Chapter 8
CHAPTER
Wendy
THE SMELL REACHED me first. Smoke, thick and acrid.
I lurched awake. My cheek tore free from a scatter of papers on my desk, stuck to a pool of half-dried ink. My hand was still locked around my pen. My knuckles white. Each finger ached as I uncurled them one by one.
I winced. A sharp pain shot down my neck and radiated in my shoulders. I had fallen asleep at my desk, not in my bed.
The fire pulsed weakly in the grate.
My vision adjusted. I traced the contours of every shadow in the room. Watching. Waiting for any movement that couldn’t be explained.
I sat there for what felt like hours, monitoring the stillness, before I trusted myself enough to look toward the window.
A silver veil clung to the glass. The world beyond looked bleached white.
Fog. Just fog. Fog can’t hurt me.
But it made me feel adrift. Cut off. The way he had once cut me off from everything I knew.
That was what he did. He tore me away from myself when I was younger. And now he was threatening to tear me away from what I loved.
My children at Marigold House.
For years I believed I owed penance. I cared for the little ones because I thought I had to. But loving them never felt like service. It felt like the most natural thing I could do. It gave me joy. It gave me meaning.
Marigold House had taught me that I could heal. That my life belonged to me, not him. That I could become something new.
I stood, opened the door, and peered down the hall.
The nursery door was closed.
I exhaled.
Soon the children at Marigold House would be stirring, feet padding down the dormitory floor, hands shaking shoulders, bodies bounding on beds.
Awake! Awake!
I could almost hear them now.
They were my tether to this world.
I could hear Eleanor: You’re safe.
I could hear Rosie: Your life belongs to you.
And I could hear Roger, explaining what I hadn’t wanted to understand.
We stood at the bow of the ship. The sun dipping low over the horizon.
“What does he want?” I asked.
“Your light, Wendy. That’s what he feeds on.
Hope. Promise. Innocence. Joy.” Roger stared out at the water.
“That’s why he wants children. He drains us of all our possibilities until all we’re left with is fear and despair.
That’s when he discards us. That’s when we die. He’ll keep doing it until forever.”
He paused.
“You could stay with me,” he said quietly. “But I can’t promise I could keep you safe. There’s no true safety when he’s near.”
“I have to go back. For my brothers. Then I have to set it right.”
“Then promise me something.”
“What?”
“Promise me that as soon as you get your brothers you’ll leave here and forget this place.”
Movement caught my eye. The grate. Something was burning in it. I looked from the desk to the fireplace and back.
My letters. No!
I rushed to the hearth. The letters I’d written to John and Michael—both of them, curling in the flames.
“How did this happen?” I said to the empty room.
I knelt, watching the flames engulf my words. The pages curled inward on themselves, blackening at the edges. My handwriting twisted as if trying to escape.
Melted wax pooled at the grate. Ink bubbled and blistered. I reached for the poker, trying to drag whatever I could out.
Sparks scattered. Pieces disintegrated in my hands, collapsing into brittle curls.
Only one small scrap survived. Its corner trembling in the draft.
I’m afraid the shadows are creeping closer. I don’t want to die. You and John are the only hope I have. I want to live my life, one where I’m not always looking back, searching for him in dark corners. Please help me.
I placed it on a log and watched my words dissolve. Behind me, the steady tick of Roger’s watch. I set the poker back and stood, wiping my hands on my skirt. When I looked at them again, my palms were stained with ink.
And then I remembered.
I had sealed those letters in envelopes. Folded them. Pressed them with wax. The fire was nearly out when you fell asleep. You didn’t put them there.
My stomach tightened.
Somehow, Peter had learned to reach into my life without being invited in. and that was as dangerous as having him here.
I looked at the walls. The ceiling. “I don’t know how you’re going to do this,” I said aloud. “But I’m going to write them again. You won’t stop me.”
The curtains swelled inward, the pale fabric filling for a moment with the shape of someone.
Then they settled.
“I will never allow you back in.”
On the desk lay my journal. Open. Waiting.
Beneath the smell of burning paper and ink, another scent rose. Dead leaves rotting. On the tip of my tongue, the hint of crushed mushrooms, freshly plucked from dirt.
A rustle through brush. A faint child’s laugh.
The air tightened around me. My eyes began to water.
Animal noises now. The chirrup of birds. The clicking of insects.
“Fine,” I said, snatching the journal off my desk. “If you want to hear what I wrote, then listen.”
I opened to the first page.
