Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(31)

She doesn’t like the way he looks—pale skin, dark circles under his eyes. Now is not the time for Jack to get sick. She reaches out to feel his forehead. He brushes her hand away.

“I should find a place to practice. Coach is going to get mad if I come back out of shape.”

Jack playing a game that could get him injured is the absolute last thing she needs right now, but she smiles and pretends it’s fine. “I’ll keep my eyes open when I go out this morning,” she says. “In the meantime, why don’t you take a shower while I clean up.”

When he’s gone, she scrubs the oatmeal pot so hard the sponge disintegrates in her hands. She has to find Eden soon. Whatever Peter wants, however he discovered her, it’s unlikely he’s stepped up to play the role of father. He may be injured or ill and need her blood. Or perhaps he’s finally decided to go home, and take Eden with him.

She can’t let that happen. She won’t.

She thinks of her sweet sunshine girl, the way Eden bubbled over with joy. The way she always tried so hard to please. Her bright curiosity. If she’d never fallen asleep, would she be like that today? Would she still come down the stairs singing each morning and throw herself into Holly’s arms as if they’d been apart for years? Or would the hormones of adolescence take over, pushing them apart?

There’s no way to know. And no way to guess, either, how Eden might feel toward her now. All Holly can do is focus on finding her.

So she cleans until she’s mastered the panic, or can at least keep from showing it on her face. When she’s ready, she goes looking for Jack.

She finds him in the library. Dust motes drift around him, the filtered light turning them into flecks of gold. He’s found the Darling treasure, a signed first-edition illustrated volume of Peter Pan kept under a glass cloche. He’s lifted the cover and is paging through it. In the dimly lit room he looks like someone underwater, murky and distant. Someone otherworldly.

There’s a vase of daffodils on the side table. Wendy’s favorite. The soft yellow, the sweet scent, the dim light, all tug at Holly. They bring her back to childhood—she was six, no, seven—in this same room with Wendy and her mother.

Her tights had been so itchy, but Holly couldn’t scratch. Her mother wouldn’t like it, doesn’t like the way that Holly lies across the chair, dangling her head over the armrest. Looking for a distraction, Holly sees a glass dome, tucked away into a corner. It’s like the ones people use to cover delicate plants. But instead of greenery underneath this one, there’s an old book. She points.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t point, Holly,” her mother says. “And sit up. You do have a spine.”

“What’s that?” she repeats without pointing. But she doesn’t sit up.

“An old book, dear,” her grandmother says.

“An heirloom,” her mother says, without looking at Grandma Wendy. “Something precious.”

Holly slides into a sitting position. “Will you read it to me? Please?” She asks the question of the room, careful not to make eye contact. The air is always funny when her mother and Grandma Wendy spend too much time together—electric, like lightning between them. She never knows what will make it spark. But she likes books.

“Oh, my dear,” her grandmother sighs, but Jane cuts her off. “Yes, Mother, why don’t you? I’ve told her bits and pieces, but you’re the one he came to see.” The lightning crackles beneath her words. Holly straightens in her chair.

There’s a long pause. “All right,” Wendy says at last. Jane crosses the room to lift the glass dome, and Holly slips onto the sofa next to her grandmother. Wendy is very old but very beautiful. Her skin is glowy, as if she’s eaten a candle and the light is still shining inside, and she smells good.

Jane brings the book to her mother, but she doesn’t sit on the other side of the sofa. Instead she stands by the door, arms crossed. Waiting. For the story to start? Holly’s waiting too. But Wendy doesn’t open the old book.

“Perhaps this isn’t such a good idea after all.”

“Please,” Holly says.

Wendy sighs again. “What has your mother told you? About our family and Peter Pan?”

That’s one of those questions that can make the lightning come out, so Holly thinks carefully before answering. “He’s a boy,” she says. “And you had adventures together. People think he’s just a story, but he’s not.”

Her grandmother looks out the window. “Yes, I suppose that’s true enough.”

“Will you tell me about them? Your adventures?” Holly isn’t certain if she wants to have her own adventures with this boy when she’s older. But she knows her mother does.

“It was all very long ago,” Wendy says softly. She glances at Jane, still by the door. “But I’ll try.”

Grandmother is a very good storyteller. Not like Jane, who skips ahead and only talks about the exciting bits, like flying through the sky and fighting pirates. Grandmother Wendy starts at the proper beginning, which Holly hasn’t heard before.

“Once upon a time, a very long time ago, when I was just a girl, I was in the nursery with my brothers, John and Michael. It was just after bedtime.”

“What were you doing?” Holly has always wanted a brother or sister to play with.