Darling

by K. Ancrum

  “Peter, I don’t think—” she started.

  But Peter shook his head. “Don’t worry about it—she won’t mind. I’ll call you for dinner in a bit.” Peter slapped Curly on the shoulder, then crouched down to pick up Tootles, clearly considering this conversation over.

  Curly and Wendy locked eyes.

  “So. Uh … this way,” he said, ducking beneath the doorway.

  Wendy followed Curly into a living room just as exceptional and beautiful as the kitchen. There were crates adhered to the walls. Each one was either crammed with books or odds and ends, organized by color: white light bulbs with white figurines and white marbles together, yellow rulers and yellow pencils and yellow figurines in their own crate, and so forth. The glass bottles on the ceiling continued from the entryway into the living room. They gave way to light bulbs speckled between them, throwing brown and green light over the room like a stained-glass mobile. The bottles were close enough that any wind from open windows in the house made them clink together. She also noticed nails and washers at the bottom of some of them that made an even crisper twinkling, filling the space with constant industrial music. The bottles even matched the color of the decor in the rest of the apartment, and were arranged with an eye for design: lighter brown bottles fading to darker brown bottles, mixing with darkest green and fading out to lighter green bottles. They hung in lengths that varied in millimeters and produced a textural wave like an ocean made of glass. They had a television here as well, and to Wendy’s surprise, a few game systems neatly arranged in crates.

  There was a large old couch with haphazardly patched corduroy, and a few recliners that didn’t match. Nibs was sitting in one by the window, focused very hard on finger-knitting what looked like a large blanket.

  “Hi,” Wendy said softly.

  Nibs looked up, startled away from his work. He paused for a moment, as if to settle himself, and said, “I’m sorry. For scaring you earlier.”

  Wendy almost reflexively said, It’s okay, but she thought again and instead replied, “Thank you for apologizing.”

  Nibs nodded and turned from her, returning to his knitting.

  Curly explained. “Come on, I know this is a lot to look at, but Tink’s room is just around the corner.”

  She followed him into a hallway with five bedrooms. The doors were all open, and she could tell whose belonged to who pretty quickly. The twins’ room had doubles of everything; one half of the room was messy and the other was cluttered, but neat. Prentis’s room was very tidy but didn’t have many personal effects—which made sense, as she remembered him saying he was new. Curly shut the door to his room before she was able to see inside. Nibs’s room had a few weights in it and a pull-up bar in the doorway. The last room had the door firmly shut, so Curly had to knock.

  “Peter sent Darling to ask you about clothes or something, I don’t know,” Curly called through the door.

  Tinkerbelle pulled the door open just enough for Wendy to slither inside, and then she shut it hard.

  “I’m not really sure I want to go to this party anymore,” Wendy said immediately.

  Tinkerbelle scoffed and rolled her eyes. She opened her closet and started riffling through it. “Don’t you think I know that?” she asked. “Something is going to happen tonight, and you really shouldn’t be here. Not that you listened to my warning back at your house or anything. Too busy being dazzled by boy wonder out there.”

  “I wasn’t dazzled,” Wendy shot back.

  Tinkerbelle stopped and turned around completely. “Yes, you were. I was, too. You’re not special for pretending that he isn’t sexy and interesting. He just is. And now he has you somewhere you didn’t know you would wind up, doing something you don’t really want to do, and it gets harder to remember that you don’t want to do things when you’re right there beside him. Come on, Darling, no one in this room is stupid. How the fuck do you think I got here?”

  Tinkerbelle looked Wendy up and down. “Size ten or twelve?” she demanded.

  “Ten, but wait, wait, go back. You said you were trying to warn me about something? Why didn’t you just say what you meant?” Wendy asked shrilly.

  “Keep your voice down,” Tinkerbelle hissed. “And because he was right there. I promise you, the less you know, the happier you’ll be.”

  Tinkerbelle threw a couple of dresses on her bed, then started rooting around at the bottom of her closet in her giant pile of shoes.

