This is all my doing.That is the cadence, the mantra in my head.
I am my parents, and I have done exactly the thing for which I hated them. Except I’m worse than my parents. They never actually handed me over to the monster. It was not their hands that clasped onto Peter’s.
It was mine. And willingly.
There have been a few times when I’ve considered whether there might be any faerie dust in the village just a mile away. It plays on my mind, calling to me. Though there’s a shortage, surely there are still people peddling it on the streets as they would any drug.
I’ve plotted and debated how I would get my hands on some. All it would take would be stealing the money from Nolan’s coin purse and sneaking into town in the middle of the night.
I’ve done it—executed the plan a thousand times in my mind.
The problem is willing my legs to move. They are made of lead. These days, I can hardly bring myself to get off of the couch. The effort it would take to push myself into standing, when it takes everything in me to sit upright for Nolan to bring me meals… it’s overwhelming.
It’s on one of these days—after a checkup with the healer, who informs me that at least I’ve healed from the physical trauma of labor—that Michael shakes me awake from a nap.
“We sleep at nighttime,” he says.
These weeks have been so similar to my time in Neverland in the week following John’s death.
Here I have people who love me, to comfort me. I have my husband. But the guilt I feel in his presence—for stealing away his joy, for the fact that he’s trapped with me now, when he must hate me, resent me on the inside—makes his presence less than a comfort.
“Get up,” says Michael.
His voice is stern, and though he’s still only a boy, it has the tone of one imitating a man. He’s deepened it, almost as if to sound like Nolan.
“Get up.”
And then I’m not back in my cot in Neverland anymore, but on the floor of theIaso, wrists bruised, Nolan having just knocked me to the ground in a failed attempt to teach me to defend myself.
“Get up,” says Michael again.
The tone he says it in is so strikingly similar to that day on the ship with Nolan, it’s almost shocking. As if Michael overheard the entire event, though he would have been a realm away.
“I can’t get up, Michael,” I tell him. “But I can play with you, if you bring your toys to the bed.”
This time, a fist connects with my shoulder, causing a twinge of pain and what I believe will amount to a bruise.
“Ow,” I say, grabbing my shoulder and rolling over to face my brother.
His face flashes. His tone hardens, determined. I expect him to say “get up” again.
Instead, he says, “Time to go get baby nephew.”
I frown, my heart dropping into my stomach. I never told Michael I was to have a baby.
Then Nolan marches in, full shock on his expression. Apology, even.
“I’m sorry, Darling,” he says. “I’ve been telling him…” He pauses, his face looking blank. “I shouldn’t have talked to him about any of this.”
My heart sinks. Because who else would Nolan have talked to if not me, curled up in the bed, Maddox constantly by Charlie’s side?
“Michael’s a good confidant,” I say.
Nolan puts his hand on the back of his neck and turns around to leave. I don’t have the energy to ask him to stay.
“Michael, dear,” I whisper, and a tear slides down my cheek. “I’m sad about it too, buddy.”
He turns around and pads over to the doorway, where his shoes are displayed. A tripping hazard, certainly. He leans over, fiddling with them, trying to get them on. Watching him struggle evokes a deep aching within me.
