That is why he has tracked them down—this husband and wife the foolish villagers believe to be so content, so happy.
The Shade knows better than that, too.
You see, he knew the wife long before her husband did. The husband never met her as a child. Never saw the way the little girl wandered toward the shadows. Never witnessed how her spirit craved the darkness.
When the Shade had first been bound to the shadows, he had thought it a curse. Until one night, he realized that Wendy Darling had only made him into exactly what she had always so desperately craved. The Shade who once was Peter is no longer limited by fleshly form.
He is the embodiment of Wendy Darling’s darkest desires.
And tonight, he has found them, led by the whispers overheard from outside the villagers’ bedroom windows.
It was no trouble at all, once he knew their location, to scale the mountain. After all, the Shade can touch nothing. He is not a spirit, not quite, and cannot pass through solid barriers. Such has led to many a frustration.
But the Shade has learned nothing over the past five years if not patience. He is accustomed to lingering behind doors, waiting for them to be opened.
He still prefers windows.
The manor itself is not as massive as one might expect from the world’s most infamous privateer. Then again, the husband spent most of his fortune trying to steal away Wendy Darling. It is said among the townspeople that the couple sold the wife’s family’s manor. That they needed nothing quite so extravagant.
Indeed, this manor is quaint, built of brown hewn stone. Ivy creeps up the sides and onto the roof, where the Shade lands lightly.
It is nighttime, and most of the windows of the house are dark, but a few betray signs of wakefulness. There’s a glow coming from a window on the second floor.
The Shade bats his wings, mostly out of habit. He does not need them to float, as he is weightless, reduced to nothing. Less tangible than even smoke.
The curtains of the window are a dark plum color, and the Shade positions himself behind them, peeking out and through the window to observe the manor’s inner workings.
Inside is a cozy arrangement of leather couches, a light gray chaise, and an ornate green and lavender rug. All are positioned around a fireplace, its glow still warming and lighting the room.
On the chaise is a woman of such beauty that if the Shade had a heart, it would stop at the sight of her. Her chestnut waves are let loose, running over her shoulders and down her baby blue silk nightgown. On her chest is an infant who appears to be recently drunk on milk and is sleeping soundly against her mother, coaxed to sleep by her mother’s breathing.
The Shade remembers the feel of that—the rise and fall of Wendy Darling’s chest. It is the touch he misses most of all, and it seems vile to him that this infant should feel its comfort when he cannot.
In the center of the room, three children play on the floor, though the eldest is hardly that—his lanky build is consistent with that of mid-adolescence. The Shade recognizes the boy asWendy Darling’s only living brother. His sandy brown hair and the far-off look in his eyes haven’t changed all that much as he plays with the younger children.
A dark-headed boy of about five is offering directives of exactly how to play. Wendy Darling’s brother is patient with the younger child, and he speaks more than the Shade remembers. Five years has granted him access to a level of language the Shade would have never imagined, though there is still an oddity to his cadence, a heightened nature to the boy’s pitch.
The Shade has no qualms with this boy. He shares no features with the man who now walks into the room.
The man is tall and broad. His black hair is tailored close to his head, his dark beard lightly speckled with silver and the touch of time.
The Shade feels the urge to slink from the man’s presence, but the man does not notice him. Not when his entrance has been overtaken by a bombardment of the five-year-old boy and the toddling girl, both now trying to climb his legs. The man walks forward, his boots hard against the ground, and tousles the hair of his wife’s brother, whose lips twitch upward slightly, even as he offers the younger children a measured rebuke for abandoning their posts.
Wendy Darling laughs, and the beautiful sound echoes across the room, penetrating even the glass of the window.
The Shade jolts at the beautiful sound, and Wendy Darling’s head jerks to the right, toward the window. The Shade slips downward, out of sight. As much as he longs to be seen by those pale blue eyes, he cannot risk the husband knowing he is here, and though the husband cannot see him, Wendy Darling’s reaction might give his presence away.
“Darling?” asks the husband.
“It’s nothing,” she says, sounding far off, like she always has. “I just thought…”
The Shade does not have to see her to know she’s shaking her head, convincing herself of a reality that is not true. Wendy Darling has not changed, it seems, and the Shade finds immense comfort in that.
“Mm,” says the husband, but a moment passes, and the children begin to chatter again, causing the Shade to feel it is safe to peek into the window again.
He watches them for an hour or so. The children tackle the man, and he tickles them until they giggle and scream. The Shade watches the children fall asleep on their father’s chest, the little girl sleepily tracing the tendrils of gold that snake up from underneath his shirt and onto his neck.
By the time the children’s breathing has slowed, so has Wendy Darling’s. The husband stands, carefully throwing the little girl over one shoulder. He leads the little boy by his hooked hand, the boy dragging a blanket across the floor. When the husband reaches the doorway, he turns and glances over his shoulder at his wife, who has fallen asleep on the chaise, her hand drooped over the bassinet in which she laid the baby only moments before.