Today, I met a boy I really like. He has fiery red hair and green eyes and he climbs trees, and he’s marvelous.
“But that was a lie. You were the lie. A mask.” My voice shook. “You’re not a boy. You’re something else altogether, and you tricked me.”
I flipped to the place where I kept the leaf. There it was, glowing. Its pulse faint, but undeniable. Everything in that other place lived and breathed.
I brushed my fingertip against it and wept. My shoulders heaving. I turned to the fireplace. Looked at the journal in my hand. Back to the flames.
I couldn’t do it.
If I burned these words, I would be destroying both of them, the monster and the memory.
This was all I had of Roger. And all I had of that pretend other boy I’d loved, if only for a little while.
The one who helped me climb trees. Who held me as we watched ships come into port at sunset.
Who walked me to the edge of the beach to see the great departure of newly hatched turtles.
That was the wound. Loving someone who wasn’t really real. He was only real because I was real. And it was because of him, that monster with the red hair and green eyes, that I had found Roger. Or, really, Roger found me.
I snapped the journal shut and sat on the edge of the bed.
And I let my thoughts take me back.
Kensington Gardens. Late afternoon light. Brass music drifting across the treetops.
The air smelled of roasted chestnuts and peppermint, mixed with coal smoke.
Children darted past trailing ribbons and balloons, their shrieks rising and falling.
Women in fine dresses and hats watched as a vendor tied green string to a blue balloon. It was John who spotted the Round Pond first.
“Look! The boats!”
“Here,” Father said, pressing a shilling into John’s hand. “Go play,” he said from behind his newspaper. “Stay away from the gardens!”
Mother and Father sat on their bench and waved us away.
I reached for Michael’s hand, and the three of us hurried toward the water. The pond’s surface shivered, a bright mirror reflecting the sky.
Toy yachts glided across the water, brightly painted, their owners standing by looking proud. Children leaned over the banks like miniature admirals, shouting predictions as their boats drifted past.
John and Michael joined in, cheering each vessel along.
“I want to look at the balloons,” I said.
“Later,” John replied, barely glancing at me.
“Michael …”
“I want to stay with John.”
I huffed. “Fine. I’ll be back.”
The man at the balloon cart stood alone now. The women in their pretty dresses had moved on. He wore a spotless white uniform to match his equally white cart. A cluster of green, red, gold, and blue balloons rose at this side.
He lifted a red one. It glowed like a drop of blood held up to the late sun. “Would you like a balloon?”
But there was something in that red, that deep, pulsing red, that felt wrong.
I shook my head.
The vendor’s eyes followed me. Heavy. Steady.
“Be careful,” he said. “Fairies like to snatch little children from those gardens.”
I pressed my teeth into my lower lip and then said, “Maybe I want to disappear.”
The man laughed, a strange sound, somewhere between human and crow.
I drifted toward the edge, where the trees stood in solemn ranks. A soft wind blew, and leaves whispered, almost musical.
For a moment, I wondered how they did it. How did fairies make little children disappear? Was it through magic? Could they slip into shadows and come out somewhere else?
I stood there, listening to the leaves. The absence of everything else.
No one had come looking for me. I wondered how long it would take for anyone to notice I was gone.
I had grown tired of watching after John and Michael.
Tired of helping with the sewing and cleaning.
I’d overheard Mother tell Liza that it was time I learned how to cook.
Cooking. For whom? I didn’t want to care for my brothers for the rest of my life.
I wanted my own life. I didn’t want to get married.
I didn’t even want children, especially when there were so many running around alone, sad, without any proper parents.
Those were the ones who needed caring for. The ones who didn’t have anybody.
“Maybe I’ll just disappear forever,” I said aloud. “Run off with the fairies myself, and we’ll see what you all think about that.”
I just wanted to feel seen. Chosen. Important. Maybe I just wanted a friend.
That was when I felt it. Not a sight, a presence. A knowing that something had shifted in the air around me.
Then movement in the trees. A glint. Something green. Something gold.
A single leaf drifted from above, spinning slow, and I reached for it, without thinking. Its veins glowed faintly in my palm, as if lit from within. Warm. Alive.
The world stopped.
The noises from the park ceased. Birds no longer flew overhead. The only sound was my pulse beating in my ears.
A creak from above.
I looked up and gasped when I met his eyes.
“What are you doing up there?” I demanded to know.
He tilted his head. Curious. Confident. Amused. For a moment, he looked like an owl, obscured by leaves and branches, not quite there unless you were looking for him.
