Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(108)

“So what will you do now?”

“Oh, I’ve got some ideas.”

Out of the corner of her eye she catches him peeking at her, but when she turns her head, he immediately closes his eyes again. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” she says, and feels the start of a tiny, secret smile at his reaction.

Holly doesn’t ever have to work again, thanks to the sale of the company and her Darling money. But a London lab space has come up for sale, and she’s tempted. She needs something that’s all hers, something bigger than mothering Jack or missing Eden. Something she can grow into. The research she’s compiled on her children could help others, with a little work. No press conferences, no launch parties, just lots of lab time. Barry thinks she’ll be bored. He’s trying to rope her into starting a new company, an all-organic skin care line they could run together. She doesn’t think so.

But she’s been wrong before.

“We can talk about that later,” she says. She pokes his foot with her own, and the bundle in his lap shifts slightly. “You promised you’d tell me what happened that night. That’s why I came.”

“Is it?” he says agreeably. She doesn’t reply, but feels her skin redden slightly, and he opens his eyes and looks sideways at her just in time to catch it. “You read the report.”

She had. He’d emailed her a copy, almost identical to the one he’d sent to the police. In it, he described how he’d found a small drug operation run by a teacher from Saint Ormond. There’d been a trail of boys, students at the school, used as test subjects. Several deaths linked to the drug, including the brother of the Darling family housekeeper. And then the near fatality of the Darling grandson.

The matriarch of the family, the famous Jane Darling, had left the country suddenly. Her whereabouts were unknown, conveniently shifting the press’s focus away from Holly and Jack. Jane had always been quite good at drawing attention to herself. Now, even in her absence, she was the center of attention. Holly didn’t mind one bit.

But these are the details she already knows. And that is not why she’s here.

“I want your version,” she says firmly. “Not the official one.”

The silence stretches between them for so long that she’s worried he won’t answer, but at last he sighs and sits up. “After your mother called me, I managed to talk my way past the guard at the base of the tower—he’s retired, friends with a few mates of mine—and dash up the stairs. There’s no elevator, and the stairwell is ancient, just up and up and up.”

He’s quiet again for a bit.

“And?” she prompts.

“And . . . the way he was sprawled out on the floor—I thought he might be dead,” he says. “I bent over, to see if he was breathing, and he grabbed me so fast, so hard, I couldn’t get away.”

Holly’s eyes widen, and Christopher angles himself to face her. “He looked ancient, all bones and leathery skin, as if he’d run out of whatever it was he’d been using to keep himself together. Like a skeleton. And yet he was strong, stronger than me. He bared his teeth and grinned, like something out of a horror film. I was slashing at him and he was still coming and then . . .”

“What?” Holly’s holding her breath.

“He just . . . crumbled. One second he was there, and the next he wasn’t. In his place was a pile of gray dust. The weirdest damn thing I’ve ever seen.” He shrugs. “I thought I’d feel something. I thought I’d recognize him. But I didn’t.”

“That’s it?” After years of Peter haunting her dreams, shaping her life, she can’t believe he’s just . . . gone. She exhales.

Christopher hesitates. “That’s what I’ve been telling myself.” He’s wearing a white shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, and no sweater or jacket, as if he’s unaware of the chill. Holly can feel the heat coming off him. She waits.

“Okay,” he says. He takes a deep breath. “Right after that . . . thing . . . disintegrated . . . there was a breeze. I can’t explain it, but it was like a whisper on the back of my neck. Like a . . . a vibration, the way a bell rings, that I could feel but couldn’t hear.” He rubs his neck with his left hand, as if he’s still feeling whatever it was. “And then something sparkly and gold was in the air. It brushed over that thing, over its remains, and the gray dust and the gold just kind of . . . floated out the window together. Up toward the stars. Like some kind of ribbon, into the wind.”

Bell. It had to be. Holly thinks back to that night, to the lapse between the small bright light zooming about the room and the quiet before it reappeared. But if Bell returned to Peter on her own, was it in forgiveness or vengeance? She finds herself hoping for the former. Hoping that somehow a lost, scared boy was given a chance to start over.

The bundle cradled in Christopher’s lap squirms, opens its eyes. Carefully, he sets it on the ground.

“Awake now, I see,” he says, and leans over. He’s licked in the face for his trouble.

“Are you going to introduce me?” Holly asks.

“Meet Rosie,” he says. “Someday she’ll be a full-blooded English Labrador, when she’s all grown up. Right now she’s all paws and puddles.” He eyes the puppy ruefully. “Want to walk her?”