Peter

A new twist on a famous, beloved story.

            London’s Christmas night air gave Peter a wet slap in the face as he stepped out onto the front step of his Nana’s house, holding a glass bottle of wine with a twine bow around the neck.   The new wool jacket he wore still felt like he was wearing too much, even after all these years, but he was glad that it protected him as he looked around at the fog-shrouded shadows.  He smiled a childish grin at the joy of it not being too small for him.  He’d finally stopped growing like a rope vine.  He tossed a scarf’s end across the opposite shoulder and gripped the bottle firmly in one wide, strong hand.  This was it.  The moment for which he changed his life.

            Peter’s shoes clicked on the cobblestone and he nodded at a fellow walking past who wore a top hat.  Peter briefly wished his head was warm, but never wished to wear one of those tight-rimmed hats.   He stepped to the side as a horse and carriage emerged out of the mist, the clopping of hooves sounding eerie above him off the walls of shops and homes that were nestled together. 

He could have predicted the ten seconds it took for Milly to pop out of an alley.

            “Hey, Peter, are you off then?”  The straw-haired girl of about twelve paced him as he strode down the street, her eyes trying desperately to meet his. 

            “Milly, you know exactly what I’m doing.” 

            “Can I walk you there?”  She made her skinny legs match Peter’s stride.  “Your new jacket is nice, is it warm?  You hate being too warm, is it horrible?”  She wiped her nose on the sleeve of an old knitted sweater that might have been her father’s once.  When he was still around. 

            “It’s fine.  I’m not thinking of the jacket right now.”  Peter drew his free hand through his red, disheveled hair.  It was still as wild as Peter himself had been for so long, and had darkened a bit, but its flyaways would always be a trademark of his. 

            “Right.  You’re nervous about the party?”  Milly leapt over a puddle, but managed to land the heel of her too-big shoe in it and splashed Peter’s pants.  He stopped abruptly.

            “Milly,” he breathed in and held it while he looked right at her.  That’s all she wanted.  The pools of brown and green were dark with concentration and unsettled by distraction, long light lashes framed them like cobwebs and glistened with the air’s moisture.  He spoke on an exhale. “You need to leave me alone this time, okay?”  He had measured patience.

            “-Okay,” Milly nearly whispered as she gazed at Peter’s face.  Then she smiled at having reached that goal.  “That’s all you had to say, you know.  Gosh.”  She watched Peter’s face for the last thing she was hoping for.  Sure enough, a dimple emerged with his grin.  The freckles he’d been endowed with weren’t quite all gone.

            Peter relaxed his shoulders and shook his head with a half-smile.  “Alright, Milly.  Scat, then.”

            She was off with a scatter and the slapping of worn leather soles.

            With another deep sigh, Peter grasped the bottle of wine in both hands, slapping the glass like an assuring pat on the shoulder.  “It’s going to be fine,” he repeated to himself.  Sounds of the narrow street’s inhabitants echoed through the miniscule droplets of water in the air.  A door shut, feet clicked against stone, a horse could be heard trotting in the distance.  As he rounded a corner into a neighborhood of larger homes and wrought iron fences, he slowed to marvel at the transformation.  Garlands lined windows and thresholds.  Candles shown at the window sills, and wreaths hung with large golden and red bows.

            He stopped when he saw movement in one of the windows of a nearby home.  Guests had just arrived and there were hugs and greetings in the window, handshakes, and children lifted into the air.  Even a dog that had to be scolded down.  Peter didn’t know he was smiling.  Many years ago, he’d looked through the windows of homes, watching families and feeling a world apart from them, until he found that one window that lured him again and again, filled with stories and laughter. 

            A breeze stirred, whipping against Peter’s thin cotton pants, and he hunched his shoulders.  He was grateful that Nana had managed to find him a pair with no patches.

            “A bit brisk, isn’t it,” a youth’s cheerful voice commented as he passed Peter in a hurry. 

Peter smiled and nodded, about to respond, and then saw the spectacles and the smiling blue eyes behind them.  He lost his words.  All he managed to say was, “A bit,” as he sized up the young man who used to be a boy.  Another youth ran past Peter, ignoring him to catch-up, calling, “John, wait on a sec!”  He held up a sack from the market.

“People are already there, Michael, we have to hurry!”  John called as they both rushed off.  Peter felt his scalp tingle as he watched the two nearly-grown men, reminding himself that he was about to encounter yet another changed child.  Gathering a fortifying sigh, he patted the bottle of wine again and continued down the street.

He knew the house well, having visited it many times.  He did not, however, know its front door at all.  He watched where John and Michael ran up the stairs and entered without knocking.  He had to stop again, his knees feeling weaker.  “I can do this,” he said to himself.  He felt closer to his old self than he had in many years, and concentrated to remind himself of who he’d become since being adopted by Nana.  He wasn’t that boy any more, and had no reason to be afraid of these people.  He was Peter Greensway, apprentice Brewer of London’s local Caseworthy Brewery.  He was invited to the Christmas party thrown by a prominent Local Business Association President as the representative of the brewery.  “Brewer,  Greensway,” he muttered as he walked slowly up to the steps, “Peter Greensway.  I am apprenticed at Caseworthy Brewery.”  At some point he’d made it up the steps, and the door was right in front of him.  People were laughing and murmuring on the other side.  Shadows were moving behind the curtains.  Peter’s fist went up, then he balked. 

Before he could decide anything, the heavy door swung open to a laughing man in a waistcoat. 