He crouched in the crook of an oak, like a creature grown from bark and shadow. Sunlight threaded through his hair. Not quite flame-red, but the color of deep autumn.
His eyes were the green of river water. “My name’s Peter,” he said.
I felt the air change. The trees leaned closer.
Heat rushed to my cheeks. I turned away, unsettled by the sudden need to stay exactly where I stood.
“I have to find my brothers,” I murmured.
When I looked back up, he was gone from the tree. When I looked down, there he was. Standing inches away.
He was a boy, but not, because he was so still. So precise. A statue. A painting.
I stared. He didn’t seem real. He seemed written. A character from a story. A fairy tale.
“It’s rude not to introduce yourself,” he said.
“Well, it’s rude to crouch in trees above girls.”
He laughed.
I eyed him. “My father told me to stay away from here. He said many boys have gone missing from this place.”
Peter’s eyes brightened. “And still, knowing how dangerous it was, you came.”
“Of course. I’m very brave.”
“I agree. You are.”
His lips curled. Slow at first. Then certain. “The boys aren’t missing,” he said. “I can show you where they are.”
His hands hung loose at his sides, but his fingers twitched, like he was listening to music I couldn’t hear. His eyes glittered. Green. Bright. Endless.
“Would you like to come with me?”
A breath. A dare.
“I can take you to them now.”
“You’re not listening. I told you, my brothers.”
He studied my face like he was trying to memorize it. “You can bring your brothers too,” he said. “There’s room.”
I looked up to the treetops, thinking I’d spot the missing boys there. “Where are they?”
“Somewhere for us. Where adults can’t find us.”
“A … treehouse?”
“We have one,” he said. “And a waterfall. And a lagoon. And a beach.”
I laughed. “Impossible.”
“Everything is real,” he said, stepping closer, “if you believe it is.”
“Prove it.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
His scent reached me, wild, mineral, like a forest after rain.
“What about parents? Yours? Theirs?”
“We don’t need those.” He took another step. His breath grazed my jaw. “What do you say? Come away with me?”
“I …” I couldn’t stop looking into his eyes. Green and glittering and bottomless. I could drown in them.
A crow called above us, and he tilted his ear toward the sound as if it were speaking to him.
“Tonight,” he said. “After you’ve all gone up to the nursery.”
My breath hitched. “How did you know?”
Another tilt of his head. A sly smile. “I know everything about you.”
Another crow called from somewhere I couldn’t see.
“If you know everything, then why do I have to introduce myself? What’s my name?”
“You’re Wendy …”
Another caw.
“Darling. Wendy Darling.”
Something fluttered inside me. Bright and terrifying. I ached for escape. For possibility. For a world beyond this narrow one of rules and roads already drawn.
“Leave the window open tonight,” he said. “I’ll find you.”
I tried to form a question, but the words tangled on my tongue.
He reached out, caught a strand of my hair between two fingers, lifted it to his nose, and inhaled.
Then he looked at me through his lashes. “I’ll be there tonight,” he whispered. “And then we’ll fly.”
Fly?
The wind circled him. Leaves stirred at his feet. Shadows bent and stretched toward him, long and thin.
For a moment, just a moment, I forgot who I was. I forgot the world. I forgot everything but him.
He was the first beautiful lie I ever wanted to believe.
And he was ruin, though I didn’t know it yet.
He smiled, releasing my hair. “I know,” he said.
“You know what? I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need to.” He stepped back. “I’ll see you tonight.”
The wind slid through the trees.
And then he was gone.
I snapped the journal shut and slid it into my satchel.
Outside, dawn had come.
I washed. I dressed. I wrote new letters and sealed them with wax.
I went to the telephone and dialed John. It rang. No answer. I dialed Michael. It rang. No answer.
I sat on the kitchen floor next to Dinah as she ate her breakfast. I drank my tea.
“You may have to stay with Liza for a little while,” I said, stroking her back. “Thank you for taking care of me. But I don’t want you getting hurt. I don’t want anyone getting hurt, and whoever I can keep out of his way, the better.”
Outside, I locked the front door and stood there for a moment, hand still on the knob.
Maybe last night wasn’t real. Maybe I’m just tired. Worried. There’s so much change happening. We’re at war, sending young men off to die. Boys, really. Perhaps it’s just that …
Then, faint, impossibly faint. I heard it.
Jack … Jack … Jack-in-the-box …