The Jolly Roger surfaced out onto the ocean of Storybrooke. The older lost boys were placed in a group home, taught how to get a job, a home, etc. Some even considered college. The little ones were placed in the Storybrooke foster system, and some were adopted beforehand. As for Benjamin, he went back to the Enchanted Forest with Anne and Felix, in the hope that he would find his mother. She had to be older by this point, maybe even dead, but Benjamin didn't want to think that way. He could hardly remember her, but if in turn, she was dead, he would stay with Felix and Anne, at Lily's.
It would also turn out that Benjamin would stay with them, wander the forest for a trace of her. They were hardly around anymore. They would write Anne, telling her they're getting closer to finding her whereabouts. But Anne knew better. They wanted adventure, and a part of her did too, but the majority part of her wanted to stay at home with Lily, and find a purpose around the village. She didn't fit in with anyone, she never did. But she was determined to find a way.
Their parents ventured off shortly after they had gotten back to Hamelin. They claimed they started tending to business with the king of a royal family, but Anne never heard from them after they left. She figured they were just wanderers, that they'd always be wanderers. Felix was, Anne might've been but she refrained. She preferred the quiet of Lily's cottage, to collect her thoughts that so incessantly ran away from her. The older villagers had gained immense respect for her, being the parents The Pied Piper had so dramatically stole from. They believed she had taken down the Pied Piper for good, and perhaps she did. No more boys went missing, but no one ever asked Anne what happened. No doubt, rumors spread.
At first, Anne never knew the source of the problem, how they even knew she went to Neverland; up until she discovered how much of a gossiper Lily had become all that time Anne was away. It felt so much longer than what it actually was, her stay in Neverland. About a month, Lily told her. Anne wished...it had been longer. She would frequently take out the box her parents left, the one that had told her everything she knew about Neverland. She couldn't open it though; she had given Henry her roped key to remember her by, to be reminded that she was always an older sister to him so he wouldn't ever feel completely alone.
The boy appreciated the gesture, Anne knew, so she was content with her decision. She didn't want to open the box anyway, she didn't want to read about Pan the way her parents described him, she had a feeling she knew him better than anyone by this point. In fact, he was the only one she felt she really knew. She thought she knew Lily and Felix, maybe even Benjamin, but they had all proven otherwise. She often wondered what became of Neverland without a shadow, or a keeper, if kids still dreamt of it, if the island just died away. Her memories of it never did, though, her connection to it never faded.
She was almost convinced a few times that she actually saw Pan; like when she was picking up some things at the market place; she was examining some flowers, lilies very specifically, for Lily's fiftieth birthday. Anne remembered the way Felix had given her flowers for every birthday growing up. The lilies were the plain kind, white with yellow sprouting from the center, but they were still pretty.
Anne was abruptly bumped into by a cloaked figure. She thought she heard them mumble their apologies as she peered up. The cloak looked just like the Pied Piper's, and the person wearing it was just glancing away, but not before Anne could catch a glimpse of a green eye. She ran after him, attempting to shove through the crowd of other villagers, when she lost the figure into the woods.
She ran back home to Lily's, dropped the basket she was carrying onto the porch, lifted up the bottom of her dress and ran into the forest. She might've searched all day before she gave up. Another time was when she woke up in the midst of the night at what she thought was the sounds of a pan flute, but faded as she gained consciousness. She figured she had just been dreaming. That time at the market place, she figured it was just a look-a-like; after all, everyone wore cloaks, and although green was a rare eye color, Pan and her weren't the only ones with such a color.
All that or Anne came up with coincidences to keep herself from believing that he was somehow still alive, because if he was alive after all this time, why hadn't he come back for her?
~ ~ ~
It has been two years since Anne left and came back from Neverland. She was seventeen today, her brother being twenty and Benjamin, nineteen. They had promised to make it for Anne's birthday. The Beastly girl was cleaning off in a spring near the back of Lily's cottage, her clothing on a rock. She was remembering the first night she got back from Neverland, when she was bathing. She had been covered in so much dirt, the water was becoming a murky brown around her the more she scrubbed. She had scrubbed and scrubbed, the water only growing muddier & muddier.
