The return to London was easier and harder than Wendy had expected in almost equal measure at once.
Easy because home was familiar and warm and full of people who loved her and had been genuinely worried.
Hard because Neverland was not something that could simply be filed away and accessed neatly when wanted.
It kept appearing in unexpected moments — in the sound of wind against the window, in the smell of salt.
She tried to hold onto the specific details — Tinker Bell's exact color, Peter's crow, the lagoon at noon.
But details are the first thing that memory releases and they were already becoming general and imprecise.
She began to understand that some things can only be fully experienced once and belong only to that moment.
Growing up means leaving magic behind.

Wendy's return to London initiates a process that Barrie describes with unusual honesty and precision throughout.
The magic of Neverland does not disappear all at once — it fades gradually in the way that most important things do.
First the specific details go — the exact color of the fairy light, the precise sound of the mermaids singing.
Then the feelings begin to blur at the edges, becoming memories of feelings rather than the feelings themselves.
Finally what remains is the knowledge that something extraordinary happened, without full access to what it was.
This is not unique to Neverland — it is how all experiences that belong to a particular season of life behave.
Childhood's magic is real while it lasts, and its fading is not a loss of the magic but a transformation of it.
The tragedy is not that it goes but that we rarely understand its value clearly until it has already gone.
Growing up means leaving magic behind.