It was enough to get her home, running and heaving in a most unladylike fashion.
When she burst through the front door, Wendy was for the second time that day surprised by the presence of her parents.
She was a little frazzled, the dog basket dangling on her left elbow while she shook out her umbrella with her right hand, and deep, deep in her own thoughts. She needed time to reflect, to figure out the possibilities resulting from her interaction with the Shesbow twins. This meant journaling. And fiction. With her father home from work early and the new dog and everything, it felt like a day out of time, a holiday—so why not spend the afternoon writing up her latest ideas for Never Land? She would indulge herself, the same way other girls did with naps, baths, and dresses. She had been playing with the idea of linking all her stories together somehow, maybe into a novel.…
“Oh,” she said, blinking at the unexpected sight of her mother sitting at the kitchen table, her father standing over it, both with very, very serious expressions on their faces. Like someone had died.
And there, under her father’s hand, was the very notebook she had just been thinking about.
“Mother, Father,” she added, feeling something flutter and flop somewhere between her stomach and heart. A new organ, she told herself crazily. One whose sole purpose is to react to the uncomfortable tension in the air.
“Wendy,” Mr. Darling said in his lowest, most managerial voice.
“Darling,” Mrs. Darling said. “I think…I think we had better talk.”
Mr. Darling coughed suddenly, like he was trying not to look nervous.
Wendy had the strange notion of asking if she had been let go from the firm.
“You read my notebook,” she said instead.
“Yes, and really, darling, your writing is quite exquisite,” her mother said quickly. “Really. I had no idea you were so talented with words. Your descriptions…Your characterizations…Mademoiselle Gabineau has never mentioned your facility. At all.”
“She is unaware. May I have it, please?” Wendy said, unable to keep her eyes or attention off her book. The little dog waggled frantically in the basket, causing it to swing. She barely felt it.
“The thing is, darling,” her mother went on, “the stories themselves are…well…”
“Oh, enough of this blustering around,” Mr. Darling exploded. “They are the product of an infantile mind. The febrile imaginings of a child. I thought you had done with all this Peter Pan nonsense years ago! You’re sixteen now, for heaven’s sake, Wendy!”
“It’s my fault,” Mrs. Darling said apologetically. “I have always indulged my baby girl.”
“You haven’t changed at all since you were little, Wendy. These silly stories—”
“They aren’t silly,” Wendy said, offended by the word.
“Well, yes—yes they are, because they aren’t real! None of it is real, Wendy! Not a deuced thing! And you write them with yourself in the stories, like you’re some kind of hero, like you’re still pretending with your baby brothers! Like you think it’s all real!”
“I never believed it was—”
But her voice caught in her throat.
She couldn’t do it.
She could never knowingly lie about Never Land—she would never betray it that way.
Her parents saw her swallow. They saw her hesitation, her refusal to finish the sentence.
Her mother’s head sank toward her chest, and this hurt Wendy most of all.
Mr. Darling cleared his throat again.
“I think you have some growing up to do, Wendy. I think you need to see the world as it is, and what must be done in it to live a full adult life. I think you need a break from these environs and thoughts.”
“Father, what are you—”
“The Rennets have a cousin with a country house in Conaught. Their governess had to take a leave of absence on account of her mother passing away,” Mrs. Darling said quietly, almost musically. Like delivering the news in operetta format somehow made it less unappealing. “You will join them for several months and care for their five boys.”
“Ireland?” Wendy cried. “It’s…a long way off.”
It was the first, the only thing she could think to say: she had been looking at a map of the British Isles just the other day to help fill in some descriptive passages of Never Land, and had been drawn to the county’s green meadows and hills.
“I know, darling, and I will miss you terribly—” her mother started.
“Now stop there.” Mr. Darling held up his hand to silence her. “Brave heart. We’re doing this for her own good.”
“You’re sending me to Ireland. You are exiling me. To care for a bunch of…of…nasty little boys I don’t even know!”
“Think of it as an adventure! Like in your stories!” Mrs. Darling said brightly. “They could be your Misplaced Boys!”
“Lost Boys, Mother. And no, they can’t.”
“Well, think of it as a nice little excursion from London, then. A vacation, really…”
“You’re hiring me out to complete strangers hundreds of miles away just because I write stories about Peter Pan?”
It wasn’t really a question. It was a reaffirming of the facts as presented to her.
“It’s not just about the stories,” Mr. Darling said, looking desperately at his wife.
Mrs. Darling raised an eyebrow. She may have been soft in many ways, but Wendy’s mother never, ever lied.
“All right, it is just about the stories,” Mr. Darling sighed. “And I think you could do with a break from each other for a while.”
“We will keep the notebook safe here with us while you go,” Mrs. Darling said soothingly.
“But they’re my stories. They’re mine. They belong to me!”
Mr. Darling threw up his hands. “Wendy, they are not the product of a happy, normal girl!”
“No, I suppose not,” Wendy cried, and she fled upstairs, the basket with the dog still swinging from her arm.
This at least could be said about Snowball: the little thing curled up on Wendy’s neck and breathed his soft wet breath on her cheek while she lay on her bed, dry-eyed and insensate. Nana sat loyally on the floor nearby, perhaps withholding her disdain for the new interloper in view of her mistress’s distress.
“Ireland…” Wendy finally whispered. “I don’t want to go to Ireland.
“Unless…maybe I would if I got to go in an airship.
“Or if I went by regular ship, while chasing pirates.
“Or if I wasn’t alone. If I was brought there by…
“Peter Pan.”
This time hearing her voice aloud didn’t make her braver at all.
“Peter Pan,” she repeated bitterly.
“Peter Pan, who only visited when I couldn’t see him. Peter Pan, who left his shadow and never came back for it. Who never came back for me.”
She turned her head to look out the window, but all she saw was gray. The same gray that was inside her head; the two reached out to each other, like sensing like. Wendy closed her eyes, severing the connection. But it was still gray behind her closed lids.