Page 14 of Never Landing

I’d pushed it down and down and down and all the while, I’d fallen into that hole I’d carved trying to bury my fear. It was closing over me.

My sobbing got louder, and Aurora whispered soothing noises, finally falling to her knees at my side, wrapping her armsaround me tight, pulling me close. Did she know what happened after getting lost? Did she know what came next?

Sometimes, it’d seemed like she knew everything.

“It’s okay, Peter,” she whispered, her chin pressing into the top of my head. “I promise, it’s going to be okay.”

“No it’s not,” I whined, turning into her. My tears soaked the frills of her dress. “It’s going to be different. I don’t want—” I shivered. If I said the words, that’d make them real, and while they’d been hanging over me for a long time, I—I didn’t want them to be real.

“I don’t want to leave,” I choked out. “I don’t want to go.”

A fresh wave of tears swelled up inside me, and Aurora hugged me tight. “You don’t have to, Peter. You never, ever have to.”

My breath shook, but I nodded. Good. That was good. Maybe I just wouldn’t, and things would go back to how they’d been. Time would stop feeling heavy, and the hook in my chest that Everett had buried there would disappear, and I’d play. I’d be like I was, not grown up or growing, but just Peter.

“But I think you know it’s time,” Aurora whispered, her hand on my face, tilting it up. “And that’s okay, Peter. It’sgood.”

“It’s awful,” I whispered back. “I’m scared.”

“Yeah.” She nodded, and there was sadness sparkling in her bright blue eyes that I’d never noticed before. “It’s awful and scary too.”

“I don’t want to be different. I don’t want to be alone.”

She shook her head. “You won’t be.”

I flinched. Did she mean Everett? “Heleft,” I spat, angrier than I could ever be at her.

“He came back too, but I’m not just talking about your friend. Everybody grows up, Peter. We’re the weird ones, and we have a great time, don’t we? But it’s not forever and ever. It’s just for a little while.”

“You haven’t left.” My voice shook when I said it, but Aurora had been there already when I—I didn’t even remember getting there, but some of the kids had come after. All—all of the other kids had come after. I hadn’t remembered that until right then, because once they were there, it was like they always had been. But they hadn’t.

First, it was just me and Aurora out here by ourselves.

“Not yet,” she said, blinking slowly, her chin tucked down a little. “You’re my oldest friend, Peter. I could never leave you.”

“And I can’t leave you! I won’t!”

She laughed, but her eyes were shining strangely and it broke my heart. “You’re not. You won’t. You can stay and you can change—I promise, you can do both. Just...maybe you won’t stay in the woods anymore.”

She had a point. The wind was colder than I remembered it ever being, the ground was wetter, the creatures out in the shadows sounded louder.

“Then where do I go?”

“There’s something out there, outside the forest, that you want, isn’t there? Maybe start there.”

“With Everett?” I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted. Sure, I nabbed the toys from Cider Landing and hid them away, but that was because I missed Everett. He was the reason I went back.

Aurora nodded. “He did come back. Not everybody does.”

I wanted to ask her if she really thought he still wanted to be my friend or remembered me. I had so many questions bouncing around in my heart, but Aurora wouldn’t be able to answer them.

Maybe I...Maybe I did want answers. So I’d have to go back and hear out the only person who could give them to me.

Before I left, Aurora pressed a coin into my hand, strangely warm and heavy. “For whatever you need,” she promised, folding my fingers around it.

It took me a long time to get back to Everett’s house. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go. My legs were heavy, and my toes were cold in the mud.

When I got back to Everett’s house, I saw him sitting on the porch, but I didn’t realize he was asleep until I got up close and heard the soft rumble of his breath. A bottle had rolled across the old floorboards, and as I sneaked closer, I saw he had something in his hand. A paper.

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