Before she can decide which way to go, movement among the trees catches her eye. It’s the same flickering she saw as she looked out over the trees from the lagoon, leaves rattling, branches swaying without any wind, and her breath catches. A shape darts from one slender trunk to the next. Fear presses a hand to her chest, but in the next instant, anger overwhelms it.
“It’s no use skulking about. I can see you.” It’s a lie, but miraculously her voice doesn’t shake.
Between two of the trunks, a shadowy figure resolves. Human, or at least she thinks so. Suddenly, the trees don’t allow enough light. Wendy squints. The shape resembles a woman, but her skin is like a wasp’s nest, papery grayish-brown. She’s like a dead thing, lain ages in the ground, and yet there’s something familiar, like Hook’s ship, like the lagoon. The thought fills her with revulsion, familiar yet utterly wrong, the Neverland she knew perverted, unraveled and poorly stitched together again. She knows the woman; she can’t possibly know her.
“Are you…?” Her voice breaks. She takes a step, then stops.
She isn’t a child to be frightened by ghosts. She’s a grown woman, and she’s faced real monsters, the kind who wear uniforms and wield needles and restraints. She drops her hand to the hilt of Hook’s sword, ready to draw.
Leaves crunch under a light step as the woman moves closer. Wendy gasps. This close, she can’t pretend. If the laws of Neverland hold true, the woman before her should be a girl still, just as Wendy last saw her. She isn’t though, she’s older, but not as old as Wendy, not as old as she should be if Neverland were a rational place. Not a girl, not quite a woman either. Perhaps not even living, but something else, something caught in between.
“Tiger Lily.” The name cracks in Wendy’s throat and lodges there.
The woman flinches, as if the name were a blow. Thin, her skin like dried mud, baked and cracking. Her hair, which should be dark, framing her face in thick, glossy braids, hangs lank, wispy and brittle. Her eyes are worst of all, sunken above cheeks that protrude like blades, and full of pain.
Wendy knows those eyes like she knows Peter’s call. Tiger Lily, trapped inside the husk standing before her, swaying slightly as if the next breeze might knock her down. Tiger Lily, a ghost haunting herself.
“No.” The word is a husk too, a dried, blown leaf scraping across the ground.
Is it a denial of the name, or Wendy herself? Both, or neither? But Wendy knows for the ache inside, heavy and bruised. This is her friend.
“Tiger Lily.” Wendy repeats the name, more firmly, reaching out her hand.
Tiger Lily’s shoulders curl in upon themselves, and she looks down, away. Scraps of cloth and leather cling to her narrow frame. Wendy remembers elaborate beads and beautiful stitching, more precise and perfect than anything she could ever produce, even with Mary’s patient tutelage. Behind Tiger Lily, other forms emerge to stand between the trees, but draw no closer, giving the two of them space.
Peter’s Indians. Like Tiger Lily, they are drained and dry. Hunched. Mere echoes of what they once were.
“Please,” Wendy says.
Tiger Lily drags her gaze back to Wendy’s. Her eyes go wide, but her posture straightens, even though the motion looks painful.
It’s all the sign Wendy needs. She closes the distance, throwing her arms around her friend. Tiger Lily feels hollow, and she’s afraid to hold her too hard, as if she might snap in two if Wendy holds her too tight.
Wendy forces herself to let go, step back, look her friend in the eye.
“What has he done to you?”
LONDON 1920
Wendy keeps her head bowed, sliding one foot in front of the other. All she has to do is make it to the door at the end of the hall. John is waiting for her in the garden; Dr. Harrington told her he sent ahead to say he had big news. Perhaps she is being released. His visits have been few and far between and all of them brief. It’s clear this place frightens him, leaves him feeling guilty for what he’s done. That he’s here again now, and made it clear he means to stay more than a few moments, must mean his news is big indeed. Perhaps John and Michael have finally come to their senses and remembered Neverland.
Three more steps. Two. Hope flutters in her chest, a fragile and terrible thing. She shouldn’t allow it, but she can’t help herself, even now. One more step and she’s outside. The sunlight makes her squint, and the smell of fresh grass tickles her nose. Wendy raises her head. John sits at a small table beneath one of the massive oak trees dotting the lawn. There’s even tea.
It’s so civilized, the picture of familial bliss. Wendy wrestles down the thing clawing at her throat—a scream, laughter, a shout. She makes herself cross the lawn at a steady pace. Flowers spill from neat beds all around her, wild bursts of color, like bright jewels scattered on the lawn. If she doesn’t look too closely, she can almost forget there’s a fence with thick iron bars hidden within the dense greenery on either side of the gate. If she doesn’t look behind her, she can pretend there’s no wall that she tried and failed to scale.
Wendy allows herself a moment to tilt her head back and look at the perfect, cloudless sky. The blue is dazzling. She could fall into it, fall and keep falling. At the end she’d find herself on the other side of the world, listening to the mermaids singing in the lagoon. She smooths her hands over her sleeves
