Wendy, Darling

by A. C. Wise

  “You did it, Jane. You swam.”

  “You lied! You said you wouldn’t move!” Jane remembers how her skin felt hot all over despite the water, her body fairly trembling with rage. She’d trusted her mother, and her mother had betrayed her. She’d wanted to strike her mother, and felt she would have been justified in doing so. But her mother had only beamed, delight and pride in her eyes so that Jane’s anger had drained, and she’d been able to be a little proud of herself too, though she didn’t dare admit it until the next day.

  “I can see the top,” Jane says. “All you have to do is climb up to me.” She feels rotten and mean saying it, but she can see no other way. Timothy has to climb, and they have to keep going.

  With painful slowness, Timothy reaches up toward her.

  “That’s it. Put your right foot just there.”

  She tries to point, and in that moment, Timothy slips. Rocks skitter beneath his small feet. Jane’s heart flies into her mouth. She doesn’t wait to see if gravity catches him; she lunges without thinking, even though he’s too far away for her to ever reach. There’s a terrible sound as the branch she’s holding cracks. All at once, the ground goes out from beneath her, the earth and the sky switching places.

  * * *

  There’s nothing to do but climb.

  Wendy reaches for one of the thick, woody roots, protruding just above head height. The bark flakes against her palm, but when she tests her weight, the root holds. As she plants a foot on the uneven rock, a wind springs up, shoving against her. She falls back a step to keep her balance, and as she does, the ground shudders, like an animal trying to dislodge a fly from its skin. Wendy feels it in her bones, the shadow roaring at the heart of the mountain.

  Peter knows, or some part of him knows where they are, and he doesn’t want them here.

  She lets go of the root, stepping back to see if she can get a better view. Movement catches her eye, and at first she thinks it must be a bird, then her heart lurches and her breath nearly stops. The figure is human. Even at this distance, Wendy would know her anywhere. Jane.

  She swallows a shout, afraid of startling her daughter and causing her to fall. But oh, holding back her daughter’s name bruises her throat, and Wendy gasps for breath. She almost launches herself into the air, flying for her daughter, but Tiger Lily touches Wendy’s shoulder. Wendy lays her hand on top of Tiger Lily’s, and for a moment, all she can do is watch her daughter climb.

  While they were in the cave, or the beneath the trees, night fell. Now Neverland’s too-bright moon slips out from behind clouds, and the sharp silver light outlines a second figure, smaller than Jane, climbing behind her.

  “Hang on!” Jane calls out, shifting her weight. Wendy’s heart is in her mouth, but Jane’s grip remains firm.

  There are more words, but the wind steals them, and after a moment, the figure below Jane begins to climb. Or tries to, only the climber slips, and Wendy sees the moment her daughter— her brave, beautiful daughter—lunges to help the figure below her. And that is when Jane’s grip falters.

  Time doesn’t slow or come to a halt. The ground isn’t done with its shaking, nor the wind and trees and everything else shouting. But now, Wendy shouts back. A wordless yell tears through her. And as Jane falls, Wendy shakes off Tiger Lily’s hand on her shoulder and launches herself into the sky.

  * * *

  She falls.

  And just as suddenly, arms wrap around her. The breath she’d been gathering to scream goes out of her in a startled huff, and she looks up, impossibly, into her mother’s face. Her mother’s arms are around her, holding her tight, and they’re flying. It’s nothing like flying with Peter. Jane is safe, held, and it is the deepest truth in all the world that her mother will never let anything bad happen to her. She will not fall.

  They rise, landing on a wide rock ledge. Jane gulps at the air, trying to catch her breath, and all the while, all she can do is gape at her mother. She feels like a landed fish, snatched from one place and dropped into another where nothing makes sense anymore.

  How can her mother be here? Is she dreaming? Did she fall and hit her head on the ground? Worse, is she dead?

  A tremor passes through Jane, and it has nothing to do with the shaking ground. She wants to bury her face in her mother’s side, but her mother looks so fierce and wild with the wind howling around them and the cliff side trying to shake them off that Jane doesn’t dare. The woman before her is her mother and a stranger both.

