Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(93)

“She’s sodding useless. Oh, I can still combine a few drops with this and that, give the boys a bit of a buzz when I test it on them. But it does naught for me. If she weren’t so stupid, I’d swear she was doing it on purpose,” he says glumly.

Holly looks at Tink, but the little woman won’t meet her gaze.

“But then you come back to town,” Peter continues. “Details start knocking around in the old noggin, and I remember that present company”—he sweeps her an ironic bow—“had a boy child. There’s something about the Darlings, always has been. Something that attracted me, drew me to you above all others. Whatever it is, we’re linked. My troubles started when you kicked me out. So, if the Darlings had something to do with my aging, they might have something to do with turning it back.”

“What do you mean?” Holly’s careful to look Peter in the eye so he won’t realize how terrified she is.

“Your boy,” Peter says, his exasperation plain. “He’s the new generation, isn’t he? All that fresh Darling enthusiasm. All that young Darling blood. What better kind? After all, if it’s good with a stranger’s blood, how much better will it be with his? Besides, it’s not a matter of want anymore. It’s a matter of need. Without a tweak to the formula, without something to boost what I take from Tink, I age. And what’s at the end of age? Death. Which, it transpires, is not such an appealing adventure after all.”

“Not appealing for you,” Holly points out. “You have no qualms about sending other people on it.”

Peter grins at her. “Not such a great loss, those boys. They got greedy, all on their own. No discipline.”

“Greedy for what you gave them.”

He shrugs. “It’s not like I put the needle in their arms. I only showed them the possibility. They’re the ones who took it too far. Besides, I’ve been a little too busy to supervise lately. Something new’s caught my attention, something I first caught a whiff of at your Cornwall house. Nothing panned out there. The scent went cold. Then, one night a few weeks ago, when we’re sniffing around the Darling house, this one perks up.”

He kicks Tink again, savagely. She makes no move to avoid the blow, just keeps humming. “She tries to hide it, but I notice. And then what do we see, eh? We see a glimmer, a glow, a bit of a slip of a thing buzzing about our old stomping grounds, the nursery. It visits another bedroom on a lower floor, one where the windows are locked. With your Jack inside. The glimmer causes a terrible kerfuffle. And then it’s gone. But where it’s been, the air smells . . .” He throws his head back, his tea-stained teeth bared in a smile that’s positively crocodilian. “It smells like springtime. Fresh and new. Like the old place. Like Tink and I used to, once upon a time. And we think to ourselves that there’s hope after all.”

Holly’s stomach twists. She sets down her teacup to mask how hard her hands are shaking. It’s not just Peter’s matter-of-fact cruelty, the way he casually hurts Tinker Bell. It’s the idea that he’s been this close to Holly, to her family, and she never knew. He’s been in her house. In her bedroom.

“Unfortunately, the slip of a thing is gone before we can catch it. But I start to think again of Cornwall, of that vanished scent. Then one night, not long after that first visit, I catch her staring at you while you sleep. She doesn’t come in, just peeks through the windows. She’s gone in a flash, but I get a better look and she reminds me of someone, someone I couldn’t place. My memory’s notoriously bad. But then I get it. Finally.” He’s still speaking, but she can’t hear him, not over the rushing in her ears. The room is spinning, she’s sliding on the chair, her legs too weak to hold her in place. She imagines herself on the floor, the boards cool and comforting beneath her cheek.

But he’s watching her. Like a cat playing with a mouse. Every time she thinks she’s escaped, there’s the razor-sharp flash of claw. She thinks of Jack, of Eden, and forces her mind back into her body, forces herself to take in air, to let it out, until she can speak.

“What? What do you get?”

“Who our little bit is, of course—and what she can do for me. Young Jack’s blood helped some. But this one, she’s the best of two worlds—Darling blood and me. Now, she’s shy of her proud papa. She won’t come. But for you . . .”

“Eden,” Holly whispers, the name slipping out before she can stop it. “You want Eden.”

“Exactly.” He smiles winningly at her. “I like the name, by the way. Good choice. Paradise lost and all that. And I find it has a certain . . . symmetry.” He looks away, as if remembering something, then back at her. “She’s a canny girl, our Eden. I’ve been close, once or twice. But she’s too quick for me.”

He looks over at Tink, who feigns sleep, closing her eyes and breathing heavily.

“I think this one knows where she is,” he confides, motioning to Tink. “She’s getting a bit uppity lately, not so willing to help out, even after everything I’ve done for her. Creatures like her, they can have loyalty to only one, but I think Tink’s loyalty to me is slipping. She’s merely a vessel, you know. She holds emotions, experiences—the overflow, as it were—and I don’t think she likes what she’s holding lately.”