“What kind of stories?” The girl uncrosses her arms, her expression unguarded now, but Wendy can’t stop the rage she felt on the girl’s behalf hardening into a knot of fear. She promised herself to keep Neverland safe. What if this is a trap? What if the girl reports back to Dr. Harrington?
The girl surprises Wendy by touching her hand when Wendy was afraid to touch her before. Her eyes aren’t what Wendy would call warm, but there’s a sincerity in them. She looks young again, younger than her nineteen years, and somehow much older at the same time. Wendy can’t imagine growing up in this place. It would be so easy for St. Bernadette’s to make a person hard, spiteful, but Wendy doesn’t see that in the eyes meeting hers. Resolve. Strength. Maybe a little bit of hurt and resentment. But not cruelty. Not a snitch or a spy.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” the girl says.
The words loosen the fear in Wendy’s chest. She wants to trust this girl. And more than that, she wants to show St. Bernadette’s that it can’t make her afraid either. She’ll tell her story, but only when and to whom she chooses.
“There was—is—a boy called Peter. When I was younger, he took my brothers and me away to another land, far away. There were mermaids and pirates and Ind—”
Wendy catches herself. She tries to think back—did Tiger Lily ever say a name for her people? Or were she and the others simply Indians and nothing more because Peter named them so?
“Go on,” the girl says, and Wendy finds a new kind of self-doubt blooming, suddenly shy. She wants this girl to like her; she might even dare let herself hope they could be friends.
“You won’t laugh at me?”
“No. I want to hear. But here.” The girl bends and takes something from a basket sitting on the floor next to her chair. She pushes an embroidery hoop, dangling with colored threads, into Wendy’s hands. “The nurses and attendants usually won’t bother us if we look like we’re busy doing something they approve of. If we’re just sitting around talking, they might get suspicious.”
“I’ll only make a mess of it.” Wendy tries to push the circle back into the girl’s hands, thinking of her mother’s attempts to teach her sewing as a child. She knew it to be an essential skill for a young lady, but she’d always made a mess of it, too impatient, always eager to be doing other things like reading or making up stories of her own, corralling her brothers into performing little plays for an audience of toys in the nursery. As a result, Wendy’s stitches had always come out crooked, her threads tangling and breaking. The only real success she’d ever had was sewing Peter’s shadow back on, and even that had withered and faded as soon as they’d reached Neverland.
“I’ll teach you,” she says.
“I don’t think the nurses will let me have a needle.” Wendy glances at her clipped nails. The idea of them allowing her even a tiny sliver of metal sharp enough to draw blood is unthinkable.
The girl waves a hand, dismissing Wendy’s concerns.
“The nurses bring their own embroidery and sewing to keep themselves occupied, but they’re forever losing and misplacing things. It shouldn’t be too hard to get you your own supplies. I’m very good at keeping secrets and hiding things.” She flashes a grin. “I’m Mary, by the way, Mary White Dog. Mary is the name my mother gave me. My grandmother gave me the name White Dog, but they don’t like me to use it, so on all the papers here I’m Mary Smith.”
The torrent of words leaves Wendy feeling breathless, but giddy as well. She gathers herself, offering her own name in turn.
“I’m Wendy. Wendy Darling. I’m very pleased to meet you.”
“Wendy.” Mary grins full on now, a crooked and charming thing. “Tell me a story.”
LONDON 1931
The night air catches at Wendy’s hair, tugging strands loose from her braid and blowing them against her cheeks. She looks down. It isn’t that far to the courtyard below her window, but it’s far enough. If she fails, if she falls, she’ll break a bone at least, probably more than one.
When she and John and Michael had first returned from Neverland all those years ago, Wendy had been dreadfully sick. She’d spent weeks in bed with a fever, as if something there had infected her and her body could no longer tolerate the London air. Her parents had been patient at first, bringing cold cloths for her forehead and warm broth to drink, holding her hand gently and asking her where they’d been. They’d been gone nearly two weeks, and then suddenly reappeared in the nursery again as though they’d never left.
She’d tried to explain, but it had sounded like a fairy tale, which is just what her mother and father had thought it was. They’d thought her confused, delirious with her fever. When the fever had faded and the story persisted, they’d grown frustrated, even angry. She remembers the way John and Michael had looked between her and their parents, doubtful and a little afraid, wanting her assurances but not knowing what to believe.
In the time she’d been sick in bed, their parents had already half convinced John and Michael that Neverland couldn’t be real. Wherever they believed their children had actually been Wendy never did discover, only that in their minds, there was no doubt that the stories she told could not possibly be true. They had accused her of filling her brothers’ heads with nonsense, confusing them. Already, Wendy could see the seeds of doubt taking root in Michael and John, and she’d been desperate to convince them, win them back to her side.
She’d been afraid, heartbroken, and still sick in ways she couldn’t explain even though her fever had faded.
