Chapter 22
CHAPTER
WE STOOD IN the nursery. Our nursery. The window still open behind us, curtains stirring in a breeze that smelled of London, coal smoke, and rain.
“You’re bleeding,” John rasped. He’d slumped against the wall.
“I know,” I said. “So are you.”
Michael sat on the floor beneath the window, staring at his hands as if he didn’t recognize them. The wounds the crows had left were already scabbing over, impossibly fast.
Agnes and my shadow were already at play with my old dolls.
John reached for me. Not to restrain. Not to urge. Only to steady.
“Wendy,” he said, softer than I’d ever heard him. “It’s over.”
I looked down at my hands. I hadn’t realized, this whole time, running toward the ash ring, I still clutched the dagger in my hand.
“I can’t keep it,” I said. “I need to be rid of all of it.”
“I’ll be back. I’ll get the fire ready.”
At the fireplace, we knelt in front of the hearth. I handed Michael the thimble, John the dagger, and in my hands, I held my journal and Roger’s watch.
We watched the flames, not saying anything. I imagined in that moment, we each were bidding farewell to parts of ourselves, parts of our past, and to all we loved and lost on the island.
Michael tossed the thimble onto the logs, and John did the same with the dagger. I let go of my journal and watched the pages blacken and curl, and for a moment I hesitated before adding the watch. “You told me to forget,” I said. “To move on …” And with that I added the pocket watch.
Agnes tugged at my hand. “Miss Wendy? Can you read me a story?”
“Of course, love, go find a book on that shelf.”
“Wendy.” John’s voice. Quiet. Strange.
“Yes.”
He and Michael were both staring at the hearth, at the place where we laid our items.
My journal had turned to ash, the thimble burned, but the pocket watch and the dagger, the two items that came from Neverland, were gone. Disappeared.
“It’s like they vanished,” Michael said.
All of them. Vanished. As if the stones had swallowed them whole, or they had never existed at all.
“This one,” Agnes said, holding out a green book with gold letters.
PETER AND WENDY
“I’ve never read it, actually,” Michael rubbed his hands together. “Let’s see what this Mr. Barrie knows about Neverland and Peter Pan.”
“You’re all really expecting me to read this?”
“You told Agnes to pick out a book. Those were the parameters, and I think we’re all waiting to hear this story.”
“All right then,” I said.
I turned to the first page. The paper was yellowed, the ink faded with age, but the words were clear. I read:
“ ‘All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this.’ ”
I thought of the boys, their bones in the dark, their voices finally freed. I thought of the mermaids and shores and waterfalls. I thought of Hook, dying in my arms with Roger’s name on his lips.
I thought of Agnes, small and trembling but here and alive.
I thought of Beatrice’s voice: Your life belongs to you.
As I read, Michael wiped his eyes. John stared out the window. Agnes held my shadow’s hand.
Outside the window, London stirred. Carriages clattered. Voices called. The world went on, oblivious to what we had survived, what we had lost, what we had finally, finally escaped.
I decided in that moment that I didn’t care if they read Mr. Barrie’s version of the story or knew mine. Let them believe in the boy who never grew up, the magical island, the adventure that never ended.
We knew the truth.
And the truth was this: The monster was vanquished. The children returned home and their story continued.