She had scrubbed through sweat & tears of frustration until her skin was raw. She wanted to rid her body of any trace of ever being in Neverland, of ever being touched or kissed, or hugged by Pan. She wanted to forget, but she could never forget.
In time, the pain of his loss grew less and less severe, and Anne would decide that today would be the day she put her heart back in her chest. She climbed onto the ground, dried herself off, and pulled her clothes on. Once she reached the cottage, Lily was already preparing supper for the boys' arrival. The warmth engulfed Anne the moment she walked through the front door.
She inhaled the smell of fresh baked bread, and steaming soup contently. "Smells delicious, Lily," Anne complimented with a gentle smile.
"Oh thank you, dear," the woman replied, stirring a giant pot of soup over the fireplace, with a wooden ladle. "I'll get you some, dear, go ahead and sit down," she told Anne as she headed into the dimly lit kitchen. Anne then made herself comfortable inside a fur-covered chair by the fireplace. Lily returned with a bowel, a slice of bread and poured a large spoonful of soup into the bowel, placed the bread on the side, and carefully handed it to Anne. She took it with yet again, another smile.
Steam spiraled up into the girl's face, her cheeks warming. She delicately drank from the bowel, then took a bite of her bread. She then peered up as Lily sat diagonal from her. "You think they'll make it this time?" Anne dared to ask. "Felix and Benjamin?" She spoke with pleading eyes.
"Anne, now why would you ask such a question? Of course they'll make it."
"But what about--"
"They couldn't make it last year because they had a run in with ogres, you know that," the woman sighed.
"Well, I know that, I just..." Precipitately, just then, there was a loud rapping at the front door. Anne almost spilled her bowel, when she hurriedly climbed up. She set it down and hastened out of the room. Though once she pulled the front door open, she was disappointed to find that there was no one there, only a package at the doorstep with the note.
As she lifted it, she read the note to herself. It said 'couldn't make it, but hopefully this will mend our absence...with love, Felix and Benjamin'. With a long sigh, Anne was scowling and headed back into the living room. "They couldn't have at least said why?" She complained, tearing the note off and handed it to a frowning Lily.
"Well," the woman chimed in attempt to lighten the mood, "aren't you going to open it?"
Anne stared at the package, hesitantly pulling at the strings.
"Go on," Lily urged with a smile.
Anne then angrily threw the package into the fire place, "how's that for mending," she scoffed. Lily gasped as the fire place blew up, then settled, crackling. "I'm going to bed," the girl sighed, "thank you for the evening, Lily." She hugged the distraught woman, then ran upstairs with tears brimming her eyes.
She closed her door behind her, then crawled under the covers of her bed and buried her face into her pillow. After everything she went through and everything she did, she didn't feel heroic, at all, in fact, she felt useless. Her family proved how much they needed her when they all left.
The only person that ever made her feel anything more than what she was, was Pan, and he was gone. She never realized it, but she wished so much subconsciously, that she could have stayed with Pan if she had just a little bit longer...
~ ~ ~
Stolen away by dreams of souring over Neverland, the wind was crawling across Anne's face, her heart lifting as she landed upon a familiar cliffside. Pan's lifeless form lay, colorless and abandoned. Anne sank down onto her knees, and reached for his cheek with a glowing hand. Awestruck by her skin, she turned her wrist about, observing that the luminescence was all over her. She breathed slow, then glanced back over at Pan's body. Hesitantly just then, she brought her hand to his cheek, grazing his skin with her fingers. Trailing from her fingers were rays of light that washed Pan's face with color, then moved down his neck and chest. The white illumination traveled through his veins and toward his fingers, to his toes and his chest lifted.
