Had she looked up then, met his eyes? And if she had, what would she have seen? Something like the Peter before her now, frightened but defiant?

“Well, I shall just have to sew it extra tight so that doesn’t happen, won’t I?” Wendy remembers impatience, barely even listening to the words Peter had said, wanting the promised adventures, and not the work of stitching her mother had tried to teach her. If only she’d paid more attention. But how could she have known?

Peter watches her now, wide-eyed. She touches the needle to his skin, and unlike all those years ago, he does nothing but whimper.

Wendy steels herself, then pushes the needle through. As a child, she was innocent of horror, and there was no revulsion at pushing a needle through flesh. It hadn’t seemed strange that a boy and his shadow might become un-joined, and it was the most natural thing in the world to put them back together again. Now, knowing better, she expects her hands to betray her, but they do not. The shadow doesn’t resist her, yearning for the thread, yearning to be whole, its hunger guiding her steady touch.

With the second stitch, she feels the needle in her own skin— Dr. Harrington with his drugs to make her calm, to make her sleep. Trying to convince her Neverland was only a dream. With the third stitch, at last, Peter screams, whipping his head from side to side. Without Wendy having to ask, Tiger Lily bears down, holding him as still as she can.

Tiger Lily’s jaw is set and hard. But Peter. Peter… Tears wet his cheeks, and his trembling is such it’s impossible to keep her stitches straight and even.

Softly, so softly Wendy isn’t even certain Peter will hear, she sings a lullaby. He wanted a mother. At last, she can give him this, if nothing more. What emerges is more breath than song, hitching and broken. She used to sing it to Jane when she woke from bad dreams. She used to sing it to Michael and John once upon a time too.

The rhythm of her stitching picks up. The stars in Peter’s eyes wheel, silver fire. He makes no sound, but his lips shape her name. Wendy falters.

She could show him mercy. She believed him to be her friend once, after all. But the world already makes too much room for boys like Peter, boys who under normal circumstances grow up to be men like Ned’s father, who start wars and send boys like Michael home broken. Boys who never face consequences. She can’t be his mother, or protect him from what he is any longer.