Stars (Wendy Darling #1)(85)
She was getting desperate, her voice rising over the crash of the pale green sea below. She fell to her knees, throwing aside her righteous anger and any shred of pride to reason with him. She clutched at his hands. “Please, John, I’m begging you! Please listen to me! Michael can’t grow up without parents!”
John shook her off in disgust. “Michael has parents. Peter can be his father. You can be his mother. His family is here, with the Lost Boys.” John yanked her to her feet and pulled her close, whispering in her face. “Does Peter know that you want to leave? He can’t know. You can’t leave Peter—he’ll be angry. Even if Michael and I stay here.”
Wendy jerked back from him. “I will not leave without you both. John, I watched Kitoko die! Do you not see that there is no one older than Abbott here? That’s because Lost Boys, particularly Generals, die!”
John gave snort. “Wendy, you are such a woman with your hysterical dramatics. It’s just a game.”
That was it. Wendy lost all sense of decorum, driven mad by her brother, something that happened so easily between them, and always had. Wendy lunged toward him, pushing him down easily. John scuffled up to his feet, his hand against his shoulder. “Wendy! Stop! What’s gotten into you? You’re acting mad!”
Tears blurred her eyes. “How could you not want to grow up in our house, with our parents who keep us safe, who love us? Do you remember Nana?”
John looked stunned. Finally, she had hit a chord. John’s face changed, his eyes blurring over with confusion as a memory stirred. He blinked twice.
“Do you remember the way Nana sleeps beside you? The way she follows you to school and waits beside the school gate until you are done? Do you remember holding her as a puppy, when she would lick our faces until we collapsed and Father had to push her away? Do you remember when she had her puppies, and you sat up with her all night, putting a warm water bottle on her back?”
John’s eyes filled with tears before he spun away from her. “Go away, Wendy.”
Wendy leaned over him. “Do you remember when Nana almost died because of that rat poison? Do you remember how you sobbed into our mother’s arms and how we prayed all night on our knees that she would live?”
John let out a small cry before grabbing Wendy roughly by the back of the neck and thrusting her out over the drop, so that she looked down to the rocky sea below. A huge wave crested up on the rocks, splashing her face. When had he grown stronger than her?
“John! John!” She gasped. “What are you doing? Let me go!” He did, throwing her roughly backward toward the branches.
“Sorry, Wendy. Please just go away. And don’t talk to me like that, ever again! I don’t want to hear any more about London or Nana! You may go home anytime you choose, but Michael stays here with me. In fact, I think that would be best. You don’t belong here.” He took a deep breath in, breathing in the sea. “This is a place for people who want adventure.”
Wendy stared at this stranger who was once her brother, barely recognizable as the sun set ablaze his shadowed form. Her heart still hammered from his sudden threatening manner, but she dared one last time, in a small, pleading voice, quivering, “John, we have to go home.”
He turned to her, and in his eyes she saw that it was no use. There was a finality there that she had never seen before. “Neverland is my home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
WENDY DIDN’T REMEMBER MAKING HER WAY back to the Teepee, or into the tangle of branches that lay behind it. Hours passed as she walked quickly, wiping hot, angry tears off her face, her anger at John boiling up from her heavy heart. Who was that, back there? John had always been a brat—that she knew before they had come to Neverland—but who had that been, that tall boy who held her over a drop, whose glasses were fogged with humid air, who didn’t care about his family? His feelings had poured out all around her, drowning her logic.
Beneath her anger thrummed a very obvious problem: she couldn’t leave without the boys. She couldn’t. Even if she took just Michael, how would she explain to her grieving mother, and her papa—oh God, her papa, who doted on John, who looked at him with such admiration and pride—how could she explain that she came back without him because he didn’t want to? It was inconceivable. They were a family. They would leave together. Wendy wasn’t so easily put aside, as John conveniently forgot. She might be a girl who preferred dresses to playing with swords, but she wasn’t leaving this world without John. She would try again tomorrow and the next day, and the day after that, until she wore him down.
Three Lost Boys stampeded past her, leaving a flurry of dust in their wake. Wendy coughed and wiped her face off. Not that she knew how to get home from Neverland. That was fine though, because Peter would know. He knew everything. Maybe he would even convince John for her. Yes, that would be good. John worshipped Peter—he could perhaps get through that thick skull.
Wendy sniffed loudly as she walked, wiping her tears on the corner of her hand. Crying wouldn’t do any good, not now, and certainly not with John. Emotionally exhausted and somewhat turned around, Wendy decided to nestle up against a massive wooden branch and just close her eyes for moment, just a moment to catch her breath . . .
Suddenly, she awoke to a rustling in the branches above her.
“Peter?”