Wendy, Darling

by A. C. Wise

  In the time she’d been sick in bed, their parents had already half convinced John and Michael that Neverland couldn’t be real. Wherever they believed their children had actually been Wendy never did discover, only that in their minds, there was no doubt that the stories she told could not possibly be true. They had accused her of filling her brothers’ heads with nonsense, confusing them. Already, Wendy could see the seeds of doubt taking root in Michael and John, and she’d been desperate to convince them, win them back to her side.

  She’d been afraid, heartbroken, and still sick in ways she couldn’t explain even though her fever had faded. How much easier it would be to hold onto Neverland if her brothers continued to believe in it too.

  Wendy had climbed to the top of the tall wardrobe in the nursery, not even hesitating a moment before she jumped. She had been so certain she would fly around the ceiling, just like they did that first night with Peter, that she hadn’t felt a moment of doubt or fear until she’d crashed to the floor and broken her arm.

  Wendy rubs at her arm, as though she might feel the ghost of the old fracture there beneath her skin. She’d been a child then. If she tries the same thing again now, as a grown woman, how will she explain herself to Ned and her brothers if she fails? Hysterical —the ghost of the word rings in her ears. John trusts her now, and even Michael. Would she undo all that? For a chance to save Jane, yes.

  She could sneak down the back staircase, but what if her father-in-law left someone watching, one of the men from Scotland Yard lurking in the shadows?

  No. The first time she traveled to Neverland, she left by the window. And Peter took Jane via the window, so she will go that way too. All her belief, held onto through the years—she must focus on that now, banish every single shred of doubt. Her mind and her truth are her own. No part of her belongs to Dr. Harrington or her brothers. She is alone, and she alone can save Jane.

  Wendy fixes her gaze on the stars, pushing away thoughts of the hard, bruising, breaking stones below. Jane. She must think of Jane. Happy thoughts. She edges her foot forward. Happy.

  Except her happiest thought is also her most terrible—the memory of holding Jane for the very first time. The sweet, blood-sticky weight of her, red-faced and crying, placed into Wendy’s arms. Jane had Ned’s hair then, just a few strands of it plastered dark against her still-soft skull. In that moment, love had cracked Wendy open wide, leaving room for fear to slip in. Loving something means having something to lose.

  It’s a truth Wendy has known since she lost Neverland, since Michael went to war and came home with ghosts in his eyes, since their parents boarded a ship doomed to sink. And oh, how much sharper that knowledge became when she first held Jane.

  How did her own mother feel all those years ago, entering the nursery to find not one but all three of her children gone? If she’d survived, maybe Wendy could have found a way to ask her, and to find out whether she too had been terrified when Wendy was first born. But she’d had no one to ask about being a mother, no one to warn her of all the ways it could make and unmake her heart in a single breath—watching her daughter take her first steps, watching her trip and fall.

  Had she and John and Michael even thought, as children, what their grand adventure would do to their parents? No, they’d been callous and cruel. They hadn’t looked back even once as they’d flown in Peter’s wake. And when they’d returned, Wendy’s insistence on a grand adventure, her desire to return to that wonderful land that couldn’t possibly exist. What must that have done to her parents’ hearts, not knowing how their children might have been hurt, where they’d gone? Finding their daughter, even returned to them, suddenly transformed into a stranger.

  Wendy herself had thought nothing of that then, how she made her parents and her brothers’ lives more difficult. She had thought only of freedom as she leapt through the nursery window that night, of the chance to perhaps be something more than a second mother to her brothers, even for a little while.

  Then they’d arrived in Neverland and she’d discovered a whole new set of rules, changing at Peter’s whim, and he’d wanted her to be a mother to all of his boys, not just Michael and John. Even so, she’d still ached to return. Why? Was it that the good had outweighed the bad, or was it that she’d left a piece of herself behind? Something unfinished, undone?

  Wendy peels her fingers from the window frame, takes a breath, empties her mind of everything but Jane, and lets go.

