Wendy, Darling

by A. C. Wise

  “I will.” Tiger Lily doesn’t hesitate.

  Reduced as she is from her former self, the resolve in every line of Tiger Lily’s being is clear. Peter hurt her. He stole from her. She is every bit as determined as Wendy to steal herself back from him.

  Wendy lets go of Tiger Lily’s hands, and Tiger Lily moves to exchange low words with the man who came to tell them he’d seen Jane on the path. Is she leaving instruction for what to do if she doesn’t return? Tiger Lily touches the man’s arm briefly, a familiar gesture. Wendy tries to think—did she meet him last time she was in Neverland? Did Tiger Lily have brothers?

  Fresh guilt swarms Wendy. She can’t remember. When she was first here, any brothers Tiger Lily had would only have been more boys to Wendy, and she’d already been surrounded by more than enough.

  Looking at the man beside Tiger Lily, Wendy finds herself suddenly thinking of John. Perhaps she should have gone to him before leaving, and told him what she’d planned. Perhaps she should have given him instructions for what to do if she didn’t come back.

  In the eleven years since Wendy left St. Bernadette’s they’ve found their way slowly back to trusting each other. If she’d asked him, would he have trusted her one last time, as mad as her words might sound, if she’d told him she was going to Neverland to look for Jane? There was a moment, not too long ago, when Wendy thinks they finally saw each other clearly—not trying to bury the past, but recognizing the scars it left on each of them.

  John had come to her shyly, and told her of his intention to ask Elizabeth to be his wife. The words had surprised Wendy, but she hadn’t been able to resist teasing him, delighted that she could do so again.

  “Shouldn’t you be speaking to her then? What have I to do with it?”

  John’s face had deepened in its red hue, not quite embarrassment or pain but some complicated thing in-between. All at once she saw laid bare the ways he’d been trying to find his way back to her since her release from the asylum and recognized the missing pieces in herself as she’d been trying to do the same.

  “I want you to approve, Wendy.” He’d said the words softly, and she’d been glad, because suddenly her heart had been close to breaking with a new weight it had never known before. “Without Mother and Father… I mean, it’s just you and me and Michael. We’re the only Darlings.”

  Her name. Their name. Despite Wendy’s marriage, John had still called her Darling, giving her back to herself in a way she’d never expected. The idea had overwhelmed her, and she’d nearly missed that John had continued speaking.

  “…it does matter to me what you think, Wendy.”

  “Of course! Of course I approve, and of course I’m happy for you.” She’d got the words out somehow, and after a moment, she’d thrown her arms around him, holding her brother tight. She willed every terrible thing between them to fall away, to never have been, even knowing they never could have come to this moment without them.

  When she drew back, she had truly looked at John—the hope in his eyes, the pink in his cheeks speaking more to his love for Elizabeth and his relief at Wendy’s approval than anything else.

  “Wait here a moment.”

  She’d left John, baffled, in her parlor, and run to her bedroom. There she’d rooted among the contents of her jewelry box and at last found the small, round case scarcely bigger than the ring it contained. The box’s top, blue enamel, was painted with gold roses, and all around the sides of the box were printed with the same pattern. She’d nearly tripped running down the stairs so John had caught her as she stumbled into the parlor, looking at her like she was a mad woman as she grinned up at him.

  She pressed the box into his hands and he stared at her in bewilderment.

  “You don’t remember it? Go on, open it.”

  Wendy had bounced on her toes slightly in her eagerness. John had opened the box, gazing at the ring that had been their mother’s, a gift from their father when Wendy was born, and gifted to Wendy in turn on her tenth birthday. A plain silver band, gleaming like moonlight, and set with a single, tiny stone such a pale blue as to almost be white.

  Once it had been a star to set her sights by, to wish on. After their parents’ deaths, she had seen it as a chip of ice, a daily reminder of their loss. She had stopped wearing it, and tucked it away safe for some future she couldn’t imagine yet, until the moment she’d handed it to John. As she watched John lift the ring from the box, she could suddenly see the ring without grief, thinking on the small stone as a piece of the future again, a gift she could give her brother as he began his new life.

