Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(105)

“You used to call me that,” he says sleepily. “I remember. But I don’t think I liked it.”

Eden laughs. “It’s not a nice name,” she agrees. “Jack it is, then.” She turns her gaze to Holly.

“They’ll be here soon,” she says, and only then does Holly remember the dispatcher. She’s been caught up in a world that doesn’t exist, one where both of her children are with her.



* * *





Jane retrieves the phone from the floor and disconnects it. “There really isn’t much time,” she says. “Not for us.” Her voice is light, but her eyes are dark. Ever changing, quicksilver, shifting like the sun chasing shadows across the landscape. It’s as if she’s been stripped to her core, anything extraneous burned away.

“I should be really, really angry with you,” Holly says. “Not to mention that I’m still dizzy.”

“I’m sorry about the whiskey,” Jane says, deadpan. “It pained me to waste that vintage.”

They both look at the children, who have their arms wrapped around each other. “I am sorry,” Jane says. “But how could I let you or Eden risk yourselves, my darling?”

“He believed you.” It’s not a question.

“Yes. It was a gamble, of course. I bet on my good health and lack of injuries. I hoped the proteins in Eden’s blood would repair my old age instead, bring me to that adolescent perfection Peter can’t seem to resist.” She holds her hands up, turns them back and forth beneath the light. They are slim and perfect, without age spots. “Remarkable, really. The rush of well-being it brings. I’d forgotten what youth feels like.”

“What happened?”

“It was the strangest thing—flying through the air, the silhouette of Big Ben in the distance. The moon overhead, so bright and clear I could almost touch it. Like being inside the storybook.” Jane’s face grows dreamy. “Then swooping through the tiny entrance behind the clock face. Peter was sitting in a chair in the center of the room, just staring out at the night sky. At the stars, I think. The story says he used to be able to hear them, did you know? That they whispered and sang their secrets to him.”

She pauses, as if seeing it again. “At first I thought he might be a watchman or a guard—he looked terrible. Wrinkled and gray, with a single streak of golden hair in the front. Jack was on a small cot next to him, asleep, and when Peter saw us, he bent over and did . . . something. Tink . . .” There’s a golden chatter from outside the window, a spark of light that zooms around the room, bouncing off walls and furniture until it shoots outside again, and Jane corrects herself. “Bell dashed over and knocked a syringe from his hand. He looked at me then, full-on, and his eyes were terrible. Beautiful and blue but dead. No warmth at all. ‘So you’ve come,’ he said. ‘Canny girl. I knew you would.’?”

“He thought you were Eden?”

“The blood made me young enough, and I’m not sure he’d ever seen Eden up close. He reached out and grabbed me. Old as he was, he was terribly strong, in a ropy, bony sort of way. He started muttering ‘Somebody had to choose old Peter. Who better than you? My own flesh and blood. That must be the secret.’ I asked him what he meant, but by then he’d spied the vial in my hand, filled with a concoction of red food coloring and sleeping pills mixed together when I’d fetched the whiskey. ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘For me?’?”

Jane lifts her chin. “So I gave it to him, as if it were a present. And greedy child that he is, he couldn’t resist. He used it on the spot. It didn’t take long. His eyelids fluttered a few times, and then . . .” She makes a toppling motion with her hand.

But there’s something in her face.

“What?” Holly prompts. Jack and Eden are still entwined, listening as raptly as she.

Jane bites her lip, then shrugs. “For all the magic, for all the beauty his tale brought to the world, it’s a rather sordid end, isn’t it? Sound asleep on the floor, undone by a simple drug. Not even the hero of his own story after all. But then again, he never was.” She looks away.

Holly slips her hand into her mother’s. “But you are,” she says. “The hero of yours, I mean. And of mine as well. Thank you.” Jane’s eyes brighten. She starts to speak, stops, squeezes Holly’s hand, then pulls her into a full embrace. Jane’s arms are firm, not soft, her skin unwrinkled, but Holly can feel her heart, and it has the same steady beat as always. They stand there, each lost in their own thoughts. Holly hates to break the spell, but she needs to know. Gently, she pulls away and looks at her mother’s face.

“Is he . . .”

“Alive? He was when we left, but we didn’t linger. I wasn’t certain how long the pills would work, if he’d wake in time to follow us. I grasped Jack, who was barely breathing, and Bell clutched me, and we flew out the same way we’d entered. That high, the wind was fierce. I couldn’t bear to look down. I just closed my eyes and hung on, terrified I’d drop him. But I didn’t, and here we are.” She smiles at Jack, then turns back to Holly, her face pensive. “Just before we took off, I called Christopher, so I suppose I can’t make any promises as to Peter’s health. I’ve become quite fond of that man, by the way.” She leans in, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You could do worse.”