Chapter 5
The sun neared its final descent as Alice’s mind raced.
Wendy had become so quiet since the afternoon.
Did she regret telling Alice her secrets?
“It’s nearly winter,” Alice murmured, gazing through the broad window at the clouds, which were heavy and taunting with the promise of snow.
“Did it snow in your Neverland?” she asked, her voice hopeful, trying to rekindle their earlier conversation.
But Wendy, now dressed for bed, was gazing out the window into the same familiar patch of clouded sky that hung over the bare trees.
It was clear that her thoughts were not in the room at all.
“Would he come to find you in winter?” Alice asked.
Wendy turned, as though pulled from a dream. “Would who come?”
Alice’s eyes widened. Who else could she mean?
Wendy shook her head slightly and looked back through the glass, her eyes pooling as she clutched herself at the elbows. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I’m not sure that he will come at all. I don’t think he knows where to find me. I have been here for so long.”
Alice went to embrace her newfound and only friend. “Dear Wendy, he will come, and he will find you…” Please let Peter find Wendy, Alice said in her mind, though to whom she couldn’t be sure.
The door at the end of the hall banged, startling them, and then the air rushed from the room in favor of the drafty hallway where Miss Marker now stood. She looked very unwell. Her skin was damp, almost grey, and the lines on her face seemed deeper, cracked.
“Well,” Marker curtly proclaimed. Alice felt a tingle on her scalp – the anger in Marker’s eyes was wild and directed only at Alice. “Alice!”
“Yes, Miss Marker?” Alice said, attempting sweetness, hoping that some glimmer of the woman’s former self would show.
But Marker simply nodded to the tray that she was holding, which contained two short water glasses and a scattering of tablets.
Two of her fingernails had gone black at the moons.
The tray did not tremble at all. Alice took one look at the pills, pills she hadn’t been required to take in years.
What on earth was this? “No, thank you, Miss Marker.”
“You will take the medicine,” Marker said sharply. Wendy began to stand, in shock, no doubt, at seeing more of the uncharacteristic change in Marker.
“I will not take the medication,” Alice said calmly. “Thank you.”
“As you wish,” Miss Marker said mildly. She set the tray upon the dresser and closed the door to the room. “Wendolyn, your wrists.”
Alice whirled. “Excuse me!” Wendy’s mouth fell open as Marker took a sharp step forward.
“Kneel,” Marker said drawing what looked like a switch with a stone tip from beneath her skirts.
“No!” Alice said. How could any of this be happening? What could change a person so dramatically, so violently?
Wendy touched her shoulder lightly. “Don’t worry, Alice, it’s fine,” she said, then did as instructed, kneeling in front of Marker, rolling up her sleeves to reveal her soft wrists. Her face began to streak with tears, but she remained serene.
“Your actions hold consequences, Alice,” Marker spat. “If you don’t suffer those consequences, then others will. Others already have.” Marker’s scowl was fierce and full of hatred. As if she was the person in question who had suffered at Alice’s hand!
Alice was both panicked and seething, frozen in place, afraid that if she made any move, Marker would whip Wendy just to prove her point before Alice could even reach her.
“She has done nothing wrong, not to you! If you must lash someone to assert whatever power you think you hold, then let it be me!” Wendy was crying silently, kneeling at Marker’s feet as though she were receiving the sacrament.
“Therein lies the issue, Alice,” Marker said, with her switch held out at her side.
“You don’t believe you deserve repercussions?
I am mystified. You believe yourself righteous?
Is it that you are good? You believe that if you are to be corrected, then it is simply an unfair response by someone with a lust for power.
Isn’t that right? You are good, and I am bad, a wicked bad woman. ”
Alice stood frozen, not wanting to acknowledge the diatribe or even who this wretched woman had become seemingly overnight, and Miss Marker raised the switch.
“Yes!” Alice cried out. “I see what it is you mean. I am sorry.” She tried to hold back her tears as the pressure in her throat forced her to labor through cracks in her voice.
“But Wendy is good. She doesn’t deserve to be hurt for my foolish disobedience. Please!”
“No! Wendy may be kind.” Miss Marker bared her teeth as she punctuated the word. “But Wendy is not good.” The whites of Marker’s eyes began to show a murky yellow. Her chin tilted upward.
