He turned to her, and in his eyes she saw that it was no use. There was a finality there that she had never seen before. “Neverland is my home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
WENDY DIDN’T REMEMBER MAKING HER WAY back to the Teepee, or into the tangle of branches that lay behind it. Hours passed as she walked quickly, wiping hot, angry tears off her face, her anger at John boiling up from her heavy heart. Who was that, back there? John had always been a brat—that she knew before they had come to Neverland—but who had that been, that tall boy who held her over a drop, whose glasses were fogged with humid air, who didn’t care about his family? His feelings had poured out all around her, drowning her logic.
Beneath her anger thrummed a very obvious problem: she couldn’t leave without the boys. She couldn’t. Even if she took just Michael, how would she explain to her grieving mother, and her papa—oh God, her papa, who doted on John, who looked at him with such admiration and pride—how could she explain that she came back without him because he didn’t want to? It was inconceivable. They were a family. They would leave together. Wendy wasn’t so easily put aside, as John conveniently forgot. She might be a girl who preferred dresses to playing with swords, but she wasn’t leaving this world without John. She would try again tomorrow and the next day, and the day after that, until she wore him down.
Three Lost Boys stampeded past her, leaving a flurry of dust in their wake. Wendy coughed and wiped her face off. Not that she knew how to get home from Neverland. That was fine though, because Peter would know. He knew everything. Maybe he would even convince John for her. Yes, that would be good. John worshipped Peter—he could perhaps get through that thick skull.
Wendy sniffed loudly as she walked, wiping her tears on the corner of her hand. Crying wouldn’t do any good, not now, and certainly not with John. Emotionally exhausted and somewhat turned around, Wendy decided to nestle up against a massive wooden branch and just close her eyes for moment, just a moment to catch her breath . . .
Suddenly, she awoke to a rustling in the branches above her.
“Peter?”
“Wendy Darling.” His voice surrounded her in the small grove that she had stumbled into. The branches were short and squat here, dangling with heavy yellow orbs that emitted soft curls of scent when the wind rustled their leaves. Peter landed in front of her, his feet barely brushing the ground as he reached out and swiped his long fingers through the bush, pulling off one of the yellow orbs. With a devilish grin, he brought it to her lips.
“They taste like sugar. Here, taste it.” All she could think was how completely inappropriate this was, and yet, she opened her mouth and closed it on the strange fruit. The fuzzy texture thickened on her tongue, becoming a bit like the rock candy that Michael was so fond of. It fizzed and then dissolved against one of her back teeth, giving her a rush of energy.
She gasped. “Magic?”
Peter shook his head, his red curls falling charmingly over his face. “Neverland.”
He reached out for her hand. She pulled it back, shaking her head. “Peter, I need to talk to you about something.”
His brow furrowed. “Something serious, I’m guessing.”
“Quite. Peter, it’s just that . . .”
The playful look on his face became serious as his mouth sharpened into a grimace. “You want to go home.”
Wendy’s head jerked up. “Why, yes, how did you know?”
Peter shrugged. “There are very few secrets on Pan Island. This island has ears.”
Wendy looked away from the quiet betrayal on his face. “Peter . . . you must know . . .” She looked up to meet his eyes, but he had stepped backward.
“Let’s not do this. No sad goodbyes, no speeches, no promises. I knew that I had you for borrowed time, and that time is almost up. Tick-tock.” He said it sadly. “I’m sure you will want to make sure you are back in time to beat your parents home from their ball. It’s understandable, Wendy. You have a family.”
A wave of relief washed over Wendy. “Oh, Peter, yes! That would be wonderful. I’m so relieved to hear you say that. I keep having these visions of them crying at the nursery window.”
Peter waved his hand at her. “They don’t even know you are gone.” He turned to her and smiled with his small white teeth. “I promise.”
A dozen Lost Boys ran past them, looking at each other with smug smiles when they saw Peter and Wendy alone together. “I see those looks, boys. Keep moving!” Peter snapped. They scampered past, making their way down through the tree.
“Where are they going?”
