Chapter 7 #2
“John, I missed you.” His voice wasn’t a single voice, but something layered, reaching, searching, as if trying to remember which one belonged to him.
I tried to speak. To curse him. To drive him out. To muster even a shred of sound, but nothing came.
My chest cinched tight as though invisible fingers were logged behind my ribs squeezing.
His smile unfolded slowly. A boy’s smile. Soft. Guileless, but behind it, a devil’s bite sharpening with delight.
My pulse stuttered. The room tipped sideways.
For a moment, I wasn’t in London at all but back in that impossible forest, where the only warmth we had was Wendy, seated in front of the glow of that firelight telling us stories.
It was Wendy’s tales that transported us, her stories, lullabies, nursery rhymes, and fairy tales.
It was her words that soothed us and made us feel that magic, good magic, was real and kind. That is when we were the most childlike when we were there, when she transported us elsewhere with her words.
Peter, his games, his adventures, all of it, all of him was illusion. A lie, where laughter was forced by day to hide how we’d all collapse into bed at night smelling of death.
“I … didn’t allow you in,” I stammered, the words shaking apart as I spoke them.
He was not supposed to pass through doorways protected with iron. Or pass through windows with salt sprinkled on their sills.
“You’re right, I can’t come in those ways, but I can come through your mind. I’m in your memories, John.”
“You’re not really here then …”
He nodded no, then yes. A devious look. “Not yet, but I’ll keep getting stronger and then you’ll let me in.”
“Never.”
He raised his eyebrows. “No?” He nodded toward the crib. “Maybe she’ll let me in then.”
Margot.
My stomach dropped. Panic rushed up my spine, seizing every part of me at once. My hand trembled. And all of me became useless. Unable to move. Unable to grab him and fight him.
“I can enter any home that has a child,” he said, mocking. “As long as they believe in me. Babies dream about in-between places all the time. And I’m always there listening.”
“She’s a baby! My daughter!” The protest ripped out of me like a wound being torn back open.
My child. My daughter.
Every single nightmare I thought I’d outrun surged back, swift and merciless. He would never have her. He would not lay a single wicked shadowed finger on her golden head.
“I’ve missed Wendy so much,” he said softly. “You and Michael too, of course. But Wendy …” His eyes brightened. “She was the first girl I ever brought to the island.”
He leaned in, boyish and eager, as if sharing a secret he’d been saving for centuries. “She’s special. There’s a spark inside of her. It makes people feel safe. Warm. She makes them forget when they’re afraid, when they’re hurt. She makes all of their worries fall away.”
A shadow crossed his face.
“I hate that she does that for other people. That shouldn’t be for other people. That’s just a waste on them. It should all just be for me.”
His voice lowered to a whisper.
“I know she can’t help it. Carrying that light and belief. But I can smell it. I can taste it. It tastes like forever.”
He smiled. Wide and wrong. Every single part of me strained, trying to move. Wanting nothing more than to charge at him.
“I’ll get more boys. Then she can be their mother and read them stories and tuck them in at night.”
His breath hitched, hungry. “Then she’ll tell me stories. Every night. Every story. All of them. Then I’ll be able to taste all of the pieces of her. Every single one.”
He met my gaze with a stillness I’d only seen in snakes, moments before they lunge for their prey.
The rug seemed to shift beneath my feet, a subtle drag as though the floor itself recoiled. The walls of the bedroom leaned inward, sending slithering shadows tumbling forward.
And the smells. Those dreadful smells. Moss and wet stone. Logs burning on the fire, and something else.
That other place. The name we’d all promised to never utter again.
I forced my mouth to open, to make out words. “Leave us alone,” I choked, barely recognizing my own voice. My muscles slowly awakening again. “We killed you. You’re nothing. You’re not real.”
He took a step forward, arms loose at his sides, as though this were all play.
“Maybe I’m not real,” he mused. “Maybe I’m just wood smoke and mirrors. Maybe I’ve been living inside of your brain this entire time.”
That awful, dreadful smile of his sharpened, and I wished no more than to tear it off his face.
“Or maybe I’m realer than you, John. Why? Because I can fly. I can fight. I never stopped. And I’ve been waiting for my Darlings to open the door.”
His gaze swept over me, cold, appraising. “What did you do with yourself all these years? Hmm?”
A tilt of the head. “Was it worth growing up? You’ve gained a bit of weight, I see. You lost some hair atop your head too. Let me guess … what did you grow up to be?” He tapped his chin theatrically. “An accountant.”
He shook his head before I could answer. “No. A barrister. You studied the law. Why is that? Is it because you broke so many?”
“Shut up!” The words tore out of me. “I didn’t hurt anyone!”
“You didn’t?” His head angled, owl-like. “Nibs? Jax? There sure were a lot of accidents when you were around.”
He laughed. Delighted in the torment he trapped me in.
“Get out!” I cried. “Get out!”
Peter’s laugh morphed, birdlike, a warble between crow and child. A sound that scraped down my spine like claws.
“Oh, John,” he cooed. “You’re a miserable old thing. But don’t worry. We’ll get you back home, and you’ll see, everything will be wonderful again. Better than it ever was.”
He leaned closer, voice dropping low, almost tender.
The mirror rippled, the entire surface shifting to a scene from so, so long ago.
Me kneeling on the ground, arms covering my face, because I could not bear to witness him looking like that.
Jax. His head twisted in a way it shouldn’t.
His neck bulged. Sharp, shattered pieces of bone jutted out from his legs.
“Jax actually was quite a bore,” Peter said, looking at the scene. “You, though, John. You are a great pal to join me on adventures. I can’t wait for you all to return home. Soon. Soon.”
The glass turned black, waves crashing into one another. Slowly, gracefully he stepped right through and he was gone.
I fell to the ground and stared at my reflection. Eyes wide. Face colorless, a sheen of sweat on my forehead. Hands pressed to the sides of my head, willing for all of what I’d just seen to be unseen.
I had to phone Michael. I had to see Wendy. They had to be warned. Peter was back … and somehow, he was able to get in. Not feigned flesh and blood like before, but a phantom, with plans to gain strength.
I staggered to my feet, my hands steadying on the railing of the crib. Margot, still asleep.
Michael. Wendy.
He would not touch my daughter, nor my brother, nor my sister. Peter had destroyed enough lives, and we barely escaped with our own.
I shut my eyes tight. Hating him. Hating what he’d done to us. We had emerged from that blackness and returned partly broken, and we would not be dragged back.