  Air whistles shrill and sharp. Her clothing snaps like sails and flags on a long-ago pirate ship. Jane. Jane. Jane. Wendy thinks of her daughter fiercely, love and pain wrapped all in one. Happiness. Home. The thought slips in, unbidden. She’s going home.

  She shoots upward, toes nearly scraping the courtyard’s stone as she rises sharply and soars over the gate, diving into the sky above London. Up, up, Wendy twists until the sky is beneath her and she’s swimming down into it, flying through to the other side of night where Neverland lies waiting.

  The rush of air is no longer a scream, but a triumphant yell. Her body remembers flight, the ache of muscles held taut against gravity, and the years fall away. Wendy stretches her arms, her shawl spread between them like wings, and embraces the glittering dark. She banks, rolls, then turns a loop, shedding fear with each motion. The map of London spread below her becomes mere points of light, blurred together as she gains speed.

  Is that Westminster Abbey? Kew Gardens? She skims low again before rising once more—a shooting star in reverse. It is glorious. The pain inside her uncoils, and for just a moment, Wendy allows herself to laugh out loud. The wind snatches the sound from her and streams it out behind her.

  Neverland. She marks the stars against the velvet sky. They’re no longer the stars above London. She’s already passed through that invisible barrier to where they’re different, other and impossible. Too far to turn back now, not that she would. Wendy finds the second star from the right, knowing it like an anchor to her soul, and sets her course, flying straight on ’til morning.

  LOST BOYS

  Her mouth tastes of berries and the faintest hint of sandy grit. She’s been helping Cook make jam to go with the scones, licking the spoon once all the stirring is done. It must be the sugar combined with the heat from the stove that’s left her so lightheaded.

  She shakes herself, as if clearing away a sound on the edge of hearing. No. Of course. She isn’t in the kitchen. She isn’t even at home. She’s in N______. The name is just there, on the other side of the sticky muzz filling her head. Oh, why can’t she think straight? Jam and burnt-sugar caramel and the lingering sweetness in her mouth…

  Neverland! She snatches the name from the air, like a butterfly caught in her net. She must hold the net closed tight so it doesn’t flutter away again. But when she reaches for her own name, it remains gone. The boy, Peter, called her Wendy, and he called this place Neverland.

  Wendy. Her mother’s name. Does Peter know her mother somehow? She’s never heard her mother speak of Peter or a place like this, and she would remember a story as strange as this one, wouldn’t she? She must remember to ask Peter when he returns.

  She sits up; it’s easier than it was before. Was it earlier today that Peter gave her the sweet drink meant to make her feel better? Yesterday? She remembers lying on the sand. She remembers being afraid, and then not, all her thoughts and worries washed away like the tide.

  The smells of saltwater and damp wood reach her. Outside her makeshift shelter, birds squabble. Her head aches, but her limbs feel stronger than they did before. She gets to her knees, crawling forward to peer out between the shelter’s branches. The squabble of birds resolves into boy voices, then Peter calling her.

  “Wendy! Wendy, wake up! I’ve brought everyone to meet you.”

  “I’m not Wendy, I’m…”

  Panic scrabbles in her chest, then Peter’s words sink in. Everyone? What does he mean? Who else is here? She crawls out between the branches, squinting against the light. Peter stands barefoot
on the sand, hands planted on his hips, hair a copper flame. A half circle of boys stands arrayed behind him. The youngest looks no more than five, chewing on the ragged tail of his shirt. His eyes are wide, his cheeks dirty, and there are leaves caught in the nest of his hair. All the boys’ clothing looks in need of mending, in fact, and none of them are wearing shoes.

  Her mother and Cook have been helping her learn how to sew. Cook even said that she’s a faster learner than her mother was at more than twice her age. Every time she practices, she does her best to make everything neat and even, thinking about her stitches like she’s making scientific notations. She blinks. Why is she thinking about sewing? What is it about this place that makes it so hard to keep her thoughts straight for more than a moment at a time? It’s endlessly frustrating. There was something she meant to ask Peter, wasn’t there?

