Wendy, Darling

by A. C. Wise

  “Of course,” Wendy says. “Very proper.”

  She hears the frost in her voice, swallows around it like a lump of ice in her throat. Ned flinches, the slightest of motions. Is it from her, or from resisting glancing at his father? His eyes find Wendy’s, begging her for patience, even now, when their daughter is missing.

  He’s hurting, as unhappy about his father’s presence as Wendy, but they must keep up the facade. Wendy knows. She understands. But her daughter is missing. Peter stole Jane from her very bed, and every moment her father-in-law spends here, every moment they play pretend, is a moment she could be out there saving Jane.

  Wendy almost lays a hand on Ned’s chest. It would be a small gesture of appreciation, a bridge between them, a sharing and lightening of their burden, but she can’t help the anger rising and rising in her like a tide. She lets her hand fall. It’s her father-in-law she hates, but Ned is closer. And even if he was only bowing to his father’s pressure, Ned is ultimately the one who sent Mary away.

  She imagines Mary arguing, Ned insisting with hurt in his eyes, and now Mary sitting alone in her tiny rented room. Mary is the only person who might understand. Wendy can’t speak to John or Michael, and even if she undid years of lies and told Ned where Jane is, would he believe her?

  Her fingers curl into the fabric of her skirt, bunching it into a fist before she forces herself to let go. She won’t lay a hand on Ned’s chest to comfort him, but she won’t lash out either. In this moment, it’s all she can do.

  Movement draws Wendy’s eye, Ned’s father shaking his head before he withdraws. Footsteps echo in the hall, pointed as he descends the stairs. Wendy bows her head, still keeping the space between herself and her husband. Ned’s shoulders hunch. Each footfall is a frown, a harshly spoken word. Then eventually the front door opens, and closes, and they both slump without moving closer together.

  When Wendy does look up, she finds Ned watching her as if she might shatter, the pieces of her embedding themselves in his skin. Wendy presses her lips into a close line. If she speaks, if she says anything at all, she might blurt out the truth. She knows the bluster Ned put on in front of the men from Scotland Yard was all for his father’s benefit, acting the masterful head of his household with no time for the nonsense of women. She shouldn’t resent him for it, but she can’t quite forgive him either. It’s unfair, expecting his trust and support when she hasn’t given it in return. But she can’t be that bridge. Not now. Not while her daughter is gone. The kindest thing she can do is withdraw.

  “I’m tired,” she murmurs, looking down.

  If she looks up, she’ll see the hurt in his eyes, all the truths she’s failed to tell him. When he answers her, Ned’s voice is strained, as though still performing for her father-in-law.

  “Of course, darling. You should rest.”

  Wendy dips her head. She doesn’t intend to look up as she steps past him, but Ned touches her arm.

  “The inspectors are doing everything they can. They’ll find Jane and bring her home.”

  Despite her better judgment, Wendy meets her husband’s eyes. The loss in them is dizzying, threatening to break her all over again. The stutter—nearly vanished in the eleven years she’s known him—betrays itself when he speaks, a sign of his exhaustion. She should say something kind, reassure him, but she’s already wasted too much time. She needs to go after Jane, and she can’t do that with Ned watching over her. Wendy pinches the inside of her arms to keep them crossed.

  “Of course.” Her jaw aches with holding back words. “You’re right. The police will take care of everything. I’ll go rest. You’ll fetch me if you hear anything?”

  She says it knowing there will be nothing to hear. Scotland Yard won’t find Jane. Only Wendy herself can do that. By the time Ned comes looking for her, she’ll be long gone.

  “Yes, darling. Of course I will.” Ned kisses her brow. Wendy stands perfectly still; his lips on her forehead burn.

  Darling, darling, darling. She knows the word for fondness, knows Ned means nothing by it, but she can’t help loathing it. The word has become a weapon, not in Ned’s mouth, not on purpose, but over the years it’s been a word to soothe, to dismiss, to hush. Her own name taken from her and turned against her—a gag, a chain. She would be happy never to hear it again.

  With Ned still looking after her, and guilt dogging her steps, Wendy retreats to her room.