“Well, hello!” the man greeted.  Peter smiled unsurely.  “Don’t let me keep you from knocking,” he nearly bellowed, “I could use a rap or two myself sometimes.   Sister, you have another guest!”  The smiling figure yelled behind him into the party before stepping outside.

A woman emerged from the main room dressed perfectly as the hostess.  She sparkled with spirit and acceptance, and an air of possibility hung around her as though she always expected an amazing thing to happen.  Her appearance, however, was calm and contained, and she smiled a warming smile at Peter as she shook-out a long match with which she’d been finally lighting some candles.  “Good evening, Sir,” she greeted.  “Welcome to our home.  I am Mrs. Darling.”

“Peter,” he grinned back, forcing his voice, as well as his new persona, to work as it should, “Peter Greensway of Caseworthy Brewery.”  He held out the bottle of wine.  She looked so much like her daughter, he had to work hard to not stare.

“Ah, Caseworthy!”  She seemed delighted as she took it.  “We have referred many a friend to your brewery in recent months.  And how is the business flowing?”  Amiable conversation ensued while she guided him away from the door and set the wine on a nearby side-table.  “John, dear,” she called as the young man appeared to see who had arrived.  “Would you please take Mr. Greensway’s coat for him?” 

“Of course, Mother,” John cheerfully obliged.  “I trust you’ll find it much more comfortable in here,” John spoke with encouragement.  His coat put up, Peter followed John’s conversation into a vibrant room where he picked up a glass of punch and gazed about in awe.  This was the downstairs of the house from his childhood.  The only house he could remember before being adopted.  Michael was standing by the fireplace talking to another young man.  Mrs. Darling was entertaining three people in the middle of the room with avid attention. 

“And so you’ve gone to school?”  John was asking.

“I was taught at Nana’s,” Peter answered.  “I was adopted at a late age, and it seemed to work better to not go to school with other kids.”

“Remarkable,” John pushed his glasses up as he concentrated more on Peter’s face.  “You seem very bright and experienced, not like a late learner.”  Then John’s knitted brows seemed to lift for an instant as though he’d just remembered something.  Then it was gone.  John shook his head.

“I’ve learned through doing things, rather than reading things,” Peter watched him carefully.

“My siblings and I grew up reading great books at an early age.  But mostly, we made up our own stories and even acted them out!”  John laughed, and Peter’s scalp tingled again.  He knew the stories.

“You have brothers?”  He feigned ignorance as he sipped his punch.

“A brother, Michael, who is over there by the fireplace,” John pointed and Peter hid his grin in the rim of his punch glass.  He felt silly acting like he didn’t know.  “And I have a sister, Wendy, who is older.”  Peter’s gaze scanned the room.  “Oh, she’s not here yet,” John explained, seeing Peter look around.  “Father went to pick up her and her fiancé.  Their buggy’s wheel broke on the way here.”

Peter hoped that no one could see his face turn cold.  He closed his eyes as he realized that his fear had come to fact.  She was going to be married.  “Michael!” John called as he led Peter toward the fireplace.  The younger man and his friend approached.  “This is Peter,” he said, looking directly at Michael.  Peter caught a message being passed in the two’s exchanged gaze.  Michael’s eyes darted to Peter, inspecting his face.

“Peter Greensway,” Peter introduced, hoping to dispel any suspicions.  “Of Caseworthy.”

“Peter,” Michael nearly whispered, still staring at him as though trying to remember something.  “We had a friend named Peter once-“  Suddenly there was a commotion at the front door as it swung open and a man’s booming voice called, “Look what I found on the side of the street!”  The name “Wendy” was called in high, greeting tones along with the name “Edward.” 

“Stay here a moment,” John told Peter, and he and Michael glanced at each other before taking-off for the door to fetch their sister.  Everyone was looking that direction, some clapping, and Peter almost saw her between heads in the crowd, but stopped and turned suddenly before he could find her face.

She was getting married.  She had a man in her life who has made her happy enough to gain her acceptance of marriage.  Peter was too late.  If he showed up now, letting her know who he was, expecting her to have that connection of fun and humor and adventure as they’d had before, the steady and pure life she’d led to now, in the real world, would be scrambled.  Now she had her memories.  Now she remembered him fondly.  Now she was happy.  How could he ask for more?

 

John led Wendy toward the fireplace although she resisted his tugging on her arm.  “John, you’re yanking on me as though we were children!-“

“You have to see who we just met, Wendy,” John smiled as Michael cleared the crowd to where they’d stood with Peter.  “Wendy, this is Peter-“  But no one was there any more.  “Peter?”

“Peter-”  Wendy laughed.  “Are you making a joke, John?  Michael, what is this all about?”  Her eyes glistened with humor, but her brows creased with annoyance.

“We met him. He was here,” Michael said.  “We both saw it.  Didn’t we, John.”

“It was him,” John insisted, pushing up his glasses.  “We both saw the island in his eyes.  It was there!”

“He smelled of the breeze through the trees by a shore!”  Michael’s head was bobbing in agreement.

“Peter,” Wendy laughed it like a joke, but the corners of her mouth faltered.  “He wouldn’t grow up, you know that.  It couldn’t have been him.  What reason would he have had to come back?”  Edward appeared by her side, looking around for whatever they were doing.  “It was nothing, dear,” Wendy smiled up at her husband-to-be.  “My brothers are only having a lark.  Shall we have one of Mother’s famous cakes?”  She and Edward joined the rest of the party.

Out the nearby window, Michael and John heard their old dog, Nana, barking in the yard.  She was looking out to the street at a man running from the house as he donned his wool jacket. 

 

Author's Note

This was written in November of 2012