Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(92)

Holly nods, holding her breath.

“But what makes you think I’d want to leave?” He looks her up and down, his stare so blatant it’s clear what he’s remembering. Holly clenches her hands in her lap, and he throws back his head and laughs. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m staying. The toys here are so much better.”

“Then what do you want?” she asks, fighting to keep the frustration from her voice.

“What do you think I want?” he snarls. “I used to be beautiful. I used to be desired. I used to be young. Now look at me. Will your lotion fix all that? I don’t think so.” He slams his hand down on the table, and the teacup trembles, sloshing its contents over the sides. He picks it up, and for a moment Holly thinks he’s going to chuck it across the garden. But then he takes a sip, and when he speaks again, his voice is composed.

“So I have a trade for you,” he says, eyes glinting. He picks up the tray and proffers it to her. “Biscuit?”





Chapter Thirty-Five



Holly’s exhausted, strung out on fear and jet lag, and her brain is numb. And Peter, being Peter, won’t come to the point. Instead he waxes on about how brilliant he is, how very, very clever. How once he realized what Holly was up to, that her recipe could not only bind with cells injured through trauma but also those damaged by aging, he devised a formula of his own.

“It took a while to figure out the special ingredient. The secret sauce. But once I got Tink to contribute . . .” He shrugs, spreading his hands wide. “Of course you know Tink. She’s mercurial, that one. Every batch came out different. And that’s not safe, is it? Not safe for me at all.”

He lights another cigarette. The shadows have lengthened, and they’ve moved into the living room. The cloud of smoke fills the space between them, eddies about his head, making his eyes hard to see. “So I found that using a bit of young blood smooths out the edges. All those rich virgin platelets.”

Holly looks out the window, at the school grounds. “You take it from the boys here, don’t you,” she says flatly.

“Don’t look at me like that. They give it willingly, they do,” he says with mock indignation.

“In exchange for what?”

“Depends on the boy, doesn’t it?” He shrugs. “Sometimes it’s a boost in grades. Parents put so much store in the pesky things. And a nice, friendly teacher can make a difference in a struggling student’s life. For a price.

“But there are other boys as well, ones who lurk the same streets I used to. They want simpler things. A pair of new trainers. A hot meal. A place to sleep and a bit of—fatherly attention, shall we say?” He smirks.

“Those types of boys—they’re the easy ones. Bit boring, but they have what I want, so I play nice, I do. It’s another group of wayward youth I find more . . . interesting. Imagine a young boy growing up in a posh house without a father for guidance. With a mum always working. He might run wild. Might start drinking. Smoking pot. Might start pushing boundaries. Taking risks. For them, I add a few special ingredients. Give it a bit of a kick, keep them coming back for more. Keeps me in pocket change.”

Jack. He’s talking about Jack. Holly goes cold. The tea does nothing to warm her. But Peter’s leering, dangling information in front of her like a worm on a hook. And if she takes the bait, he’ll have her. So she doesn’t bite.

“Are those the boys who won’t wake up?” she asks instead.

He shrugs again. “They’re the ones who are looking for the next high. I simply help them find it. ‘Product testers’ is what you’d call them. I can’t very well test it on myself, can I? If something went wrong, then where would I be? I have to make sure it’s safe first. And then again, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes the first dose is the last one they take. Sometimes those special ingredients are hard to source. Expensive too. Never know what they might be cut with.”

As Peter talks, a humming fills the room. At first Holly thinks it must be the refrigerator in the kitchen, but the sound is too close. She realizes it is coming from Tinker Bell, who is still stretched across the sofa. She’s finished another package of crisps and is licking the bag.

“Quiet, you.” Peter stretches out a foot from his place in an overstuffed chair and kicks her. She moans but doesn’t stop humming, doesn’t stop licking the bag.

“She’s getting rusty,” he explains. “She’s not what she once was. Well, none of us are. Except for maybe you. You’re as lovely as ever.” He looks at her, considering. “And why might that be, eh?”

Holly waits, looking back at him. When Peter doesn’t speak, she prompts him.

“Jack,” she says for the umpteenth time. “Where is Jack?”

“I’m getting to that,” he says irritably. “Where was I?” He snaps his fingers. “Present day, right? This school seemed to be the trick. There’s plenty of young blood, plenty of experiences to dine on. But none of the new formulas I come up with slow the aging anymore. It’s accelerating instead. It’s Tink, I think. With no more pixie dust, I’ve been using her blood, and it’s no good. She’s changed somehow.”

Tink flops her arms out wide, as if she’s being crucified, and Holly sees that the inner skin is cross-stitched with thousands of little scars that interlace.