Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(24)

Sunlight dapples the leaves as she and Eden and Jack climb the branches of the giant elm. The sky is so blue, and somewhere in the distance a rooster crows, making Holly uneasy. Peter? No. She hears the bells of a wind chime, like tiny musical laughter, but she can’t see anyone but her children.

They’re all going to jump, and this time Holly’s going to fly with them. She takes a deep breath. The ground is so far away, and then she’s plummeting through the air toward it. Eden’s giggling, but Holly is holding her hand and she knows that she’s dragging her daughter down. She wakes in panic, heart pounding, just before she hits the earth.

A thin gray light is coming through the window, and a nurse is checking Eden’s IV bag.

“All right, love?” the nurse asks, and Holly nods, her mouth dry and sour. The dream is still with her. Eden must have been so terrified when she fell. She hit the ground so hard. Hard enough to knock herself unconscious.

Hard enough to break her arm.

Holly slides her hand out from beneath Eden, pulls down the sheet that’s covering her, and stares at her daughter’s left arm. Runs her fingers gently down it. There’s no bump, no swelling, nothing to indicate it’s injured at all. Holly thinks back to how it looked right after Eden fell. It was twisted at such an unnatural angle it must have been broken. So how is it fine now?

She tries to recall what the doctor said when she’d asked him—something about an old break at the spot. But Eden’s never broken a bone before in her life. She’s barely ever had a scratch. Aside from her precocious growth rate, she’s always been a healthy child.

She stares at Eden’s face, at the dimples in the corners of her cheeks, the long-lashed lids. She looks as if she could be five years old, easily. There’s a whisper of unease in the back of Holly’s mind, trying to break free, but Holly won’t let it. She can’t right now. If she does, it will drown out everything else, and she doesn’t have the strength for that. She tells herself instead that whatever is causing Eden’s growth, whatever is keeping her from waking up, cannot possibly be related to who her father is.

It can’t.



* * *





    She spends the next few hours at Eden’s bedside, talking and singing to her until her throat is hoarse. Holly’s waiting for the nurses to take Eden for another scan when the phone rings. It’s Jane, who is now at Grace House.

“Everything is fine, but if you can leave, I think you should come home,” her mother says without preamble.

“Is Jack all right?” Holly can’t bear to think anything else could have happened.

“Yes. But there’s something you need to see.”

Holly presses her, but Jane won’t elaborate, only repeats that there’s something Holly must see.

“All right,” Holly says at last. She glances at Eden, who is resting motionless in the bed. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

She couldn’t go with Eden for the scan anyhow. She kisses her cheek, asks the nurses to call her if anything changes, and hurries to the car.

On the ride home, she runs through the possibilities, her mind stuck on an endless, horrible loop. Jane isn’t given to hyperbole, so whatever it is, it must be major. Despite Jane’s reassurances, Holly’s stomach cramps with fear. She presses down the accelerator until she’s well above the speed limit.

And then she’s pulling into the yard at Grace House. There’s movement behind the front window, and before Holly can even get out of the car, Jane has opened the front door. She stands to the side, as if waiting for someone. Holly starts toward her mother, but Jane motions her to stay.

And then Jack is running out the door. Moving so fast he stumbles, almost falls, but rights himself and keeps on, laughing. Holly gasps. He’s racing to her—he’s flying—and he’s doing it all on his own.





Chapter Nine



Ma’am? Dr. Darling?”

Holly blinks, realizes her forehead is still resting against the tree, and judging by the crick in her neck, she’s been there for some time. She straightens. It’s Maria.

“Are you all right?” Maria asks. “May I get you tea?”

“I’m fine,” Holly says. “There’s no need. I was . . . thinking.” Remembering. How Jack’s crisscross of scars faded from his body. How she’d finally realized what caused this miracle. The beginning of it all—the research, the experiments, even Darling Skin Care.

She looks at her watch. It’s well past dinnertime. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning. Please ask the other nurses to think of anything that happened that day that seemed out of the ordinary, all right? And search the house and grounds one last time. Check every corner, behind every tree and shrub. I don’t care how small.”

Maria nods. “We will do that.”

Holly knows it’s futile. There’s no sign of Eden anywhere in the house, no clue to her disappearance. Eventually she’s going to have to call the police. She shudders. No one will believe that she’s done everything she can to keep Eden safe. And Jack. That her life revolves around them both, a wobbling ellipse, always tilting back and forth, never quite in balance. But it’s the best that she could do, for both of them.