Chapter 9 #2
“I’ll take you to the beginning of stars.” His smile was boyish, yes. But his eyes, they were anything but a boy’s eyes. They held their own light. “Where sun and moon touch the sea.”
His hand found mine. His thumb traced my palm.
My breath slowed and far in the back of my thoughts something screamed to pull away, but I couldn’t.
He stepped closer. He smelled like the earth after a storm. “I’ll take you past the second star. Then beyond. Where stories go. Where they never end.”
He was inches from me now. His free hand rose, fingers sliding into my hair, curling at the base of my skull. His grip tightened.
His lips brushed mine, barely there. Cold. Dry. Not a kiss. Something else. A promise. Or a warning.
“Now, we fly, my Wendy …”
I blinked. “My brothers …”
We woke them. They rubbed sleep away from their eyes, yawned and asked where we were going, and I told them to trust me, because I trusted Peter.
John, behind me, always so fearless. Michael, so little, clutched his bear in one hand and me with the other.
The air howled around us. My breath vanished. Ground snapped away. Chimneys and shadows. All of it slipping, dissolving into fog.
My heart thrashed in my chest. Wind stung my eyes.
In that first moment of weightlessness, in that impossible thrill, I believed in all of the possibilities of him. That he could give me everything I had ever wanted. That he could make me whole.
Peter looked back. His grin didn’t belong to a boy. “See?” he called over the wind. “You’re safe with me.”
Stretched across him, his shadow. That blanket of black stars writhed, detached, alive. It slithered through the air like smoke across a ceiling. It reached for me. Eager. Trembling. As if it has been waiting centuries for me. Peter glanced back as if scolding the shadow and it retreated.
Even as I smiled, and told my brothers that they’d be all right, that I’d be all right, something lingered. As the city fell away in silver and black, I thought of that shadow of a kiss and what its promise meant.
The memory shattered.
I found Agnes seated cross-legged on the floor of the classroom, surrounded by books she’d pulled down from the lower shelves. Not reading them but stacking them and building towers. She’d constructed a fortress, buildings and ramparts fashioned from stacked volumes.
“What are you building?” Sitting beside her. The floorboards creaked beneath my weight.
“A castle.”
She carefully positioned a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and The Railway Children. The tower wobbled.
“That’s very clever,” I said.
“My father used to build things.” Her voice softened. “Before the war took him.”
She reached for another book and paused. Her hand hovered over the spine.
The Little White Bird. Gold lettering, faded but legible.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“The library.”
I had put this book on the very top shelf. There was no way she could have found it on her own.
“I had a dream where to find it,” she said as if reading my thoughts.
I opened my mouth to say something, but I wasn’t sure what exactly when I heard children’s laugher. Closer this time.
They entered the classroom one by one. I told Agnes to put her castle away and get to her desk.
Rosie appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. “That should be all of them.”
“Thank you, Rosie.”
The children shifted in their seats, whispering, giggling.
“What’s so funny this morning?”
No one answered.
“Secrets, I see,” I crossed my arms. “All right then, take out your readers. We’ll begin with—”
A black blur flew past the window.
More laughter. Chatter. Whispers.
“It’s just … a bird,” I said, trying to convince myself.
I stepped closer to the window. Morning fog clung to the grounds, sweeping across the lawn, curling through the trees.
A heavy blanket of white swept across the lawn and curled through the trees, and then I spotted it … a deep hole where Agnes had buried the bird skull yesterday. It looked as if someone had dug it up. Or it had clawed its way out.
I found Agnes watching me.
“What are you looking forward to learning today, Agnes?”
She pressed a finger to her cheek and looked to the ceiling. “I want to learn all about birds.”
“Maybe there’ll be time for that,” I said. “Today we’ll start with our story, then science, reading, and …”
“Why not a rhyme?” Harold blurted, half standing, his hand shooting up too late to matter.
“Or a lullaby!” Mabel chimed, bouncing up so hard her braids thumped against her shoulder.
“A fairy tale!” Frederick called from the back, his chair skidding as he leaned forward.
“A child’s story!” Gladys said, kicking her heels together beneath her desk.
The room buzzed, voices overlapped.
I couldn’t tell if they were mocking me or simply being children. Mischievous, unstoppable. Alive with impulse.
Only William seemed to sit still and quiet. Hands folded neatly on his desk.
“Nice to see that you don’t have a preference,” I said to him.
He blinked once, then lifted his chin. “I guess I don’t know which one I want because I don’t know the difference between those types of stories, Miss Wendy.”
