by Dash Hoffman
“Please forgive me.”
“I do.” She answered quietly.
“There’s something else I need to ask, aside from your forgiveness.”
She looked at him curiously. “What is it?”
He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s Emma. She refuses to speak to me. Since the moment you walked out the door of her room, she hasn’t said one word to me. I can’t even get her to look at me. Then last night they put her into the coma.”
Emotion choked him then, and he lifted one hand, covering half of his face with it. “I have to make this right with her somehow, before she’s gone. I have to fix what’s broken between us, and I don’t know how. I need… I need your help. I can’t lose her forever this way.”
He set the teacup on the tray and dropped his head into his hands as soft sobs shook his shoulders.
When he was able to breathe somewhat again, he looked back up at Callie and rubbed his fingers over his eyes.
“Please… please help me. You’ve touched my daughter’s heart and her life more than anyone else has. You’ve brought her more joy and happiness than I knew she could have, especially now. I need you to show me how to get her back before it’s too late, before she’s gone. Please.” His eyes and tone implored her, and Callie felt somehow as if her broken heart was being mended.
“I’d be so glad to. I’m ready anytime you want to go.” She smiled at him and stood up.
He stood up as well, and his face brightened a little. “Now?”
“Right now.”
“Thank you so much.” He shook his head as tears threatened to spill again. Callie wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight.
“We can fix this. Come on, I’ll go with you and we’ll fix it.” She gave him a smile and picked up her purse and her sweater, heading for the door.
“I have an idea, and I bet it’ll do just what you need it to.”
“Anything. Just name it. I’ll do anything.”
“Even go to Neverland?” She smiled and he tilted his head in confusion.
“Show me the way.”
Working together as fast as they could, Callie, Liam, Joshua, and even nurse Abbie sat together in Emma’s room, creating a little magic.
Emma slept, though Joshua had stopped the drug that made her sleep so that she could wake up again.
While she rested, the group sat in chairs and cut stars out of paper, coloring them and adding glitter to them. They also cut out flowers in a multitude of colors, as well as tall and short trees, and shapes of clumps of grass from green paper. Callie made a mermaid and a lagoon with rocks around it, and Joshua made a big round moon.
Together they made a whole Neverland out of paper and crafts, putting it all up around the room. There was no corner of the room that didn’t look like a magical island. They were just finishing with it when the little girl began to stir.
Putting away the last of the craft supplies, they all waited and when she opened her eyes, they stood around her bed, smiling at her.
“What… what is everyone doing here?” She croaked in the barest whisper of a voice.
“We’ve made a Neverland for you!” Liam told her, and then he nodded over at Callie, who stood on the opposite side of Emma’s bed. “And look who’s here. She’s back, Emma, and everything is fine again. Everything is fixed.”
Abbie and Joshua stepped back so Emma could see the room. She smiled as wide as she could and looked at each of them. “Thank you so much. I love it, it’s beautiful.”
Joshua and Abbie both hugged her and then turned to go, leaving her alone with Liam and Callie.
They sat beside her, one on each side of the bed, and Liam tilted the bed up so that she could see them easily.
“Callie,” Emma began quietly, “I’m so glad to see you.”
“I’m very glad to see you, too. I missed you darling.” Callie made herself keep a smile on her face. It was the singlemost painful joy she had ever experienced.
Liam took Emma’s hand in his and opened her palm upward. “I have something for you.” He said quietly. I’m so sorry my baby. I’m so sorry. I hope this helps you.”
He set a small piece in her hand gently, and she looked down at it. It was a compass much like the one that she and Callie had made. It was filled with green glitter.
“The Neverland Compass!” Emma whispered, struggling to speak. “Oh daddy… thank you.”
“I want you to use your imagination as much as you like.” He assured her.
“I love you.” She said, taking a deep breath. “You’re the best daddy ever.”
Liam’s eyes filled with tears and Callie swallowed hard.
“I love this compass.” She said, gazing down at it in her palm. “I’m so relieved. I never thought that I would get back to the Neverland again.”
Slowly, taking great effort to do so, she turned her hand over and put the compass back into Liam’s hand.
He looked at her in surprise. “Please hold it daddy, and keep it because I won’t need it now, but you will, so you can find your way without me.”
Liam took it and closed his fingers around it tightly, holding Emma’s hand with his other hand.
“It’s okay to sleep tonight, daddy, you won’t have to worry about me anymore.” Emma tried to smile at him, and Liam kissed her fingers.
Emma turned slowly and looked at Callie. “Could I please go to the Neverland one more time?”
Tears streamed down Callie’s face, and she nodded and tried to smile. “Of course, honey.” She drew in a shaking breath and tried to steady her pounding heart.
“Close your eyes, and I’ll talk you there.” Callie managed to say, though her voice cracked.
Emma closed her eyes and waited.
