Shadow (Wendy Darling #3)(2)
Mary Darling looked at her husband for a long time before pressing her pillowy body against his. Even though Wendy’s father was a bit aloof and her mother a bit of a nag, the love shared between them had always felt sincere, and Wendy couldn’t help but smile as they wrapped their arms around each other. Her father ran his hands through her mother’s hair. Aside from the lustrous light brown and honeyed locks that fell on either side of her face, there was nothing terribly beautiful about Mary Darling . . . except for the fact that she had very beautiful children. Wendy considered this now as she stared up at her mother.
“Mother, I wasn’t leaning. I was looking. And I believe in Papa’s star. He said he saw it last year as well.”
“Yes, yes, we all saw it the year before.”
Her mother was lying, and Wendy had a sneaking feeling that perhaps as she grew older, lying about her father’s star would become harder. But she had seen it last year—hadn’t she? Tucked against her husband, Mary Darling continued warning him about the dangers of windows. Wendy looked over at him as her mother railed on, seeing his shaking hands and the slight quiver in his step. Feeling protective, Wendy pushed herself off the floor and wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist, hoping to be a distraction.
“Mother, I’m sorry I was leaning out the window. You were right; I was leaning out too far.” Mary Darling dropped her lips to her daughter’s head, and Wendy smelled the lye and lemon soap on her mother’s skin.
“Thank you, my dear. I’m glad someone has some semblance of sense in this room.” With a hard look at her husband, Mary kissed Wendy’s head again before retreating. “I’ll have Liza put on the tea downstairs, and she’ll be up in a few minutes. It’s time for bed, Wendy. The boys will be up in a moment, and your father has work to do tonight. He doesn’t have time to play.” She gave George the look, clarifying, “Work that doesn’t have to do with stars.”
Wendy resisted the strong urge to stick her tongue out at her mother, and she gave a submissive nod, always the good daughter. “And you. You are sixteen years old. You should be focusing on your studies and etiquette so that we may find you an appropriate match when the time comes. Your head should be in your books, not the stars.”
With that, Wendy’s mother stomped out of the bedroom, and they could hear her steps echo down the stairs to the kitchen below. Wendy’s hazel eyes found her father’s blue ones, already sparkling with mischief.
“We really shouldn’t . . .”
“No, we shouldn’t.”
Without another word, they both scampered back to the window, flinging open the wide panels, each pane ribbed with decorative iron swirls. This time Wendy was more mindful of the steep drop down to their small garden below, a drop that could easily kill a child, impaling her on the fence posts encircling the yard. Wendy shook her head as a blush rose up her cheeks. What a terrible thought! Her father took her hand and pointed it back at the dark sky.
“Okay, Wendy. Now really look. There’s Cygnus. Look over half an inch, and then an inch upward and then again to the right. You see the first star and then . . .”
“I SEE IT, PAPA!” Her mother’s words completely forgotten, Wendy was leaning out the window again, her father loosely holding onto the ribbons around her waist. “I SEE IT!” Past her trembling finger, she could see something. A glimmer, a moving shadow of light. It winked at her and then was gone, a sleight of the magician’s hand. She had seen it, hadn’t she? There was certainly something in the void there, in that dark corner where no stars lingered night after night. It was the same thing that she had seen last year, and she had spent a year wondering if she had actually seen it. Now it was gone again.
“But . . . how? I saw it. I know I did . . .”
George Darling stroked his long chin. “I’m not sure, but I’ve documented it once every year for the past three years, as long as I’ve been studying it. This star, Wendy, it reveals itself for only a few days every year, and never for very long. The clouds have to be just right. It can’t be explained in any of the astrological books I’ve read, or any of the maps I’ve consulted. I’m preparing a paper for Reid, my colleague at Oxford.” He sighed and rubbed his head. “Well, at least I should begin preparing it. In any case, it’s an astrological phenomenon, and I am determined to stake my scientific career on it.”
“But what about the firm?” she asked quizzically. Her father wasn’t a scientist, much to his disappointment. He was an accountant at the bustling law practice down the street. A good job, as her mother was constantly reminding him. George Darling gazed sadly out at the rooftops of their London neighborhood.
“Yes. The firm. That is right. The firm matters.” He said it in such a way that Wendy was sure that the firm didn’t matter one bit. She looked at the ground shyly, making small taps with her tiny black slippers on the window ledge.
“How quickly did John see it?”
She hoped her father would say that John didn’t, that it was something he only shared with her—his eldest daughter, their relationship so special—but of course that wasn’t the case.
“Oh yes, so quickly! John saw it early this morning, before you got up, before the sun came up. He actually didn’t need my help to find it!”
A familiar disappointment rose in her chest. John, always at her father’s heels; John, so prized, so brazenly intelligent, her father’s eyes lighting up at the very sound of his name.