Peter pushed his red curls back. “Fishing. They are taking the boats out. I told them whoever caught the most fish would get flight given to him every morning for the next three days.”
Wendy laughed. “You are very good at keeping them motivated.”
“We need to eat.”
There was a moment of silence as they stared at each other. “I’m sad to leave,” she finally said. “I’m sad to leave you, but it’s the right thing to do. You are quite an adventure, Peter Pan.” Wendy stood up slowly, and after a moment’s hesitation, she wrapped Peter in a friendly hug. “Thank you,” she breathed over his neck. “Thank you for everything.” She felt his hand hovering above her waist, and then he was wrapping her against him, curling Wendy into himself. She could smell him, like fresh wood and wine, the smell of sun upon skin, and she could feel herself falling into him with each breath. She pushed herself gently away with a blush.
“Peter. Now, I have one question for you, and that is—”
He gave a naughty grin, a flush on his face, his body seeming to quiver with want before her. “How do you get home?”
Wendy laughed, pushing her brown curls away from her face. “Yes! How do we begin to get home?”
He ran a few feet until he perched out on a branch that hung out underneath the open sky. “Second star to the right and straight—” He laughed joyfully. “Well, why don’t I just show you, Wendy Darling?”
She smiled and held out her hand to him, so relieved at his cavalier humor. Everything was going to be fine. Peter would convince John to come home, and soon they would be lying in the nursery, retelling tales of Neverland to entertain them on winter nights as the wet London snow slapped the pavement. Peter slowly reached out and took her hand. She would see Booth’s face again very soon. Peter was looking down at her, ever so dashing. “Come. You’ll understand.” She slipped her hand into his, and then they were flying up through the tree branches, a sensation that was so thrilling and yet familiar. They lifted up and off Pan Island. As they pulled upward, Wendy looked down and saw a dozen fishing boats, crawling with boys, on the north side of the island. As they rose, the boys became ants, the boats like tiny nutshells rocking in a gutter.
Up and up, Peter flew, his arms cradled around Wendy. She reached out her hand and watched the air move it up and down, the brisk wind caressing the skin in between her fingers. They rose. In between the layered clouds, she could make out the main island, a giant crest of sharp green hills that climbed up out of the water. Whorls of black smoke rose up out of the northern corner of Port Duette—there had been a fire there.
“Peter, do you see the smoke?”
He nodded, his eyes not moving as they flew upward. “Probably drunk pirates, burning down another one of their taverns. Idiots.” They were flying slightly south now, still climbing, and Peter looked on steadily, his hand tightening and loosening on her waist, as if he were trying to knead her.
“Are we almost there?” she yelled. The air was becoming thinner, sharper.
“Almost!” he yelled back. “The passage is very high!”
Wendy nodded, remembering how high they had been when they had come into Neverland. “When can we come back with the boys?”
“Soon,” Peter answered, soaring upward, faster, faster. Wendy leaned back against him, trying to place the memory of flying with Peter Pan deep into her brain, like sealing a treasure in a locked room. She n
ever wanted to forget this moment, the joy and freedom of flight. Goosebumps had begun tracing up her arm when Peter finally slowed. Wendy looked up into the endless sky with a shiver. She remembered coming through the passage, the purple light, the swirling fragments like glass . . .
“Peter—can you not see the passage in the daytime?”
Peter looked down at her for a moment, his face sorrowful as he pulled her away from his body and held her out at arm’s length, almost as if they were dancing. Wendy looked above her. “Is there some trick? I don’t understand . . .”
“Wendy.”
She looked at him in alarm. Her body tightened with fear, the malice in his voice unmistakable. She looked up at the boy who had kissed her and barely recognized him. His red curls swirled around his face in the wind, and the charming face was hard, like stone. His eyes were navy, his jaw clenched.
“Peter?” The fear had crept into her voice now.
“Wendy, Wendy . . .” He shook his head. “There’s no trick. You see, you will never be going back to London, because there is no passage without my consent. There is no going home, but there is no reason to even try, because Neverland is your home. Forever, your home.” His eyes narrowed. “Forever with me.”