  The boys all stare at her, some shy, some gaping in curiosity, others with eyes narrowed in suspicion. She glares right back at them; they have no right to look at her that way when she had no choice in coming here. The youngest boy, the one with his shirt in his mouth, moves closer to Peter, sheltering behind him, and her bravado fades.

  In the bright midday sun, the boys’ shadows trail away from them like spilled ink. All except Peter, who casts none. She knows for a certainty that all solid objects cast a shadow. Her eyes must be playing a trick, or…

  “Say hello, Wendy. We’re going to play a game, but first we must have introductions.”

  “I—” Before she can protest, Peter interrupts her, his voice sharp as a hand clapped over her mouth so that she finds she cannot say anything at all.

  “We’ll start with you. You’re Wendy, and I’m Peter.” His smile flashes bright as the light reflecting off the water, dazzling her just the same.

  She wants to object, but looking at Peter’s smile, it’s as if the earth and sky suddenly switched places, leaving her dizzy and breathless. When the world rights itself, she blinks, wondering at the circle of boys around her.

  She feels exposed with all of them peering down at her. She gets to her feet, brushing sand from her nightgown as best she can. Peter was speaking, wasn’t he? What was it that he was saying?

  She straightens, standing as tall as possible and putting her shoulders back for good measure. She remembers Cook, who is shorter than both her mother and her father, telling her that it’s the best way to stand up to someone trying to intimidate you. Just like animals in nature that make themselves look bigger to scare predators away. She can’t imagine anyone arguing with Cook when she gets that particular look in her eyes, not even her grandfather, though she’d like to see him try.

  The thought almost makes her giggle, and with it, some of her fear vanishes. Now that she looks at them properly, she sees a good number of the boys, even the ones who look closer to her age or older, are shorter than her.

  “I’m called Arthur, just like the king.” The tallest of the boys steps forward, nearly knocking over the youngest one as he does. He says his name like a challenge, daring her to contradict him, his expression hard.

  He’s wearing the skin of some sort of animal—she can’t tell what—draped over his shoulders. The cuff ends of his pants are ragged, the waist held up by a length of tied rope. He carries a stick, almost as tall as he is, knife cuts evident where branches and bark have been hacked away. He plants one end in the sand and leans on it as he peers down at her.

  “Are you really called Wendy, then?”

  A gull screams, its shadow falling on the boy, then the sand, as it circles overhead. The way Arthur and some of the other boys look at her, it’s as if they know her, or think they do, though she’s certain she’s never seen a single one of them before.

  “I’m—” She wants to say no, but Peter cuts her off once again, keeping her from answering.

  “Of course she’s called Wendy. She’s here to be our mother.” His mouth presses into a straight line. The expression makes him look far older than his slight body implies, but it’s only a moment before it cracks again in a lopsided grin. “Isn’t that right, Wendy? You’re our mother, and you’re going to cook for us, and tell us stories, and take care of us when we’re sick.”

  “I don’t know how to cook.” She blurts the words, and they aren’t entirely a lie.

  She really is only at the beginning of her lessons with Cook, and she’s never made anything on her own. Half the time when she’s in the kitchen, she lets herself get distracted by Cook’s stories about her home in Canada before she came to England. As long as her mother isn’t around to keep an eye on them—and sometimes even when she is—it’s easy to get Cook telling stories about Star Boy, and the Above People who live in the sky, or all the different birds and animals and plants in Canada that don’t live in England.

  And really, what does it matter whether she knows how to cook or not? Who is Peter to order her about and tell her what she is and what she’ll do? She isn’t interested in being anybody’s mother, not now and maybe not ever, and besides, half these boys are older than she is anyway. She’s about to open her mouth to say as much, but Peter talks over her once again.

  “Don’t be silly.” He seizes her hand, putting an end to the argument before it’s even begun.

  He tugs at her, so she’s forced to follow him or trip and find herself with a mouth full of sand. Then he’s nearly running, and she’s too stunned and breathless to object. The boys fall in behind them, talking and shoving as they follow along.