  “It belonged to Mother,” Wendy said, and almost before the words were out of her mouth, John said, “I remember now,” his voice rough.

  “I couldn’t, Wendy…” He’d tried to press the box back into her hands, but she’d refused to take it.

  John’s lower lashes had been damp with the threat of tears. She’d felt her own eyes grow hot, all the more at John’s struggle to hold back.

  “Jane should have it,” he’d said. “Shouldn’t you give it to her?”

  Wendy had thought of gifting the ring to her daughter, but despite the way Jane looked at the night sky, it was always this world she seemed most rooted in. A stone on her finger should be deep green, like growing leaves, or perhaps the blue of beetle shells. Wendy had shaken her head.

  “It should be with you. Mother would want you to have it.”

  John had stopped trying to hold back his tears then, sweeping her into a hug. They’d stood together for a long time, crushed against each other, and when John spoke again, Wendy had lost the first part of his words into her hair.

  “…such children back then.” He’d straightened, pulling away from her to meet her eyes again. “And look at us now. Did you ever think we’d be this grown up?”

  “Never.” The word had cracked in Wendy’s throat, but she’d smiled through the last of her tears. “But now we’re the grownups, setting the rules, running after our children so they don’t hurt themselves.”

  John’s cheeks had reddened again in a pleasing way.

  “Don’t you think you’re rather getting ahead of yourself? I haven’t even asked Elizabeth yet.”

  He’d folded the ring box into his pocket, his fingers straying to it again to touch it through the fabric as if to assure himself it hadn’t vanished. It made Wendy think of her own habit in St. Bernadette’s of touching her pockets and counting the items she’d stolen, and she almost laughed.

  “I’m glad you’ve found someone, John. Elizabeth loves you, that much is plain, and I know you’ll be very happy together. You’ll be a good husband, and a good father someday too.”

  They’d embraced again as they’d parted, but as John stepped into the courtyard, she’d called him back. He’d turned to look at her, quizzical, and she’d spoken her next words in a rush, afraid she wouldn’t get them out otherwise.

  “Thank you, John, for all you tried to do for me. I can’t pretend St. Bernadette’s was easy, or that I was happy there, but I know you had my best interests at heart.”

  He’d stood there, utterly at a loss for words, until she’d shooed him away.

  “Go to Elizabeth, and when she’s said yes, you must both come around to celebrate. Jane will be so pleased. She adores Elizabeth and she’ll be delighted to have an aunt.”

  The moment stands like a shining beacon in Wendy’s heart. She has never felt quite as close to John as in that moment, not before or since, even when she stood by his side on his wedding day, even during all those years in the nursery when she took care of him and Michael. His words come back to her, about being grown up. She wonders precisely when it happened. Was it when their parents’ ship went down, when word arrived that they would never be coming home? Was it when she married Ned, or when Jane was born? Or is it now, as she prepares to do the most grown-up thing she’s ever done—face Peter, face her childhood, and let it go for good?

  Tiger Lily moves back to her side. As she does, W
endy feels a bruising edge of guilt spreading beneath her skin. Her words before were honest—she doesn’t know exactly what they will face, only that it will be dangerous. And deep down, she knows that if it means saving Jane, at the end of the day—at the end of any day—she will choose her daughter over Tiger Lily, over Peter, over herself.

  “All right,” Wendy says. She adjusts Hook’s sword at her side. “I’m ready.”

  HERE BE MONSTERS

  A sudden gust of wind rattles the canopy of trees and Timothy simultaneously flinches upward and scrunches down, trying to escape from and hide inside his skin at the same time. Jane can’t help flinching too, but turns the motion into squeezing Timothy’s hand, an attempt at comforting him and herself both. In the dark of the canopy tunnel, Timothy looks terribly small, but Jane is glad to have him here.

  As frightening as it is being responsible for someone smaller and more vulnerable than she is, she’d much rather focus on keeping him safe than think about anything else. That way she doesn’t have to worry about herself so much. She doesn’t have to worry about what lies at the end of the path they aren’t supposed to be on, or what will happen if Peter finds them, or how they’ll get home.

  “I don’t like this place,” Timothy whispers.