  “Now. You had three chances to get out of this: first, when Peter asked; next, when I told you to leave; and last, when you got separated from us at the train station. You might have another couple opportunities before the night is over, and if you’re clever or really lucky, you might be able to take them. But for now, let’s just get you presentable and follow this to the end.”

  Tinkerbelle pulled a large trunk out from the back of her closet and pushed it over to the vanity she had set up against the wall.

  “Then afterward,” she continued, “you can go back home to Lincoln Park—and the life you were planning on having—and sincerely focus on being happy to never see any of us again.”

  Wendy looked at the pile of clothes, then back at Tinkerbelle. “I don’t think they’ll…,” she started.

  “Dude, they’re your size. Just pick something you like and try it on,” Tinkerbelle said, sitting down at the vanity. She pulled out her cell phone and started typing.

  Wendy looked around Tinkerbelle’s room as she slowly pulled off her sweater. It was more normal in here than she would have expected. Tinkerbelle had a small twin-size bed, with a stuffed tiger and a few finger-knit quilts (courtesy of Nibs, most likely). There were band posters on the wall, surrounded by pictures of her and the boys, and she’d also tacked up concert and movie ticket stubs and cutouts from magazines. Her room had an overhead light, but instead of using it, she’d taped Christmas lights all around the perimeter of the ceiling and crisscrossed them overhead so the room was lit with a soft glow.

  The dresses Tinkerbelle had picked out were indeed Wendy’s size, but she felt weird about wearing someone else’s clothes. She held a long-sleeved gold sequined minidress up to her nose and sniffed. It smelled freshly cleaned, if a bit dusty, like Tinkerbelle didn’t wear it often. Or like the last time she’d worn it was ages ago, back when it probably fit. That was probably for the best, all things considered. The other two dresses were black and not exactly to her taste, so she shimmied into the gold dress and zipped up the back. Tinkerbelle had also laid tights out for her. Unlike the stringy beat-up tights Tinkerbelle was wearing, these were so new they still had the cardboard inside. They were also fleece-lined and warm. Wendy looked at the back of Tinkerbelle’s head and thought about her long white arms gripping both sides of the train car, leaning back into the night so Wendy would feel secure as she crossed. She thought about Tinkerbelle pulling warm new tights out for someone that she just met.

  She had never in her life known a girl like this.

  “Hey,” Wendy said when she’d finished dressing.

  Tinkerbelle looked up. She pursed her lips and then shrugged one shoulder. “I liked that dress when it fit me. It looks good on you,” she said brusquely. “When you go home, you don’t have to worry about returning it.”

  “I don’t think I would even have anywhere to wear this, after tonight,” Wendy said, looking down at the clingy fabric.

  Tinkerbelle snorted rudely. “Probably not. But it works well on you, just the same. Now, do you want anything done with your hair and makeup, or are you just leaving it like … that?”

  Tinkerbelle didn’t even have much hair, so Wendy wasn’t confident in her skills regarding that at all. At least with the clothes, she could tell Tinkerbelle had a higher than average understanding of coordination.

  “My hair is fine,” Wendy said firmly. “And I don’t wear makeup.”

  Tinkerbelle cocked her head to the side and considered Wendy’s face. “You don’t need it, either. But you might like to look les
s like yourself tonight,” she said quietly. “Trust me on that.”

  Wendy realized that she’d been having a feeling off and on all night that she couldn’t quite name, but was growing in urgency. It was like a brush of regular anxiety combined with the sort of thrill you get when something incredibly dangerous is about to happen. She’d felt a whisper of it in the alley, but she’d brushed it off as nerves from sneaking out. She’d felt it on the train platform, though it had gone nearly as quickly as it came. She’d also felt it the moment before Peter had held her in the kitchen, but the warmth of his body had chased it away. But all of those instances were spaced out. Now, Wendy had felt it twice in the five minutes she’d been alone in this room with Tinkerbelle, and that was significant.

  Tinkerbelle had already said that Wendy wouldn’t want to know what the source of that thrill was. Tinkerbelle also didn’t seem like the type of person to rescind things she had already made a decision about, so maybe it wasn’t the best idea to demand clarity on the situation.

