“I mean, he was still here, but he was all empty inside. He wasn’t Edmund anymore. Peter pulled something out of him. It was dark and shiny like smoke and water, but like something alive and—” Timothy’s voice rises in pitch, and Jane pulls him close, cutting off his words before he gives them away.
“Shh. It’s okay.”
After a moment, when she’s certain he isn’t going to shout, she relaxes her hold.
“I ran away. I didn’t help Edmund even when he helped me.” Timothy’s words are muffled, the side of Jane’s nightgown wet with his tears.
“There’s nothing you could have done,” she says. “It’s not your fault.”
Timothy pulls back. She sees in his eyes how much he wants to believe her, but there’s misery there too, telling her he cannot. How long has Timothy been here? He looks like a little boy, but he might be older than her mother and father, or her grandfather even if what he’s saying is true, and all this happened a long time ago.
“After, Peter came back to the camp and Edmund wasn’t with him,” Timothy says. “He was carrying a sack and I just knew somehow that the dark thing Peter took from Edmund was inside it.” Timothy leans back, putting space between them again. He looks emptied out himself now, like the telling has drained him. “Peter looked very proud of himself and he told everyone he was going to go away and bring us back a mother, and she would make it so he had a shadow again and no one could say he wasn’t real.”
Jane rubs at her arms. Her skin feels too tight, wrong on her bones, and she wants to brush the sensation away but she can’t. Timothy’s eyes make her think of an owl, too round and too bright, taking up so much of his face.
“Nobody else even seemed to notice Edmund was gone, and after a while, it was like he wasn’t ever here. There are other boys who went away too, like Roger and Tootles, and I don’t know what happened to any of them. Sometimes I’m afraid Peter will make me go away too.”
Timothy’s shoulders curl inward so he looks even smaller, simultaneously old and young.
“I won’t let that happen,” Jane says, taking a breath. “We can look out for each other, you and me. That’s what friends do, they protect each other.”
“You won’t tell, will you?” Timothy says. “About the tea, or Edmund, or Roger, or any of it?”
“Of course not.” Jane feels her heartbeat, the rhythm of it, uneven and rapid in her chest. There’s a feeling like she can’t get enough air, and she can’t decide whether she wants to run or laugh or cry, or all three.
“How long have you been here, Timothy?” Jane hates to ask it, but she feels like she needs to know. There are all these puzzle pieces in her head, but she can’t quite line them up. She can’t see the picture they make, just bits of it, all broken and scattered around.
“Always, I guess.” Timothy shrugs, an air of defeat hanging on him.
Jane can understand why Rufus would want to forget, why all the other boys would want to forget, too. It’s so much easier, so much safer for them to go along with Peter and live in a land of endless games and fun. But she is determined to remember. Peter stole her name. He stole her. He hurt people. She will not let that truth go.
“Do you remember…” Jane hesitates. There’s another piece of the puzzle she can almost see but she’s afraid to look at. Peter keeps calling her by her mother’s name. Timothy’s answer might mean she doesn’t know her mother at all. “Did Peter bring back a mother like he said he would?”
“Oh! Yes!” Timothy nods, beaming, as though he’d forgotten until the moment Jane asked, a happy memory to replace the bad ones.
“Do you—” Her voice breaks, and Jane swallows, her throat suddenly thick. “What was she like?”
Timothy screws up his face again, thinking, and then his expression clears, and he looks younger than ever, smiling in a way that breaks Jane’s heart.
“Pretty. She was nice. She told stories, like you, but better.”
Timothy’s eyes go wide, as if realizing what he’s said might hurt her. He opens his mouth, but Jane shakes her head, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand and letting out a breath.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “Listen. If Peter went away and brought… a mother back from somewhere else, then there must be somewhere else to go to, a way off the island.”
Timothy’s face scrunches with incomprehension, like he can’t grasp there being more to the world than just Neverland. Jane ignores his confusion, jumping up. She can’t sit here a moment longer thinking of the possibility of her mother and Peter, her mother here, and never breathing a word of it to Jane. She can’t think about Timothy knowing her mother before she ever did, Timothy being older than her, no matter how young he looks. The hammock rocks so violently Timothy almost falls out, but he scrambles after her.
“I’ll help you look.”
“But—” Even though she already suggested Timothy come home with her, being responsible for herself is one thing; being responsible for Timothy is something else entirely.
“I’m not scared.” Timothy interrupts her, pushing his chest out and raising his chin.
It’s so brave and ridiculous and wonderful that Jane can’t help but laugh. She wipes at her cheeks again. Maybe a good big sister would insist Timothy stay behind, but would he really be any safer with Peter than with her? Deep down, she’s glad to have Timothy with her; she’d rather not do this alone.
“Well, we’d best leave now then, before the others find us.”
Another giddy thrill runs through her, and Jane suppresses a burst of
