Chapter 2
CHAPTER
MORNING LIGHT CUT across the floorboards, catching the chalk dust that never quite seemed to settle in this room. I stood at my desk, facing rows of empty chairs, the blackboard behind me. In minutes they’d all rush inside in a tangle of laughter and chatter.
To my right was the trouble with this classroom, a wall of windows that looked out over the lawn. Outside, a soft shimmer of fog slowly lifted from the landscape.
My feet carried me to the first window. They were locked when I checked before class and after class. I would do the same today as I would do tomorrow and so on.
I reached for the latch.
Press. No give. Then to the next. Press. No give.
Working my way down the row, I pressed my thumb against each latch, until every window had been checked.
All were locked, and so we were safe.
Returning to my desk I stared for a moment at Roger’s pocket watch. It sat where I always kept it, beside the inkwell, its face cracked, but its hands still moving.
It didn’t belong here, just like parts of me didn’t belong here either. Still, here we were working.
The door burst open and children poured in, laughter splintering the quiet. I couldn’t help a smile as each one of them tumbled in.
Some huddled around me on their way to their seats, like a flock of chickens.
It was difficult to tell where one voice started and the other stopped.
There were “Good mornings!” and observations about the weather (Too cold this morning!) and breakfast (Rosie baked orange scones for us!).
Of course, there were childhood complaints (Percy pulled my hair at breakfast!).
I returned the good mornings, offered my own comments on the weather, told Percy to apologize to Mabel. He did. She responded by blowing a raspberry and turning her back on him.
“See, I tried!” he said.
“I did see,” I said, trying not to laugh. I waved them to their desks. “Children, to your seats.”
Carol flew in, braids swinging. “Wendy! Miss Wendy!”
Charles entered last, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“Charles had a bad dream,” Carol sang.
“You don’t have to speak of it,” I told her gently.
That was the wonder of the children, so eager to share what they noticed, no matter how small. Somewhere in growing up we lost that, or it was stolen from us.
Charles gave a stubborn shake of his head. “I did not!”
“Let’s give him some room,” I whispered to Carol.
A wail rang from the corridor. The new baby making herself known.
“The baby!” Priscilla shouted, the rest of them showing interest and whispering about our new visitor.
“Yes,” I lifted a hand to settle them.
Once their excitement faded, we began as we always did, with a story.
I reached for The Water Babies, then paused my fingers on the spine. A story about children who slip beneath the surface of the world and become something else.
It was the only thing I’d been brave enough to ask for the day my parents brought me here.
Eleanor’s office had smelled of lemon and scrubbed wood. Portraits lined the walls: class photographs of children in neat rows and stiff collars. Their eyes wide. I sat beneath their images. My hands folded in my lap listening to the remaining years of my childhood be negotiated.
“Marigold House is better than St. Lawrence’s Hospital,” Father had said.
“Indeed,” Eleanor agreed. “St. Lawrence’s is also better than Bethlem.”
Mother made a small, strangled sound.
“Wendy spent a week at Bethlem,” Eleanor continued. “Constable Finch informed me.”
“It was terrible,” Father added. “Awful. A tomb for the mad.”
But none of them knew how awful. Thin cotton dress.
Cold stone floors. Crying and howling through the night.
In the mornings I’d wake to find insects nesting in my hair.
I spent my hours staring up at a slit of sky, a window so high up no one could reach it.
I spoke to it anyway, as though I were speaking to him.
Eleanor leaned forward. “She spoke of missing children. Murdered children.”
Father said nothing. Mother covered her face with her hands.
“Well.” Eleanor turned to me at last. “What did you see, Miss Wendy?”
Father’s fingers rose, a warning, but no words came.
Constable Finch. The doctors. The nurses.
All of them told me to stop speaking about what I had seen.
They said I would get in trouble. I would be locked away forever.
I was a liar. I was bad. I had taken my brothers away.
Where were the other missing boys? What had I done to them?
I’d sit there through all of it, the scolding, the threats, and I’d shut them all out of my head.
My eyes would drift to those high windows and my mind drift away to that faraway place.
To him and me lying on the deck of that great ship.
Hand in hand. Watching the moon in silence.
“Well, go on,” Eleanor said.
I didn’t take my eyes off Father, afraid I’d say the wrong thing. I didn’t say much. “A treehouse. Children. Boys. Many of them.”
“Go on.”
“A black rock. The ocean. A forest.”
