Neverland Never Was

‘What would you say has been the hardest part of your recovery, Angela?’ Dr Pentonberry asks.

I stare at my blue ballet flats, searching for the right words. Dr Pentonberry is lovely, she just doesn’t get it; nobody does. ‘The loneliness,’ I finally manage to whisper.

Dr Pentonberry cocks her head to the side, a puzzled look on her face. I guess, to everybody else, I spent three months alone while my loved ones were worrying and praying that I wasn’t dead. What I’ve never told anybody is that I wish I had died. Somehow, death feels like a more palatable fate than this.

Let me start from the beginning. I was adopted as a newborn by Gerald and Sarah Bardsworth, two wealthy, middle-aged senior surgeons who desperately wanted a child. I can’t remember exactly how old I was when they told me I was adopted—four, or five maybe—but what they didn’t tell me was that my birth mother was a paranoid schizophrenic. Sarah spent my childhood and adolescence watching for signs that I may have inherited my mother’s illness. There were none. If anything, signs pointed to me being abnormally sane! That may sound like an oxymoron but, to put it into context with an example, Gerald and Sarah divorced when I was fourteen. They shared custody of me on a week-to-week basis. Divorce is infamous for sending even the most well-adjusted children off the rails. But not me. I continued excelling in school and being the happy-go-lucky kid, I’d always been. Sarah breathed a sigh of relief when I graduated with an OP of one. She believed I was in the clear, and perhaps I was.

I planned to take a gap year backpacking around Australia and enrol in university when I returned to Brisbane. I dreamed of becoming a neurosurgeon.

My 18th birthday was celebrated with a Sydney Harbour Bridge climb, accompanied by my best friend and travel companion, Izzy. We’ve known each other since we were in nappies and have been inseparable since kindergarten. Our classmates didn’t understand our friendship. Izzy was always an extroverted, social butterfly and I was the shy bookworm. We seemed an unlikely pair with little in common but one thing we each had in equal measure was loyalty. We stuck by and defended each other always.

Back at our hostel after the bridge climb, Izzy pulled a bulky, yellowed envelope from her suitcase and pressed it into my hands. A pungent odour emanated from it.

‘Happy birthday, Angel. Big 18! Time to live a little before you’re a world-famous brain fixer,’ Izzy said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

In all my naivety, I felt the envelope, wondering what this strange and wonderful friend of mine had given me this time. Last year it was pre-scratched instant scratchies. She talked her older brother into buying them for her and supposedly scratched them to see if I’d won. I cautiously opened the packaging. Inside were four green, oddly shaped balls. Confused, I dumped them into my hand for a closer look.

‘It’s weed, silly,’ Izzy said. ‘For someone so book-smart, you sure are green … pun intended.’

She exploded into a fit of giggles. I didn’t understand her colour joke; however, I did know weed was colloquial slang for marijuana. I also knew some people referred to it as Mary-Jane or dope. Book-smartness, or lack thereof, was the true problem. If I had had as much as others claimed, I wouldn’t have made the biggest mistake of my life.

I was nervous, yet excited. True enough, Izzy gave me the weed, but she didn’t force me to smoke it. If I had said no, she would have respected that. It’s what I love most about Izzy: she accepts and respects people for who they are, regardless of whether she agrees with their choices.

I remember falling asleep and, when I woke up, Izzy was gone. I was deep in the forest that our hostel backed onto. At least I think that’s where I was; I can’t be certain. What I saw and what was real were two different things. I know that now. This is where it gets weird and lay folk struggle to understand my predicament. How do you explain that you miss something that never existed?

The forest was like the enchanted woods I read about in books as a little girl. There were fairies—real, live, tiny, winged creatures—flitting all around me. They were every colour of the rainbow. I put out my hand and a blue one landed on my palm. Up close, I could see she was wearing a tiny bluebell flower as a hat; her dress glittered like diamonds in the sunlight. The little fairy giggled in a high-pitched, musical voice and flew to re-join her friends. I noticed a path leading away from the bench I’d woken on. It was lined with little red and white toadstool houses.

‘They must belong to the fairies,’ I murmured, as I stood and began exploring.

The path led me to an impressive treehouse, which towered into the sky. Every window was lit with a mason jar filled with fireflies; bright green moss and ivy covered the outer walls. I tried the doorknob and was delighted to find it unlocked. My jaw dropped when I entered. It was a library, filled floor to ceiling with books on every wall and with sliding wooden ladders. It felt like walking into my own personal Heaven. In the centre of the room, a set of stairs spiralled upwards to the next floor.

I bounded up the steps and found myself in a throne room. It was filled with live blue butterflies and against the far wall was a purple velvet throne and matching footstool. On the stool sat a crown of orchids and white roses. A cluster of butterflies worked together to lift the crown and place it on my head. Then came the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs. I yanked the crown from my head and shrank into a corner, attempting to hide. A beautiful creature entered the room. I say creature because while her form had human features, she was no ordinary mortal. She was completely naked; her skin was emerald-green glistening scales.

Her hair was black—thick and glossy—reaching to the small of her back, where a plaited tail protruded. More stunning than any of her other features were her eyes. Looking into them was like looking into the ocean; they were a glittering turquoise framed by long, lush, lashes. I was mesmerised, my fear forgotten.

‘Welcome, daughter of the earth,’ the striking creature said in a silky, feminine voice. She was completely unashamed of her nakedness, which only added to her allure.

‘Wh-who are you?’ I asked, offering the crown to her. The creature took it and placed it back on my head.

‘Mother Nature, sweet one. And you must be the queen I’ve been waiting for.’

For three months, I lived in the treehouse with Mother Nature, the butterflies, the fireflies, and the fairies who came and went as they pleased. I dined on delicious, juicy berries and the crunchiest nuts. I was sure the enchanted forest was where I was always supposed to end up. I’d never been happier or more at peace. I missed Izzy and my family from time to time, but Mother Nature assured me that they knew and accepted my rightful place on the throne.

I’ll never forget the day my forest literally crashed down around me. I awoke in my four-poster bed as I had every other perfect morning in the treehouse. The butterflies hastened to pull my blanket of leaves back as I rubbed lingering slumber from my eyes. I knew something was wrong. The air had a sinister chill that brought goosebumps to my skin. The sky outside my windows was pitch black and the fireflies’ lights were gone. Then came the noise, a roar like thousands of motorbikes revving their engines in unison.

‘TIMBEEEEEEEEER!!!’ a masculine voice rang out, reverberating through the treehouse walls. Then I was falling. Down, down, down until … nothing. Blackness surrounded me. I came to in a padded cell, strapped in a strait jacket.

My enchanted forest and treehouse were never real. Dr Pentonberry helped me understand what happened to me, but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept. She explained that cannabis use can trigger schizophrenia. My schizophrenia may not have been activated without that exposure, but we’ll never know for sure. What I do know is that life was simpler in the forest. Nobody withheld information from me or caused me to question my identity.

‘You miss it, don’t you?’ Dr Pentonberry says gently, bringing me back to the present.

‘What, weed?’ I ask, genuinely confused about what she is asking.

Dr Pentonberry laughs. ‘No. Your world. The forest.’

I nod. Finally, somebody gets it. But how could Dr Pentonberry’s white coat and warm, brown eyes ever compare to emerald-green scales and black luscious locks? I miss my treehouse, I miss my fairies, and most of all, I miss her.