Wendy, Darling

by A. C. Wise

  “What about the mermaids?” Wendy asks instead.

  “Peter.”

  Tiger Lily tenses, and Wendy hears the shift in her already pained voice, as if Peter’s name hurts her more than other words. What were he and Tiger Lily to each other before Wendy arrived? After she left? For Peter to wound Tiger Lily like this, he must have cared for her once very much.

  “Peter forgot the mermaids, so they wasted away,” Tiger Lily says, lifting her head from Wendy’s shoulder.

  “He forgot?” Wendy can’t fathom it, but at the same time, she can.

  It wasn’t even malice, just simple neglect. A boy leaving his toys out in the rain, not caring if they rot or spoil. Callous too, changing so any gust of the wind might carry him off in another direction, never once looking back at what he left behind.

  Despite Tiger Lily’s words, Wendy’s mind circles back to guilt. If she’d stayed, could she have kept Peter from getting wrathful and bored? Could she have gathered the fraying threads of Neverland and kept them together, their colors bright? And even if she could have, should Peter’s whims be her burden? He’d wanted her to be his mother, abdicating responsibility so he didn’t have to care, trusting her to catch him if he ever fell.

  Mothers are meant to keep their children safe, but also to prepare them for life. Help them grow. What can a mother be to a boy determined to remain perpetually young? Only a shadow, forever chained to him and trailing in his wake, bearing all his hurts so he doesn’t have to.

  Wendy draws her legs up too, mirroring Tiger Lily’s posture. She rests her cheek on her knees, and all at once, she feels every moment of her journey here, the years separating her from when she was last in Neverland. She feels her age, the little injuries of time and the big ones. The fine lines at the corners of her eyes, the strands of gray in her hair, the extra weight on her bones. They’re all earned. Since she was here last, she survived an asylum, her body bore a child. But Peter hasn’t changed at all.

  He’s earned nothing, so he takes what isn’t given.

  She thinks of him standing at the foot of Jane’s bed, his hands on his hips, his cocksure smile. He hadn’t even seen her—a grown woman, a mother in truth now. She imagines in his mind it had been mere moments since he left her, as though he’d only put her aside briefly, rather than forgetting about her for years. He had assumed Jane was her; he hadn’t aged, so why should she? And when she hadn’t fit Peter’s story anymore, he simply refused to see her at all. In a whole world built to fit his whims, Wendy is the fractured piece slipped out of place.

  “What about you?” Wendy asks.

  She glances at Tiger Lily again. The question hurts. Tiger Lily’s eyes change, dark and light at once. They make Wendy think of guttering candles.

  “He got angry,” Tiger Lily says. Her voice raw and distant at once in a way that makes Wendy think of Mary in the asylum, talking about the man who married her mother.

  “When the pirates left. He punished us. He made us burn, but we didn’t die. He changed us. He made me into the worst thing he could imagine, someone grown up. He wanted to prove—” Tiger Lily’s voice breaks, and when it comes back, it’s softer, diminished somehow. Embers, logs cracking into the last of the fire and going out.

  “He wanted to prove that we belonged to him. That he could make us and unmake us just like the mermaids, and we could never leave him.”

  “No. You’re not…”

  Wendy’s throat is too full to speak. Tiger Lily’s words echo in her head—He made me into the worst thing he could imagine, someone grown up. Wendy brushes at her cheeks, furious with herself. She should be focused on Tiger Lily, but all she can picture is Peter’s face as he stood at the end of Jane’s bed, seeing her daughter and not her. No wonder Peter couldn’t see her. She has become everything he hates.

  She looks at Tiger Lily again. Is this what Peter thinks growing up means? Becoming a shell with the ghost of the child you once were trapped inside?

  Despair shines in Tiger Lily’s eyes. Her expression begs Wendy to disprove her, tell her that her words are wrong. They are wrong. Anger sweeps through Wendy, sudden and bright, and it clarifies her thinking.

  “You don’t belong to Peter. Some of the pirates left, and that proves it. As much as he wants to, he can’t control everything in Neverland. Trees and plants are one thing, but people are something different.

  “Tell me…” Wendy stops, remembering Mary’s reaction the first time Wendy asked if she was an Indian. “Your people must have a name for themselves. Not what Peter calls you, but something that’s all your own.”