“And what did you do there?”
“I read to the children at night.”
Something shifted in Eleanor’s expression.
“Then you’ll help in the classroom,” she said. “We also have a library. You can tend to that as well.”
“If I’m to help …” I hesitated. “May I propose something?”
She smiled. “Go on.”
“Can I start each class with reading a story to the students?”
Eleanor looked from Mother and Father and then back to me. “Of course.”
She stood. The negotiation complete. “Mr. and Mrs. Darling, you may visit on Sundays.”
They agreed under their breath, a promise all of us knew they’d never keep.
I cracked open the cover of the book, the memory dissolving like fog in morning light. Twenty children watched me from their desks. Here. Now. Safe. All of us needing each other. A family thrown together by circumstances none of us could really control.
I leaned against my desk and read.
I hadn’t finished the first page when I noticed Frederick. His eyes fixed on something beyond the glass.
“Frederick,” I said.
He didn’t turn.
“Frederick.”
“There was a man outside. He’s gone now.”
My hands tightened on the book before I could stop them. I crossed to his desk slowly and followed his gaze to the line of trees beyond the fence.
Nothing.
Of course it was nothing. Frederick had a fantastical imagination, much like the others.
“All right, children, let’s get back to our story.” But as I spoke, the light outside dulled. Fog thickened against the glass, and the windows became mirrors, reflecting the classroom back at us. The children and me.
I turned away from it.
“I saw him too!” George said.
Two children now. Two children seeing the same thing. It must have just been our reflection they were seeing.
“I’m sure you did,” I said, entertaining their imaginations. “But he is out there and we are in here.”
I glanced at Roger’s pocket watch on my desk.
“Time for arithmetic,” I said, hoping that moving on to the next subject would keep them focused.
“He’s there!” Grace jumped to her feet, finger pointing at the window.
“Grace, please sit.”
She rushed to the glass and waved. “Hello, man!”
Three children. All seeing the same thing. I should look again, but I don’t want to. If I looked, I might see something. Their imagination, Wendy. It’s just their imagination.
“Grace.” My voice came out sharper than I’d intended. “Back to your seat. All of you.”
Chairs skidded. Whispers scattered.
I opened Longman’s School Arithmetic and approached the blackboard. The chalk was cold in my hand. The white lines squeaked as I wrote.
If a baker has twelve loaves and sells seven, how many remain?
Time settled after that.
Arithmetic bled into science, science into history, history into another reading. By late morning the children grew restless like they always do. Feet tapped. Pencils rolled. Whispers swelled as they made plans for which games they would play during break.
“Very well,” I said. “Rosie isn’t quite ready for you, so five minutes free time here, and then off to lunch when she collects you.”
They erupted. Desks scraped against the floor. Chairs sighed. Groups gathered in bright pockets throughout the classroom.
A flutter of girls approached, and I could tell they were plotting.
Tom barreled forward, nearly colliding with my desk.
“I’ll clear the board!” he announced, though everyone knew Tom enjoyed making a mess at the blackboard, which is why no one ever fought him for the duty.
Lillian placed her hands on my sleeve. “Miss Wendy, you have to cover your eyes.”
“I have to?” I asked. “Well, all right then.”
I covered my eyes, and immediately there was an eruption of giggles. “Don’t make me regret this.”
More giggles.
“You won’t!” Lillian said.
“No peeking!” another one shouted.
“I’m not.”
And then, the erasers began.
smack
A pause.
smack
Sharper this time.
Behind my closed eyes I pictured pale clouds of chalk dust swirling around Tom’s hands.
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,” he recited between blows. “Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again.”
“Open your eyes, Miss Wendy,” Lillian said.
I lowered my hands.
Lillian stood before me, holding my hat as if unveiling a treasure. A new green ribbon circled the brim.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
Head nodded. Cheeks bloomed pink.
Tom stepped forward, dust covering his hands.
“My mother used to wear a feather in her hat,” he declared. “I saw a great big pile of them this morning. Big black ones. I’ll bring you one. They sparkle.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but I didn’t quite know what to say other than “Thank you.”
I thought of Agnes burying the bird skull early this morning. The dead black bird outside the kitchen door. It’s a cat, Wendy. A cat prowling the grounds, hunting birds. That’s all.
A bell rang from the hallway. Rosie appeared at the door. “Come now, lunch.”
Voices merged, bright and cheerful.