Jodi Lynn Anderson

“Every king of love, it seems, is the only one. It doesn't happen twice.”

“As she walked home that night, she was shaking from the largeness of it. I didn't know why she seemed so sad and happy at the same time. To love someone was not what she had expected. It was like falling from somewhere high up and breaking in half, and only one person having the secret to the puzzle of putting her back together.”

“I'm not myself.' '...You can never say that. You're just a piece of yourself right now that you don't like.”

“You're a girl. Someday you'll want to be a prisoner to someone other than yourself.”

“I didn't know why she seemed so sad and happy at the same time. To love someone was not what she had expected. It was like falling from somewhere high up and breaking in half, and only one person having the secret to the puzzle of putting her back together.”

“When they made up, it was as if nothing had happened at all. In fact, it was like they were stuck even closer together, like they had gotten even more tangled in each other.”

“She felt the warmth of Peter's arm under her neck, and it almost felt like he was an extension of her, and like if they had souls, they lay somewhere snug between their two bodies. Maybe all of her strangeness, her curse, her always feeling like an outsider, had all existed so that she could belong here, with Peter.”

“For the girls with messy hair and thirsty hearts.”

“You love me," she said. "That's enough. We love each other.""Yes. Yes, that's true." He smiled. "We are a love story.”

“Maybe all of her strangeness, her curse, her always feeling like an outsider, had all existed so that she could belong here, with Peter.”

“For years after my father left us for Belladonna, I had looked for him... the last time someone had seen them, they were living on a duck's back.”

“The bad things are some of my favorites," Peter said.”

“Now there are days when she is content, and days when she’s restless. But there is never a day when she doesn’t see Peter everywhere. Things hurt, and don’t hurt, and hurt again. Eighty years later, and she can still feel surprised that he’s gone. And then so much of the time, she’s glad. But just as she looks for Tik Tok in everything around her, she looks for Peter in the woods, out gathering, in the lagoon, in the burrow that is now abandoned. She goes up on the cliffs from time to time and stands there for hours, continuing her long good-bye. It’s not for lack of loyalty to her husband. It is just that she was fifteen once for the first time, and Peter walked across her heart, and left his footprints there.”

“He even listened to more than her sounds, because Tiger Lily was a girl of few words. He listened with his eyes, watched her facial expressions, judged body language, and therefore read Tiger Lily better than anyone else.”

“I recognized Tiger Lily instantly; I had seen her before. She stood out like a combination of a roving panther and a girl. She stalked instead of walked. Her body still held the invincibility of a child, when at her age it should have been giving way to fragile, flexible curves.”

“You have to be careful who you meet. You can’t unmeet them.”

“Everyone will think I'm ugly."Tik Tok smiled. "That's true. But we are a small village. We have narrow tastes. There's no telling who else in the world would think you're beautiful.”

“And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn't seem broken at all.”

“To love someone was not what she had expected. It was like falling from somewhere high up and breaking in half, and only one person having the secret to the puzzle of putting her back together.”

“Many people in the village wanted her to be more of a girl, and Peter had wanted her to be large and brave but a little less large and brave than him. But Pine Sap was sure enough to want her to be exactly who she was.”

“Sometimes love means not being able to bear seeing the one you love the way they are, when they’re not what you hoped for them.”

“Still, the longer I was around her, the more I could see the colors of her mind and the recesses of her heart. There was a beast in there. But there was also a girl who was afraid of being a beast, and who wondered if other people had beasts in their hearts too. There was strength, and there was also just the determination to look strong. She guarded herself like a secret.”

“It turned out that my curiosity did not outweigh my courage after all. Sometimes love means not being able to bear seeing the one you love the way they are, when they're not what you hoped for.”

“Tiger Lily went back into the house, from which she kept watch of the ocean. She held her arms around her stomach and stayed awake. She didn't want him to catch her sleeping. Peter did not come that night, or the next day, and she stayed awake. She did not believe he could have really gone, because for her, to leave the person you loved was impossible. For three days, she kept on studying the horizon, even speaking to it, as if a ship that had already disappeared could hear her. "Choose me." And Peter did choose. But he chose something else.”

“There was a long moment between them that might have gone differently. Of all the times I saw the two of them together, this is the picture that is most stamped in my soul. It's the two of them, jumbled up and broken apart into confused pieces, and not really understanding, themselves, what they were doing. "I won't wait for you to change your mind," she finally said, her chin set stubbornly. He bit his lip thoughtfully. "I understand." And to Tiger Lily, he suddenly, inexplicably, seemed older than her, and wiser, and the thought hit her hard that it wasn't fair, because she'd suffered, and there he was, looking like he knew so much more than she ever would.”

