“… shouldn’t have gone without telling you … so afraid.”
“… how could she have left the house … gone so far alone? What will we tell Scotland Yard … brothers, and my father?”
“… on a little adventure. You know how curious and strong-willed she is … what we will tell them. … home. That’s the important thing. Jane is home safe, and that is all that should matter.”
Jane’s hand tenses between her mother’s, but her mother holds her hand tight, not letting her pull away just yet. Her expression is grave again, and again Jane feels it like a physical thing pressing down on her.
“I promise you, Jane, as soon as I’ve spoken to your father, I will never ask for your silence again. You may speak to anyone you choose to about Neverland—your father, Cook, me, even your grandfather.” A look of fear flickers through her mother’s eyes, but she goes on.
“You may ask me any questions you like, and I will always give you the truth. No more secrets. And you may take that truth with you out into the world, anywhere you like, but understand, Jane—it is a choice.”
Her mother increases the pressure of her hands around Jane’s, then lets her go. Jane’s skin chills in the absence of her mother’s touch. She thinks of her mother in the terrible place she described, the asylum called St. Bernadette’s. She understands the choice her mother is giving her, and it’s no choice at all. To tell the truth and be called a liar, or to hold back the truth and lie to everyone she knows.
And it isn’t only herself she has to worry for, but her mother. Jane senses it in the look in her mother’s eyes just now when she mentioned Jane’s grandfather, senses it was there too in the words she overheard between her mother and her father. If she tells the truth, Jane will not only risk hurting herself, she will risk hurting her mother, too.
It isn’t fair, because the world isn’t fair, but perhaps that’s what it means to grow up. Not just the opportunity to learn more about the world, to become a scientist as she’s always dreamed, but to face disappointment, to hold secrets of her own, to choose between right and wrong, trying to do what is best with only her own instinct to go on, even knowing she might fail.
Jane doesn’t want any of this weight, and she isn’t certain what she’ll do with it, but it’s too late not to carry it at all. She has crossed the threshold, and the door is closed behind her. She cannot un-know what she knows, and she hates it. She can’t bring Timothy back. She can’t tell her father the truth when he asks her where she’s been, not yet. She must keep secrets from her uncles, especially her Uncle Michael, because the truth would only hurt them. Worst of all, she cannot trust her mother, not fully, and yet she is the only person Jane can trust. She is the only person Jane can speak freely with, because she is the only one who will understand.
Jane wants to push her mother away, suffocated by the knowledge that has been handed to her. At the same time, she wants to throw her arms around her, and beg her to stay close. She’s afraid of the shadows in her room, of seeing Timothy again, of fingers tapping on her window and calling her out into the dark.
Jane doesn’t say anything at all.
After a moment, her mother stands. She smooths down the front of her skirt, and sighs. She leans forward and kisses Jane’s forehead. Her lips are dry.
“It’s almost morning,” her mother says, and her voice is indescribably weary, sadder than Jane has ever heard it before. “Even so, you should try to sleep, if you can.”
Her mother takes something from her pocket and sets it on one of the many shelves lining Jane’s room. The object makes a soft click. When her mother steps back, Jane sees it’s an arrowhead, like the one she used in Timothy’s slingshot to shoot at Arthur. Her mother has set it beside the one Cook gave to her, but only the one her mother set down glitters strangely in the dark. Her mother’s fingertips brush the knapped stone, her expression one of loss, then she turns away.
Jane watches her mother cross the room. She hesitates a moment, looking back with an expression Jane cannot read. It’s almost as though she is trying to puzzle Jane out, as though she’s a stranger her mother has never seen before. Jane thinks she understands. Her mother steps into the hallway, and pulls the door fully closed, stealing the light. It’s the first time Jane can ever remember her not leaving the door ajar, and the room seems so much darker in her wake. Only the faint light of the city, and the mundane light of the moon and stars—never as bright as in Neverland—will keep her company until the sun rises again.
Jane climbs out of bed, kneeling and reaching into the space between the mattress and the frame. She pulls free a small stone, the one from Peter’s soup, the one she nearly swallowed on her first night in Neverland—at least the first night she properly remembers. She holds it a moment in her palm. It looks like such an innocent thing. The way a monster can look like a boy, or a smile be a dangerous thing. She closes her fingers around it, letting the stone dig into