  She allows herself a moment to sag, to feel the ache of Jane’s loss. As she does, a memory drops from nowhere, jarring and sharp. She’s running, her hand in Peter’s hand, the ground shaking, the earth bellowing.

  It’s so real, so present, Wendy has to lean her weight against the post of her bed to remind herself she’s a grown woman in London. She isn’t a child, tagging along at Peter’s heels. There’s a lifetime of difference between who she was then and who she is now.

  And yet over the years, in the quietest moments, she’s allowed herself the indulgence of remembering what it felt like to fly, to play follow the leader, to chase Peter along the twisting paths of Neverland’s forests. She wants that now, the purity, the simplicity, the freedom.

  But this is something different. Not running for joy—running from something. Something terrible.

  She can almost touch it. Her reaching fingers meet solid wood, a door, the memory locked away behind it. Something secret. Important.

  She pushes it away. Now isn’t the time to think about what she’s lost. She needs to focus on what she has, how she will rescue Jane. Peter stole from her; she will steal from him in turn. She’s learned a great many things since he last saw her, and she will use every one of them against him to bring her daughter home.

  Peter told her once that girls couldn’t go to war. Back then, she’d thought it terribly unfair, but he was right in a way. Wendy isn’t a soldier. She stayed home while her little brother went off to face guns and trenches, gas and grenades—but that doesn’t mean she isn’t a fighter. More than a fighter, she’s a survivor as well.

  She survived St. Bernadette’s using the first skill that ever made her useful to Peter. That must count for something. As a child, her sewing was clumsy, but thanks to Mary’s patient instruction, she’s so much better now. Three years under Mary’s guidance with nothing else to do in that white-walled prison except practice making her stitches neat and tight.

  Here, in the outside world, pockets are a convenience, a luxury; in the asylum, they were a necessity. Mary taught her to sew small, secret compartments into the hems and sleeves of her shapeless uniform, quick stitches strong enough to hold but easy enough to unpick so they wouldn’t be discovered in the laundry; invisible from the outside, tucked close against her skin. Sometimes merely touching them, even if they were empty, just knowing they were there, was enough to keep Wendy steady, anchoring her.

  John had believed a private institution would mean better care. But Dr. Harrington had been the only full-time doctor in residence, and with less oversight, it was easy for the attendants to practice casual cruelty. Jamieson especially.

  If Dr. Harrington’s attention was elsewhere, Jamieson would rally his fellow attendants against Wendy. They would trip her walking through the hallways, trying to loosen her temper, make her “hysterical,” so Dr. Harrington would prescribe bromides or have her locked in her room. There, they might “forget” to feed her, or her food would arrive with splinters or bits of broken glass tucked inside. And there were other things, too. Punishments she didn’t deserve. Torture.

  But for every cruelty dealt to her, Wendy had retaliated. She stole unimportant things. Buttons. Shoelaces. Half a tin of loose tobacco leaf, a whole stack of rolling papers. Everything went into her secret pockets while she hid her smiles, watching the attendants grumble and search fruitlessly. Then she would return the stolen item days later, in a different place, making the attendants doubt their sanity the way they tried to make her doubt her own.

  And never once was she caught. Those are the other skills St. B
ernadette’s gave her. Stealth, silence, the ability to slip beneath notice. All she had to do was pretend to take her medicine. Be good, be calm. Remember. Lie. Pretend to forget.

  But of course, she couldn’t forget. Peter had lodged beneath her skin like a splinter. Even at her lowest points—when she was tempted to give in and let go the way John and Michael did—she couldn’t dig him out. Peter was and is a part of her; Neverland is a part of her. The angled planes of Peter’s face, the fire of his hair, the gleam of his eyes—they are as familiar to her as her own features, as Ned’s, as Jane’s. She will use that to her advantage, too.

  Even now Wendy can call to mind perfectly the innocence in Peter’s eyes the first night she met him. The way he held his shadow draped over his arms like the skin of some animal, hope lighting the planes of his face, asking her to make him whole. She’d taken the proffered shadow, silky and cool in her hands like the finest of fabrics, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Of course a boy might become separated from his shadow, and of course a girl might sew it back on again.

