All that special purple ink he used, up in flames… A year later I received the manuscript of “Alice’s Adventures Underground” in the post. In his own hand, with his own drawings… I never thanked him.

PETER: And you never saw him again?

ALICE: Much later. When I was grown and married. We had tea with my sister Lorina… We were cordial strangers… The golden afternoon was over. I thought it was going to be endless. But it was as quick as the beating of a dragonfly’s wing.

PETER PAN and ALICE IN WONDERLAND ignite their representation of a campfire.

ALICE and PETER are drawn toward it as well…it suggests CARROLL’s letters burning, the smoke drifting up.

They all huddle by the fire, it’s warm and intimate… We’re in a beautiful representation of Neverland now.

ALICE: Lord, as many days as are left to me, I’ll never forget those letters burning… It was the cruelest thing I’d ever seen: all the lovely words, all his heart’s devotion, gone. As if they never existed… It was the first time I realized that things don’t always stay the same… (she watches the smoke drift away)… There it goes; into the vapors… Should life really be that delicate?

PETER: Life was supposed to be strong and hearty. Like a pirate.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND: But sometimes it’s gossamer, like Tinker Bell.

PETER PAN: Like a Mock Turtle’s tear… It gets cold at night in Neverland. He didn’t write about that.

PETER PAN shivers, a little chilled.

PETER unconsciously puts his arm around him.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND: There is no night in Wonderland. No one sleeps much.

PETER PAN: The Dormouse sleeps… The Mad Hatter I think.

ALICE: Would the Mad Hatter dream about being sane?

PETER: Believe me, he would.

ALICE: And Peter Pan, what would he dream of?

PETER PAN: Mother.

ALICE takes in the lovely fire, the stillness, the beautiful nighttime setting.

ALICE: It’s enchanting here.

PETER: Oh yes…

He wanders forward, holding PETER PAN by the hand.

PETER: Neverland is enchanting; it always was to me… I remember the first time I saw the play. I thought it was all real, you remember?

PETER PAN: Yes.

PETER: I thought you were real and Captain Hook was real and the painted flats were endless vistas.

PETER PAN: Aren’t they?

PETER: If they were you would have flown off forever, never to be seen again, onto the next…enchantment.

He leaves PETER PAN and steps forward alone.

PETER: I wanted to live there, Mrs. Hargreaves… From my box, the first time I saw the play, my brothers at my side, Uncle Jim busy somewhere backstage, I saw Neverland come to life. It was real. It was real… And it was so beautiful… I could fly.

PETER PAN: You can.

PETER: After the performance Uncle Jim took us backstage. It was a mad bustle, even that was thrilling. I mean I knew it wasn’t actually real, I knew they were all actors, and we were in a theatre… But I needed to know if this place existed, if it were somehow true, even though it wasn’t real. So as the party was going on and everyone was celebrating I wandered onto the stage by myself. Just me… How large it was… I saw the painted backdrop of Neverland. The pirate ship…the wooden moon… And I closed my eyes and spread my arms… And it was true.

ALICE: Through the looking glass…

PETER: For a moment… Then I opened my eyes and heard the party, and Uncle Jim calling me, and my brothers laughing… And life went on.

ALICE: But it was true.

PETER: When I was a child.

Beat.

ALICE: So was Wonderland. I could chart every foot of it. But the depths of Mr. Carroll, those anguished letters… Those were the Jabberwocky, the dangerous, impenetrable things.

PETER: Uncle Jim wrote letters too, compulsively, hundreds of them. He poured out his heart to us.

ALICE: He did love you.

PETER: Oh yes. But it was a melancholy kind of love, because it was always entwined with an inevitable sadness. He knew we were going to grow up and leave him alone… First George to Eton and Oxford and then Jack and then me and then Michael… Michael, who always set his truest course…

BARRIE: Dear Michael, The Adelphi House is haunted tonight. I think your brother’s namesake is tapping at the window in search of his shadow. Sometimes I feel I’m in search of my shadow as well, but he’s busy with his mannish pursuits at Eton…

PETER: They wrote to each other every single day from the time Michael went to school… Mountains of letters, oceans of words… Sometimes the separation was too much for Uncle Jim and he would go to Eton and stand on the fringes of the playing fields, watching him from a distance.

ALICE: Like a lover.

PETER: Like a sailor’s wife waiting for her husband to return from the sea.

ALICE: And the letters…and the devotion that inspired them… all gone now…like a Mad Hatter’s dream…smoke and ash…a little dust in the corner of the box you keep your toys.

She looks at PETER.

ALICE: It is a love story, as you promised.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND hops up, breaks the mood, turning to PETER PAN:

ALICE IN WONDERLAND: Come here, boy! Dance with me.

PETER PAN: No!

ALICE IN WONDERLAND: Why not?

PETER PAN: Because you’re very ugly.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND: No I’m not.

PETER PAN: Because I’ve many important things to do. There’s a staff meeting this morning and I’ve a luncheon appointment at Simpson’s.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND: If this is a love story there has to be dancing.

PETER PAN: Not with me!

ALICE IN WONDERLAND: Don’t you want to fall in love?

PETER PAN: When I’m old and practically dead. And since I’m immortal, that’s never, so there.

He stomps away.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND is hurt.

ALICE steps forward and offers her hands.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND looks at her, smiles and takes her hands.

Gentle music as they dance.

REGINALD (REGGIE) HARGREAVES enters crisply, like a fresh breeze. He’s a good-looking, athletic, hearty young man.