Wendy, Darling

by A. C. Wise

  Tiger Lily’s jaw is set and hard. But Peter. Peter… Tears wet his cheeks, and his trembling is such it’s impossible to keep her stitches straight and even.

  Softly, so softly Wendy isn’t even certain Peter will hear, she sings a lullaby. He wanted a mother. At last, she can give him this, if nothing more. What emerges is more breath than song, hitching and broken. She used to sing it to Jane when she woke from bad dreams. She used to sing it to Michael and John once upon a time too.

  The rhythm of her stitching picks up. The stars in Peter’s eyes wheel, silver fire. He makes no sound, but his lips shape her name. Wendy falters.

  She could show him mercy. She believed him to be her friend once, after all. But the world already makes too much room for boys like Peter, boys who under normal circumstances grow up to be men like Ned’s father, who start wars and send boys like Michael home broken. Boys who never face consequences. She can’t be his mother, or protect him from what he is any longer.

  Wendy pushes the needle in again. Neat little stitches join boy to shadow, monster to flesh. And as they do, she watches the memory rush back in, as violently as her own returned. It’s like black ink swirling through Peter’s veins, a visible thing. He bucks, shuddering, and the ground shudders with him. Stones bounce and rattle into the pit.

  “Keep going,” Tiger Lily says.

  The strain in her voice makes Wendy look up, and she almost drops her needle. The seams in Tiger Lily’s skin have split and widened. Light the same color as the bloody light filling the cave burns from within, and flakes of ash rise around her body. Wendy reaches for her, but Tiger Lily jerks back.

  “No. Finish it.” Tiger Lily grits her teeth. Her eyes are brighter even than her skin, and Wendy doesn’t dare disobey.

  The air around Tiger Lily shimmers like the air around Peter’s shadow, capturing flecks of ash and drawing them back to settle on her cheeks, on her arms. Wendy sees the force of Tiger Lily’s will, holding herself together. If she stops now, everything they’ve been through will mean nothing.

  “Hold on.” Wendy turns her attention to her stitching once more.

  The cave shudders again, a chunk of stalactite breaking free to crash to the ground, narrowly missing her. She thinks of Jane and Timothy, hoping they’re safe, hoping they aren’t afraid. Peter’s lithe body arches, trying to pull away from his shadow, trying to tear the stitches free.

  Tiger Lily tightens her grip. Her hands smoke where they grasp Peter’s shoulders, but she doesn’t let go. Wendy braces herself. She asked Jane to be brave; she must be brave as well. She pushes the needle in, concentrating on making the stitches just the way Mary taught her years ago. She ignores everything, the crumbling stone, Tiger Lily burning, all her attention on Peter.

  He’s still the little boy he ever was—ancient and new and burning like a fever under her touch. It seems an eternity, but finally Wendy tugs the last stitch into place. She allows her hands to shake at last, fear and adrenaline catching up with her. She almost drops her little scissors as she snips the thread, making a knot. It is done.

  Her hands fall back to her sides, exhausted. And from the other part of the cavern, Jane screams.

  The sound rips through Wendy like lightning. She leaps up, forgetting her weariness, forgetting Peter, forgetting everything. She charges up the slope, but as she does, the stone buckles under her, knocking her down. Her knee strikes the ground painfully, and she bites back a cry. Gravity pulls her back into the bowl where Peter still lies shivering. Wendy ignores the throbbing ache, the feeling of her knee already swelling as she pushes herself upright. She uses her hands and feet both to claw her way over fallen and sliding stone. She has to get to Jane.

  As she reaches the top of the bowl, Peter moans. Wendy looks back. It’s only a moment, but it almost undoes her.

  “Go!” Tiger Lily shouts.

  But her eyes are only for Peter, and she can’t tear them away. He lies curled on his side, shuddering, his monstrous shadow flared around him. It moves when he moves, irrevocably part of him. His eyes snap open, fixing on her. All the breath leaves her body. Wendy is flying for the first time, leaving the nursery far behind. She’s plunging through the dark, and everything wonderful is about to happen. Nothing bad can ever touch her. She wants to run to him. To comfort him, even now. She loathes him for it, and loathes herself even more.

