Peter

Chapter One - The boy on my window sill

Peter. I remember the name.

Like a tattoo in the back of my brain, but so far back I can't reach it. Like a cobweb that constantly annoys you but you're too short to reach it. Like a ghost of a story you remember from your childhood.

Sleep falls over me quickly and swiftly. Dreams come fast and are short, but one sticks in my head. A boy of fifteen is sitting on my window sill, the moonlight shining through. This boy has a pale, fair face, and thick red hair and deep green eyes that match his green tunic. He doesn't look at me, but gazes at the moon outside my window. I watch him watching. He has a petite nose and pink lips, that give him a feminine yet boyish look. He's has really quite interesting features.

The wind tickles my chin and I begin to stir. It can't be morning because the house is silent. In the morning I can hear Miss Dock, our house maid, busying around downstairs with fathers tea and toast, and the room is still filled with moonlight, not the warmth and freshness of the morning sun. I sit up and scan the room. Everyone calls it the nursery, even though it's my bedroom, because of the pasty yellow walls and my love for fairy tales.

And there's a boy.

Sitting on my window sill.

I throw myself back onto the pillow and pull my covers up to my chin. It's too late, he's noticed me, and he's crying. Not loudly, but silently, I wouldn't have noticed if the moon light hadn't been reflecting off his face, turning his tears into liquid pearls.

"I've lost my shadow."

That's when I notice the soap littered all over the nursery. The poor child, trying to stick his shadow back on with soap! I look at the soap longer than he expected, I'm still rather skittish that there is a boy in my nursery, but when I look back he is gone, and nothing but the puddles of his perfect tears are left on the window sill.

I run to the window and look down. He isn't there and I start to panic. I don't know him, but I'm scared for him.

I don't dream again for a week, and it's only on my fifteenth birthday that he returns. He is peculiar, especially since I find him perched upon my wardrobe.

"Judy!" He whispers at a golden sparkle floating around his head. "Judy!"

"What's wrong Peter?" Peter? What if his name isn't Peter?! My voice is hoarse from sleep.

He jumps down silently from the wardrobe and runs over. "Matilda! Go back to sleep! I don't want to bother you!" He sits on my bed.

I ignore him and sit up. I'm not afraid of anything. "Is your name Peter?" I ask, my voice full of caution in case I upset a stranger.

"Yes, and you're Matilda. I know because... because..." He looks down, his index finger trancing the lavender boquets that are printed onto the fabric of my covers, his cheeks tinged a light pink.

"It's okay, I know your name, why shouldn't you know mine?" The words flow out of my mouth, a new found confidence digging itself out of me.

"You're... the first girl I've ever met." He looks up at me, and strangely, his eyes turn from green to hazel, but only for a moment I forget I see it. He takes my hand in his soft, smooth one. "Come with me, Matilda! We can go on adventures! Please, Matilda!"

I'm taken a back from his rash proposal. "I can't, father needs me, mother and Nana..." I look down at my night gown. Peter lifts my chin up with two fingers and looks me dead in the eyes. "Matilda... please..."

"Okay," I whisper. "Okay!" He kisses my hand and pulls me out of bed.

"Okay!" He cheers. "Oh, Matilda! This is going to be so much fun!" He grabs both of my hands and we spin in the air. We spin in the air? That's when I know I'm never going to regret speaking to him, never going to regret any word I said, because I've never been... wild before! Every-things been so refined and formal before this, and now I know there is nothing I want more than to be with Peter.