At last, he gasped for air, startling Anne and she tore her hand away. Though just as she felt herself fading back to consciousness, she felt him grab her wrist and bore his wide green gaze into her eye sockets. "You," he breathed shakily, his grasp tightening just enough to keep her there. "You," he repeated, "you came back!"
Throttled into panic, Anne tried to pull herself free. This wasn't real, she tried to tell herself. This wasn't real! Screamed her mind. "No," she panicked, "no, I'm not back--I can't be!" The desperation in the boy's face was everlasting as the glowing pigments of her skin were fading. "Peter, please--let go of me!" Anne demanded. "NOW!" Abruptly, just then, she shoved him back and fell free.
She was flung awake in her bed, rapidly panting through her befuddlement and disbelief. She clasped a hand over her hollow chest to discover the ghost of her heart lashing about. "No," she spoke in panic, her free hand tearing the covers away as she climbed out of bed. "It can't be," she spoke again, "it's not possible," she cried as she sank down and pulled her parents' box out.
Recalling the lock on the box, Anne groaned in frustration, then began to desperately bust the box open by banging it on the floor. "C'mon, c'mon!" The clasp broke and the box fell open. Papers spilled out and Anne anxiously dug through for some possibility to bring the piper back. "It felt so real," she cried, then came up hopeless in her search. "It felt so real," she repeated, breathlessly, when a loud rap came at her door.
"Anna, darling, are you awake?! It's an emergency!!" Lily's voice spilled through the cracks of the wood, and Anne was up on her feet to pull the door open.
"I'm awake," she replied as she met Lily's frantic features.
"The Piper," were her first words, making Anne's breath hitch. "He's back!"
Terror crossed the beastly girl's face. "No," she breathed through her shock.
"He doesn't want the boys, he wants you!" Lily cried.
A gasp ripped from the woman's throat when the pounding of angry villagers came at the door of their cottage. "Give us the girl, Lillian!" A broad chest man demanded with a torch in his hand.
Anne's chest heaved, eyes wide with fear at Lily, before she darted for her window.
"Anne, no!" Lily pleaded.
But the Beastly girl peered outside anyway, discovering a crowd of villagers with pitch forks, torches, and weapons flooding the outskirts of their cottage. "They're trying to take me hostage," Anne concluded, her skin crawling and her breathing rapid. "To prod the Piper away..."
Lily panicked, clutching the girl's arms. "I won't let them hurt you!"
"I have to go," Anne mumbled through her mounting fear, "otherwise they'll...they'll burn the cottage down!" She suggested when she saw a woman throwing bottles of rum at the side of the house.
"You're staying right here, Anna Rose, do you understand me??" Lily firmed with assertive eyes.
"I have to!" Anne repeated. "They'll hurt you if I don't, I'll be fine, I promise," she tried to make Lily believe. The old woman shook with horror at the determined look in Anne's eyes, and knew there was no stopping her. Though she tried anyway when Anne attempted to flee, grabbing hold of her arm. "Over my dead body!"
"They'll take me anyway! Whether they have to go through you or not," Anne warned, "look at them!" She glanced toward the window. "They're not going to leave us alone until they get what they want!"
"No," Lily cried, "no!" Through her weakening grasp, Anne pulled free, then bolted for the door. "Anne, no!!"
As the Beastly girl descended down the stairs, the villagers were already busting through the door. The girl stood, grabbing hold of her cloak by the door, her mind screaming with worries and her hands trembling. "Gah, there she is!" The hardy man that was yelling earlier, grumbled and big strong hands yanked her out into the night.
Anne's eyes bulged at how intimidating and suffocating the villagers looked when she was pulled outside and captured by the man. They were monstrous against the burning light their torches casted on their faces, shadows of pitchforks falling onto the warmth. Their clothes were filthy, hair tattered and perspiration slid down their faces. Their hot breathing dizzied Anne through her panic, and had her clinging to consciousness. "You're coming with us, little missy," the man's voice rang through her ears, vibrating her skull as she was then jerked forward. Lily's cries grew farther and farther away.