  At the time, she hadn’t thought it at all strange. Not even when, at the first touch of her needle, he’d shrieked as though she’d stuck him with a hot poker. Afterward, he’d gone around crowing and strutting as if he was the one who’d done something clever. As though Wendy had had no part in it at all, and she’d accepted that too.

  By the time they’d arrived in Neverland, the shadow she’d stitched onto him had frayed and unraveled, withering like a rose cut from its vine. They’d landed on the beach in the harsh noonday sun and Peter had stood with his hands on his hips, the broken point at the center of a sundial. His Lost Boys had gathered in a circle around him to greet the Darling children, each trailing a shadow stark behind them on the white sand. Peter alone had cast none.

  She should have known then, but all she’d seen was the promise of adventure, a boy who would teach her to fly.

  Wendy kneels, retrieving her sewing box from beneath the bed. Needles, pins, spools of thread. Her little scissors, wicked and clever and bright. Sewing might not be a heroic skill, but it is hers. Simply carrying these things with her will calm and center her, a little piece of home in Neverland to remind her what she left behind, to remind her what it cost to visit there the first time.

  Wendy closes her eyes, rests her hands on her thighs, and releases a breath. It’s still there, the connection between her and Peter, buried deep beneath her skin whether she wants him there or not. She spent years trying to shed herself of him, only to fail. Now she clings to that bond like a physical thread, binding the two of them. He can’t hide from her; she will follow that thread all the way back to Neverland.

  Once invited, always welcome. Isn’t that his way?

  NEVER, NEVER

  A hush of sound, like running water, or a rolling storm. She turns her head toward the sound and finds her eyelids stuck shut. Has she been asleep? Dreaming? She dreamt of falling. No. Flying.

  There’s a smell of growing things. It reminds her of Kensington Gardens. She used to walk there with her parents when she was very small, and now that she’s older, her father still takes her sometimes, looking for leaves and flowers and insects for her collections. Her favorite bit is the pond with its big white and gold fish coming to the surface to nibble at breadcrumbs, tails flashing and mouths making little ‘o’s.

  Her thoughts drift, simultaneously heavy—sticky as her eyes—and light. She was just in the gardens, wasn’t she? Or she’s in the gardens now, reaching to catch one of the gold and white fish with her chubby fingers. No, that isn’t right. That happened years ago. She was four years old and she wanted to catch a fish to show her papa, but her mama snatched her hand away with a sharp “no!”.

  “You must never reach into the water like that, _____, or you might fall in. It’s an important rule, just like you must never go away with strangers, and you must always stay where your papa and I can see you. Do you understand?”

  She isn’t that small anymore, or foolish enough to need those lessons from her mother. Only she has gone away somewhere where her mama can’t see and there’s something wrong. There’s a humming blank in her memory where her name should be. If she thinks hard enough, she can see her mother’s lips move to shape the sound, but there’s nothing there. Only _____! How could she possibly have forgotten her own name?

  She must know it, somewhere, only there’s something standing in the way. She tries to think it for herself, un-sticks her lips to shout it aloud, but what comes out instead is, “Mama!”

  Her eyes fly open, painful, her lashes feeling like they’re tearing as they part wide. There was a boy. He took her hand, and they fell into the sky. Her body jerks in panic as though she’s falling again, but there’s a length of rope lying across her chest and legs, pinning her down. It’s heavy, damp, and smells of salt and the green weediness she mistook for fish ponds.

  She tries to sit up, but her arms and legs are clumsy, flopping uselessly when she tries to push the rope away. Is she sick? Is that why she’s so weak? Maybe the boy at her window was only a fever dream.

  Calm. She must be calm and take things one item at a time. Analyze her surroundings. That’s what a good scientist would do, and she does intend to be a scientist one day. That much she knows, even if she can’t remember her own name. She breathes in, focusing on what information she can gather while lying still.

  The ground beneath her is faintly damp and it gives strangely beneath her. This certainly isn’t her bedroom. None of her things are here—the globe her papa gave her on her last birthday, the magnifying glass she uses to see the delicate scales of butterfly wings and the veins in her leaves.

