Lines gather around John’s mouth, the same expression he wore as a child, always trying to be so serious and grown up. Only in Neverland had Wendy ever seen him truly be a little boy. Playing follow the leader, chasing Peter through the treetops, flying. Why would he ever want to forget that and leave it behind?
She studies John in profile as they approach the gate, the way the sun highlights the proud line of his nose, the firm set of his jaw, catching in his glasses and erasing his eyes. His poor vision had kept him from the war, but so many other burdens—herself included—had fallen on him instead. He’s still young, twenty-one, and just barely a man now, but already his shoulders stoop, carrying the weight of years of a man twice his age.
He must feel her watching, but he doesn’t look her way. The ache in Wendy’s chest is replaced by the first edging-in of panic. John truly means to go through with this; he means to have her committed.
She pushes the trapped-bird flutter down as the gate clanks open, guided by a man in a white uniform, his expression stoic. John looks briefly pained, and for a moment, Wendy considers relenting. At least he had the decency to see her imprisoned in person. Michael refused to accompany her. But why would he? The way she treated him was the final straw that forced John’s hand. She screamed at her baby brother, she hurt him when he was already so fragile after coming home from the war, broken in body and broken in soul. John had no choice—he’s sending her away for her own protection, and even more so for Michael’s.
Wendy looks away from her brother, from the man in white, her throat suddenly thick. If she keeps looking at John she will break, and she’s determined to be jailed with her head held high.
She focuses on the grounds to distract herself. Once upon a time, this place would have been a fine country estate, and it still looks the part. On either side of the path, emerald-bright lawns stretch away to the iron-laced hedges in front, and high stone walls on the three other sides. There are flower beds and shade-giving trees, croquet hoops staked into the grass, and small groupings of tables and chairs. It’s almost idyllic. Here, she could forget the rest of the world is at war. She could—if she were to allow herself—forget that St. Bernadette’s is a cage, but that’s something she never intends to do.
Despite her best efforts, panic spreads, blood beneath the skin turning to a bruise. Should she try one more time to explain herself? If she lies convincingly enough, perhaps John will let her stay home and help with Michael. His leg still pains him, a lingering effect of the shrapnel that tore it apart, but the dreams are worse. Wendy and John have both woken to the sounds of Michael’s troubled sleep, believing himself back in the trenches, or in the base hospital awaiting another surgery before finally being sent home. If she could encourage him in his therapy, and be there to soothe the memories and vision away, maybe Michael himself would even forgive her in time.
But, no, she’s out of chances. John and Michael may not see it, but she did try. And she failed. After their parents’ deaths, she tried to be a mother, keep everyone fed and clothed. A disinterested uncle had come to stay with them, a guardian in name only. Their mother’s brother, a man Wendy had met only once as a very young child. He had done only the bare minimum required of him to look after their welfare; all else had fallen to Wendy, John, and Michael themselves. John, always so serious, had done his best to become the man of the house, taking all the responsibility onto his shoulders that he could, losing even more of his childhood in the process. If any bit of Neverland had remained in his mind, it vanished then. So young, and yet too old for silly stories and games, for make-believe.
None of them had taken time for grief. It hadn’t been afforded to them. Their uncle certainly had no interest in giving space to their sorrow; any display of emotion at all was considered unseemly. Then Michael had gone to war and come home broken. And the silences that stretched between her and John, between all of them, had grown worse.
She should have kept to those silences, but the truth came bursting out. Watching her brothers suffer—John with the weight of the world on his shoulders, Michael with his eyes full of ghosts—Wendy couldn’t hold her tongue. With John of age to truly become the man of the house, and their uncle finally gone, she’d wanted to remind them of happier times, or so she’d told herself. Only instead of speaking reasonably, she’d shouted. Lashing out, insisting they see the world her way, refusing to listen. The more they’d resisted her, the more she’d kept on shouting. Until she couldn’t see her way clear to stopping, couldn’t find her way back home to common ground.
Anger became her habit, Neverland her defense. The more they’d tried to draw her out, the further she’d retreated into their shared past, to save herself from their denial, to save Neverland itself, as determined to remember