  There’s a breathlessness to her words, leaving Wendy feeling dizzy and giddy all at once. Tiger Lily glances at her, puzzlement in her sunken eyes replacing the despair. Wendy pushes on.

  “There must be stories you tell to each other. Not these,” Wendy indicates the painted walls, “but stories that are just your own.”

  A dangerous scrap of hope flutters in Wendy’s chest. Her stories. Mary’s stories. They’re all ways of trying to make the world true, to reshape it in an attempt to control and understand it. Even Peter’s stories, or maybe his most of all, tried to do that, but what if Neverland has its own stories? Older, truer stories.

  “Most of the time we were just Peter’s injuns.” Pain cracks Tiger Lily’s voice, a different quality than before. “But…”

  Tiger Lily straightens slightly, and something changes in her eyes, a spark that wasn’t there before. Hope blooms in Wendy too, and she leans toward her friend. Tiger Lily’s gaze shifts, looking to a middle distance Wendy can’t see.

  “There are times when I remember stories told around a fire. Not like Peter’s stories.” Tiger Lily gestures to the walls.

  Her voice is hesitant, but in Wendy’s mind it conjures a fire built high, stars overhead, tall pines surrounding everything. An owl hoots softly. Tiger Lily and the others gathered together, shoulders touching, a circle excluding Peter and keeping those around the fire safe. The mermaids must have had their own stories, too. Maybe even Hook and his pirates. She wants to believe it, desperately. More importantly, she wants Tiger Lily to believe it, too.

  “You were never just Peter’s injuns.” Wendy’s voice quavers. She fights to keep it from becoming petulant, a child arguing with Peter over his arbitrary and unfair rules.

  For Tiger Lily’s sake, she would have stayed, should have stayed. Being Peter’s mother wouldn’t just have been about protecting him from the world, but protecting the world from him.

  Tiger Lily’s shadow sprawls across the cave floor, sharper and darker than the pale light coming through the smoke hole should warrant. It’s twisted, a shackle, rooting Tiger Lily to the ground. When Wendy blinks, the image is gone.

  “I remember what it feels like to burn,” Tiger Lily says.

  Despite the softness of her voice, the words startle Wendy, sending a chill down her spine. Tiger Lily holds her arms out again, and for a moment, Wendy almost thinks she can see fire running underneath Tiger Lily’s skin.

  “If Peter wanted to, he could snuff me out any time.”

  “No.” The word is stronger, more adamant now.

  Wendy thinks of moments she and Tiger Lily spent together years ago—without Peter, without the Lost Boys, just the two of them lying belly-down on sun-warmed and flattened grass along the banks of one of Neverland’s many ever-shifting rivers. She thinks of her fingers and Tiger Lily’s trailing in the crystal-clear water, fish with scales of silver and gold coming to nibble curiously, then dart away. Those moments were real. Tiger Lily is real, not just a Peter-created shadow.

  There is so much she wants to tell Tiger Lily, about St. Bernadette’s, everything she suffered, and everything she learned. She wants to ask about Tiger Lily as well, how things have been for her in Neverland since Wendy saw her last. And she wants to tell Tiger Lily how much she ached for Peter in that time, how she never let go, how part of her aches still, and how she’s ashamed.

  “Tell me one
of your stories,” Wendy says instead, meeting Tiger Lily’s eyes. “One of the stories you remember from around the fire.”

  She wants to conjure for Tiger Lily the picture she saw of safety and family, a place Peter can’t touch. She wants to root Tiger Lily in herself, remind her she is real, that she won’t burn or vanish in a puff of smoke just because Peter wills it.

  “All right.” There’s uncertainty in Tiger Lily’s voice, echoed by the doubt in her expression, and dread pricks at Wendy’s skin. “But I can’t remember any happy ones, only the ones about monsters.”

  THE FORBIDDEN PATH

  The scent of cooking meat fills the air, charred, on the edge of burnt; she’s never smelled anything so good. Fat drips from the spitted boar, crackling and popping where it hits the fire. Her stomach growls, and she feels sick at the same time. She watched Peter slaughter the boar, saw the hate in its eyes, and saw it rooted to the spot by Peter’s will. She watched the boar being butchered. She shouldn’t want to eat it with the remembered stink of its offal still in her nose, but she hasn’t eaten anything since Peter’s awful soup. And this is real—meat browning, sizzling and rich.