  In an instant, her mother’s face changes. She makes a sound between laughter and a sob, closing the space between them, and touches Jane’s face. Her mother’s eyes are wet, and her expression says she cannot believe the reality of Jane either. Then her mother throws her arms around Jane, hugging her so tightly Jane can barely breathe.

  When her mother finally lets go, Jane has so many questions she wants to ask, but the words that tumble from her mouth are, “You flew.”

  She wants to ask how her mother can be here, and how she found her. She wants assurance that her mother really is here, despite the seeming solidity of her arms, and to be certain this isn’t another of Peter’s tricks. But she can’t get past those first words. Her mother—teller of stories, healer of wounds, setter of bedtimes and rules—can also fly.

  And of all the responses her mother might make, the one she chooses surprises Jane. Her mother throws her head back and laughs.

  “Yes, I suppose I did.”

  Strands of her mother’s hair escape the braid trailing down her back. Her cheeks are flushed, her clothing smudged with dirt, and the lines at the corners of her eyes crinkle.

  “Jane!” Timothy’s voice rises from below, sharpened by panic, and fear rushes back in, kicking Jane in the ribs. She looks to her mother.

  “That’s Timothy! We have to help him.” Jane takes a step toward the cliff edge, but her mother catches her, holding her back.

  “Stay here. I’ll get him.” Without a moment’s hesitation, her mother steps off the stone ledge. Jane squeaks, but her mother doesn’t fall. She soars like a bird, swooping down to gather Timothy in her arms and carry him to where Jane stands. Timothy immediately plasters himself to Jane’s side. She touches his head to reassure him and herself both and feels the sweat-dampness of his hair.

  “Are you all right?” Jane asks. “You’re not hurt?”

  Timothy nods, then shakes his head in rapid succession, remaining buried against her side. Jane feels his muscles quiver as if they were her own.

  “One more,” her mother says with a wink, and she spreads her arms, jumping into the wind once again.

  It’s no less frightening this time, but Jane watches more closely now, allowing herself to be amazed as her mother’s clothes ripple around her. She’s studied the way birds’ and bats’ wings work, and this is nothing like that at all. It isn’t even like a kite, gliding on the breeze. It’s like nothing Jane has ever seen before. Her mother skims almost to the ground before she swoops back to the ledge with someone else wrapped in her arms.

  Jane thinks it’s a woman, but she can’t make her out properly until her mother lets go and steps away. When she does, Jane can’t help the startled kick of fear against her heart that makes her back up a step. The woman looks like the pictures of preserved mummies she’s seen in books. Yet she’s clearly alive, even though her skin is the color of bark, dried and clinging close to the bone. She looks fragile, as though she might crumble at any moment. Instinct makes Jane put a protective arm around Timothy, and she almost tells him not to look.

  Even as she makes the motion, shame floods her. Her mother would never deliberately put her in danger. She specifically went back to bring the woman here. The feeling of shame turns to embarrassment as her mother gives Jane a pointed look. Jane makes herself let go of Timothy and move closer again, looking at the woman to show she isn’t afraid, while also trying not to stare.

  Fresh questions flood Jane’s mind, but she holds her tongue. She’s seen so many impossibl
e things in Neverland. Maybe the woman really is a mummy. She wants to ask how it felt having her organs removed, and whether her brains were really pulled out with a hook through her nose, but every single question that pops into her mind seems terribly rude.

  “This is Tiger Lily,” Jane’s mother says. “My friend.”

  Her mother emphasizes the last words, making Jane glad she did hold her tongue. She hopes the dark is enough to hide her blush. She isn’t quite certain what to do next, and ends up with a clumsy curtsey, then holding out her hand.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, Miss Tiger Lily.” Jane uses her most grown-up voice, hoping she doesn’t sound too foolish, hoping she’s made her mother proud.

