The Wendy

by Sky, Erin Michelle; Brown, Steven;

  The two men looked at each other now, sharing a meaningful glance from one desk to another across the thick carpet of John’s private office in Dover Castle, and the glance said this: “Do you think we can sneak away before she notices?”

  But this particular glance was so eloquent as to come dangerously close to conversation, and everyone knows it is impolite to enter into conversation without first performing the proper introductions all around. So let us pause for a moment to do just that.

  Wendy Darling is now seventeen years old, having matured into an uncommonly beautiful young woman. She has honey-brown eyes and long ringlets of thick brown hair. In direct sunlight her locks appear reddish, or at times almost blond, while at night they appear quite dark indeed, so that you might imagine her with any color of hair you wish, and you would not be entirely wrong. She has a fetching smile (with a secret kiss in the far corner) and a charitable disposition, especially when it comes to orphans and foundlings.

  She is attached to the Fourteenth Platoon of the Nineteenth Light Dragoons, a British regiment that no longer exists, having been disbanded seven years prior in June of 1783. (Or rather, it clearly does exist, its Fourteenth Platoon still prowling about Dover Castle on matters of domestic security, but the Home Office isn’t admitting it.) She is paid as a nurse, which suits her quite well—even though her true purpose in the regiment has nothing to do with nursing—because it provides her with a convenient excuse to borrow numerous scientific texts from the local gentry.

  John Abbot is a second lieutenant and the Fourteenth Platoon’s ranking officer. He is Wendy’s brother-in-arms, but he is in no way related to her, despite what you might have heard. He is tall and lean, with unmistakably dark hair. He is profoundly responsible. So much so, that you could follow him about for an entire fortnight and never once catch him indulging in a lighthearted moment. At twenty-two years of age, he has yet to grow out of the proud and stoic silence of his youth, and Wendy has begun to suspect that he never will.

  Michael Bennet, on the other hand, is fair-haired and broad-shouldered, with a devilish gleam of fiery red that permeates both his locks and his character. He is John’s platoon sergeant, another brother-in-arms. He is dashing and charismatic, known to woo and abandon the fairer sex as quickly as Wendy can devour a book, which is saying something. Wendy is often the subject of his affections, but she cannot take them at all seriously, given that he casts them so broadly about and in such an offhand manner.

  Each of these men would have thrown himself at Wendy Darling with complete and eternal devotion had she ever given him so much as a hint that she wished for him to do so.

  Much to their respective disappointment, she had not.

  As for Nana, she is a shaggy, dark Newfoundland monster of a dog who follows Wendy’s every move without exception. According to her official papers, her name is “Sheba,” but Wendy calls her “Nana,” so that is how the dog has come to think of herself. She has chosen Wendy above the others because it is abundantly clear to her who is really in charge and who is really looking after whom, despite what John seems sometimes to believe.

  Dogs always know.

  So there you are, the most basic of introductions complete, the rest to be discovered as time goes on (which is how we get to know everyone when it comes right down to it), and we are back at the part where John and Michael were sharing a glance that said, “Do you think we can sneak away before she notices?”

  This also happens to be the part where Nana comes in.

  Wendy’s drumming had roused Nana from her nap just in time to catch John and Michael sharing their conspiratorial glance. Understanding them perfectly, Nana stood up from her self-appointed spot at Wendy’s feet, stretched languorously, walked to the doorway, and plopped herself down across it, blocking any hope of exit for either one. She looked pointedly at Michael with a satisfied tilt of her left ear and fell promptly back asleep.

  As quickly as that, the conspiracy was broken. Now the two men glared back and forth at one another, silently demanding, “Say something; no, you say something,” until John finally gave Michael a new look altogether that said, “I outrank you; that’s an order.”

  Michael grimaced and cleared his throat.

  “Any luck?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

  “No,” she said, her voice sharp with annoyance. “There is no such thing as science anywhere to be had when it comes to the everlost. First, popular opinion followed the church; now, the church follows popular opinion. Either way, there’s no truth to any of it. This last volume attributes every eyewitness account to mass hysteria. Every single one. Can you imagine?”

  “Fools,” John grumbled, quick to match her mood. Truth be told, John had been in something of a foul mood since autumn, when the Home Office had begun paying him as a pastry chef. It was just a cover of course, but still, it rankled. His tenure in clandestine service was not living up to his expectations. (This was just one of many issues upon which he and Wendy thoroughly agreed.)

  “Seems to me that’s good news,” Michael protested. “At least we won’t be facing widespread panic. Let the Vatican denounce the everlost as figments of the collective imagination. All the better. And pray the Royal Society continues to believe its own ‘enlightened’ skepticism.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Wendy demurred, pursing her lips into a reluctant frown. “Belief would be worse than ridicule. But it leaves so little in the way of scientific inquiry. How are we supposed to learn anything about the threat—or how to counter it—if science doesn’t believe in it in the first place?”

  “I don’t see why it matters,” John countered. “We’ve been stationed so far from London we don’t have a chance of running across them anyway. The everlost aren’t going to attack Dover. We’re in a lot more danger from the French out here.”