  “Go. Now!” Tiger Lily’s words snap Wendy back to herself.

  Wendy looks to her friend as Tiger Lily gathers Peter in her arms. She stands, lifting Peter with her, dragging his shadow behind him. He weighs so much more now than he did before, and Wendy can see the strain, but Tiger Lily straightens, meeting Wendy’s gaze, the set of her mouth a feral thing.

  It’s Tiger Lily’s eyes that hold Wendy though. They are embers, daring Wendy to defy her. She is beautiful and terrible, still burning, still cracking, but not breaking. And all the while, everything inside Wendy is as fragile as glass. If she speaks Tiger Lily’s name, if she says anything at all, she will shatter. And her daughter needs her. Wendy turns away.

  The simple motion is everything, a wound deep at the core of her, but she cannot afford pity now—not for herself, or any other kind. She runs, as much as she’s able, limping through the throb in her knee. Her pulse thunders, and the sound of it is a name: Jane, Jane, Jane.

  The cave is still trying to rip itself apart. Above the chaos comes the broken sound of sobbing. It is a sound tied to every mother’s heart, and it goes right to the core of her. Her daughter, crying.

  Wendy puts on a last burst of speed. Relief almost steals her legs out from under her as she sees Jane crouched on the cavern floor. But something is terribly wrong.

  “You have to get up,” Jane says, voice tear-choked.

  Wendy’s pulse stutters. Jane is covered in blood, crimson smearing her arms, her nightgown. She struggles with a weight, Timothy, trying to haul him upright. His body is rag-doll limp. Wendy’s heart lurches—callous gratitude. The blood is his, not Jane’s. The wound from Arthur’s sword, the one that was just a play-acted thing, is now horribly real.

  “Mama!” The word pierces, all heartache, as Jane catches sight of her. The expression she turns on Wendy is utterly stricken.

  Wendy has never seen such raw grief. With one look, Jane begs her to make everything better, to fix it, but there’s nothing Wendy can do. The knowledge wrenches everything inside of her. She wants to fall to her knees, hold Jane and take all of her hurt away. But she can’t. The cave is still coming down around them, and if she spares Jane’s feelings now, they will both die.

  “Mama, you have to help him.” It’s there, the knowledge inside her little girl. Jane is smart enough to understand the truth, but right now, it’s too much for Jane to hold. And she shouldn’t have to, but Wendy can’t afford to be kind. Not until they’re safe. Not until they’re free.

  “No.” The word drags rough from Wendy’s throat. She should say something comforting, but there is no mercy left in her, no mercy left for her either. Because Wendy stitched Peter’s shadow back to his skin; she made Timothy’s wound real.

  She knows what will greet her if she touches Timothy’s throat. No rabbit-racing beat of pulse. No sluggish struggle for breath. No flutter of hope against her palm. Wendy makes herself look at the baby roundness of the boy’s face, and burns the image in her mind. She doesn’t know him, but maybe she did, once upon a time. A child. Just a little boy, younger than her daughter, lost and so very far away from home.

  “Come away, Jane.” Wendy holds out her hand.

  Jane clings to Timothy even harder, staring at her mother as if looking at a stranger. At least Timothy didn’t die alone; at least her daughter was there to hold him tight, maybe sing him a lullaby. It doesn’t ease Wendy’s heart any, knowing this, and if anything it makes it weigh more heavily inside her.

  “We have to help him. I promised I’d keep him safe.” Jane’s voice breaks, shuddering as she gasps for breath.

  Wendy closes
her eyes. A moment. A breath. Against her lids, she sees Tiger Lily burning. Life is unfair, that’s what happens when you grow up. She’d told Peter, now she has to swallow the bitter lesson herself. She opens her eyes. She can’t hate herself for what she’s about to do; Jane will do plenty of hating for both of them, but only if they survive.

  The ground heaves, nearly throwing Wendy from her feet. Her knee throbs, her bones feeling like they’re grinding together as she takes a step to steady herself. A fissure splits the stone, cracks crazing the walls and floor. There’s no more time.