Alice’s own rage swelled. There was nothing fair here.
Not in any of it. “No, Wendy is good! And until now, I once believed you to be good, but I don’t know who you are.
You have become so vile! You are a monster!
” Alice lunged for Wendy, intending to grab her and flee the room, but a quick, shocking sting from the braided leather wand landed on her cheek.
Alice released Wendy’s arm and covered her welted face.
“Wendolyn,” Marker said, raising her arm across her chest with the switch in the air.
She struck Wendy swiftly. The snap of the switch made Alice flinch.
Wendy fell to the floor, the sound of her flat palms slapping against the ground as painful as the switch striking, and as painful as the way Alice felt having caused Wendy this harm.
“One in payment for Alice’s disobedience,” Marker said. “Again!”
Wendy looked up, presenting the bright red streaks on her pale skin, preparing to be struck again. “She’s paid for my actions!” Alice objected through tears, but Marker did not respond. She abruptly struck Wendy again. Wendy let out a muffled cry as she slapped the floor.
“Tell Alice why you are not good, Wendolyn! What would she find in the file on you?” Marker grinned at Alice, letting her know that this was the consequence for her earlier snooping. “Tell her, Wendolyn, what is it you should pay for?”
Alice’s mouth fell open. Miss Marker was reading their files in search of actions deserving punishment? Wendy, her head hanging, spoke. “Is it in payment for my child?”
Alice felt her breath leave her body. Tears clung to her lashes as she looked at Wendy crumpled on the floor. Wendy was a mother?
“The world is better without either of you in it. You belong hidden away in cages.” Marker grinned and turned, slamming the door, and then came a heavy and unfamiliar latching sound.
“She has locked us in!” Alice gasped.
“It was a fleeting moment. Only a few seconds, really,” Wendy said as Alice dipped a scrap of cloth into a glass of cool water and pressed it against the welts left on Wendy’s wrist by Miss Marker.
“She was beautiful. Even covered in all that mess, you could see she was beautiful.” Wendy’s words would hardly come out as she tried to tell Alice of her baby.
“I should think you’re quite lucky,” Alice said as she tended to the other welt. It was hard to bear seeing her friend in such pain and so heartbroken, and she knew she needed to distract and soothe her.
Wendy winced at the pressure applied to her arm. “How do you mean?”
“Many newborns are quite unpleasant looking,” Alice said matter-of-factly, then looked up with a sly grin. Wendy took her in for a moment, and then, though her tears still flowed, a smile crept over her face.
“Thank you for that.” A tiny, stifled laugh escaped Wendy, and Alice pulled her into her shoulder.
“You shouldn’t thank me. It was my own obstinance that caused you this pain,” Alice said as guilt continued to bubble in her stomach.
“You were defending me, Alice. You were not the one holding the switch,” Wendy said quietly. Alice leaned back to look at her; her eyes were puffy and heavy. “But you are right. Something is terrifyingly wrong with her.”
“Like an evil doppelg?nger! Miss Molloy will be furious, but how can we possibly withstand this? What if Molloy is gone another month?” Alice’s mind began to spin.
She could not bear being locked away. Perhaps the young man Molloy had sent to assist would help them flee the evil new Marker.
Alice would just have to figure out how to reach him…
“I have an idea,” she blurted, gripping Wendy’s hands tightly, even as Wendy’s tears still came. “We must flee!”
“Alice.” Wendy shook her head sadly. “Where would we go?”
Alice hadn’t thought that far through the plan, as it had only just begun to reveal itself.
But something in her told her exactly what their purpose should be once they escaped.
“We will find your daughter, Wendy! You will see her beautiful face again.” She meant it; she could be quite stubborn when it came to such convictions.
But Wendy only looked sadder. “Miss Molloy assures me that she has been found a loving home. While I do hope that one day I could see her, even from afar, I don’t think I will ever see that day.
” Wendy’s words washed together as she began to shake with sobs.
“What if she dies before I ever get to see her?”
If Miss Marker’s aim had been to break Wendy, she had succeeded.
Alice was resolved there and then that she would do anything to protect Wendy.
“Shh…Don’t say such things.” Alice gently hushed Wendy and pulled her close as the conviction swelled within her. They would get out of Pastoria House, together.