Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(59)

“I’ll try and get him home by dinnertime,” Nan tells her.

“Perfect,” Holly says, as if they are talking about a recalcitrant toddler who won’t go down for a nap. She walks with Nan to the car. Jack is sitting in the back seat, staring straight ahead. He won’t look at her. She wants to check his breathing, make sure he’s recovering from the game, but she doesn’t. She gets into her own car and drives away.

She winds up cruising some of the seedier side streets of London, driving for hours on the pretext of looking for Peter. She doesn’t want to go home, where she’ll only pace and wait for Jack to return. She’s too antsy to focus on work right now, on mailing campaigns and brochures. She misses her lab, the peace she finds looking through a microscope, the way she can lose herself in the tiny worlds pinned to a specimen slide.

Right now, she’s chasing fireflies through the dark, telling herself she has a chance at snaring the sun.

If Christopher Cooke can’t find Peter, what chance does Holly honestly have? She tries to picture what he’d look like now. How quickly did he age? In her memory, Peter is older than when her grandmother Wendy first described seeing him over a century ago, but not by much. Does time work differently for him somehow? Holly thinks back to what he’d said about Neverland when he’d spoken of how it could heal her. It’s in the air, maybe. Or the water. Maybe his visits there—wherever or whatever there is—are how he’s managed to stay young. And perhaps that’s why Eden ages so rapidly, because she’s never been.

But she’s guessing again. Peter could be any age at all. He could be hiding in plain sight, but Holly doesn’t see anyone who looks remotely like him.

Still, if he’s in London, he’d need a way to support himself. With his sharp, clever mind and charisma, he could work in almost any field. She lets her imagination run wild. A businessman. A lawyer. A salesman or CEO.

Yet instinctively she knows Peter wouldn’t have been drawn to any profession quite so clean. There’s an edge to him, a seam of dirtiness. She thinks of a boy pulling wings off a fly and shivers. No. If Peter is still in London, he’s not helping anyone.

Finally she turns the car toward home, the knots in her shoulders no looser. On a whim she picks up an Indian takeaway, buys extra naan because she knows Jack likes it. There’s no car parked in front of the house when she arrives, but when she opens the front door, she hears her mother talking and Jack’s low voice in answer. She sags with relief against the wall, then straightens her spine and walks into the kitchen.

“There you are,” Jane says cheerfully. She has a hand on the phone. “I was about to requisition provisions. Weren’t you clever to bring dinner home. Is that a curry?”

Holly nods. She’ll play pax with Jane—for now. She fishes the package of Indian bread out of the bag. “And extra naan,” she says, waving it temptingly toward Jack, who is leaning against the far corner of the counter.

“Wonderful!” Jane exclaims. “Jack, be a dear and set the table. Use the good china from the living room—curry calls for a celebration.” She speaks firmly, and after a moment, Jack leaves to retrieve the dishes.

“He came home a half hour ago,” Jane says sotto voce. “Nan brought him—I received the distinct impression that it had been quite the challenge to get him in the car.”

“That was kind of her,” Holly says sarcastically before she can stop herself.

Jane looks at her. “You’ll have to do better than that when she shows up to work here tomorrow.” She pauses to deliver her final blow. “Jack seems quite fond of her.”

Holly takes a breath. None of this is Nan’s fault. Jane, on the other hand . . .

“Don’t look at me like that,” her mother says firmly, correctly interpreting Holly’s face. “The boy needs to know about his past. You can’t hide it from him forever.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” This time, she sounds like a surly teenager.

Dinner is a largely silent affair, despite Jane’s attempts at chatter. Jack sits in the middle of the table, sulking, with Jane at one end and Holly at the other. He’s showered and changed, but he’s pale. She tries to stealthily inspect him, but he glares at her, so she stops, afraid she’ll drive him away from the table. Although he physically stays in the room with her, it’s clear he’d rather be almost anywhere else. He responds monosyllabically to every attempt to draw him out, and by the end of the meal Holly is perversely pleased to see Jane as frustrated as she is. Her satisfaction is short-lived.

“For goodness’ sake,” Jane says, standing up from the table and folding her napkin. “I’ve forgotten what a misery it is to have a teenager in the house. Holly, he certainly reminds me of you at that age. The two of you can do the dishes tonight—I don’t want them left for poor Nan in the morning. I’m going out. The McHales have asked me to a dessert bar this evening, and as boring as they may be, their company has to be an improvement over yours.” She drops her napkin on the table and sails from the room.

Jack and Holly are left looking at each other.

“I’ll wash,” Holly says after a moment.

“Can’t we put them in the dishwasher?” It’s the longest sentence she’s heard out of him since this morning.

Holly snorts. “Your grandmother’s Stafford china? Do that and you’d better start swimming home.”