  Wendy grabs her daughter’s arm, perhaps more roughly than she needs to. Jane screams, not terror but the sound of rage and a breaking heart. Wendy knows what it is to promise someone you won’t let anything in the world hurt them and to fail. She throws Jane over her shoulder. Jane alternately beats her fists against Wendy’s back and reaches for Timothy. Wendy takes the blows; there is nothing else to do.

  She carries Jane from the cave. The journey through the narrow passage is over in a blink, even with the rolling ground and world trying to shake apart. Even with Jane’s weight draped over her shoulder.

  When she steps outside, cool night air slices Wendy’s skin. The moon is still full, but now it has a bloody hue. All around it, the dark itself falters, cracks riddling the space between the stars. Jane lies limp against her, exhausted of her anger, weeping silently.

  “Second star to the right,” Wendy murmurs, hoping it’s true in reverse, hoping that happy thoughts indeed have nothing to do with flight. “And straight on until morning.”

  There is no time now for doubt and regret. Holding her daughter as tight as she can, Wendy leaps into the wind, up into the sky, leaving Neverland behind one last time.

  HOME

  LONDON – ONE DAY AFTER NEVERLAND

  Shadows crowd the corners of Jane’s room. She’s home, surrounded by all her things, but none of them feel right— the butterflies pinned in their cases, the neatly labeled rows of pressed leaves and polished stones. Empty. Lifeless. They might belong to some other girl, and she is merely here, an imposter inhabiting that girl’s room. The curtains on her window, the covers on her bed, the dollhouse her grandfather gave her for her birthday when she was five—how can objects she’s been surrounded by for years be at once so familiar and so strange?

  She sits up, knees tucked against her chest, arms wrapped around them, and surveys the space carefully. She almost misses the sounds of boys sleeping, the tense waiting filling Peter’s camp. A particular clot of shadows in the corner beside the dollhouse catches Jane’s eye, and she starts. For a moment, it resolves into the shape of a boy, eyes moon-wide and trusting. Timothy.

  Then the shadows are only shadows again and the momentary hope crushes her. Her chest aches with waiting tears. But she’s already cried so many times already, and she’s sick to death of weeping. Anger chases hard on the heels of her pain, rising up and leaving her cheeks hot.

  Her mother could have saved Timothy, and she refused. She left him instead of going back. She left them both in the first place. If she’d stayed rather than dragging Peter deeper into the cave, Timothy would still be alive.

  The door to the hallway edges open, and Jane starts again, catching at the covers. Her mother’s face peers through the gap, and Jane’s first instinct is to turn away, refuse to talk to her. But at the same time, questions crowd her tongue, and there’s no one besides her mother that Jane can ask.

  Her mother enters, closing the door softly, and sits on the edge of Jane’s bed. Her expression is drawn, tired. She looks smaller than the woman Jane saw in Neverland, the woman she imagined a figure out of one of her mother’s own fairy tales.

  After a moment, her mother takes Jane’s hand, and Jane allows it. They sit in silence, her mother stroking the back of Jane’s hand. Like the objects in her room seeming strange and familiar at once, her mother seems both close and miles away.

  “Why?” It’s the only question Jane can manage, out of all the choices tumbling through her mind, and her mother looks stricken the moment Jane speaks it aloud.

  She drops Jane’s hand, and looks up, meeting her eyes. Jane pushes, feeling for just a moment vindictive and cruel. Timothy’s death is her mother’s fault; her mother should know that. And if her mother accepts the blame, if she lets it hurt her, then perhaps some of the ache in Jane’s own chest will ease just a little bit.

  “What happened? Why did Timothy die? He wasn’t hurt at all, and then you took Peter away, and…” Jane’s breath hitches. She’s run out of words. If she speaks again, the tears will come, and she’s done with crying. She presses her lips together, holds her mother’s gaze, and waits.

  “Oh, Jane.” Her mother reaches as if to touch Jane’s hair, but lets her hand fall.

  Even in her anger, Jane regrets the missed contact. She wants to lean into her mother’s hand, be petted and told everything will be okay. Lines at the corners of her mother’s mouth and eyes drag her whole face down, making her look years older than Jane has ever seen her. Jane regrets her question, but she will not take the words back. After so many years of secrets, she has the right to know.