Wendy instinctively shrunk back, but Peter clutched her hands and pulled her closer. “Wendy, listen to me—I love you. You were meant to be mine. We were meant to be together, forever.”
Her heart was closing in on itself, and suddenly, she found it very hard to breathe as terror tingled across her skin, worming its way through her chest. “Peter . . .”
“There’s nothing you can say,” he snapped. “Here are the facts, Wendy. You and I will be together. I will be the father of the Lost Boys, and you will be their mother. We will raise up Pan Island, and once I kill Hook, eventually we will rule over the main island. The King and Queen of Neverland.”
Wendy let out a sob. “Peter! No, I can’t, I . . .”
He whipped both of his arms forward, bringing Wendy back against his chest. She shuddered as he ran his fingers aggressively through her hair, a move that once drove her mad now so repulsive. “Shhh . . . it’s okay. You will learn to love me. I know it. I’ll give you as much time as you need. But have no doubt about it, you will be mine in every way possible. My little London doll, my darling.” Then he kissed her on the lips, hard. Wendy pushed him backward; with one hand clutching his arm, she slapped him hard with the other one.
At her actions, he gave a naughty grin. “There’s your fire. Up until now I thought it was just under your dress all this time.”
“How dare you?” she cried.
His smile vanished. “How dare I?” A scream rose out of his throat. “How dare I? You led me to believe that you loved me! And I know about him, about Booth!”
Wendy froze. “But how . . . how do you know about him?” She closed her eyes. “John. Of course.”
Peter huffed. “Do you not think I found out everything about you before John lost his memory? He was all too happy to betray you, of course. You Darlings certainly have some sibling rivalry issues to work out, that’s for sure.” He laughed, a cruel, shallow cough. “Now, the question is . . . Wendy, do you believe you could love me? In time?” He shook his head. “For so long I have been alone on this island, alone in a sea of boys who don’t understand me. I want a girl, someone to lie beside me at night, someone to wipe the blood from my face and care for my needs. I can’t be all alone forever here, I can’t. Hook grows only stronger, and a war is coming. I need you. The boys need a mother. I can’t . . . I can’t live without you. Don’t you understand?”
Angry tears filled his eyes, and she was struck by how much Peter resembled Michael at that moment, a boy having a tantrum over a toy. But she was not his toy. Wendy looked at Peter anew, seeing for the first time someone terrifying and unhinged. Insane. She remembered how he had killed the pirate by stomping him into the ground like an insect. How could she not have seen? Was his glamour so enchanting?
He grabbed her chin roughly, a sad look coming over his face. “I know that this is probably very hard for you, but soon, you will see that I was right and we were meant to be together. Our souls are entwined, Wendy. We have a bond. Your lips, your curls . . .” He tilted her face to the sun to see it more clearly. “Your perfect face, it was meant to be only mine. You will be my Neverland bride.”
Wendy’s hazel eyes opened wide. “Peter, I can’t make myself love someone! I’m already spoken for! And we must go home, our parents . . .”
Peter snapped, “Your parents already think you’re dead. Everyone thinks you’re dead.” Clouds drifted lazily past them as Peter’s hand tightened on her wrist. “There is nothing for you to return to. And this Booth, well . . .” He shrugged. “He’s nothing compared to Peter Pan. Who could hold a candle to this?” He looked out over Neverland. “I have a kingdom.”
With that, he pulled her close to him, and Wendy let out a gasp as Peter pushed his lips over hers, but she was afraid to move. He breathed a sigh of disappointment as she stayed frozen. “So that’s how it will be, you stubborn girl. There’s something else.” He pulled her body against his, the smell of him now making her nauseated, the sharp notes of sweat infiltrating her nostrils against her will. He breathed once before whispering in her ear. “If you don’t learn to love me . . . I’ll kill your brothers. Slowly. And I’ll make you watch.”
He pulled back with a friendly smile. “Well, Wendy, what do you say?”
She stared at him, tears running down her face, her hands shaking. “Why are you doing this?”
Peter shrugged. “Love makes you do crazy things.”
