spoke with a rushed urgency, like he was trying to explain himself.

“When my shadow first went missing, I thought it was punishment for letting myself get—get distracted by you, because I was trying to get close to you. I wanted to,” he added insistently. Wendy’s eyes momentarily snagged on his hand as it reached toward hers, then hesitated. “Then when you found me struggling with my shadow, you acted like it was completely normal, and you were the one who was able to reattach it, to sew it back on.”

“But how?” Wendy interjected.

Peter shook his head. “I don’t know. I thought maybe you had your own magic? There was something different about you. You felt different to me. Important.” He cast her a sidelong glance. “Special.”

Wendy’s hands gripped the teddy bear in her lap tightly. Her heart fluttered in her chest.