  She squeezes the stone in her hand, trying to hold onto the memory of nearly choking on it. Nothing here is what it seems. Nothing is safe. If she eats the boar, what will happen? Will she forget more of herself? There are all sorts of myths and fairy stories about cursed food and what happens to those who eat it, like Persephone and her pomegranate seeds. Her mouth waters, a sour taste, and she hates herself for it.

  Across the dancing fire, Peter watches her. There’s a brightness to his eyes, an intensity. The flames make his features sharp, wicked.

  “Wendy?” He says the name softly, and it lands like a hook in her flesh, pulling at her. It’s so familiar, settling around her like warmth, like home. It must belong to her with the way it fits against her skin, even though she can’t remember clearly.

  “Yes, Peter?” She hears her voice as if from very far away.

  Peter’s lips curve into a smile, his eyes sparking delight.

  “You’re our guest of honor, you should have the first bite.”

  He holds a broad leaf out toward her, piled high with meat. She never saw him cut it, but it’s there, steaming into the night, and her stomach growls again.

  “Go on. Take it.”

  She stands, circling the fire, even though everything in her screams to turn around and run. Peter’s smile is gentle, encouraging. She takes the leaf, heat from the roasted boar soaking through and into her palms.

  “That isn’t fair.” Arthur speaks up, standing to glare between her and Peter. “She didn’t help to kill the boar at all. Why should she get the first bite?”

  A fresh skin lies draped over Arthur’s shoulders, cut from the boar.

  “You didn’t help either,” Bertie pipes up. “It was all Peter.”

  Peter turns to beam at Bertie, who puffs up at the attention while Arthur scowls.

  “That’s right,” Peter says. “I killed the boar, so I choose who eats first, and I say it’s Wendy.”

  She wants to refuse. Her eyes sting, and the hollow ache gnaws at her. She’s so hungry it hurts, and the way Peter looks at her, the bright pinpoints of his eyes—she can’t refuse.

  All at once she falls on the meat, stuffing it into her mouth with her bare hands. It burns her lips and her fingers and she doesn’t care. She chews and swallows and it only makes her want more.

  “You see?” Peter claps his hands, delighted. “Everyone dig in!”

  The boys follow her lead, falling on the meat like ravening wolves, like carrion birds. She finds herself jostling with them, fighting to get more. She claws at a reaching arm, Bertie’s she thinks, shoving him away. All around her is the sound of chewing, chewing, chewing.

  Only Peter doesn’t eat, smiling serenely at the frenzy. When she finally slows enough to take a breath and properly look around, she sees Peter isn’t the only one not eating after all. Timothy is nowhere to be seen, and Rufus sits miserably at the edge of the fire’s light, arms wrapped around himself. He’s bare-chested and his ribs press against his skin. There’s a hollowness to him, and the way he holds himself makes her think he’s fighting his own hunger, fighting with himself not to join the feast.

  As if her attention draws his, Peter turns to look at Rufus as well. His expression goes through a rapid, flickering change that has nothing to do with the shifting, tricky light of the fire— mischievous, then calculating.

  “What’s the matter, Rufus? Why aren’t you eating?” Peter’s voice is sickly-sweet, coaxing, as if he genuinely cares about Rufus and his well-being.

  “Not hungry.” Rufus shakes his head, a violent motion. He rocks his body, arms still wrapped around himself, refusing to look up at Peter.

  The meat in her stomach turns, fear unsettling her, and she’s afraid she’ll bring it all up again.

  “That can’t be true,” Peter says. His smile, like his voice, is honey, but the light in his eyes is dangerous. “It smells so good.”

  He tears a piece of meat free, straight from the boar in a way that should burn his skin but doesn’t. He steps closer to Rufus, waving the meat under his nose. Rufus turns his head away, and the firelight catches tears welling in his eyes that he struggles not to let fall.

  “I think Rufus feels bad for the boar!” Peter crows the words, turning to flash a grin at the gathered circle of boys, who now shuffle uncertainly around him.

