Second Star to the Right

by Mary Alice Monroe

  * * *

  Detective Inspector Ross was red-faced after hearing Jack and Detective Farnesworthy’s report.

  “We can’t bloody well tell the Chief that the children were taken by Peter Pan to the Neverland!” he exploded.

  “Of course not,” Jack replied, sticking his hands in his pockets and pacing the room. “But you’re missing the point. Real or imagined, Wendy believes the children have gone off with Peter Pan.”

  “It’s called dissociation,” added Farnesworthy. “It’s another mental state, you see, where one may not be aware of what the other personality is doing. It would fit. This kind of thing is often a result of trauma.”

  “Her own disappearance you mean? Hmm, yes, see what you mean,” said Ross, nodding and stroking his jaw.

  Faye stepped forward. “If this is what’s wrong with her, couldn’t we try to bring her out of this personality, do something like hypnosis so she could tell us where the children are?”

  “It’s possible I would guess,” Farnesworthy replied.

  “How? When?” Faye pressed urgently.

  “I don’t know, mum. I’m a detective, not a head shrinker," Farnesworthy said. "This is when I ask for help.”

  “It’s all a bit far-fetched if you ask me,” Detective Ross said, shaking his head.

  “There’s something else you should know,” Jack said. “Actually, Wendy insinuated something to the effect in the past but I, quite naturally, refused to even entertain the possibility.” He walked over to the mural that depicted a little boy in a tree stump. “Faye, do you remember how struck I was by this mural? How much this boy resembled me as a child?"

  Faye nodded warily.

  "I asked Wendy about it, hoping to learn more about my past. You see Detective Ross, I was an orphan. I have no memory of my early years. At age six I was brought to the London Home for Boys. By Wendy Forrester."

  Faye sucked in her breath.

  "Apparently," Jack continued, "I was found on her doorstep. You see, recently I hired Mr. Farnesworthy to uncover the identity of my biological parents. I didn’t know then that the woman upstairs was the same woman who founded the boys’ home. It was all more coincidence.” He raised his brows. “Except I don’t believe in coincidence.”

  “But Wendy said she didn’t know who your parents were,” Faye exclaimed.

  “Actually, she said at that time something vague about my being a lost boy. I took it metaphorically, of course. But later,” he paused and ran his hand through his hair, squeezing a handful of curls. “Look, I know this sounds crazy, but later she told me that I wasn’t just a lost boy, so to speak. She said I was one of Peter’s Lost Boys and that Peter had brought me back to Wendy to find a home.”

  “Stop it, Jack,” Faye snapped. “I can’t listen to any more of this.”

  “It has bearing on the case, mum,” Farnesworthy interjected. “You see, we’re working on the assumption that Mrs. Forrester has been living under a delusion for years. Working on a wild hunch, I looked into the records of other boys at the home. Most of them checked out, broken homes, neglect, the usual. But some of them...” He handed Detective Ross a handful of papers. “They had no background. No histories. They seemed to come from nowhere, just like Dr. Graham. They all just showed up on Wendy’s doorstep. Odd, wouldn’t you say?”

  Detective Ross shifted through the papers, then looked up, his face troubled. “Are there more of these records?”

  Farnesworthy gave a nod. “Crate loads.”

  Ross’s face sharpened. “We’ll have to go through the records first, one by one. If this turns out the way you’re hinting it might, it’ll be the scandal of the century. Turn the country upside down from the oldest to the youngest. Worldwide ramifications. Scotland Yard will have to be notified.” He held the papers up and shook his head. “God’s teeth, who’d have thought?’ ’

  Jack narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Thought what, Detective?”

  “We don’t believe in coincidence either, Dr. Graham. We cannot ignore the childhood connection between yourself and Mrs. Wendy Forrester. Certainly the fact that other children without a past history all turned up on this doorstep leads one to wonder if you, Dr. Graham, were not a victim of kidnapping yourself. And not just you—dozens of others!”

  Faye slammed her hands against her mouth, stifling her cry.

  “Now who’s crazy!” Jack shouted, furious at where the investigation was heading. “I was talking about dissociation. Something that might explain Wendy’s fantasies and help lead us to where the children are. I could better believe that I was a Lost Boy before I could believe Wendy was a mass kidnapper!”

