Fresh panic gnaws at her, and this time it refuses to be tamped down. The hallway stretched before her is plain, and there is nothing hospitable about it—all pretenses dropped. This is not a country estate, a place where people come to rest and get well. It is a place where people are locked away. Where patients scream and no one answers.
Doors line the hallway, set with small glass windows. More twists and turns carry her over gleaming checkerboard tiles. Wendy feels numb, dizzy. They pass larger doors spaced further apart. Medical facilities, treatment rooms. The size of the building eludes her; she can’t hold a picture of the whole in her mind.
“Please, Dr. Harrington—” Wendy’s voice emerges breathless, a weakness she would rather not admit but can’t help. Something in this place presses down on her, and she gulps for air.
And then she stops, the full weight of her body holding her in place despite Dr. Harrington’s hand on her arm. A girl with long, dark hair passes, going the opposite direction, head down so Wendy can’t see her face properly. Even so, the sight of her strikes Wendy as a physical blow, and a name rises to her lips so swift she almost speaks it aloud—Tiger Lily.
She’s sworn to herself to keep Neverland secret here, to guard it close to her chest. Whatever John has told Dr. Harrington can only be half of the truth at best. If Wendy were to tell him anything real, Dr. Harrington would only take to it with a microscope and a scalpel, turning it into something ugly. So she swallows down Tiger Lily’s name, even though it burns, looking away as the girl walks past.
As much as she might wish it otherwise though, her mind rebels. She can’t help recalling a bank of emerald grass beneath the silver drooping bows of a willow tree. Locked away from all the world, she and Tiger Lily wove crowns of reed, linked their hands together—brown and white—and set the crowns on each other’s heads.
The memory aches. She can’t stop herself from glancing up, but the girl has already moved down the hallway. The loss in her wake makes it hard for Wendy to breathe, but she forces herself to keep going. Dr. Harrington looks at her, a frown of disapproval that she has upset the natural order of things.
The girl isn’t Tiger Lily. She knows that, and to distract herself, Wendy tries to reconstruct the girl’s actual appearance from that brief glance, and after a moment, she convinces herself that the girl doesn’t resemble Tiger Lily at all. It was only her mind playing tricks, wanting something familiar in this place of terror, something that felt like home.
“Here we are.” Dr. Harrington’s voice, falsely bright and sharp-edged, brings her back.
He opens a door, unlocking it swiftly and dropping the key into his pocket as though Wendy won’t notice. The opened door reveals a spare, cell-like room, purpose-built with white-painted walls, a narrow bed, and a single chair. The window has no curtains, and on the outside there are bars.
“We have what we like to think of as patient uniforms here.” Dr. Harrington smiles.
The expression is awkward, as though he’s letting Wendy in on a joke.
“Everyone here is equal, no matter where they began. They are all here to get well.”
He gestures to a plain cotton dress folded atop the bed, nearly the same pale gray as the blanket it lies upon. The girl they passed in the hall, the one who isn’t Tiger Lily, wore the same.
With his next words, Dr. Harrington’s tone shifts, all efficiency, dropping the welcoming pretense that Wendy is merely a guest. He speaks by rote, addressing a patient whose individual wants and concerns he means to dismiss, and leaves no space for Wendy to respond.
“A nurse will be along shortly to help you change, and your own clothing will be stored for safekeeping. Your door will be locked at night until you are acclimated. This is for your safety, of course. Meals are served in the dining hall, unless extenuating circumstances dictate otherwise. During your first few days you will be brought meals in your room, again, until you adjust.”
Before she can question what extenuating circumstances might be, Dr. Harrington pats Wendy’s hand, his expression warm and fatherly again. The gesture, she presumes, is meant to be reassuring. It is anything but.
She keeps her lips firmly over her teeth, hiding them. She wants to snarl. She wants to run. She wants to break and fold into herself—abandoned, doubted, disbelieved. She does none of these things, standing still with her hands clasped before her as Dr. Harrington withdraws. The door closes and she hears the tell-tale scrape of a key in the lock.
Silence fills up the corners of the room, a pressure against her skin. Wendy sits on the edge of the bed. Springs poke through the thinness of the mattress. There is a finality to the stillness.
She has no love for the particular dress she’s wearing, but the thought that she’ll have to give it up for the shapeless gray uniform beside her makes her want to scream. The fact that she will not even be trusted to change her own clothing, like an unruly child, is even worse. She fingers the cuffs of her sleeves, touches the rough woolen blanket, trying to let the simple feel of the fabric ground her. It does nothing.
She breathes, focusing on the movement of her ribs, the expansion of air in her lungs. All of this is only a test. Tomorrow, John and Michael will bring her home. She’ll learn to behave. No more broken plates. No more tantrums.
Deep down, Wendy knows John and Michael aren’t coming for her. At least not until she proves she can behave, until Dr. Harrington deems her well. And if that never occurs? If John decides it is more convenient to forget