  Tension strings the air. She feels it. A storm about to break, something terrible about to happen. Even though she swallowed it all, the meat feels as though it’s sitting in her throat, a lump making it impossible to speak, making it hard to breathe.

  “I think Rufus likes boars so much that perhaps he’d rather be one than be a boy. What do you think?”

  Peter’s smile is triumphant. His eyes glitter, waiting for a response from his crowd.

  “I think…” Arthur hesitates. For all his bluster earlier, she sees uncertainty in him now. This game has rules none of them but Peter understand, and all the boys feel themselves on dangerous ground.

  “I think.” Arthur clears his throat, making his voice louder, borrowing confidence from Peter’s encouraging gaze on him and standing straighter. “I think that Rufus should be a boar, and we should hunt him.”

  Arthur darts a tentative look at Peter, waiting for approval.

  “Yes!” Peter claps his hands again. “Excellent idea.”

  Lightning quick, he darts forward, grabbing Rufus by the arm and hauling him to his feet. He spins Rufus around, pushing him, so that he strikes the ground hard on hands and knees, tears spilling free—no longer just miserable, but terrified.

  A shout lodges in her throat. She wants to run to Rufus and help him, but she’s rooted in place, rooted like the boar in front of Peter, no choice but to go along. She looks desperately to the circle of boys, similarly frozen around him. Someone ought to go to Rufus and help him, but no one moves. They are all like toys, she thinks, like puppets, and Peter holds all the strings.

  “Snort like a boar, Rufus. Run, and we’ll try to catch you!” Peter dances in place, hopping from foot to foot in his delight.

  On the next hop, Peter darts forth, slapping Rufus on the flank so he lets out a frightened squeal, a remarkably animal sound. Rufus tries to scramble away, still on his hands and knees, but feet and legs block his way. The boys move, tentative at first, none of them striking Rufus, only keeping him from escaping. But they grow bolder, aiming kicks, trying to grab him. He crawls frantically, trapped between them, begging them to let him go.

  His words slur, clumsy, and she can’t tell whether it’s the tears making them thick or something else. Like the shape of his jaw or tongue might be wrong, like he might suddenly have tusks instead of teeth. Tears start in her own eyes as well, but she can’t move to help him. It is as though a physical force holds her back, a wall keeping her out with the circle of boys on the other side.

&n
bsp; She can just see him between their legs, flashes of hair and skin. Rufus’ spine arches terribly as one of the boys grabs his head, wrenching it back, and for a moment her heart refuses to beat. She is certain this is where it will happen, a blade driven home, a knife slit across his throat. She cannot see for crying now, can scarcely catch her breath between choking, hiccupping sobs. This time, there is no mistaking the tortured sound that comes from Rufus over the chaos of the boys. It’s all animal. A scream. It is all fear.

  She cannot run toward him, but she can run away, and she does, hating herself as she flees. She fully believes that Peter could compel Rufus, or any of them, to do anything. He could make Rufus believe he is a boar, completely and utterly, make him believe it so strongly that he would become one.

  A root catches her foot and sends her sprawling. She skids on the path, her breath cutting out, pain shocking through her as she tries and fails to catch herself. For a moment, all she wants to do is lie there, curl in on herself and sob. Let Peter find her. What does she care anymore?

  In the next breath though, the thought fills her with dread. She cannot stay. She cannot let Peter take her away from herself. She doesn’t belong in Neverland. She isn’t a lost girl. She has a home. She has parents. She has a name, and it isn’t Wendy… She’s—Jane!

  The name is suddenly there, wrested from behind the curtain in her mind. Jane slaps a bruised and dirt-smudged hand over her mouth, muffling a sound between a shout and a sob. Everything comes rushing back to her—the stricken look on her mother’s face as she was pulled through the window and all the stars went plummeting by, the cold as they flew, Peter’s hand wrapped around her wrist and how the whole time she was afraid of falling.

  She remembers the moment they passed through. There’s no better word she can think of for it. The sky around her changed in ways that shouldn’t even be possible, and yet it happened. It was like passing through water, surfacing through a puddle and suddenly being on the other side of everything she’d ever known. After that, the stars whirling past weren’t the same ones visible from her window at home. She isn’t even certain how she could tell, only that she knew, felt it deep inside, the sense of being somewhere else, somewhere wrong.