  “This is definitely the way I came before,” Jane says. “It feels…”

  She stops; right isn’t the word she needs. Nothing feels right here. There’s a scent in the air like a hot iron, a feeling like a fever coming on. Even with the wind lowing in the branches, sweat prickles Jane’s skin. A rumble comes from underneath them, shivering in the soles of her feet. It’s darker here than she remembers it being in Neverland since she arrived. There’s a moon beyond the clouds, but even so it feels like the island is aware of them, trying to obscure the path and scare them into turning back. But if Neverland doesn’t want them here then it must be important, and she will find out why.

  “This feels like the place we need to be,” Jane says, more loudly than necessary, because her throat wants to tighten around the words and keep her silent. “It’s just a little farther.”

  She says it with confidence, even though she has no idea where they’re going. For once, the land seems to cooperate, and almost as soon as she says it, the tunnel of trees ends. And a cliff rises above them. Jane’s heart sinks. It’s almost like coming up against a sheer wall. Except here and there she sees roots and handholds. She’s never climbed a rock like this before, but it looks like something she can do.

  Jane tilts her head back. The cliff is so tall she can’t see the top, and the smudgy darkness isn’t helping. Everything around them is cast in shades of brown, gray and dark blue. If she knows Peter at all, though, there wouldn’t be a cliff in Neverland if there wasn’t also some way to scale it, so there must be a way up. The only way to find out is to try.

  “Stay close to me.” Jane doesn’t give herself time to doubt. She digs her fingers into a crack in the stone and hauls herself upward. She sweeps her foot across the rock face until she finds a foot hold, then she pushes herself up again, reaching for the next branch.

  There isn’t enough space to twist around to see Timothy following her, but she hears him huffing and scrambling at her heels. She reaches again, and a gust of wind sweeps past her, making the branch she’s holding sway precariously. She isn’t that high up yet, but she can’t afford to think about the ground at all.

  * * *

  Wendy ducks out of the cave, and Tiger Lily follows. No smoke darkness in the sky now, and the ground is still beneath their feet, but rather than comforting her, the stillness, the emptiness, is ominous. It’s as though everything is waiting to see what she will do. The center of the island tugs at her, the heart of Neverland tied to her own heart. Even without Tiger Lily at her side, she’s certain she could find her way there.

  The path is barely visible, but Tiger Lily’s steps are sure and unerring. Leaves hush under Wendy’s feet, slick things dropped from the trees, while Tiger Lily makes no sound, a ghost indeed.

  They walk in silence until they come to a place where one branch of the path veers off between trees that bend inward to form a tunnel. The shadows swallow everything there. Wendy ran this way with Peter, oh so long ago, the ground blurring beneath their feet. And Wendy knows in her heart that Jane came this way too.

  Wendy turns a slow circle, as if she could pluck some trace of her daughter from the air. She crouches, brushing her hands over the fallen leaves. Her fingers close on a stone arrowhead and she lifts it, straightening and slipping it into her pocket. She imagines Jane standing in the same spot. She wouldn’t be able to let a mystery like this lie; she would go to the end of the path.

  Come on, Wendy, keep up. The heat, the breath of the shadow-creature. All of its rage echoed and packed small into Peter’s trembling frame.

  Wendy’s hand falls to the hilt of Hook’s sword again, and she suddenly feels foolish carrying it. Will she lop off Peter’s head and stand over him crowing with her hands on her hips, like a cock at dawn? She slips the sword from the shawl at her waist, and holds it out hilt first toward Tiger Lily.

  “You should be the one to carry this.” Wendy tries to smile, but her eyes sting. “I’m not a warrior.”

  Tiger Lily accepts the sword, testing its weight. Wendy feels lighter without it, but the knot of fear remains. She smooths her palms over her pockets. Through all the running and climbing, she’s managed to keep her sharp little scissors, her needle, her thread. She prepared herself with everything she needed as she left London, even before she knew what she meant to do.

  The bending trees swallow all outside sound. There is only Wendy’s breath, so loud and ragged in her ears she can’t tell if Tiger Lily breathes at all. When they emerge at the tunnel’s far end, the cliff is there all at once, looming over them. It sharpens Wendy’s memory—craggy rock with tangled roots and twisted, stunted trees and bushes growing out of it at odd angles. She can see a few narrow ledges and plateaus from this vantage point, but the top of the cliff is hidden from view.

