Page 31 of Never Landing

“Definitely.” Everett’s thumb swiped across the back of my hand and my breath caught.

“Then yeah, that’s all I want.” The kids and Everett. Dr. Hawking said the traditions we made didn’t have to start off big, but we could build a life together slowly, piece by piece.

I’d never wanted anything so bad, and I hoped Everett did too.

19

Everett

The honey cake recipe was simple, which I supposed shouldn’t be shocking. It wasn’t like they had tons of exotic ingredients back in the nineteenth century, that Peter’s mother could have used in her cakes. The strangest thing in there was lard, and Marsha at the grocery store both had it, and said we could replace it with butter, when she read the recipe.

“Or even coconut oil if you’re one of those vegans,” she promised, glancing in our cart and seeing the ground beef and Italian sausage, then giggling. “But I guess you’re probably not.”

“What’s a vegan?” Peter asked, coming up with a giant bottle of honey. “Is it a kind of vegetable?”

“It’s a person who doesn’t eat anything that comes from animals.” I had a horrible thought, suddenly, that maybe Peter didn’t know his hamburgers were from cows. Shit, was he about to declare himself a vegan, because no one had warned him?

He cocked his head, looking down at the jar of honey. “Even honey?”

“Even honey,” Marsha agreed. “But some people are vegetarians and eat honey and eggs and milk, but not meat or fish.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed, trying to make sense of the difference, and I couldn’t really launch into it in front of people. The explanation would doubtless come back to Peter’s past, and I didn’t think it was a conversation to have in front of people. Instead of asking the expected question, though, he just turned to her and shook his head. “But fish is meat.”

Her shoulders hunched, trying to keep herself from laughing. Finally, she looked up, nodding. “I agree, sweetheart. But I guess some people don’t.”

Peter just shook his head the same way we always had at adult antics as children, turning to me. “People are weird.”

Marsha cackled. “You’ve got that right.”

“You harassing those poor boys?” Ezra asked, pushing a cart with cantaloupes toward the produce section. He held up a melon, waving it a little. “You boys should eat one of these. Best melons in the state.”

Peter had frozen in place, blinking at him.

When Ezra met Peter’s eye, he stilled, and they stared at each other for a moment. “Peter?”

Marsha frowned at her husband. “Honey, we don’t know Everett’s friend. Remember? Hasn’t been a Peter in town in decades since old Doc Hawking died.”

Peter stepped forward, looking at Ezra and holding the honey to his chest. After a long, tense silence, he smiled. “Ezra. It’s been so long.”

The old man blinked repeatedly, but a tear slipped down his cheek anyway. “I—I missed you all.”

I knew from what Peter had told me that the children often didn’t remember each other when they left the woods. He’d been remembering others who came and went in his time there, since he’d left, and there had been dozens over the nearly two hundred years. Dozens that had come and gone, and been forgotten. I was frozen. I couldn’t coach him, couldn’t tell him how much itwould hurt a person to hear that he’d been forgotten. But I also couldn’t expect Peter to understand?—

“We missed you too, Ezra. You were always the best at playing pirates. Remember the time you came back with a whole blueberry pie as booty?”

The old man clasped a hand to his mouth, nodding. He motioned to Marsha. “Stole it from her mother’s windowsill.”

Marsha had frozen in place, her head cocked, glancing between her husband and Peter. “She thought you were homeless,” she whispered after a moment of silence. “She invited you to live with us.”

He turned back to her. “And she made the best blueberry pie in the world, and her daughter was the prettiest lady I’d ever seen. How could I say no?”

Peter passed me the bottle of honey and rushed Ezra, leaning in and giving him a hug. “I’m so glad you found a family.”

Ezra looked over his shoulder, meeting my eye. “Me too. And now it’s...it’s your turn, is it?”

When Peter pulled back, his face was bright and animated. “Yes. You know Everett. He’s my best friend. And maybe...well. We’ll figure things out.”

“I’m sure you will,” Ezra agreed, smiling at us both. “You picked a good time to come out. Cell phones and computers and—there’s a lot of magic in the world nowadays.”

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