“We are near the Labyrinth of Longing. What you hear are heartbroken mothers endlessly searching for their lost sons,” said James, remembering the story the mermaids told him.

“And what happens if these mothers find their sons?” asked Circe.

“They bring them home,” said James, getting an idea.

“No, James, wait,” said Circe, reading his mind. “There’s something you must know, something I should have told you when you were here . . .” But before she could continue, James closed the drawer and decided what he must do.

The labyrinth was a dreary place obscured in mist, with ghostly women in black pushing empty prams. Every time James passed one of the mothers she would look up at him with hope in her eyes, only to be disappointed she hadn’t found her son. James felt he understood how the labyrinth worked now. These ghostly women were the personifications of these mothers’ grief. Imagine one’s grief growing so immense that it has to live outside the body, becoming an entity of its own, wandering the mists, searching for the only thing that will repair its broken heart. He wasn’t sure how these grieving spirits had made their way to the labyrinth, but he imagined they must have been drawn there by the presence of their sons, and if one of these ghostly mothers were to find her son in the maze she was somehow able to bring him home again, as his mother had done with him so many years ago. He doubted his mother remembered it ever happening, and that he attributed to the magic of Never Land. There was no other answer.

He searched the labyrinth for hours, calling out to his mother again and again, hoping she would find him this time as well, his voice becoming hoarse, and his heart losing hope. He was exhausted and cold, and he had managed to reopen his wound, which was now bleeding rather freely, but he didn’t care—he had decided this would be the place he would die. He fell to the ground, weeping in despair, and called out to Circe, but she couldn’t hear him. He didn’t have the magic mirror. He would die alone.

And then James saw him, Peter Pan, escorting a small boy into the labyrinth. “Yes, just go that way, your mother will find you,” Peter said, tousling the boy’s hair before he went off running into the maze, looking happy to be going home again. James heard mother and son’s happy reunion off in the distant mist, and it penetrated his heart with a tiny glimmer of hope that he might still find his mother.

“I’m surprised to see you in the labyrinth, Peter,” said James, taking Peter by surprise. “Aren’t you afraid of being claimed?”

Peter just smiled in his impish way and shook his head. “Neither of our mothers is here, James. They are both well past living,” said Peter.