  She expects her mother to resist, to put her off, or spin another pretty lie like her stories of the Clever Tailor and the Little White Bird. Instead, her mother folds her hands carefully into her lap and straightens her spine.

  “I’m sorry, Jane,” she says. “You deserve the truth, and I always should have given it to you.”

  She meets Jane’s gaze. Even in the darkness, Jane sees the gravity in her mother’s expression. She feels it too. Regret, not just for what has passed but what will pass. Tucked up in her bed, Jane is suddenly on the edge of a threshold. Once she passes it, there will be no going back. Her mother is prepared to treat her as an adult, and it hurts her to do so. Is this what Jane wants? She almost opens her mouth to take it back, but she closes it again, presses her lips into a determined line, waiting for her mother to speak.

  And she does. She speaks of a night when she was not much older than Jane and a boy came to her window holding a shadow in his hands and asking her to sew it back on. She unfolds a tale Jane can scarcely believe, not for the fantastic idea of traveling to another world, for she’s done that herself, but for what came after. How her mother was disbelieved. Locked away. Punished. All because she refused to deny Peter. When she came out of the place where she was kept, secrets were all her mother knew. Jane hears the pain in her mother’s voice—the places where it grows rough and breaks. She blames herself for Jane being stolen.

  It’s too much. Jane is a vessel, overfull, on the point of flooding. Her head aches and she feels displaced—not the way it felt with Peter’s strange, sticky-sweet tea, but as though she’s been crying for hours and it’s left her hollow inside. Only her eyes are dry, burning in the dark as she tries to hold onto everything her mother has told her and make sense of it.

  And the words aren’t even done yet. Her mother tells Jane of Peter’s true shadow, of sewing it back on, and making the boy and the monster into one. She tells her of making death in Neverland real.

  At last, when her mother has run out of words, she lifts a hand and places it on Jane’s own. Jane doesn’t pull away, she’s too stunned.

  “I know I’m asking too much of you, Jane, to take all of this in at once. But you’ve been there. You met Peter. You know.” Her mother’s voice is soft, and there’s a weary slant to her shoulders.

  Jane glances toward the window, trying to gauge the position of the moon. How long has her mother been talking? Time has been strange ever since they returned, as though a bit of Neverland’s magic followed her back here. It feels as though Jane only blinked, and the cave in Neverland became her bedroom, as though no time passed at all. It feels as though they were gone for weeks, but she understands that in London, it was only just two days. It doesn’t seem possible, but sometimes the world passes slower here, and sometimes faster—her mother explained that too, with a sad weary smi
le.

  “We should count ourselves lucky, Jane. We didn’t miss too much while we were gone.”

  The way her mother says it, Jane knows it isn’t really a matter for smiling over, and she knows her mother knows that too.

  “You know, I’ve kept this secret for so long, you’re only the second person I’ve told,” her mother says when all the other words are done.

  “Papa?” Jane asks.

  Her mother shakes her head, a look of regret crossing her face.

  “Mary,” her mother says. “Cook.”

  She lifts Jane’s hand, places it palm to palm with her own atop the covers, then presses it again with her other hand, closing Jane’s hand between her own.

  “Your papa doesn’t know yet. I plan to tell him very soon, but until then, I would appreciate it if you would keep my secret for a little longer. I know it isn’t fair to ask.”

  It seems like her mother will say more, but she doesn’t, letting the words hang, acknowledging the unfairness and doing nothing to right it. Jane isn’t certain what her mother has told her father about where they’ve been. Last night—or maybe a lifetime ago— when she was meant to be sleeping, tucked into bed after the warm bath she’d so longed for while she was in Neverland, she’d heard snatches of words not meant for her ears.

  “… shouldn’t have gone without telling you … so afraid.”

  “… how could she have left the house … gone so far alone? What will we tell Scotland Yard … brothers, and my father?”

  “… on a little adventure. You know how curious and strong-willed she is … what we will tell them. … home. That’s the important thing. Jane is home safe, and that is all that should matter.”

  Jane’s hand tenses between her mother’s, but her mother holds her hand tight, not letting her pull away just yet. Her expression is grave again, and again Jane feels it like a physical thing pressing down on her.