Forever Neverland(9)

Finally, many minutes later, Tinkerbell had spent a good deal of her fury and the fairy blew out a sigh and landed, in a puff of ash and dust, on the edge of a warm chimney. Autumn smoke lifted in weak fumes from the chimney’s recesses. The weather had turned colder these last few nights. Halloween was just around the corner. Winter was on its way.

Tinkerbell sank down to her bottom and folded her elbows on her knees. She couldn’t believe what she’d just witnessed. She wouldn’t even know where to begin with which part was worse.

It was all too obvious to the fairy, now, that Wendy and her brothers were most likely the other “children” of Neverland – the ones who hadn’t yet been taken care of. It was the Darling children who were not okay and it was this fact which was holding Peter to his promise and trapping him in the human, mortal world. Tinkerbell was smart enough to have figured that little bit out on her own.

The Darling children had been to Neverland and any child who visited Neverland became a part of it forever. In fact, Tinkerbell was so certain that it was the Darling children that Peter needed to tend to now, she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before.

And that was bad enough. But that John Darling was forgetting – or disbelieving – in Neverland was… Well, it was… It was unspeakable.

Tinkerbell shook her head, once more, in absolute horror and wondered what she should do. She didn’t want to tell Peter. Of course, she didn’t want to tell Peter. Having Wendy Darling back in their lives was the last thing Tinkerbell wanted. But. . . Peter was aging. He wasn’t a little boy anymore, which was strange, in and of itself. If they remained in the human world, would he become an actual - adult?

Tinkerbell shuddered. And then she shuddered again, just for good measure. She had to get Peter back to Neverland. And Peter’s promise wouldn’t allow him to return until all of Neverland’s children were okay. And, as much as Tink hated to admit it, that meant Wendy too.

So, with a heart that was especially heavy in such a tiny body, Tinkerbell accepted the fact that she had to tell Peter what she had just seen. And the sooner, the better. She lifted off of the chimney with a flourish of pixie dust and fluttering wings and then dove down in between the two houses below, once more flying through the alley way. She would return to their home in the hidden woods and fill Peter in on the news. But first, she wanted to take one last peak at the Darlings. A little more information never hurt. Maybe it would help her figure out exactly what she and Peter needed to do for Wendy and her brothers in order to make things right again. Besides, pixies were naturally a curious lot. And the truth was, Tink really couldn’t help herself.

She flew from window to window of the Darling house, looking for one that was still lit, but every window was dark save one. It was the same living room window that she had watched from earlier. Tink gracefully landed once more and peeked through the curtains.

*****

“Wendy, I asked you to stay up because I wanted to talk to you about something else.”

Wendy Darling sat across from her mother, her hands folded in her lap, her fingers fiddling nervously with the long ties from her gray zip-up hoodie jacket. “Okay,” she said. Silently, she asked herself what else she was going to get into trouble for that evening. But because it was her mother speaking to her – her calm, logical and supportive mother – and not her father, she was a little less nervous than she would otherwise have been.

“Wendy,” her mother began again, slowly, as if searching for just the right words. “Mrs. Price called me today. She told me about the pages you wrote in class.”

Wendy stopped breathing. Somehow, she knew, as an animal can feel an earthquake coming, that whatever was coming next would not at all be good. Inexplicably, she knew, even before her mother went on, that whatever was coming next would be the worst thing to happen that night. It would be the worst thing to happen in a very long time. Perhaps, five whole years. And it would hurt.

“I also spoke with your doctor,” Mary Darling continued. “He told me about your session today.” She paused, took a deep breath, and went on. “He believes that it may be time to take your therapy to a new level, Wendy.” Mary pulled open the small drawer in the side table next to the sofa. “He prescribed these.” She reached in and pulled a brown bottle of pills from the drawer and then closed it. The white contents of the plastic prescription case jiggled.

The sound echoed in Wendy’s ears. She stared at the bottle as her mother held it out. She found no words on her numb tongue worth speaking. Medicine, she thought. And not the sweet pink kind that I’d always thought was the worst.