  “Not from them either,” Michael commented. “The French have their own problems.”

  “At least the trouble in France has been keeping them on their own side of the straits,” John agreed. “Not that I’d mind a bit of a skirmish now and then. It’s a depressingly boring post, isn’t it?”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Michael retorted.

  But of course, Wendy agreed with John. Not that she was about to admit it out loud. If the French were to attack, she couldn’t help thinking, at least that would be interesting.

  She shoved her chair backward and rose to her feet, prompting both men to stand as well. “I could use some fresh air to clear my head,” she announced. “It’s just about time for Nana’s walk, if either of you would care to join us.”

  And because Michael did not want Wendy to go walking alone with John, and because John did not want Wendy to go walking alone with Michael, they both agreed to join her.

  If we’re lucky, Wendy thought, perhaps someone will try to rob us. There’s no harm in wishing, after all.

  Which should tell you, despite all her years of believing in magic, searching every library she could find for even the tiniest scrap of reliable information, just how little she had managed to discover.

  y the time they returned to the castle—depressingly unscathed, the lot of them—thunderclouds had rolled in over the Straits of Dover, blocking out the stars. A wind had picked up, and the afternoon, which had already been chilly, was giving way to a positively bitter evening.

  An ill wind blows through Dover, Wendy thought, although it surprised her the very instant she thought it. It felt as though the idea had arrived on the wind itself, caressing the back of her neck with icy talons. She was glad to return to John’s private office and the small writing table she had come to think of as her own.

  Positioned nearest the hearth, it was by far the warmest spot in the office through the long winter months, and the two men had left it for her by silent agreement. Wendy scanned the dwindling stack of unread books in her borrowed library and sighed. She would need to make the rounds of the local gentry again soon, although the picking
s were growing slimmer with every passing month.

  Between the fire and a hot cup of tea, the chill of the walk was easing away, especially with Nana’s thick winter coat curled protectively around her feet. Wendy was about to select one of the older tomes, hoping some ancient legend might be able to fill in the gaps that modern science refused to acknowledge, when a vague sense of unease brought her up short. Her hand paused in midair, hesitating, and then retreated, her thumb running distractedly along her fingers as she tried to figure out what it was that had disturbed her.

  A sense of nervousness (or was it exhilaration?) began to twist in the pit of her stomach, reminding her oddly of fireflies and stolen summer nights beneath a ripening moon. And then her very skin began to prickle, as though a lightning strike were somehow imminent, despite the fact that she was safely indoors.

  She had never felt so alert in all her life.

  “Do you smell that?” she asked of no one in particular.

  There was an odd scent in the air, wafting in from the night, and she breathed it in slowly, letting it fill her awareness. It was a bit like the first hint of winter, she decided—that sense you have when you wake up one morning and somehow you know that the last warmth of the year has well and truly gone, even though it isn’t especially cold yet and the first snows have not yet fallen. It was subtle and rich and somewhat frightening.

  Winter, then summer, then winter again, she thought. How strange the mind can be, playing tricks upon us in the dark.

  She felt herself drawn to the narrow opening that served as a window, so she stood and wandered toward it, her head tilted slightly to one side as though she were listening for something she couldn’t quite hear, until she finally stood directly before it, staring restlessly out into the night. But she could hardly see anything beyond the edge of the ancient stone.

  “All I smell is that godforsaken dog,” John grumbled. “Why you insist on taking her for long walks under threat of rain is beyond me. It’s not even rightfully spring yet. You’ll both catch your death.”

  “Well, then we shall be out of your hair for good, which will be a great relief to you, I’m quite certain,” she snapped, a bit put out by his criticism. After all, no one had forced him to go with them. “Besides, she’s a strong animal. She doesn’t need to be cooped up inside all day. She needs her exercise.”

  “So do I,” Michael interjected with a wink and a grin, “but I don’t see you doing anything special for me.”

  “Hush,” Wendy said, still sniffing at the air. “By all that’s holy, what is that?”

  Nana padded across the room and pushed her head briefly into Wendy’s palm. Then she reared up onto her hind legs, placing her front paws on the window ledge and growling into the unfathomable darkness below.

  “What’s what?” Michael wanted to know, his flirtatious efforts already forgotten, which was perfectly typical of him.

  “It smells like …” She trailed off, her eyebrows knitting a delicate crease above the bridge of her nose. “Heavens, I don’t know! That’s precisely why it’s so bothersome! If I knew what it was, I suspect that I’d forget all about it right away, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Even though it seems familiar. Or at least, it seems as though it should be familiar, even though it isn’t. Does that make sense?”

  “Not in the slightest,” John muttered, his eyes never straying from the papers on his desk.

  Michael’s grin broadened as he watched her. His cheeks dimpled, and his eyebrows shot up as though he were right on the cusp of laughing. But he managed not to, if only just.