Then he dropped her.
She felt the heat of Peter’s sweaty hand fall away from hers and the biting air that rushed into her palm, stretching through the veins to her fingertips. She dropped away from him. She saw the icy stare, the cruel hint of a smile as she dropped down to his chest, then his feet, reaching out, desperately, for any part of him. With death so close, she hurtled herself toward whatever could save her in that moment, even if it was Peter Pan. But she didn’t catch him, not an inch of his pant, the tip of his shoe. Instead she fell forward, grasping and clawing at the open air, nothing below her, the horror inside of her reaching outside her mouth in a terrified hysterical scream.
For a moment, all she could see were clouds, clouds rushing past her at an unthinkable speed; her hands tried to grab at them, but they filtered through her fingers, no more substantial than a dream. Her body twisted in the air, rolling in on itself, her legs thrashing as she fell, past the cloud bank now. The main island rushed into view, the fall more horrifying now that she could see the water below her; blue, green, and gray tumbled together as she spiraled in the air, her feet tumbling over her head, until she flipped headfirst, unable to see anything but the ocean below her, so far below her. She screamed again, and the realization that she was falling to her death finally came upon her.
The ocean was rushing up quickly now and Wendy commanded her brain to connect, to understand: she was going to die. She was going to die. The wind rushed around her, parting so fast underneath her that she felt like a ship breaking a wave. Wendy looked up, trying to take in her last view of sky and sun, the smell of the salty air, and yet there was only terror, her heart thundering in panic, feeling like it would explode out of her chest at any moment. Her hands flailed frantically for her neck, grasping for anything, anything to hold, anything to bring comfort, even her own skin. As she plunged downward, Wendy Darling closed her eyes, realizing that the violent gasps of ricocheting air that had been exploding in her ears were bursting out of her lungs, pathetic cries, desperate breaths. Her eyes closed out the blur of land and sky, the speed at which she was falling. She desperately searched her mind for images of comfort: Michael’s impossibly long eyelashes. Her mother’s tea. The gilded angels that hung above the altar at Mass. Booth, reading a book in a slant of sunlight. Her lips repeated prayers, ingrained so deep within her that even
the fear of imminent death couldn’t erase them. She fell, faster and faster, her body soaring toward the water. “I’m sorry!” she screamed, “I’m sorry!” Sorry to her parents, sorry to Booth, sorry that she had come to this nightmarish, magical place.
The ocean was so close now that she could hear the rushing waves beneath her. Her body flipped in the air again, her side facing the sea. Wendy wondered if it would hurt, dying. Would her body simply disintegrate upon impact? Would she drown, trapped inside of broken bones? “Oh, God, Oh, God, no!” It was close now, the salt on her skin, the water that she knew would be as hard as rock. She opened her eyes for one more glance at the world, seeing only the sea rush up to meet her. She took her last panicked breath.
There was a rush underneath her and she felt a hand wrap hard around her wrist.
She stopped falling. There was no violent jerk, no swing through the air. Once Peter touched her, she was weightless. The fall stopped. Wendy looked down as a gigantic wave rolled underneath her, the break of the water splashing her legs. Peter looked down at her, but this time he was the gargoyle perched atop a building, so devious his smile, so wicked the satisfaction that glowered down from his face.
Wendy was hollowed. She silently let Peter pull her back up to him, her body dangling limp in his arms as he flew them back toward Pan Island. She was numb as they flew over the lanterns that flickered in the early twilight, over the Lost Boys who waved happily as they passed overhead. She was a ragdoll, shocked to the point where she wasn’t sure whether she had died. Was this the beyond? Was this her way of escaping death? Was she floating lifelessly under the waves now, a bobbing piece of flesh as fish fed on her bones? Had he only saved her in her mind, the boy who she had once wanted so much? Wendy didn’t understand that it was real until Peter dropped her roughly onto the beach, both of her knees slamming hard into the gray pebbles that lined the shore. She finally took a breath, and then another, her hair falling into her face as she knelt on the sand, never so happy to feel land beneath her fingers, her nails curling into the damp earth.
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