Prologue
FIVE YEARS B.C. (BEFORE CHOOSING)
I sit up suddenly from my bed, feeling as if someone is watching me, waiting. The feeling crawls over my skin until goosebumps rise, until my hair at the base of my neck stands on end. I glance over at Michael and John where they sleep, the room too cold with the harsh winter. Mother must have forgotten to stoke the fire before she retired for the evening, the whole house is so cold I could see my breath in the air if it wasn’t so dark. The only light penetrating the room is from the full moon outside the window, the pale light drawing shadows as giants rather than harmless objects.
In the next bed over, Michael’s breath wheezes out, rattling his chest with the sounds of sickness. My little brother isn’t having the best winter, always being sick with one thing or another. This one seems more serious, but Mother insists it’s nothing to worry about. But I’m not a child anymore. I’m nearly a woman at the age of sixteen, and I’m not stupid. I’ve watched the doctor’s face when he comes to check on my little brother. He never looks happy, but his expression is always solemn when he returns and Michael isn’t better, or even steady. No, his rattling cough is much worse than it’d been a month ago.
I’m terrified my baby brother will die from something so simple as a cold, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
John has taken his worry about his brother and turned into a troublesome child, no matter how much I try to contain him. Father blames me when he gets in trouble during his studies, when he gets angry and shouts. I’ve tried explaining it’s nothing more than his sadness taking hold, that he’s trying to find an outlet for it, but Father doesn’t understand. He never does. Our parents are only parents because society dictated they should be. Neither truly has any interest in their children. Neither would truly care if we disappeared. They’d probably prefer it. After all, nothing would make them the center of attention quite as much as losing their three children.
Determining nothing is amiss in our room, I lay back down against my lumpy bedding, pulling the comforter up to my chin, but I think better of it immediately. If it continues to get colder in the room, Michael will suffer most. I slip from my small bed and over to his, offering my warmth. He’s barely nine years old, far too young to be so close to death, and I’m determined to save him.
I wrap my arms around him and pull him close, his skin so cold, it sends a violent shiver through my body. He coughs, the sound jolting in the near silence, and that’s when I hear it.
Something in the room shifts.
Slowly, I turn my head, and find a shape up in the corner of the ceiling. It appears as nothing more than a shadow, just something casting a strange shape on the wall, but when it moves, the scream that threatens to spill out gets stuck in my throat. The shadow creature dances around on all fours, climbing along the walls, moving closer. Two small pinpricks of red serve as its eyes. Evil! My mind screams. It’s evil! I clench my hands around Michael harder, glancing over at John who’s too far away. If the creature lunges towards us, I won’t be able to move fast enough to save him. I open my mouth to shout for my parents but snap it shut. They’ll be no help. Mother takes a tonic to help her sleep, and Father probably isn’t even home. He never is anymore. No, we’re on our own.
“Don’t worry,” a voice calls, and I jerk my eyes to the window, now standing wide open. “He won’t hurt you.”
A boy stands on the windowsill, the frigid air coming in dropping the room even lower in temperature. He appears around the same age as I am, his face still full of boyish delight. Ginger curls topple over his forehead, his jawline sharp, even in his youth. He’s wearing some odd green outfit, something I can’t place.
“Who are you?” I whisper, not daring to move. The shadow creature still dances around, but it doesn’t come any closer. “And what is that?”
“That’s just my shadow.” He’s so cavalier it almost puts me at ease. It would if it wasn’t for the soft growl which comes from the shadow creature’s mouth. It reminds me of the rabid dog we’d had in our neighborhood once, the way it growled when someone got too close. It had ended up attacking a little girl who later died from the rabies. Perhaps, the shadow is not on as tight of a leash as this boy wants us to believe.
“But who are you?” I ask again, when he doesn’t answer. Michael shifts in my arms but doesn’t wake up. The poor child is so exhausted, sleeping most times to catch up on the energy he lost.
The boy tilts his head at me, the shadow creature mimicking the motion in a disturbing way, and smiles, but it doesn’t put me at ease. No, it cranks up my anxiety even more. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yes, I would. That’s why I asked. You’re in my bedroom, at night, and you came in through the window. There’s also some sort of scary shadow creature on my wall watching me, and I think it’s the devil. There are many things wrong with those statements.”
The boy steps down from the windowsill, and I jerk upright, blocking his view of my little brother. He stops, his eyes taking in first myself and Michael, and then dancing over to John. “There are three of you,” he comments, and something glints in his eyes. Excitement? Is he excited?
Slowly, my hand creeps towards the small baseball bat leaning against the wall, the one I’d scolded John for using inside earlier. He’d left it here, his penchant for never picking up his toys coming in handy. “I want you to leave.” My eyes flick to the shadow creature, still perched on the wall. “And take your monster with you.”
“You’d ask me to go, even if I offer you an escape?” He glances towards Michael as another rattling breath wheezes from his chest. “Even if I could offer you a solution to the sickness?”
“You won’t even tell me your name. Why should I trust you?”
He raises his brow, his face taking on a mischievous light, and I can tell he may be trying to appeal to my empathy, but he’s very much still dangerous. “Peter,” he says. “My name’s Peter.”
“Well, Peter, I don’t know why you’re here, but I would still really like you to leave.”
In the bed next to me, John shifts and sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The creature on the ceiling growls, waking him up the rest of the way. John makes a stifled sound of distress, leaping from his bed to ours. Michael still doesn’t wake up, even as John clings to me, shifting the bed around. “Wendy, what’s going on?” he whispers, his eyes wide as he looks at the shadow and Peter.
“Shh,” I reassure him, even though I’m not sure that everything will be alright. “Just stay close.”
“There’s a place where time stands still, where you never have to grow up.” Peter’s eyes flick to the sleeping form of Michael. “Where there is no sickness or natural death. I could take you there.”
“And what’s this place called?” I ask.
A wicked grin pulls at his lips, and I forget the shadow creature for a moment. Peter is exactly the type of boy Mother warned me away from, the kind who would cause scandal. I can’t help the dangerous intrigue that pulls at me. “Neverland,” he answers. “I can take you there. All three of you.” His eyes shift between us, but he ultimately meets mine again, and focuses all his attention on me. “Come away with me, Wendy Darling.”