  Faye listened to Detective Ross with a cold chill, but when she heard Jack’s defense of Wendy she felt her blood boil.

  “Are you implying that this fairy tale of Peter Pan and you being a Lost Boy, or that she was carried away to some spaceship Neverland, is any more believable than the possibility of a delusional woman’s kidnapping scheme?”

  “Yes. Absolutely," Jack replied. "You know I don’t discredit anything until proven false. I believe...”

  “Frankly, I don’t care what you believe,” Faye said sharply, slashing her hand through the air between them. She must have been mad to have played along with his mind games in the first place. Jane Lloyd was right. Things had grown out of hand. She’d created a confusing atmosphere for her children. She should have stayed to the straight and narrow, discouraged fantastical dreaming and kept them rooted in concrete reality. She couldn’t allow Jack to confuse her, her children or this investigation any longer.

  “I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself," she told him. "These are my children, and what happens to them is of no concern to you.”

  Jack’s mouth slipped open.

  His reaction sneaked right past all of Faye's defenses. Even now, with all his faults, he had a way of penetrating her armor and reaching her heart. She despised the sympathy she felt for him, abhorred the softness in her that still loved him. Hardening her heart she charged on, unleashing her scorn.

  “How clever you are to present illogical possibilities. So brilliant. So utterly charming. But I see through you, Jack Graham. We have to deal with the hard facts of life. And they’re not always pretty or fun. So just go away. Fly off, why don't you? Like another Peter Pan. Go somewhere and play your games and pretend that my children are off having the time of their lives. But I won’t pretend anymore.” Her voice broke and she brought her fingers to her tight lips. “I can’t play these games anymore.”

  Jack moved forward, but she pushed him away.

  “No! Go away! You’re free. You have no responsibility to me, or to my children.” She wrapped her arms around herself and turned her back to him. “Please Jack. I don’t want you here. Just go. Go today.” She glanced over her shoulder. “As you planned.”

  Jack stood still, absorbing the blow. Then he closed his eyes tightly, nodded, and, without another word, left the nursery.

  * * *

  Down in his flat, Jack threw socks and shirts into his suitcases. Packing was a skill he knew well; he could do it on automatic pilot. As he tossed, he counted the reasons he should go. She didn’t want him here. She wanted him to go. He couldn’t argue with her. Perhaps she was right. What he suggested was impossible. How could he have been so insensitive? What a fool he was, a damn fool!

  Slamming the suitcase shut, he placed his hands on the leather and leaned his weight against it, trying to stop the pain that was stabbing, short and quick, like a sword in his gut. The mark was true. He was reeling. More than ever he didn’t know who he was or what he believed. He felt truly lost.

  What good was he to Faye and the children he wondered? He was only getting in the way. Making her life more difficult. He had no right to interfere. Yes, he decided, clicking the latches, locking the case tight and hoisting it from the bed to the floor. He should go.

  The cab arrived just as he finished making final arrangements with the movers to
pick up the rest of his things. Only one more thing to do. He called Nana to his side. She ambled up from her bed and came to sit at his feet, head cocked, gazing at him with typical adoration. Jack patted her head, then attached the leash.

  He made the trip up the back stairs one last time, seeing in his mind’s eyes Maddie and Tom racing up with Nana at their heels. The silence now mocked him. He knocked at Faye’s door and delivered Nana and a bag of her things to the policeman with the instructions to take the puppy to Faye with his letter. Turning to leave, he heard Nana whine at his feet.

  “No, don’t whine, baby,” he told Nana, bending to stroke her soft fur. “You have to stay here. You’ve got a job to do. Faye needs you right now. More than I do. And you have to be here for the children when they get home.” He squeezed his eyes tight and said a prayer that they would return home soon, and safely.

  He rose then and walked to the front door of the building. With a final look around at the house where he’d spent the happiest few months of his life, he opened the door, hurried through the rain into the waiting cab and closed the door tight. He looked back once as the car sped down the street, but in the deep, gray fog, No. 14 was already out of sight.