  Peter leads them away from the brightness of the beach. She turns to glance over her shoulder, seeing the ship properly for the first time. It’s only half a ship really, wrecked upon the shore like the bleached skeleton of an impossibly huge whale. One mast remains whole, the other cracked halfway down. A flag stirs at the top of the unbroken mast. Time and weather have faded it from black to gray, but as the wind snaps it straight, a skull and crossbones grins at her.

  Pirates. Her father read Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island with her after they went to see the ships in the harbor. She’d loved the story, and asked her mama to tell her a story about pirates too. Her mother’s stories were always made up from her head instead of out of a book, but they felt just as real as anything written down, like they’d always existed and her mother was just remembering them.

  She used to beg her mother to show her the book the stories came from, certain she must be hiding it somewhere, just knowing it would be full of the most wonderful and terrifying illustrations. All the stories fit together, all of them about the adventures of a Little White Bird and a Clever Tailor. Absolutely anything could happen in her mother’s stories.

  Once she understood there really was no book her mother pulled them from, she didn’t see why the Little White Bird or Clever Tailor couldn’t meet a band of dastardly pirates in their next story. As soon as she’d suggested it though, her mother’s face had changed, a cloud coming down over her eyes, and she’d said that was enough stories for one night. She’d been afraid to ask for stories about pirates ever again.

  There aren’t quite as many bedtime stories now that she’s older, but sometimes something she says will bring that same cloud-cover look into her mother’s eyes. She never knows which things those will be though, and what not to ask about. It isn’t that her mother yells, or even gets angry with her, but the silence that results is worse. It’s like her mother goes away in those moments, to somewhere where she might not be able to find her way back again.

  “Come on.” Peter tugs her arm again, dragging her toward a line of trees.

  High above them, a faint smudge like the palest of smoke hangs against the blue of the sky. Then the ground changes from sand to dirt, beaten flat by a thousand footsteps. It’s like entering a completely different world, a clear line drawn between the beach and beneath the trees. She glances up into the thick canopy overhead, catching a brief flash of red and blue that might be a bird. She tries to identify the trees by their leaves and bark, but nothing looks familiar, and
Peter moves too quickly for her to get a proper look.

  “This is where we live.” Peter stops so suddenly she crashes into him.

  Her mouth drops open, and for a moment she forgets to be afraid, or even annoyed. A castle with turrets and ladders and defenses sprawls between the trees. Bridges and walkways and platforms tilt madly around branches and trunks, some looking ancient and some brand new. It’s almost like something grown instead of built, except some of the wood is clearly salvaged from the ship on the beach. Other sections are carved right into living trees, or woven from branches still attached to the trunk.

  The whole structure looks like it’s been started, abandoned, and restarted many times over countless years, no one part of it matching another. The most uniform part she can see is a barricade of long pikes surrounding the trees on two sides, enclosing the camp. In the middle of the trees is a space that’s been completely cleared. There’s a fire with a cast-iron pot hanging over it, something else she guesses must have been salvaged from the ship.

  “This is where you’ll cook for us,” Peter says.

  He beams, as if at some clever trick he’s pulled, and she finds herself dizzy again, but not in the lightheaded way. Her blood fizzes from the tip of her toes to the top of her head, making her cheeks hot.

  “I told you, I don’t know how to cook!” She yanks her arm free of his grip, stomping her foot.

  He still hasn’t explained where Neverland is, or why he keeps calling her by her mother’s name, and he hasn’t listened to a single thing she’s said. He never asks, all he does is tell, as if his words are the law holding this place together and making things true, and she’s utterly fed up with it.

  All around the boys fall silent, eyes wide, watching to see what she’ll do, what he’ll do in return. Peter’s eyes, full storm gray in the shadows, go even darker, flickering from hurt to anger. There’s a dangerous thing there—she can just see the very edges of it—and she’s glad she didn’t shove him, even though she wanted to very much.