Back in the playground, Virginia Willis, ruler of Neverland, walks in the direction of Amazement Square, holding the hand of an 11-year-old girl who resembles Matilda.
Exiting the emotion smuggler’s hideout, James can sense that something isn’t right. The wet cobblestone is evidence of recent rainfall. Nothing strange about that in itself… but an unsettling knot forms in his stomach just the same. Cautiously, he approaches the park bench that was chosen by Matilda. He finds nothing but a single soggy paper cup.
He scans the nearby shops for Matilda, hoping to see an adult amongst the children. Certainly she took shelter from the rain. Unable to spot her, James sits down on the bench. His thoughts are anxious, ill-formed. Unwelcome.
“Lost something?” a voice to his left inquires, politely.
James instinctively reaches for his pistol, but abruptly stops as he sees the source of the voice. A middle-aged man sits on the bench. Close enough to touch without fully extending his arm. Taciturn curses himself for letting someone sneak up on him. He quickly sizes up the stranger, his hand still frozen at one flap of his unzipped jacket.
Dressed in jeans, brown work boots, a vintage 90’s-era shirt – a Double Dragon video game print – and a black cap, the man is clearly just visiting Neverland. What most catches James’ attention is the man’s eyes. James feels like he’s seem them before. The notion is queerly unsettling.
Acknowledging what the Taciturn was reaching for, the man puts both of his hands up in affable surrender.
“No need for any of that, young man. Just trying to help.”
James feigns patting his jacket for his smokes instead. The delayed gesture seems false even to him, but he commits to it anyway. The man chuckles.
“I think you’re out. Here, have one of mine.”
Keeping one hand in the air for a moment and producing a pack of Lucky Strikes with the other, he offers the pack’s opened end to the Taciturn.
James regards the man for another prolonged moment. The pack his questing hand has found is empty anyway. Taciturn reaches for the extended pack, extracts a cigarette, and examines it.
“I’m looking for someone. A friend of mine. She was supposed to be here.”
The man chuckles again, lighting first James’s cigarette and then his own. They both take long, deep pulls.
“Hmm. I see. It wouldn’t happen to be a young woman in a business suit, by chance?”
James turns his body to face the stranger. Feeling a desperation taking hold, he ignores his standing policy of avoiding engagement with strangers.
“Yes, have you seen her?” It sounds casual enough to his own ears.
The man lets out a streamer of smoke and nods his head.
“I have, in fact.”
He gestures in the direction of the playground.
“Seems she was making rather merry with the children over there. Trying to recapture her youth, you ask me.” The stranger contemplates the city around them. “But I guess that’s the point of this whole place, isn’t it? Only problem is, when you’re desperate to see something it’s easy to get fooled, wouldn’t you say?”
James shakes his head. “Not this woman. I don’t believe she’d get swept up in all this bullshit.”
The stranger shrugs his shoulders, “Perhaps you’re right.” He starts to move his cigarette to his mouth but stops. “Unless, of course, she had a little push.” The cigarette finishes its journey. Its tip glows.
Taciturn goes for his own, but it has gone out. Flicking it into the wet street, he finds the stranger offering him another. As he accepts it, he already knows the answer to who did the pushing.
“Where’d Virginia take her?”
The man offers another shrug. “Where do all kids go, when they’re done playing? Home. To their mother, to forget about all of the day’s troubles.”
James looks around to see the few remaining citizens of Neverland, closing their shops and moving in the same direction. To Amazement Square.
“But Matilda’s not one of them…”
The strange man’s face turns solemn.
“Not when you left her, maybe.” The man gazes grimly towards the town center. “I’d hurry, if I were you. There are some things you can’t come back from. Once someone finds a new home, they begin to let go of their past. And when someone doesn’t have a past to remember, it’s a lot easier to let go.”
James is already on his feet, tossing his cigarette away.
“I can’t let that happen.”
The man cocks his head.
“For her sake, or yours?”
James stops and turns to the man on the bench, his own anger catching him off guard. “What is that supposed to mean?”
The old man takes another puff of his cigarette and follows the trail of smoke as it rises into the cold air.
“Nothing… or everything, depending on how you look at it. When a person’s desires overcome their reason, they can justify their actions to whatever end. It takes only a slight nudge for someone to turn into a monster.”
The man’s serious face softens. “Or maybe that’s just the ramblings of an old man. Good luck, James.”
Taciturn starts walking, then running, towards the distant buildings. It takes him another few moments to register that the stranger just called him by name. Looking back at the bench, James finds it empty – only a faint cloud of smoke lingers in the air.
Pushing the man from his thoughts, James rushes to Amazement Square.
As the sun sets on Neverland, the blue sky and red sun mingle in their ritual chromatic dance. The day’s dying light casts the city in a soft fleeting glow before the oncoming darkness. Slowly, the creatures of the night start making their voices heard. crickets and frogs chirp and croak in their nightly chorus. It occurs to James that, under normal circumstances, he would find the view breathtaking. With the mission at hand, however, he finds the sight oppressive, somehow ghoulish. As he races up the street towards Amazement Square, distant bells start ringing. James feels his hand flexing, feels a dizziness in his forehead. The bells continue, and the sensation increases. He slows, stops, and reaches out to brace himself against a nearby wall.
And another memory claws its way up from where he’s buried it.
Sunset and bells – both filling the evening that he first met the woman he would marry, Sarah. James was at his friend Sam’s wedding at the Santa Barbara Zoo. He was one of the groomsmen, she knew the bride. At the reception, they found themselves talking at the same table. Sarah was fascinating, well-traveled, educated, and down to earth. Stricken with her personality, James counted himself lucky to successfully land a few jokes. Sarah’s laugh was infectious. As the reception started winding down, James stepped away to have a smoke, and she joined him. They started another conversation and spent an hour talking by themselves, sitting on a bench next to a family of giraffes.
Taciturn shakes the memory out of his head. No, damn it. Not now.
Pushing himself harder still, James scrambles through a maze of streets to a building he hopes will work as his sniper tower. The bells continue to ring out. It’s a ringing that reverberates in his head, drowning out his thoughts, tormenting his mind. And still the memory intrudes, persists.
After the wedding, Sarah went back to her home on the East Coast, and James went to Europe to consult on AI development. Engrossed in his work, James forgot about that magical night. But nine months later, he received a message through a business networking site. Sarah was attending the same conference in San Francisco and wanted to know if he’d like to meet up. As the memories of that wedding came back to him, demurral wasn’t even an option. Sarah was already waiting for him on the 39th floor of the Marriott, looking out over the city from The View Lounge. With its vast hemispherical window-wall overlooking downtown and the bay beyond, the lounge struck James as the lair of some moneyed Bond villain. Standing there with the sunset and the city behind her, she was as beautiful as James remembered – more so, if that were possible. It was at this moment that James knew this would not just be a casual meetup. He was destined to spend the rest of his life with this woman. But it was a life that ended when the old world died.