  * * *

  Jack got as far as the airport gate. The voice on the overhead speakers was calling for all passengers needing assistance to board the international flight. He looked up and saw a father, harried and fumbling for his tickets, holding tightly on to the hand of his toddler son who looked up with total trust in his eyes. Beside him a young woman nervously rocked a baby in her arms.

  The overhead speaker announced the final boarding call. A long line of people queued at the gate. He checked his boarding pass: one way to Los Angeles. Then later, he'd be off again to Switzerland. Then to who knew where to uncover more secrets, to explore new vistas, to meet exciting adventures. A few more steps, and he could fly away.

  The boarding light began flashing over the gate door, urging him on. He took one step forward, then stopped. The blinking light triggered memories: the glow of fireflies in the garden, carnival lights at the park, stars over the ocean.

  Lights...

  Suddenly Jack realized that he’d been more profoundly moved by the lights in Faye’s eyes than by mysterious balls of light dancing in the hallway. He knew that the most meaningful relationships he’d ever had in his life were with Faye, Maddie and Tom. He looked at his tickets to freedom in his hand and saw them for what they were-- a means of an escape. Escape from responsibility and commitment.

  Except that he didn’t want to escape any longer.

  The quantum equation played in his mind: A particle remains in quantum limbo until forced to make a decision. Well, he wanted out of limbo. Jack crumpled the tickets in his palm and made his decision. He could live without a past—but not without a future.

  Jack turned on his heel and hurried away from the gate toward the exit, tossing the airplane tickets into the trash on the way. Outside, the rain had stopped. The heavy cloud cover was moving out at last, and a ray of sunshine pierced the gray. It was going to clear up.

  Jack raised his hand and whistled sharply for a cab. His foot tapped the pavement. He had to get back to the city, back to do everything he could to find those children. Because he loved them, and he wanted to take care of them, for real this time.

  Poor Wendy might be delusional, who knew what she’d lived through or what was going on in her whimsical brain? But crazy or not, she stuck to one story and, following a hunch, he was going to pursue it.

  A cab pulled up, and Jack threw his bag in the back and climbed in. “Where to, sir?”

  “The Neverland.”

  Chapter 22

  At eight o'clock the following evening Faye answered her door to find an anxious Jane Lloyd standing in the foyer.

  "Jane...Mrs. Lloyd," Faye said.

  “Good evening, Mrs. O’Neill. I’ve come to ask a personal favor. It’s not for me,” she added with a tone that made it clear she’d rather have died than to have made this request. “It’s for my mother. She is...” Her voice hitched, and she paused to regain her composure. “She is dying and calling for you.”

  “Dying?” Faye said, her hand over her mouth. “How? I mean, so quickly.”

  “The doctors tell me she has pneumonia. She sat by the open window all night long. The cool air... At her age, the slightest thing...” She clasped her purse so tightly her knuckles paled as she gathered her composure. “Well, I hope, under the circumstances, that you can find it in your heart to accompany me to the hospital. She is extremely agitated, you see and...” Her voice lowered with emotion, and she dragged out the words reluctantly. “Please, Mrs. O’Neill. She’s calling for you and there isn’t much time.”

  “Yes, all right. Just give me a moment to inform the policeman. We’re keeping a constant vigil.”

  “Of course.”

  Faye felt the walls of the old city hospital close in on her as she walked down the dim, hushed halls. Once the elevator doors closed, Jane Lloyd turned to her.

  "Mother is not in the psychiatric ward," she said gravely. "Due to her worsening health."

  “I understand,” Faye replied. In truth, she understood very little. Everything was happening so fast. She prayed she’d be able to endure this unexpected meeting with some grace and kindness, and to glean some small bit of information without resorting to pitiful begging to find her babies. After two days without a clue, she was at her wits’ end.

  * * *

  The elevator doors opened and the two women passed the nurses’ station, then several rooms occupied by frail old women in various stages of disease. The patients lay on their backs staring at the blank ceiling surrounded by tubes, vases of flowers, and blinking machines. A low, keening groan floated through the hall amid the hum of murmured conversations and prayer. In the air, mingled with the sour scents of medicine and antiseptic, was the stench of resignation.