  Wendy looked down at her tights, then back up to Tinkerbelle’s determined little face. Whether or not this person valued her or liked her was immaterial. Tinkerbelle had cared about her safety in a way that was important: If she wasn’t allowed to know what was going on, perhaps Wendy could leverage the needs of the one person who wanted her to get home as much as she did.

  “No one in this room is stupid,” Wendy echoed Tinkerbelle’s words from earlier. “So, I’d like to make you an offer and ask you some questions that I think you can answer without creating problems.”

  Tinkerbelle tilted her chin up in defiance. The ghost of a smile was back on her face.

  “Something is happening tonight, and it’s something that I am not supposed to be involved in,” Wendy said. “You know what it is, and I don’t, and … it is in both of our best interests to maintain that balance of information … correct?”

  Tinkerbelle’s expression didn’t waver.

  “But,” Wendy continued, drawing on the negotiation skills from every police procedural she’d ever seen in her life, “if I’m not provided with good information that will allow me to make reasonable decisions, my actions—or inactions—might have negative consequences for both of us. Correct?”

  Tinkerbelle’s eyes sparkled.

  “So it would benefit the both of us if I consider your suggestions a roadmap of how to eventually remove myself from what will be happening tonight,” Wendy said tentatively. “And, in return, it would help if you don’t do things that make me question whether or not you still care that I’m able to get the hell out of here.”

  Wendy finished that last line with a bit more threat in her voice than she’d originally intended. But she let it sit in the quiet of the room while Tinkerbelle thought about it.

  “Ah. So, Wendy Darling wants to parlay,” Tinkerbelle replied silkily, her eyes narrow and smile sharp as a serpent’s.

  “Should I let you do my makeup?” Wendy asked, this time with meaning, staring down at Tinkerbelle from her position at the foot of the bed.

  “Yes,” Tinkerbelle said resolutely. “But first, we have to shake on it.”

  She licked her palm and stuck it out. Wendy grimaced, but licked the center of her hand as well, trying not to think about all the things she’d touched in the train station. Tinkerbelle grasped her hand tight and shook.

  CHAPTER 7

  Tinkerbelle curled Wendy’s already curly hair with a thin curling iron, then rolled each section on a foam roller to cool. Then she disinfected her makeup brushes and began working. First, she darkened Wendy’s brown eyebrows to nearly pitch black and contoured her face until her cheeks were sharp and her nose was pointed. She painted a wide strip of dark blue almost a full inch wide across Wendy’s face, over her eyes from ear to ear, lightening her touch until it faded perfectly into Wendy’s skin. Under the band across her face, Tinkerbelle dusted dark pink blush over the apples of her cheeks and daubed just a bit of liquid lipstick in the center of her lips. She spread it to the edges, leaving the richest color in the center, as if Wendy had bitten her lips for hours.

  “I look like something from Blade Runner,” Wendy remarked, turning her face from side to side, letting the Christmas lights reflect off the shimmer.

  Tinkerbelle laughed quietly. “You do. Just because you’re covering your face doesn’t mean you can’t still look pretty. I know what it’s like to feel nervous around police and strangers. I’m sorry my makeup doesn’t quite match your complexion. But under the circumstances, it’s the best we can do.”

  She began unwinding the curlers from Wendy’s hair, gently pulling the ringlets loose. “Do you have your cell phone on you still?” she asked.

  Wendy felt a spike of anxiety.

  “You should keep it on airplane mode, so you don’t waste battery,” Tinkerbelle said. “You’ll probably need it later on.”

  Wendy thought about the conversation they’d had fifteen minutes ago and resisted the urge to snap that she knew how phones worked. Instead, she pulled the phone out of her pocket to follow Tinkerbelle’s instructions.

  To her horror, now she only had 10 percent battery—and Eleanor’s texts were the last thing she’d opened. Tinkerbelle gazed at them placidly over her shoulder as Wendy clicked out of the app as fast as she could.

  “You should turn on your location, too,” she said, to Wendy’s surprise. “It still works when your phone is offline.”

  “You’re serious about this,” Wendy said.

