Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(61)

She wonders too if his absence signifies more than a reluctance to return. Perhaps he can no longer fly? That would be ironic. Although it’s true she never actually saw him take to the air—when he arrived, he was suddenly just there. And she never saw him leave. For a time she’d tried to convince herself she’d dreamed the entire thing. A hallucination, brought on by grief and lack of sleep.

Aside from Eden, of course.

One other detail has haunted her—why Peter never came for Jane, why he picked her instead. Now she thinks she knows: It’s because something in Holly was damaged after the crash. Not only her body. Something inside.

She leaves the nursery to check on Jack. He’s asleep, or faking it well, his arm stretched over his head as if to ward off a blow. She doesn’t like his color; it’s too pale. She tells herself it’s because of the dim light from the hall, ignores the finger of fear on her heart, the little voice that whispers it’s all starting again—the endless vigils by his bedside, the midnight checks to make sure he’s still breathing. He’s just tired. He’s just asleep.

She takes a deep breath, puts her hand on the bedside table to steady herself. Her fingers brush something hard. It’s the picture Jane had left in the nursery—Jack must have kept it. She picks up the frame, moves to the light by the window so she can examine it. She’d seen it for only a few seconds this morning. Now, as she studies it, she can see Eden’s sparkle, her joy.

And then Holly looks at Jack in the photo and her heart squeezes tight. The whiteness of his face, the pain-dulled eyes. The smile that looks more like a grimace. She lived those days with him once, and she won’t let him go back.

But perhaps that smile, pained though it is, is why Peter has never come for her son, why he will never come. Why Jack could sleep in the nursery every night and be perfectly safe. Maybe, Holly decides, her mother was wrong. It’s not emotions Peter is drawn to after all.

Jack might have lost his innocence with the car wreck, but he still has one thing to protect him from Peter, that usurper of childhood. One thing that Holly lacks.

He still has hope.

Even so, Holly checks to make sure his windows are closed tight and locked. Tomorrow, no matter what Jane might say, she’ll nail them shut.





Chapter Twenty-Three



In the morning, the rain is sheeting down. In her time away, Holly’s forgotten how gray London can be. It matches her mood.

She’s not hungry, and she’s not interested in sparring with Jane at this hour, so she delays going downstairs. She does some work on her laptop, takes her time showering, secure in the knowledge that there will be no lacrosse today. When she finally descends to the kitchen, she expects to be greeted by a mopey Jack, so she’s surprised when Nan says she hasn’t seen him.

“He hasn’t been downstairs, at least not since I’ve been here,” Nan says. “But it’s a good day for a bit of a lie-in.”

“It is,” Holly agrees. They’re both practicing diplomacy with each other, being perfectly polite, as if yesterday never happened. But Jack’s absence makes Holly uneasy. It’s not like him to sleep this late, especially when there’s food to be had. “I think I’ll go and check on him. It’s getting close to lunch.”

She heads upstairs, knocks at the door. “Jack?”

No answer. She pushes it open. Inside, the room is still dark. She crosses to the window, pulls back the shades. The dim light filters in to show Jack curled in a ball under the covers. His face is a pasty white, paler than it was last evening.

“Jack!” She shakes his shoulder, gently at first, then with increasing urgency. He doesn’t respond for a heart-stopping length of time. At last he mutters something and pushes her hand away.

“Jack. I want you to get up,” she says. She tugs him into a seated position. “Do you feel all right?”

“Tired,” he mumbles. But she’s seen him tired. This is something else.

She touches his forehead. It’s cool, almost clammy. “Why don’t you try and eat something,” she says, forcing herself to sound calm. “Your blood sugar is probably low.”

She calls downstairs and tells Nan to put the kettle on. As soon as she hears it shriek, she hurries to the kitchen and makes him a cup of tea laced with milk and sugar. In the time it takes her to run back up the stairs with it, he’s fallen asleep again. She pulls at him, trying to wake him and get him upright.

“Jack,” she says. “You need to drink this. Now.”

She presses the mug into his hands. After he’s taken a few sips, she opens the curtains more widely so she can get a better look at him. He’s far too pale.

“Maybe you overdid it yesterday,” she says. “Why don’t you take it easy for a bit.” She keeps her voice calm, phrases it less like an order and more like a suggestion.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “But I don’t understand. I was in decent shape before we left. It hasn’t been that long.”

“It could be the weather. Or maybe you have allergies or a touch of the flu,” she offers. Right now isn’t the time to point out the truth, that she’d warned him about this exact reaction. She needs to keep him as relaxed as possible—if he’s agitated, it could make him even worse. She counts backward in her head. It’s been almost three weeks to the day since his last injection. “Just rest.”