  * * *

  Jane keeps her mind on finding the next place to put her feet and hands. Her breath comes hard, and she’s sweating. Even though she can’t look down, she knows she’s making progress. She takes a moment to be proud even though her fingers ache, wanting to cramp. She has to keep climbing.

  For a while, the pride is enough to allow her to trick herself into forgetting what she’s doing, how dangerous it is, and how far away the ground is. Then a terrible roar splits the air. Timothy whimpers, and Jane presses flat against the rock, waiting for the world to stop shaking. Dirt and stones bounce down around her. She squeezes her eyes shut, but she feels the grit settle, clinging to her hair and her skin. She’s never been much fussed about baths one way or the other, but now, the first thing she wants to do when they do finally get home is soak in the tub for so long her skin prunes.

  When the trembling finally stops, she risks shifting her weight, trying to get a better look at how far she’s climbed. To Jane’s surprise, her feet find a small lip of stone, just deep enough to hold her. She almost laughs, able to lower her arms and ease the burning ache in her muscles. But the moment doesn’t last. Timothy needs her, and there’s still more cliff above her.

  A small tree juts out almost perpendicular from the rock above her head. Her arms protest, like someone has poured hot lead beneath her skin, but she makes herself stretch up on her toes as tall as she can. Her ribs ache, her toes barely keeping contact with the rock, but she’s just able to grab the branch on her second try. Trusting it to hold her weight, Jane leans out from the cliff face until she can see Timothy.

  He’s a bare smudge in the dark, miserably pressed against the stone. At least the wind has stopped for a moment, and the ground is no longer shaking.

  “Climb up beside me,” she shouts. “There’s room for both of us and we can rest a bit.”

  Jane isn’t certain it’s true, but she knows the worst thing would be to let Timothy
stop, to let tiredness and fear overtake him. Timothy shakes his head, a motion she can just see in the dark. A surge of frustration almost brings a sharp reply to her lips until she realizes how stupid she’s been. His legs and arms are shorter than hers. He can’t reach all the places she can; she should have thought of it sooner.

  “You can do it.” Her voice cracks, afraid of a lie. “Just stretch as tall as you can.”

  The ground shakes again, and Jane tightens her grip. Beneath her nightgown, her sweat feels like ants marching across her skin. Timothy’s shoulders hitch, but otherwise he doesn’t move.

  “Hang on!” Jane shouts.

  The handholds that let her climb to this point are suddenly nowhere to be found. She can’t figure a way back to him, and now her frustration is at herself. She should have been more careful, paid more attention. Her arms tremble with the strain of holding on. If she doesn’t move soon, she’s going to fall.

  “I’m sorry, Timothy. There’s nothing I can do. You have to climb.” Her stomach sinks, heavy with a feeling of failure. She promised to take care of him, and she’s already let him down.

  Timothy raises a tear-stained face. The moon is cruel choosing this moment to show itself, needling Jane’s heart with all the planes of fear it reveals.

  She remembers the first time she went on holiday to Brighton with her family, and how her mama taught her to swim. At first the memory seems incongruous, but there’s something there, something she can use. She remembers light sparking off the water, and her mother standing waist-deep, holding her arms out and saying, “I’ll stand right here, Jane, all you have to do is swim to me.”

  “You promise you won’t move?” The water had been clear, enough that Jane could see the bottom, but still that didn’t ease her fear. It would be so easy to slip beneath the surface and get stuck there where her feet couldn’t touch to push herself back into the air again.

  “I promise I won’t move an inch.”

  Jane had dutifully kicked and paddled like her mother had shown her, frantically slapping the water, gasping, and feeling like she was going to go under at any moment. The distance had already seemed impossibly far, the water so much colder and deeper than when the lesson began. But she was doing it. Somehow, against all odds, she was almost there, her fingers almost close enough to reach her mother’s outstretched ones. Then her mother had taken a step back, and another, and Jane had had to keep swimming to reach her, furious when her mother finally stopped and gathered her laughing into her arms.