Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(41)

The crash and everything that followed changed that. She went back to the story as a scientist and a mother, searching for the details that might awaken her daughter. By then Holly knew the story wasn’t true—not in the way her mother thought it was. When Jack asked about the book—because of course there was no way to escape it—she told him it was pure fiction. She forbade Jane from saying otherwise. And that was that.

Until now. Because no matter how many times Holly read that damn book, she’d always known that her world and Neverland were separate entities. Only Peter, and those who traveled with him, crossed. But now? Now she’s wondering if she’s been wrong. Maybe the line between the real world and the magical one isn’t quite as solid as she thinks. Maybe there are rules that Holly doesn’t know—rules about who comes and goes, who stays. Who disappears. Maybe there’s more than one way to come back from Neverland.



* * *





She stays out in the downpour until she’s stopped shaking. Then she goes home to her mother’s house. Nan has ordered a pizza, and crusts still litter the kitchen table.

“Sorry,” Nan says. “I had a fair right time setting up the movie. Your mum’s telly could be an antique. Did your meeting go well?”

“Fine,” Holly says. “I’ll be in the library if Jack needs me.”

“Want some pizza? There’s loads left.”

“No, thanks.” But her stomach is rumbling, and she realizes she hasn’t eaten since this morning. And she’s damp and cold.

“How about tea then?” Nan asks. “I’ll bring up some biscuits as well.”

“That would be lovely. Thanks.”

She stops first to check on Jack. He and Ed are watching a football documentary and howling with outrage over the announcer’s comments. They don’t even notice her.

She spends the afternoon in an unsettled frame of mind, combing through all the Pan books once again, searching not so much for the boy himself as for his description. She writes down any characteristics she finds. When she’s finished, she’s amazed by how few there are, and how wildly unhelpful they will be in assisting Christopher. She adds all the details she can recall, but it’s not much. No matter how hard she tries, Peter slips through her memories like a shadow. But then so much about those days and nights is lost to her. Grief, pain, and the lack of sleep engulfed her, cocooned her in a gray fog it was impossible to escape. She’s still in the library when her mother returns.

“Hello, darling.” Jane presses cool lips against Holly’s temple. “Locked in here away from the boys? Lovely day for it. The rain is sheeting down. Of course we were inside all afternoon. The exhibit was fabulous—some newcomer from Ethiopia, I don’t recall his name, but brilliant use of color.”

“Sounds it,” Holly says.

“Did you have a good afternoon? Was your work thing successful?”

“It was okay.”

Jane unwinds the silk scarf from around her neck. “I can see you’re not paying a bit of attention. Out with it, then. What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing,” Holly says, then hesitates. Jane will kill her if she knows she’s hired a private detective. But . . . “Do you ever wonder about Nan? How odd it is, your hiring someone with that name?”

“Is that still troubling you? I’m sure it’s just coincidence, darling. It’s a wide world, after all, and a common name. No different from your Mr. Barry, I assume.”

“I suppose.” And it’s true, when she’d first befriended Barry, they’d laughed about it. A fluke, nothing more, she’d thought. “It’s just . . . how much do you really know about what happened to Grandma Wendy?”

Jane gives her a sharp look. “Something’s certainly disturbed you.” When Holly doesn’t answer, she sinks gracefully into an overstuffed leather chair. “Over the years I’ve told you whatever I know. Whether you’ve listened is a completely different story. But ask away.”

Holly lets the barb pass her by. She’s had a long and complicated relationship with her family’s history. But now Jane is right here. And Jane has studied Peter, studied Wendy, more than anyone she knows. It can’t hurt to ask again, now that she has a different reason for her questions. She tries to think.

“How did our family meet Sir James?”

“In the park.” Jane twines the silk scarf through her fingers. “He spotted the children—Wendy, John, and Michael—when they were on an outing, playing about. He found them fascinating, but then he was a drab little sparrow and couldn’t believe his luck, falling in with such a bevy of swans. Especially Wendy. He was dazzled by her, drawn to her glamour and more than a little jealous of her imagination. He was a writer, after all, but couldn’t match her stories. Or her life. So he stole them.

“And she tolerated it, in part because she was so young. But also, I think, because she could tell, even then, that he could help her. She wasn’t particularly happy at home, although she never talked about why, and Barrie’s story and the fame it brought, as well as the money he left her from the books and the movies, gave her a freedom not many women possessed at that time. He changed her life.”

The scarf has gone slack in Jane’s lap, but now she picks it up again. “I met him once, you know,” she says, and her voice has gone dreamy, the way it used to when she told Holly bedtimes stories about Peter Pan.