  Tiger Lily’s eyes shine with amusement, making her appearance even more unsettling. She inclines her head, a stiff movement, as she takes Jane’s hand. Despite Jane’s fears, Tiger Lily’s skin is smooth, if dry. The fingers don’t crumble beneath Jane’s touch, but there is a lightness to her bones as Jane shakes her hand, her grip nothing at all.

  “Hello, Wendy’s daughter.” The faintest of smiles touches the woman’s dry lips.

  “I’m called Jane.” She nudges Timothy, until he peeks at Tiger Lily shyly. “And this is Timothy.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jane.” Tiger Lily releases Jane’s hand. “And Timothy.”

  Jane looks to Timothy, fearing his reaction, but his attention has already drifted to her mother. The way he looks at her makes Jane’s heart skip. There’s something like awe, and something like fear as well. Jane also sees a hint of the expression Timothy wears when he’s trying to remember something he’s forgotten.

  “I know you, I think. Do I?” Timothy asks.

  Jane tenses, and some primal instinct she can’t place makes her want to shout a denial. Timothy can’t possibly know her mother, and his words open up a space inside Jane that feels like sinking and falling and flying all at once. Peter called her by her mother’s name. Her mother knew where to find her, and how to get to Neverland, and Jane is afraid all over again of what it all means.

  Her mother turns from examining the rocks around them and faces Timothy. Jane holds her breath, waiting to see what her mother will say. Wind buffets them, fluttering her mother’s clothing. She looks at Timothy more closely, and once again Jane feels the creeping edge of fear that has nothing to do with immediate danger. There is something big and frightening that she can’t quite see. She can only grasp at the edge of it, like a shadow vanishing around a corner. Her mother touches the top of Timothy’s head, a troubled frown tugging at her lips, and she shakes her head almost imperceptibly.

  “Maybe once,” she says. “But not anymore.”

  Before Jane can ask what her mother means, her mother turns to point at the rock face above them.

  “There. That’s where we need to go. Take my hand. Everyone hold on tight as you can.” Without looking back, she reaches for Jane’s hand.

  Jane hesitates only a moment, just long enough for her mother to look back with an expression that sets Jane’s pulse going in a new and complicated rhythm. There’s a fierceness to her mother’s expression, one that seems to bristle at her orders being questioned. There’s also tenderness, reassuring Jane, and beneath it all, a hint of fear.

  Jane takes a deep breath and puts her hand in her mother’s. She’s already gripping Timothy’s hand, and Tiger Lily takes her mother’s other hand.

  “Think of something happy,” her mother says. But her expression is grim, and there’s a twist to her mouth as she says it, which makes Jane wonder what happiness has to do with flying. She certainly wasn’t happy the first time she flew here with Peter. Maybe it’s just about filling up all the spaces where doubt and fear might creep in and make you fall.

  Just to be sure, Jane thinks of walking in the park, not just with her mother or her father, but both of them together, her hands in theirs and sunshine bright over all of them. She thinks of her mother making up stories, and her father pulling books from shelves to help Jane answer her latest round of questions. It’s an ordinary thing, a safe thing. Right now, rather than adventures or wonders, it’s what she wants more than anything in the world. The very ordinariness fills her with a happiness so big it makes her chest ache.

  Her feet are no longer on the ground. Jane fights the instinct to panic and kick her legs. She grips Timothy’s hand as hard as she can as wind rushes past them. Jane doesn’t look down. Then their feet are on the ground again, and it’s over too soon.

  The wind still howls violently. Leaves kick up from trees that are far below them now, swirling in eddies. Her mother lets go and puts a hand on Jane’s head instead, absently running her fingers through Jane’s hair and picking out the tangles. After a moment, she begins separating sections, loosely braiding it in a way that makes Jane think her mother isn’t even aware she’s doing it.

  “You’ve been very brave, Jane. Thank you.” Her mother uses her grown-up voice, the one for important and serious conversations with Jane’s father, and Uncle John and Uncle Michael. There’s a weariness in her tone, one Jane doesn’t miss. “I wish there was time to take you and Timothy somewhere safer, but there isn’t, so I need you to be brave for a little while longer. Can you do that?”