Having been dragged and shoved through Hamelin, the toes of Anne's shoes would frequently scrape the cobblestone streets. The angry cries and hollers of the villagers followed her hastened footsteps, drifting as the crowd dispersed. The night sky spun overhead when Anne would look up for some air, before she would quickly be throttled back into the mess she had thrown herself in.
She would coach herself along the way, struggle to organize her thoughts with all her questions. She wondered if this was all some crazy nightmare, that the Piper was back for her and the villagers were betraying her so suddenly. All she knew and had become familiar with in the last two years, was collapsing. She had mourned Pan's loss and adapted, had settled in the quiet innocence of her village, and that was all she knew for the last two years. And now, everything was so abruptly flipping upside down before she could catch her breath.
The dense, hot air of shuffling bodies from the crowd semi-lifted when they entered the coolness of the forest, relieving Anne of some of her distress and pulled her back to full consciousness. The roaring torches darkened to subtle orange flares and the crowd weaved around trees. The volume of the villagers only partially subsided, but it was enough for Anne to collect her thoughts. She could see through the blackness of the forest, a bonfire was blazing and clouds of smoke drifted up to the sky. There was an array of dancing and howling boys, blurring around a figure, and that was when the reality of things hit Anne.
She was beginning to rapidly panic, wanting more than anything to rip away from the man's aching grasp and run off into the night--but that was her mind talking. If she had her heart, she would want to rip away and run straight through the plethora of silhouetted boys that barricaded her Piper she had endlessly yearned for.
As the encircling crowd halted at the outskirts of the clearing, a cloaked figure hopped off a tree stump with his pipes in hand, and moved through the hazily dancing boys to approach the man holding Anne captive. Her breathing hitched, fearful that the figure would get too close so she could make out his face beneath the cowl of his cloak. That was when he stopped, a few feet back and the girl's chest fell. The sounds of the crowd hushed into hisses of whispers, and just when Anne thought the air was settling, the man holding her captive secured her against his chest and held the side of a blade to her throat. "We brought you the girl, now we want our boys in exchange," the man demanded, "or we'll kill 'er!"
The crowd roused back up in agreement, pitchforks and torches lifting. Anne gasped in horror, and tried to pull away. The man held her there, and her voice trembled when she went to speak. "P-Peter?? L-let them go..."
The air tensed in silence, then the figure lifted a hand. The knife press deeper into Anne's throat so she was paralyzed. "P-Peter, please!" She was just barely able to emit.
"You better do what the girl says or--" the man began but with the Piper's hand movement, the man's hand came up from around Anne's neck and poised the knife at the side of his own throat--not yet penetrating the skin. Terror struck the crowd cold and before Anne could process it, the Piper used his other hand to magically compel her body toward him. Throttled into alarm, Anne tried to resist the strong pull, but couldn't and became barricaded by the Piper's arm. "How'd you..." her voice faded out when her eyes trailed up into the cloaked figure's cowl.
Her eyes bulged at the sight of a shadowy face with glowing eyes. "No!!" She panicked, and tried to pull free, but the hold on her only tightened. "It can't be you!!" She cried. "Where's Peter?! What'd you do with him?!" She tried with all her desperation to yank away from the figure, but it was almost entirely impossible. "Let me go, you bastard!! LET ME GO!!"
Despite how solid the body felt, Anne felt herself becoming molded to it further and further, until she felt the body become her own and her eyes flashed white. She was still panicking inside, but she had no control over her body now, and the addled and panicked villagers watched as she flew up into the night, and soured toward the Neverland star. The haze of dancing boys' bodies drifted up after them, compelled by some invisible force, and spiraled along the trees that drew smaller and smaller the more they all flew upward. Until...at last, the Neverland star pulled them through a portal of infinity.
-The Shadow's Keeper-