  Tinkerbelle hummed low in her throat and continued back-combing the crown of Wendy’s head. “You’ll thank me later,” she said.

  There was a knock at Tinkerbelle’s door. She put down her comb, but before she could reach the door, it swung open.

  “Tootles!” Tinkerbelle cried. “What have I said about knocking!”

  Tootles immediately looked chastened. “You have to wait until after, when the person says come in…” He backed out of the room, clearly about to try the interaction again, but Tinkerbelle stopped him.

  “No, no, no, don’t go back outside, just do better next time. What do you want?”

  “Peter says it’s time for dinner,” Tootles said, swaying back and forth in that fidgety way little kids often do. “It’s time to wash up.”

  “Okay, fine, tell him we’ll be there in a second,” Tinkerbelle snapped. “And close the door on the way out.”

  Tootles did just that, and Tinkerbelle returned to Wendy’s hair, giving it a few more floofs and spraying the whole thing with hairspray. “The bathroom is to the right at the end of the hallway. There’s a window in there, but if you climb out of it, not only is there a thirty-foot drop, but I’m pretty sure Peter would chase you or be waiting for you at the bottom by the time you managed to climb down.”

  Wendy felt a thrill of fear, and it probably showed on her face because Tinkerbelle put a hand on her shoulder. “We spit-shook on it,” she said seriously. “I promised that I’ll protect you. I just … understand the temptation, and wanted to nip that idea in the bud before it occurred to you, too.”

  “Okay,” Wendy said. “I’m uh … just gonna go. Thanks for the hair and makeup.”

  Tinkerbelle nodded and turned to work on her own makeup.

  “And thanks for the advice,” Wendy added.

  Tinkerbelle rubbed at her eyeliner with a makeup remover wipe. “I like you, Wendy,” she said bluntly.

  Wendy had been halfway out the door, but she stopped and looked back.

  “You’re sharp and you don’t let people push you around,” Tinkerbelle continued. “I respect that. I just wanted you to know that I wouldn’t put this effort in if I didn’t think a girl like you deserved it.”

  Wendy didn’t know what to say to that. She’d been bottling her emotions about the events of the past hour, and there had been so many of them that she couldn’t process, so she just felt numb in the face of genuine kindness.

  Tinkerbelle was lining her eyes with red eyeshadow, but when she
realized Wendy was still standing there limply, she looked over her shoulder in irritation. “Go wash your hands. Peter is waiting.”

  Wendy backed out of the room.

  The bathroom was right where Tinkerbelle said it was, and Wendy was quite frankly very surprised at its cleanliness considering how many boys there were in this house. She locked the door and shoved a towel at the bottom to help muffle any sound. Then she immediately video chatted Eleanor. It only rang once before her friend picked up.

  “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON AND WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE THAT?” Eleanor screeched.

  Wendy jumped and turned the volume all the way down. “Please be quieter,” she hissed.

  “You look so scary right now, you have no fucking idea,” Eleanor whispered.

  Wendy laughed in mild hysteria and tried to keep from weeping. “I’m terrified and I don’t have much time, so I need you to be quiet while I explain what’s going on.”

  Eleanor nodded.

  “So, I was about to talk to that cop when some people literally black-bagged me with a T-shirt and abducted me straight off the street. When they finally stopped dragging me around, they took the T-shirt off my head, and it was a bunch of teenage boys,” Wendy said quickly.

  What? Eleanor mouthed, her eyebrows knit in concern.

  “Yeah-boi, and it’s about to get worse!” Wendy whisper-screamed. “So, they immediately start arguing with each other about whose fault it was that they had to kidnap me, when Peter bursts into the room. He instantly gets really mad and instead of asking questions or whatever, he immediately starts apologizing and saying that it was a miscommunication?”

  “Oh my God, Wendy…,” Eleanor says softly.

  “Then he hugs me really hard and says sorry to me or whatever—like that would even help. Then he tells me that all the guys who kidnapped me are his family and that he lives in this house with them. He explained that he told them to find me and help walk me there after we got separated at the train station. But apparently they decided to kidnap me instead?”