  Jane nods, a different kind of too-big feeling filling her. Her mother’s hands still. Jane’s hair is so stiff with salt and wind and her time in Neverland that the braid holds without even the benefit of a ribbon to tie it in place. Her mother meets her eyes briefly, then smiles, though Jane sees the hollowness behind it. Her mother is afraid.

  Even so, she bends to kiss the top of Jane’s head, and Jane allows herself to take comfort in it for the moment, and not think about what might come next.

  “Everyone follow me inside.”

  Jane startles at her mother’s words as much as her tone, brusque and commanding. Where is there to go? But as her mother leads them forward, she sees it—a narrow crack in the stone. And even as she notices it, she doesn’t want to notice it. It resists her eye, making her want to look away, to unsee it, so that trying to hold it in her mind hurts physically. Her chest tightens, verging on panic. She’s certain they’ll smash against the rock when they try to enter, and everything in her wants to dig in her heels and refuse to go. Can’t her mother see what a terrible idea this is?

  But her mother has a hold of her hand again, and Jane has no choice but to follow as her mother slides through the too-narrow gap as easily as water. Before she has time to properly think about it, Jane is in the dark too, crammed between two bits of rock. It’s warmer almost at once, and it’s more than just being out of the wind. Sweat trickles down Jane’s spine, and she fights not to wheeze, not to fully give into fear and let her breath go at a wild, ragged gallop.

  Her back and stomach both scrape the stone, but if she stops inching sideways like a crab, she’ll become wedged. She continues until the passage widens, gasping aloud in relief as she finds herself within a cave, lit by some source she can’t see that produces a deep orange glow. The relief lasts only a moment. Deeper inside the cave, something rumbles.

  She can’t tell precisely where the sound comes from; it seems to come from everywhere, vibrating the stone underfoot and the ceiling overhead. Jane glances up, sure the cavern will collapse on them at any moment, but it remains solid. Comforted that they aren’t in immediate danger, Jane allows herself to study the cave—stalagmites and stalactites like melted wax, rising from the floor, dripping from overhead. There are veins of what look like quartz running through the stone, but just like everything else she’s seen in Neverland so far, the cave is a patchwork that makes no sense. Igneous and sedimentary and metamorphic rock all mixed together like pieces of a quilt.

  Jane wishes she had time to study the cave properly, but her mother leads them on, peering into the darkened spaces between stone columns as if searching for something. She shakes her head and murmurs something to Tiger Lily, words too low for Jane to hear.

  Jane glance
s at Timothy to make sure he isn’t too afraid. His hand is still in hers, holding tight, and his eyes are wide in a mix of wonder and fear. There is something awe-inspiring about the cave, equal parts built and grown. She can’t imagine anyone putting it here; it looks like the kind of place that’s always existed. At the same time, the niches and shelves of rock seem too regular in places to be natural formations. Her mother points to a wide stone ledge.

  “You and Timothy climb up there and stay out of sight.” The spot is half hidden beneath an underhang, cloaked in shadows.

  Jane opens her mouth to protest, but the set of her mother’s jaw stops her. By now, Jane is certain her mother being here isn’t one of Peter’s tricks, but at the same time, Jane barely recognizes her. She looks and sounds the same as always, but there’s something wild about her, something strange, as though the person she is in Neverland isn’t the same as the one she is back home.

  And her mother’s expression reminds Jane more of Uncle Michael—haunted. But underneath that is anger. Maybe even rage. It leaves Jane afraid to speak, and paradoxically, it is what convinces her that this is her mother in truth. Nothing Peter could conjure up would ever be this fierce and so beautiful at the same time. Her mother looks like a warrior, a queen, something out of one of her own stories about the Clever Tailor and the Little White Bird.

  Jane swallows her argument, and boosts Timothy ahead of her onto the rock. Once he has a hold, she scrambles up after him. As she pulls herself onto the flat ledge, a thought strikes her. What if, all this time, her mother’s stories really were about her, the Clever Tailor, and the time she spent in a magical land?