  Her mama warned her about going away with strangers, but she didn’t. Not on purpose. Tightness rises in her chest, making it hard to breathe, threatening her with tears.

  The sound of her involuntary, hitching breath makes her angry, and she pushes the fear down as hard as she can. Panic won’t do. She must be rational. Assess her situation, look for clues.

  She turns her attention straight up, easy enough since she’s already on her back. Light filters through branches laid together haphazardly, making a shelter. They’re balanced against something solid. She’s able to tilt her head back just far enough to see the curving bulk of a wooden construction, but she isn’t able to make out the whole.

  The harsh laughter of gulls calling to each other clarifies the sound of water. It’s the steady hush of waves. She must be on a beach. But how is that possible? Her parents would have told her if they were planning a holiday, and certainly they wouldn’t have spirited her away in the middle of the night. She would have packed appropriately, bringing her nets and collecting jars. And there’s still the boy, and her mother reaching after her. She certainly isn’t on holiday, and something is very wrong.

  Applying a burst of effort, she rolls onto her side, the coils of rope slithering free, not even tying her down, just piled haphazardly as if someone meant to bind her then forgot. She sits up, twisting around so she can see that the curve of wood holding up the branches is the hull of a ship. The sand beneath her is wet, the dampness soaking through her nightgown, leaving her cold.

  “Wendy! You’re awake!” The branches rustle and the boy from her window pokes his head through them, grinning.

  Wendy. That’s her mother’s name. And she’s… Jane. The name is suddenly there, like something emerging from the fog, still half obscured so she isn’t certain it truly is familiar after all. Is it her? Her thoughts move slowly, like the long strings of almost-burnt sugar Cook pulls into caramel. She helps Cook in the kitchen sometimes. The precision of the measurements please her, and the way slight variations can produce different results is just like a scientific experiment. But even better, at the end, patient stirring is rewarded with a taste test.

  She can almost feel the smoky sweetness on her tongue, the mass of candy clinging to her back teeth. She shakes her head, a sharp motion, bringing her thoughts ba
ck to the here and now. She isn’t normally the flighty sort; she’s a very sensible girl, her mother and father have often told her so. Right now, though, her head feels thick and muzzy, and it’s hard to concentrate.

  “Who are you?” She presses her back against the ship, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them.

  He looks like a boy, not much older than her, but if he brought her here, if he stole her from her room, he might be something far more dangerous.

  “I’m Peter, silly.” The boy crab-walks between the branches and into the shelter.

  She remembers landing, panic gripping her, and the boy pressing something into her hands saying it would make her feel better. Was it medicine? She can’t recall the details, her memory is incomplete, scattered. A broken shard of sky sliding free, the beach tilting beneath her feet, the hard rain of stars. Darkness. It was night when they arrived, and it’s morning now, or even afternoon. How long has she been gone? Her parents must be worried sick about her.

  “I have to get—” She starts to demand he take her home, glaring at Peter as she does, but her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. Her throat is bone-dry and the words get lost between her tongue and her lips. They jumble in her mind, and she can’t put them in the right order again, even in her head.

  Frustrated, she snaps her mouth closed, staring at Peter. He’s done something to her, bewitched her like in one of the fairy stories her mama used to tell. He might even be a creature out of one of those stories. There’s a scent to him, wild and raw, like the green pond smell from earlier, but also like honey. They fell through the world, like a knight falling into faerie, and now she’s here, wherever here might be. Sunlight peeks through the branches and glints in Peter’s hair—a fire, consuming everything in its path.

  He watches her in turn, tilting his head as if her stillness and silence puzzles him. As if she’s the strange creature from another world, which here she might be for all she knows. His hands dangle loose between his knees, which stick up at odd angles from the way he crouches on the sand. Freckles spray his nose and cheeks like stars, but the color of rust. His teeth are too sharp. The thought chills her, and she looks away. It must be the branches casting shadows through his smile. She almost convinces herself, and risks another glance. He lowers his lashes, peeking at her almost shyly as if to show her she has no reason to be afraid. His eyes—they’re a gray-blue like a storm, like the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.