What had happened?
Somehow her life had gone from heady days of playing games with Michael and John and telling stories about pirates to…passing time until they came home. And then there were no more pirates anyway. Something had slipped out of her hands. There would be no pirates of any sort in her future. No fairies, no Peter Pan, no Never Land. Just banishment to another family in another drearily real country. And there? And then back home? The same: social mistakes, misery in a crowd, boys who probably didn’t like her anyway.
She sighed and looked at Snowball. “Pretty doggy,” she said, giving him a pet. “When they gave you to me they were only trying to make me happy. They really do think this nannying abroad, this.…gothic situation, would be good for me. But I don’t like gothic novels, Snowball. They’re dreary.
“I suppose it could have been worse, like an arranged marriage. All right, perhaps that’s going a bit far. It’s really a bit more Charlotte than Emily. ‘A serious introduction to a proper boy,’ then.”
She carefully moved Snowball so she could give Nana a good petting too.
“I thought Peter Pan was the proper boy for me. But all I have is a shadow of him.”
She paused for a moment, wondering if that sounded too dramatic.
“But I really did think he was going to come back, Nana. At least to fetch his property. It’s his shadow, for heaven’s sake. What is he doing without it?”
She went to the bureau and opened the drawer and regarded the black non-object that lay there unmoving, darkening the shapes under it.
“He mustn’t need it anymore,” she said thoughtfully.
“He mustn’t want it. Anymore,” she added after another moment.
Nana let out a sound somewhere between a growl and a chuff. Almost like she knew what Wendy was thinking.
Wendy herself wasn’t sure what she was thinking. An idea was just beginning to form in her head—an extremely alien idea, but one that opened a space in the clouds even before it was fully formed, like a sigh that precedes great things.
Things that did not include Ireland.
Acquiring these things would be tricky, however.
Apart from maths, nothing in Wendy’s life was strictly transactional—though certainly there were times when the boys were younger that she’d had to divide time into five-minute slots so each could have a turn playing with a favorite toy. And, of course, she often overheard Mr. Darling going on about how if Mrs. Darling bought a new hat they wouldn’t be able to afford a new tea service—and her mother calmly agreeing, to her father’s never-ending surprise (for she was practical underneath her lashes and perfume, and quite good at maths).
But the idea of worth…of trade…of something having value to someone else in a way that was useful to her, to Wendy…this was new, and a little frightening.
Here were the facts: Peter Pan didn’t value his shadow anymore, apparently.
But someone else might.
No, scratch that; someone else did.
She wouldn’t let herself think beyond this. She wouldn’t let her mind chatter the way her mouth did, ruining everything. This time she would do.
She looked around until she found the perfect thing: a delicate linen and lace envelope for keeping her nightgown in that she had done a pretty job of embroidering. She carefully scooped up the shadow, folded it, and slipped it in.
What else might she need?
A sewing kit, a tiny lady’s knife, a muffler, a half dozen extra hairpins, some string and ribbons. She put all this along with the envelope into a worn leather satchel and slipped it under her bed.
Then she took out a pair of stockings and began to darn them, an innocent and useful task should anyone come upon her unexpectedly.
Hours later, Michael and John returned home full of their usual youthful energy and droll remarks. Wendy neither remonstrated them nor laughed softly; her brothers remarked on her distracted nature.
When Mrs. Darling came into the kitchen it was with a tentative step and furtive looks.
“How is your little pet?” she eventually asked.
“What? Oh, he’s absolutely adorable,” Wendy said, remembering to toss Snowball a tidbit of mutton. For Nana she reserved the bone.
“You can…take him with you, you know. To Ireland. He would be a delightful little travel companion.”
For a moment, just a moment, Wendy looked at her mother—really looked at her, steadily and clearly.
“You would never send the boys away.”
The statement fell hard and final and full of more meaning than anything that had ever been said in the kitchen before.
“But they didn’t write the…fantasies.…” her mother said quietly.
Then Mr. Darling came in, loud and blustery, talking up Irish butter and clean country air.
Mother and daughter both ignored him.
Wendy went to bed early that night, claiming fatigue. Since the sun had almost won its daily Sisyphean battle with the weather, the sky was light a long time before the air became heavy enough to subtly infiltrate thoughts with sleep.
“Hook…” she whispered, finally drowsing.
“I have his shadow.…”
Wendy woke as the clock tolled midnight. If she had any doubts about the reality of her situation or the rashness of her escape plan, this clarified it all immediately. Of course, midnight: the witching hour.
A foggy memory of instructions whispered to her in dreams guided Wendy’s hands through the act of slipping on her boots and lacing them up, of wrapping herself up in a coat and grabbing her satchel.
She tiptoed down the hall, pausing to look into Michael and John’s room. They were both peacefully asleep. John’s glasses hung precariously from the headboard above him and a book was slipping out of his arms. Michael had fallen unconscious with the force of a tot: immediately and completely, no book, and he hadn’t moved from that position at all.
“Goodbye—for a little while, at least,” she whispered. “You have your own adventures now. It’s my turn this time.”
Despite attempting to be a ladylike sister, Wendy knew just as well as the boys where the squeaky stairs were and how to hold on to the banister and silently swing to a more polite step. Mr. Darling was snoring; the house was otherwise silent, and she had a clear path to the back door.…
Except for Nana, who sat resolutely in front of it.
“Now, Nana,” Wendy whispered. “If you really loved me, you would let me go.”
Nana made a sound of doubt in the back of her throat.
“Nana. I am not going to Ireland. Michael and John don’t need either one of us anymore. You need a safe, warm, loving home and a good fire. I need…something else.”
Nana’s doggy eyebrows raised plaintively. She whimpered a question.
“Well, all right. I’ll tell you, so that if anything happens to me you may tell the authorities. I’m making my way to Never Land.”
Nana sighed, as if to say I wish I had never grabbed that shadow.
Then she slowly stepped aside and gestured at the door with her head: Well, there it is. Go on.
“Thank you for understanding,” Wendy said, kissing her on the head. “I’m grateful.”
She opened the door the smallest crack. “Able to slip through sideways…Wasted away with love and longing,” she whispered spitefully. “Stupid John and his stupid Ovid.”