“A rhyme,” I said, “is a little song made of patterns. It repeats so you won’t forget it. That’s what makes it comforting.”
They leaned in closer.
“A lullaby is gentler. Something sung to keep you safe as you fall asleep.”
Mabel giggled.
“A story,” I went on, “is a path. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We follow along with it on its purpose.”
“Children’s tales.” I felt every eye on me. “Those pretend to be harmless, but they hide teeth beneath their sweetness. You think it’s one play, until it isn’t.”
Their fidgeting stilled.
“And a fairy tale,” I said, “is older than all of these. Older than us. Older than our city. Fairy tales know what children fear. And the cost of their wishes. They promise wonders, but they always ask for something in return.”
The room was completely still. Quieter than I have ever known them to be.
From the corner of my eye, movement. Out of the window.
I thought I spotted someone beyond the fence, but Samuel wouldn’t go that far. That was off the property. My eyes strained. Scanned. A dark tall figure.
That Wendy Darling … such a strange girl.
I blinked and he was gone.
Behind me, a rustle of pages.
“Miss Wendy?”
“Yes, Agnes.”
“You’re staring out the window.”
I exhaled. “You’re right.” I moved to the board and grabbed a piece of chalk.
Believe in goodness, I wrote on the blackboard, more to prove that I could still move.
When I looked behind me the children were still silent. Still staring. Not unkindly, but it was as if they were waiting for something to make its announcement.
A gust struck the windows. The panes rattled.
Willie laughed. “He’s here,” he said.
“Who?”
Willie grinned. “Peter.”
The chalk slipped from my hand and struck the floor, splitting cleanly in two.
Wendy Darling … with such fancies in her head …
“Who gave you that name?”
The children looked to one another, silent conspiratorial glances.
Outside, the mist pressed low across the lawn, swallowing the hedges, blurring the path to the gate.
I leaned closer. Shapes gathered. Small figures. Hand in hand. Forming slowly in the fog.
It’s a trick of the light, Wendy. The mist playing games.
My hand lifted toward the glass and stopped, refusing to touch it. I pulled my hand back.
The shapes were still there. And I knew them. Each and every one. I knew the slope of those shoulders. The height of each boy. I knew how the twins always held hands.
The mist thickened. Their outlines softened.
A bright voice broke the spell. “Miss Wendy.”
“Yes, Agnes.”
“Do you see my bird?”
“Your bird …?”
“Yes, the big black one,” she said. “I found him in the garden this morning. He grew very big and very fast. He told me his name is Solomon, and he said—”
A shadow swept across the window. Quick. Low.
The children gasped. One of them cried.
“We’re safe, children,” I said. My hands shaking. Eyes darting to the window latch.
The room dimmed as if we were doused in shade.
You can’t have them, I said to myself. Leave them alone.
Agnes sprang from her seat. “My bird!” She ran to the window.
I surged forward. Keeping her away from the glass. “Agnes, honey. Get back to your seat.”
But she pressed closer.
“Children,” I said. steadying my voice, “let’s take a short break. Tell Rosie to get you some biscuits. That I asked. Please.”
“Look!” Lillian smiled. “He’s back! The man!”
“Lillian, please …”
“But he’s right there, Miss Wendy.”
She was right.
I controlled my tone. “A break. Go. Now. All of you.”
They filed past me. Heads bowed.
I met Agnes’s eyes. “You too. Run along now.”
She nodded, eyes wide. “Yes, Miss Wendy.” Her voice barely a whisper.
Willie paused in the doorway. His lips parted to say something.
“Willie,” I said. “You mustn’t believe that the things you dream are real.”
“He said you’d say that.”
“Willie …”
And then he was gone.
Half-whispered voices slipped through the corridor. Did you see it? Maybe it was an angel.
He was certainly no angel.
The door closed with the last of them. Only quiet remained. The fog swallowed the world beyond.
My reflection wavered in the glass. Trembling at the edges. And then another shape formed beside it. A darker outline. Motionless.
Through the blanket of mist I saw him. He appeared like a ship on the horizon. From here I could see the glint from the brass buttons on his jacket.
I gripped the windowsill to steady myself. This was not a shadow. He was there. This man was real.
How?
How could he have made that impossible journey?
He remained still. I imagined he was as shocked to see me. So many years and worlds had passed between us.
Then his outline thinned, wavered, and all that remained was my reflection in the glass. Ghost-white. Shaking. A woman who had seen and lived the impossible.
Behind me, something shifted. A draft slipped through the room, carrying a scent I knew too well.
Salt. Rust. Blood and memory.