“Later, Wendy would tell people on the ship that they had battled pirates. But she would never say that Tiger Lily had betrayed them, or that she had rescued them either. Because that would have meant asking a question she couldn't comprehend asking: why the native girl might have wanted her dead. It didn't fit her ideas of who was bad, and who was good, and what was a happy ending, and what wasn't.”

“From where I sat, Peter and Wendy were the two loneliest figures in the world. But Peter was somehow the lonelier of the two.”

“I bit Tiger Lily, as hard as I could. I don't know how I thought it would help. Fairie bites are worse than wasp stings - they pierce and burn and ache all at the same time. As best, I knew, I'd be swatted away, and at worst she might crush me by accident in her reaction to the pain. But what happened was worse. She didn't seem to notice it at all. It was like Tiger Lily herself wasn't even really there.”

“Tiger Lily drifted down underneath herself. This was her one gift more than any other. Silently, she nodded. "Yes. Everything is more than okay.”

“As you may have guessed already, Peter had a soul that was always telling itself lies. When he was frightened, his soul told itself, "I'm not frightened." And when something mattered that he couldn't control, Peter's soul told itself, "it doesn't matter." So while I trained my ears and tired to listen hard to him, I couldn't always make out where he was, or what he felt. And so each time he let Wendy come a little closer, I didn't see what it meant, or how it would end.”

“Sometimes I can't see myself when I'm with you. I can only just see you.”

“She did not believe he could have really gone, because for her, to leave the person you loved was impossible.”

“The way I see it, ignoring things is important.”

“We should have a funeral," he said.Pan held his hands clasped in a tent on his lap, and he bowed his head.He seemed to be trying to recall something, and it was a long time before he finally said, "Our Father. Our Father. Our Father. Amen."Then he leaned back, and his face was blank again. He smiled, all white teeth. "There.”

“If there was a true moment that Tiger Lily fell so in love with Peter she could never turn back, it was that night, when he shivered and walked and told her he was warm, and told her he loved her so much. She was fierce, to be sure, but she had a girl's heart, after all. As she walked home that night, she was shaking from the largeness of it.”

“I'm not myself," she offered, guiltily. She softened around Tik Tok, and when she did she was, for those rare moments, girlish.He smiled. "You can never say that. You're just a piece of yourself right now that you don't like.”

“Nothing here is sacred.”

“How can I describe Peter's face, the pieces of him that stick to my heart? Peter sometimes looked aloof and distant; sometimes his face was open and soft as a bruise. Sometimes he looked completely at Tiger Lily, as if she were the point on which all the universe revolved, as if she were the biggest mystery of life, or as if she were a flame and he couldn't not look even though he was scared. And sometimes it would all disappear into carelessness, confidence, amusement, as if he didn't need anyone or anything on this earth to feel happy and alive.”

“Why does this faerie follow you everywhere?" he asked. "Do you think she's plotting to murder you in your sleep?" he teased. My wings and the tips of my feet tingled with anger. But then he reached a finger toward me gently, and the anger melted. "Let's name her Tinker Bell," he said, like I was their child. He swooped his hand underneath me. "Hi, little Tink." Hearing him say it thrilled me-a name Peter had invented, just for me.”

“It took several minutes, but he was meticulous about each letter. IN MEMRY OF THE STRANJER, it said. HE LIVD AND DID.”

“It didn't fit her ideas of who was bad, and who was good, and what was a happy ending, and what wasn't.”

“She let the jealousy slip out of her fingertips.”

“I could never leave,' Pine Sap said. 'Why?' she asked.Pine Sap shrugged, and gestured in the direction of the village. 'Because I think people must be the same everywhere. Only these people are my bones.”

“I'm not a stranger to your love of lost causes, dear one. But you have to be careful who you meet," he said, stoking a pipe thoughtfully. "You can't unmeet them.”

“Sometimes I think that maybe we are just stories. Like we may as well just be words on a page, because we're only what we've done and what we are going to do. But then I look at the things I've seen and done, and I become a long scrawly line of something important.”

“If you have reasons for not coming back, I don't want to know them. I just want you to come back anyway”

“I can't even hear what I'm thinking most of the time. My brain's noisy.”

“Because watching him love Tiger Lily was better than not watching him at all.”

“Peter loves to make promises. He has the best intentions of keeping them. It makes it worse, somehow, that he doesn’t know how to. He thinks he’s a nice boy, that’s the worst part.”

“I could have been stronger,” she said. “I wasn’t enough to keep something so important.”