  “There’s a hint of … cool water,” she continued, “in the back of a cave on a hot spring day … And a taste of pickles—”

  “A taste of pickles? In the scent?” Michael’s right eyebrow rose even higher than his left, and he finally did chuckle a little, but not much, to his credit. It was a puzzled sort of chuckle that held not even a hint of scorn. (Michael was rarely scornful of anyone, and certainly never of Wendy.)

  “Yes, pickles. Now hush,” Wendy repeated, swatting at his shoulder for interrupting her. “Let me concentrate. As I was saying … water … cave … taste of pickles … Oh, yes, that’s it. Green. Definitely green. It smells more like the color green than anything I’ve ever known in my life. Green and … Oh! Oh, no!”

  At her exclamation, even John looked up from his accounts, suddenly alarmed.

  “What is it?” he demanded, rising at once and reaching for his coat.

  Nana’s growl rose in volume until the dog was snarling viciously at the air coming in from the window.

  “Magic!” Wendy cried. “It smells like magic!”

  Her eyes flew wide as she turned to meet John’s gaze. Not even Michael was smiling now.

  “The everlost,” she whispered. “They’re here!”

  he everlost?” John scoffed, already lowering his coat. “Why, that’s—”

  Quicker than the beat of a hummingbird’s wing, Wendy’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and she raised a single eyebrow that managed to be both elegant and defiant at once. If eyebrows could speak, this one would have said, “I’d be very careful what you are about to say, John Abbot, for the sharpness of your tongue in this next moment may be visited back upon you a thousandfold.”

  As it could not speak, it was forced instead to poise itself gracefully above Wendy’s left eye, saying nothing. But the implied threat was clear enough.

  In fact, John had been about to say that the very idea of the everlost appearing here, in Dover, was patently ridiculous, implying in turn that Wendy herself was being patently ridiculous, but the eyebrow had stopped him just in time.

  “Why, that’s highly unexpected,” he finished instead, his tone cautiously respectful. “Are you absolutely certain?”

  “I’m quite certain. Yes.” She looked down and slightly to the left for just a moment, as though reconsidering the entire question, but then she returned her gaze to John’s and locked onto it with unwavering conviction.

  “Yes, I am,” she repeated, and John couldn’t help but notice that she seemed rather more pleased than frightened by the prospect.

  Wendy didn’t know how she could be certain of it, having never been in the presence of the everlost before. In truth, up until this very moment, she had been more than a little concerned that she might never be certain of it at all. That was her duty, you see, within the Nineteenth Light Dragoons: to sense the presence of magic and warn her platoon of any impending attack. It was just that she had never before had occasion to do it.

  Her induction into the ranks of the Home Office had been full of surprises, to say the least. It had gone something like this …

  England faced a most terrible threat.

  A threat! How exciting! At last, a chance for real adventure!

  Magic, as it turned out, was real.

  Of course it was! She had known it all along!

  This magical threat was terrorizing England’s poor, and the orphans of London in particular. Stealing children away in the middle of the night.

  No! Not the orphans! How dare they?

  The creatures were known as the everlost. With preternatural strength and speed. There were reports of flying. And drinking human blood. So little was known for certain. Only women and dogs seemed able to sense their presence.

  England needed her! She would protect the men of her platoon! And, of course, the children! But how would she know when the everlost were near?

  It was a woman’s intuition, they had assured her, and she would recognize it when the time came.

  So she had read everything she could find on the subject, and she had trained twice as hard as the men in both swordsmanship and marksmanship, just to prove her dedication. But there was no training to be had in the one task for which her feminine presence was tolerated. To have discovered at long last that she could serve her designated purpose with precision and confidence … well, it came with tremendous relief, as you might imagine.

 
She looked from John to Michael and back again, a gleam of excitement in her eye, waiting to see what might happen next.

  John stared at Wendy a moment longer and then glanced down at Nana, who was now barking and snapping so furiously at the open window that he would have feared for the dog’s safety had she not been far too large to fit through it.

  Finally, he turned to Michael.

  “Gather the men, and meet me seaward of Saint Mary. Swords and muskets, both. May she have mercy on our souls.”

  Michael snapped to attention with a proper salute, racing off as soon as he was dismissed. This was the first time Wendy had ever seen such military formality pass between the two of them, and the very sight of it sent a quick thrill of fear racing down her spine.

  As though reading her thoughts, John turned his attention back to Wendy.

  “You are to stay here,” he said, and he swung the heavy wooden shutters across the window, barring them securely. “Do not leave this room, and do not open this window. Under no circumstances are you to set even one foot outside of these walls before sunrise. Have I made myself clear?”

  “But—”

  “You have done your duty, Miss Darling. Now let us do ours. You are a part of this regiment, and I expect you to follow my orders.”

  Wendy thrust her chin forward and glared at him defiantly. Her eyebrow was threatening to have its own say on the subject when John took an uncharacteristic step toward her and caught her hand in his own.

  “Please, Wendy,” he said, sounding much more like himself and at the same time nothing like himself at all. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”

  He looked into her eyes until she finally gave him a small nod in reply, too surprised to speak.

  “Pray for us,” he said, and with that he strode briskly away, his posture irreproachably straight, his shoulders squared in determination.