  Faye continued on to the end of the hall to a small, dimly lit room much like all the others. Wendy lay coiled on the narrow hospital bed, slightly turned toward the window with her back to the door. She had always taken such care with her appearance, adding a bit of lace or a brooch. She was barely recognizable in the drab hospital gown that exposed her thin arms to the slithering tubes. Her once beguiling face was deathly pale and crisscrossed with deep wrinkles. Her breath rattled, and her lovely white hair lay straggled upon the thin pillow.

  This was the wrong place for Wendy to be, Faye thought immediately. If she was going to die, she should be at home in the nursery that she loved, where she had spent her life, surrounded by her cheerful murals and her beloved books and all the curious china figurines that she doted on. Not here in this cold, impersonal space.

  Wendy made a whimpering, fretful noise that brought Faye to her bedside.

  “She’s lucid one moment, then out the next,” said Jane from behind. “Mother,” she said in a louder voice, bending near. “Mother, Mrs. O’Neill is here. Faye...She’s come to see you.”

  Wendy stirred, and her lids fluttered, then turning with aching slowness, she said in a soft, raspy voice, “Faye? Oh, my dear girl. Is that you?”

  “Yes, Wendy,” she said, taking the tiny outstretched hand. “It’s me.”

  Wendy’s thin lips formed a tremulous smile. Was that relief she saw in her eyes?

  “You came. I knew you would.”

  Faye saw the ghost of the woman Wendy once was flicker in the pale blue.

  She couldn’t help but pity her, love her. She didn’t have it in her heart to hate Wendy.

  Wendy tugged at her hand, drawing her near. “I’m sorry,” she rasped with a heartfelt squeeze of her hand. “I never meant to upset you. So irresponsible of me to let them go.”

  “It’s all right,” Faye replied, patting her hand. “Don’t tire yourself.”

  “I only thought...How happy they’d be...I was wrong...”

  Faye felt her heart break in two, one-half Maddie, one-half Tom, and he
r eyes filled as she clasped Wendy’s hand and bent nearer. “Please, Wendy, tell me. Where are they? Did they go somewhere? Did someone come by the house? Please, Wendy, try to remember. Anything at all.”

  Wendy’s elegantly shaped brows furrowed in thought. “Peter said...” she began haltingly, then licked parched lips. “I remember Peter said that he would bring them back on Tuesday.”

  “But it is Tuesday!” Faye tearfully replied.

  Wendy suddenly became fretful and agitated. She shook her head back and forth on the pillow and her small hands fluttered on the bedding. She grasped Faye’s arm tightly.

  “You must open the window!”

  Faye drew back. “Please, Wendy,” she exclaimed. “No more of this nonsense about keeping windows open. I need plain facts now. The truth. Help me, please, Wendy!”

  “No, no,” Wendy gasped, drawing herself up, alert. “I am speaking literally, my child. You must go to the nursery and open the window. Peter will return with your children. Tonight! If he finds the window barred, he will be angry. I know him. He’ll fly back to the Neverland with Maddie and Tom just for spite. You will never see them again.”

  Faye felt frozen, unable to move or respond.

  Wendy took Faye’s hand again and looked into her eyes. Her own were bright again, sparkling with fevered intent.

  “I know it is difficult for you. You prefer logic and reason. You are afraid. But just this once, you must let go of your doubts and fears and have faith. Believe because you must. That is why I called you here. I had to tell you before it's too late.” She wearily dropped her hands, sliding back down against the pillow, exhausted.

  Closing her eyes, Wendy whispered urgently, “Open ... the... window.”

  * * *

  It was a strange night, eerily quiet, with a multitude of stars. Wisps of silvery clouds drifted like sailing vessels at full mast across the waning moon. Faye paced the garden where her children had toiled so steadfastly in the spring and basked in the golden days of summer. How empty this small, prisonlike yard seemed tonight, she agonized, where once they had spent so many hours of happiness. The heavy silence added to her acute suspense. She stood, her body tense, racked with indecision, desperate to be doing something. Everyone was gone: her children, Wendy, Jack. She stood alone at the brink of a fathomless despair.