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Why does Winnie have to wait until she is seventeen to drink the vial of spring water?

If Winnie decides to drink the vial of spring water--or any drop of water from the magical spring in the woods--then it will give her eternal life, but it will also stop her from growing any older. When Winnie receives the bottle from Jesse, she's only eleven years old, and he's seventeen. She admires him, even loves him. But she knows that she's too young for him. However, if she waits until she grows to be seventeen, then drinks the water, she'll essentially freeze herself into the same age as Jesse will always be. Then they can get married and live together forever, always appearing to stay the same age.


So although Winnie could really choose to drink the vial of water at any time, even immediately, she and Jesse have an understanding that if she does drink it, she'll wait until she's seventeen.


Here's the (one-sided) conversation that she and Jesse have in Chapter 14, when we first find out that Jesse wants Winnie to drink the water at age seventeen and then join him and his family in their eternal lives:



"Well then, listen." He knelt beside her, his curls tumbled and his eyes wide. "I been thinking it over. Pa's right about you having to keep the secret. It's not hard to see why. But the thing is, you knowing about the water already, and living right next to it so's you could go there any time, well, listen, how'd it be if you was to wait till you're seventeen, same age as me—heck, that's only six years off—and then you could go and drink some, and then you could go away with me! We could get married, even. That'd be pretty good, wouldn't it! We could have a grand old time, go all around the world, see everything. Listen, Ma and Pa and Miles, they don't know how to enjoy it, what we got. Why, heck, Winnie, life's to enjoy yourself, isn't it? What else is it good for? That's what I say. And you and me, we could have a good time that never, never stopped. Wouldn't that be something?"


Once more Winnie adored him, kneeling there beside her in the moonlight.



Later, in Chapter 22, Jesse repeats his earnest wish for Winnie to drink the water when she reaches the age of seventeen:



"Look now—here's a bottle of water from the spring. You keep it. And then, no matter where you are, when you're seventeen, Winnie, you can drink it, and then come find us. We'll leave directions somehow. Winnie, please say you will!"


He pressed the little bottle into her hands and Winnie took it, closing her fingers over it.



But finally, in the last chapter of the story, Winnie ceremoniously dumps the vial over her toad, giving him the eternal life that she's deciding to give up.

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