Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(35)

“Her waking. It could be a miracle,” Jane says lightly. The silver-framed charcoal sketch of Wendy, John, and poor Michael on the coffee table in front of her is slightly askew, and she reaches out a hand to adjust it.

“If she’s woken up, yes, it could be.”

“But you don’t think so.”

Here is where it becomes very, very dicey. Jane has never directly inquired into Jack’s astonishing recovery. She’s never visited Eden since she fell. And aside from those very early days, Jane has never commented on Eden’s frighteningly premature birth, her rapid growth rate, her abnormally clever and advanced mind.

Because she knows. She has to. Even though they’ve never talked about it. She knows and she wants to forget. Because recognizing who Eden’s father is destroys the narrative of Peter Pan, the unspoiled innocent.

Of course Holly can’t be certain. But Jane spent her childhood and adolescence believing in the Darling story. She always slept with her own window open and probably does still—if she’s not spending nights in the nursery when no one else is home. She’d told Holly, as she grew into a teenager and then a young woman, that she’d have to wait her turn, because Jane had never yet seen Peter, and it was only fair she got to see him first. The words may have been teasing. The look in Jane’s eyes was not. Neither is the look today, when she makes it clear that she knows more than she has let on.

“If there’s any chance that Peter is involved, that settles it. Imagine what a police investigation would do. He’d never forgive us. He’d never come back,” she says.

If Holly’s ever had any doubts about who her mother would choose if it came down to it, Jane’s last comment is just the latest in a lifelong series that has made it abundantly obvious.

Which may be why, in hindsight, Holly didn’t say a word when he finally came for her.



* * *





It was a cold winter night the first time she saw him. She was alone in the house, Jane gone to a party. “Just for a bit, darling. We must try and be brave.”

For days and days, Holly had been nothing but brave. She’d put on a courageous front for Jack, who was still in hospital. She’d nodded and taken notes and struggled through her own operations and physical therapy. But tonight, unable to sleep, she’d gone to the nursery, and it was on her childhood bed that she gave into her grief, huge, wracking sobs that shook her whole body.

How was she going to get through this night, and the next, and all the long painful nights that stretched endlessly in front of her? Even if Jack lived, it would never be the same. She would never be the same.

She would have wished she were dead. But that would leave Jack. And she couldn’t.

She remembers what happened next so clearly that shame flushes her cheeks. She’d thought of Jack dying, how it would free them both, how the struggle wasn’t worth it anymore. At that moment the faintest whisper of a breeze caressed the back of her neck, a slight, icy hand. She’d raised her head, thought muzzily that the nursery window must be open. It was always open, no matter the weather, because Jane wanted it that way.

And then he spoke.

“Why are you crying, girl?”

She froze. It took a moment to find him, hidden against the curtains. He took a step forward and she gasped. He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, and much older than he’d been described in the stories. He crossed the room to her. It was like having a hummingbird alight on her hand. She didn’t move, not even when he reached out and his finger brushed her cheek, capturing a single tear. He studied it, clearly fascinated.

This close, she could feel how warm he was. His scent was like springtime, like new grass. Like that first cup of coffee on vacation somewhere magical, rich and full of promise. It was heady and redolent of everything she wanted back: youth and beauty and not happiness, exactly, but a wild exultant joy, a fierceness that knew nothing of loss or pain. She breathed it in. So sweet.

Intoxicating.

She leaned closer and brushed her lips against his.

He froze, then in a flash was at the window. She didn’t move, just watched him go. The joy drained out of her, an unbearable sadness added to her existing grief, threatening to drown her. She closed her eyes and knew he’d be gone when she opened them.

But when she did, he was so close their lashes touched.

“Do it again,” he said.

So she did.



* * *





So when Jane looks at her with those bright eyes, Holly knows what she’s thinking. She’s remembering the morning when, all those years ago, Holly stumbled downstairs with a glow that was quite inexplicable, given her physical and mental condition. When the scent of springtime clung to her, even though it was February. When she retired alone each night to the nursery bedroom on the third floor, but somehow became pregnant. A pregnancy that within a few weeks was so far along, the doctors were convinced they’d somehow missed it during all the tests and examinations they’d run after the crash.

Jane is remembering that she never got her turn. And how, because of Holly and what she did, she never will. Once the forbidden fruit has been tasted, there’s no going back to paradise. For anyone. Even Peter Pan, it seems. Innocence, once lost, is impossible to regain.

All the stories say so.