When she opened her eyes, it was dark around her, like space with no stars; only darkness. She wasn’t standing on anything, or falling, or flying. She was just there. “Callie?” She asked, looking around and wondering where she was.
There was no answer. “I can’t hear you in my thoughts! Callie?” She called out again.
A soft golden and green light began to glow near her, and she turned fully to see a young boy there before her. She blinked in surprise.
“It’s you! You’re my friend from Kensington Gardens!” She gasped. “But what are you…” she trailed off. “You’re Peter Pan!” She gasped in complete delight.
“Yes! I am.” He looked quite proud of it. “I’ve been gone away from the Neverland for a while, but when I went back, all of my Lost Boys told me about their new friend Piper, and they told me all that you did.”
Her mouth fell open slightly as she stared at him. “They did?”
He clasped his hands behind his back and began to stride around her slowly in a circle, though he wasn’t actually walking on anything.
“Piper, I’m here to take you to the Neverland for always. You aren’t lost, but you are found. You will be the first girl who is a Lost Boy, if you want to come. What say you?”
Peter turned sharply then and faced her, his chin poked out; his sparkling eyes alight with magic, fun, and adventure.
Piper laughed blissfully and clapped her hands together. “Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning!” She cried out with a wild grin and total abandon.
He held his hand out, and she took it. Together they flew off as the stars began to appear out of the darkness all around them; more stars than she had ever seen, though the brightest of them was a tiny one, winking at her from far away.
The soft beeping of the monitors stilled, and Emma’s hands went limp as Callie and Liam each held them.
“No!” Callie gasped.
“Emma!” Liam cried out her name in a whisper.
There was nothing but peace and stillness. Liam took to his feet and wrapped his arms around Emma, holding her tightly to his chest as he sobbed and let go of all the pain within his heart.
Callie dropped her face and rested her forehead on Emma’s lifeless ha
nd.
* * *
Much later, when the night was at its darkest; meaning that it was nearing its end, Liam and Callie walked out of the children’s hospital together in silence, side by side.
They stopped when they reached the sidewalk, and she looked at him with sad eyes.
“Mr. Barrie wrote in his book of Peter Pan that when children died he went part of the way with them so they should not be frightened, though I think perhaps he took our Emma with him all the way.”
Liam nodded slightly. “I hope so. She loved that place so much.”
Something above them caught their eyes just then, and they looked up and gasped in absolute wonder.
The dark night sky overhead was ablaze with shooting stars in every part of it; streaked thick with them.
“Oh my…” Callie murmured breathlessly.
“Have you ever seen…” Liam asked in a small voice.
“Never.”
He lifted his hand then and pointed to the big, fat, full moon, all golden yellow where it hung low in the sky just over the horizon. There was a strangely shaped cloud sailing past it.
“Do you see that… cloud?” Liam asked in a hush.
“Yes.”
“Does that look like a…”
“A pirate ship? Yes. It looks exactly like the Jolly Roger.” She answered as a smile spread over her face.
Liam blinked and looked down at his hand. “My gosh… I didn’t realize. I’m still holding her little compass.”
He paused for a moment and then looked at her, puzzled. “How did you know how to get to Neverland? How did you know how to make this?”
A wistful smile tugged at the corner of Callie’s mouth. “Because I’ve been there before. This compass looks just like the one I hid many years ago in a little hollow in a rock wall on a small island. Emma found it.”
He lifted it up so they could both look at it. As they were watching, the little wooden arrow moved by itself to the second star on the right, and it stayed there.
Callie blinked back happy tears. “They flew away, to the Neverland, where the lost children live.”
The End
About The Neverland Girl
The Neverland Girl was inspired partly from a song done by artist Ruth B., as well as by J.M. Barrie’s own Peter Pan, Robin William’s portrayal of Peter Pan in the movie Hook, and several visits to London by Dash Hoffman, which created no end of inspiration.
From the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens to the Neverland park in memory of Princess Diana, and of course the Great Ormond Street Hospital
for children, this story was born of
many inspirational shooting stars.
It is my great hope that this book has touched your heart, and reminded you that kindness and love are always best, and that imagination can take you anywhere.
-Dash Hoffman
Mrs. Perivale and the
Blue Fire Crystal
By Dash Hoffman
Prelude
An earsplitting clap of thunder struck, and a bolt of lightning shot from a clear blue sky where the morning sun poured out honeyed light.
The powerful javelin of electric energy ripped through the air straight down to the ground, where it pierced a large boulder, shattering it, and sending shards spraying in every direction. They pelted the ground, splashed into water, and whipped against tree trunks, not far from several tiny homes making up a small village.
The village was nestled into an idyllic spot on gently rolling hills between a great forest, and a wide lake. To the north of the village, the low mountains at the start of a massive range stood sentry. To the south, over more hills, was sea.
The inhabitants of the village; small furry creatures about two feet tall, went rushing about in chaos. Many of them were shouting, some were weeping; all of them were looking for answers, and help.
