The Search for the Red Dragon - James A. Owen [117]
“And did he succeed?” Charles asked.
“In part,” said John. “After many years of searching, he finally found the lost children. But he never returned home. Instead, he became lost himself.”
The Caretakers went to look for Peter, to say good-bye before leaving for the Archipelago. They found him with Laura Glue in Raleigh’s Orchard, near Echo’s Well.
“You’ll be able to cross back into the Archipelago with the Dragonships,” said Peter. “It’s part of their nature—to cross magical barriers. They needn’t be able to fly, although we won’t tell Burton that,” he added with a wink at Laura Glue.
“And what of you, Peter?” asked John. “What do you plan to do?”
“Why, what I’m already doing,” he answered. Peter walked past them and looked into the Well. It reflected back the aged lines of his face, the white shock of hair. But it didn’t change.
“Olly Olly Oxen-Free,” he called, grinning. Nothing about his appearance changed.
“See?” he said to John. “I didn’t change, because I found who I really was, who I really am. Who I want to remain. I’m Laura Glue’s grandfather.”
“I suppose if you ever wanted to retire as the Pan, you could just choose a successor,” said Charles. “Not that you need to, of course,” he added hastily.
“But I did choose a successor,” said Peter. “A child of the right temperament and age, who, if he had chosen differently, might have come to the Nether Land and remained a child.”
“How can you decide if a child has the right kind of temperament?” asked John.
Peter grinned puckishly. “Because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to become one here,” he said, looking at Jack.
“Me?” Jack said in surprise. “When did you ever choose me?”
“Long ago,” said Peter. “I came to you in the night and listened to your dreams. And then I whispered stories to you about the Nether Land, where you could become whoever you wanted, and even take a new name, Jack, Jacksie, Jack-in-the-Green…. Why do you think you were the one who was able to share my shadow, if not because we are the same, you and I?”
Jack went pale. “It was you,” he whispered. “You’re the one who called me Jack.”
But Peter only winked, and spryly moved away to play with the children, his limp barely noticeable.
“It’s never fully healed,” John observed. “It was Peter who inspired Daedalus to resume his old experiments in flight. He wanted Peter to be able to move about freely in the air, since he could not do so on land. It may have been the single most redeeming thing the inventor ever did.”
“The child in Hamelin,” Charles exclaimed. “The one who went searching for his friends—it was Peter, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” John nodded. “I believe it was. I don’t know who he truly was before he came here, but once here, he became Peter Pan. And he always will be, forevermore.”
As they said their good-byes to Peter, a tearful Laura Glue, and the rest of the Lost Boys, Peter had one parting gift for them—if it could truly be called a gift.
It was the padlocked wardrobe, the only thing he’d chosen to remove from Plato’s cave, where it had been kept ever since his falling-out with Jamie.
“We know how to make and repair Daedalus’s wings,” Peter said, “and we have plenty of dragon feathers with which to make more. So we don’t really have to have this.
“And besides,” he added, “I don’t really feel the need to go to London that much anymore.”
He embraced his granddaughter and thumped the wardrobe.
“Find a good place for it, won’t you?”
“Well, gosh,” Artus exclaimed. “What a handsome wardrobe.”
They placed it in the Great Whatsit. There wasn’t a better place for it in the entire Archipelago, John decided.
The reunion with Stephen and Aven made Artus happier than they’d ever seen him, and he declared that there should be a celebration across the entire Archipelago. Aven and Stephen left to make preparations,