Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(88)

He doesn’t move, but when she squeezes past him, he doesn’t stop her, either. He lets his hand fall to his side. She finds it doesn’t matter whether it is the hand with the hook or not. The empty spot on her shoulder still feels bereft and cold.

The loss of his touch stays with her all the way through the little house, and she knows it’s a bad sign. For Jack’s sake, she can’t let herself be tempted. Can’t let down her guard and tell Christopher the truth in a weak moment. So when she reaches the safety of the front door, she doesn’t let herself hesitate, doesn’t let herself turn back.

No matter how much she wants to.



* * *





She knows, of course, that giving the slip to Christopher Cooke won’t be that easy. As much as she wants to speed back to the house, she forces herself to drive slowly, to stop at every light, to signal her innocence with every turn.

It takes six blocks before she spots the sleek black motorcycle weaving in and out of traffic. He hangs back, at the edge of her sight in the mirror. He wants her to know he’s following. Or he thinks she’s too arrogant, too foolish to look.

Either way, her plan remains the same.

She holds a steady speed until she’s home. Although Jane prefers to have the Mercedes parked in the drive, Holly leaves it in plain sight on the street. She walks to the front door, ignoring the whispers in her head that say time is slipping away, that she’s taking too long, that she should run.

Tick. Tock.

Holly doesn’t turn around, doesn’t linger to see if he’s pulled in behind her and is watching. She unlocks the door and goes inside, shuts it behind her as quietly as she can. Footsteps click along the second-floor landing, so she hurries down the hall to the kitchen and the back entrance. Unlocks the dead bolt.

“Holly?” Jane calls. “Is that you?”

But it’s too late. Holly’s already outside.

Standing on the back porch, she draws a deep breath, filling her lungs with air that seems different from the rest of London. The tiny yard that spills at her feet is a riot of color. It’s Jane’s own version of the fantasyland she’s never been invited to visit. And in the summer, it’s glorious.

Here tropical-colored flowers as wide as dinner plates engulf one wall. Half are real, brought into the conservatory every winter, the other half glass-blown. They shimmer iridescently and grow warm from the sun, fooling even the bees. Pots of lemons, of limes and figs, rim the patio, where once or twice a summer Jane holds candlelit dinners for a select handful of friends. In the far corner, white clematis twines about a wire figure. Viewed from the side, it resembles a swooping white bird. From the front, it’s a young girl in a billowing white nightgown. Behind the clematis, pansies and lavender spill from the brim of a giant top hat. Between the two forms, a tiny teddy bear topiary rests as if discarded on the ground, Jane’s nod to Great-Uncle Michael.

And in the center of it all is the statue of Peter, cast in bronze by the protégé Jane found years ago. The artist has portrayed him as young, no more than a boy, and through the clever positioning of filaments and wires, he appears to be flying. At night, tiny fairy lights flicker from a canopy of branches overhead, casting shadows so entrancing one might imagine the figure was alive.

There’s a small fountain in the shape of Neverland, based upon a map Jane drew from Barrie’s description in the original book. It burbles beneath the frozen image of Peter, water spouting from a volcano and creating tiny rainbows in the sunshine. The statue’s hand is outstretched, as if beckoning.

And it’s pointing straight at Jane’s bedroom window.

As a child Holly spent years watching Jane work in this garden. She studied how her mother added elements and stripped others away, and struggled to decode the messages embedded in the landscape. She wondered where her place was in it, if there was a place for her at all.

Today she strides past the statue with scarcely a second glance. Thyme and mint bruise under her feet, releasing their scent, as she lines herself up with the bronze Peter’s foot and counts off thirteen steps. There, directly in front of her, is the back wall of the garden. Old-fashioned climbing roses, their thorns as large and wicked as a small knife, have devoured all but the fence’s outline.

Carefully, Holly slips past the guard of thorns, sliding her hand beneath the flowers, searching for the right board. At first all the wood feels the same, and a bubble of panic rises in her chest. It’s been years since she’s used this particular exit strategy—has Jane replaced the fence? But then her fingers find what they are seeking: a board with a series of knots at its center.

Holly reaches up to the top of the board and pulls. Nothing happens. She tries again, hanging on the board with all of her weight, and it gives a bit. She looks down, and sees that a rose cane has twined about the board, holding it in place. Holly wrestles with it and gets scratched for her trouble, but manages to slide it off. Then she pulls again, putting every ounce of her energy behind it, and the board swings up. A very thin, very limber person could wriggle through the opening.

Holly is no longer fifteen, the age she was when she created this escape. Nor is she twenty-three, as she was the night she first danced with Robert. But years of Pilates have ensured that her body is almost as slender as it was then. She slides through the hole with less grace but much more determination than her teenage self. As soon as she’s through, she pulls the board back into place. If Jane comes to see if she’s really home, it will seem as if she’s vanished from the yard. More importantly, from Christopher’s point of view, should he be watching—and Holly would bet a great deal that he is—she’s never left the house.