One of them, worrying over the pandemonium, suddenly turned and scurried away, heading to the woods. He picked his way skillfully through the trees and brush, nipping beneath some of the branches, and scuttling over large roots and a few fallen tree trunks.
He came to a wee space where all of the growth had been parted away from a low tree stump. The giant, leafy lord of the forest which had once reigned there had fallen long before, but its roots remained; great and knobbly, crawling over and through the ground in every direction. They connected in an intricate web to all of the other tree roots for as far as the forest grew.
The stump was slightly lopsided; one jagged edge of it, covered with soft moss and tiny flowers, rose like a shield, just a bit taller than the furry creature who stood beside it. The rest of it was fairly even, dipping down into a kind of rough bowl in the center.
The little creature bent to a nearby flower, which was filled with morning dew, and tipped it into his paw. With the greatest care, he turned his paw over the center of the hollowed out bowl of the stump, pouring the water into it.
Next, he opened a small leather-like pouch on a drawstring around his neck, and picked out a pebble-sized chunk of a glowing ember. He blew on it, making it catch fire, and then lowered it into the hollow. It hovered just above the water.
Moving both of his paws together in a circular motion above the maw of the bowl, the creature concentrated and focused, staring into the space as the droplets of water, the bits of fire, and the air, along with the leaves and dust already in the bowl, began to turn and twist together, forming a translucent disc.
Moving images appeared within the ring of elements, and the creature gazed at them; his large dark eyes searching desperately.
The scenes within the circle changed, going from city to country, from mountain to sea, from one human’s face to the next, and the next after that, in a seemingly endless parade.
At long last, the scenes stopped, and the creature focused the vision on one woman; an older woman, standing outside on a step, speaking to a postal carrier. At her feet, there was a cat.
Chapter One
A Rainy Day
In a prim and proper townhouse, neatly set back from a respectable street in the poshest end of the Notting Hill neighborhood of London, lived an older woman named Alice Perivale. Mrs. Perivale was widowed when her husband, the late Lieutenant General George Perivale, passed away bravely in a battle on a distant shore in the service of Her Majesty the Queen of England.
Alice left their spacious country home after George had gone, as she felt that it was too empty. Their son Edward went off to Oxford and then become an important businessman in the Central Business District of London.
He’d married and had his own child, and Alice saw them on holidays and occasionally on odd weekends. She had only been able to stand the quietness of her large home for a short while before she determined that it would be much better if she lived closer to her family in London. She wanted to be there for them whenever they needed her.
Alice purchased a lovely townhouse and settled into it with her six cats, and her butler Henderson. Henderson had vowed to remain in her service for the duration of her life. He felt that it was his duty, his obligation, and indeed his honor, to do so. He took excellent care of Alice and the cats. Alice said more than once that Henderson was the glue that kept the household together, and he did his best to live up to that bar. From making certain that tea was always served promptly at four in the afternoon to ensuring that Mrs. Perivale took the right pills at just the right time every day, he was the clockwork that kept it all going.
She had recently brought home a fluffy orange kitten with big green eyes, that she had found homeless and hungry in the park down the lane. Alice cleaned him up, fed him, and introduced him to the other older cats, naming him Oscar, and explaining to them that they were to take care of him; he was their new charge. Oscar was having a trying time learning to fit into his new place in the family, but each day he grew a bit more comfortable.
On the most unusual day of Alice’s life, the morning had been gray and rainy, though at intermittent points
the sun made efforts to shine at the edges of the clouds, brightening them somewhat from behind.
Alice was seated at the old wooden roll-top desk in her small library. Marlowe, the Abyssinian cat, was curled up on a red pillow cushion on a modest chair beside her, watching her through heavily lidded eyes, while he purred quietly.
Nearer to the fireplace, on a thick, soft rug, lay two more cats. Tao, the Siamese, was resting so still that she could have been mistaken for the statue of a sphinx. Her sea blue eyes were closed, her breathing slow and deep, and her tail was wrapped around her carefully. She often meditated in such a way.
Not far from Tao sat Sophie. She was picturesque, as always, with her long white hair carefully groomed, her posture elegant, her manner poised, and her slender diamond studded collar fastened about her neck. Her sky-blue eyes were set on Alice as she sat at the desk.
Lounging in a cushioned basket right beside Sophie was an old grey cat with black stripes streaking back from his bearded-looking whiskery face.
The stripes varied in size, growing wider as they reached the middle of his body, wrapping around him. His coat was long and soft, and more white hairs now mingled with the grey than before. Montgomery was asleep; stretched out lazily and happily, facing the warmth coming off of the flames in the fireplace.
In the window was another cat. She was all black, and her fur gleamed like smooth satin in any light. Though she gazed coolly around the room now and then, her golden eyes were diverted more often to the street outside, watching the passersby and the rain as it fell from the sky, rolled down the buildings and streets, and splashed in the gutters when cars swept by.