Louise watched as everyone scurried into place, hands over the keys of her console, as her timer counted down. Giselle and Renata in a two-person dog suit were sprawled out in the middle of the Darling nursery floor. They were jointly playing the nanny dog, Nana. Carlos and Darius. who played the Darling boys, jittered beside Louise. Elle stood poised as Wendy, no nerves showing. Across the stage, Ava waited in the wings. She looked nearly adult in Mrs. Darling’s evening dress and high heels, wringing her hands in nervousness.
Flying harness hooked up, Jillian bounded from the wings to the nursery window stage-center and stepped through to the back of the set.
Everyone in place. Louise spared another glance at the monitor on the now darkened theater. Had their parents slipped in after she dimmed down the lights? She couldn’t make out Nikola to check the empty seats beside him.
Louise tensed as the timer counted down the last few moments of music and, at zero, she danced her fingers over the console, opening up the curtains, bringing up the spotlight on Nana, and hitting the sound effect of the nursery clock chiming nine o’clock.
Nana leapt up and the play was officially started. Louise took a deep breath. It felt like she had started a massive boulder rolling and now had to watch it trundle forward, too large to be safely stopped. She waited with her hands poised over the control panel. Onstage, Mr. and Mrs. Darling tucked their children in, happy despite the fact they were poor and struggling. In a few minutes, they would leave for a rare evening out, thinking their children were safe in bed, but they would be wrong. A powerful stranger had been watching from the distance, jealous of what they had. He was about to swoop in and steal away the Darlings’ happiness for his own selfish gain. Blind to the danger, the children wouldn’t even understand enough to fight their abduction.
Louise grew aware of someone on her right, watching her, not the play. She spared a glance. Tristan stood beside her in his Lost Boy costume. He had an odd stunned look on his face, like someone had just told him bad news and he wasn’t sure how to react to it.
Louise’s stomach churned sickeningly. What did he know? All afternoon she had felt as though something horrible was going to happen. Had something happened with Mr. Kessler? It had been over a week and the police hadn’t found any trace of him after he fled the school.
Louise realized that the next section of play was about to begin, and she needed to focus. Mrs. Darling was turning off the nursery’s lamps, leaving on only dim night-lights. An earlier glimpse of Peter Pan at the window, though, had filled Mrs. Darling with fear for her children. Louise felt the trembling echo of that unease.
“Dear night-lights that protect my sleeping babes,” Mrs. Darling spoke her last line before her children flew away from their safe little house. “Burn clear and steadfast tonight.”
And then Mrs. Darling was gone, exiting stage right, disappearing into the darkness. Louise felt the burn of tears suddenly and blinked rapidly. Why was she crying?
* * *
Act One ended with Peter and the Darling children flying out the nursery window and thunderous applause.
Louise closed the curtains as she dimmed the lights and cued the intermission music. Tapping her timer, she sent the walls of the nursery up into the rafters and brought the forests of Neverland down. “Get the beds off stage,” she whispered once she stopped moving the big sets around. “Move the rocks on.”
A square of light in the back of the darkened theater caught her attention. For a moment, the figure of a man in uniform stood there, outlined in brilliance from the lobby. Was that a police officer?
She brought up the house lights slightly to verify that it was a policeman in blue, cap on his head. What were the police doing here?
Principal Wiley had noticed the lights go up and glanced about in confusion and spotted the officer. He hurried over to the policeman and the two exchanged greetings. The officer said something and Principal Wiley reacted with visible shock and dismay. Hand over mouth, he looked toward the stage.
Louise whimpered. She’d never seen an adult look so distraught. It was terrifying; what could have caused Principal Wiley to look that way?
“Louise!” Mr. Howe murmured. “The music ended.”
She lowered the house lights. Just as the theater went dark, the back doors opened again, highlighting that the police officer and principal were leaving together.
* * *
Something had happened. Something horrible. Something related to the play or someone in the play.
She took out her phone and typed in a text with shaking hands. “Is Mom and Dad with you?”
“No.” Nikola responded. “They never showed up.”
She dialed her mother. After six rings, the phone went to voicemail. Her father’s phone simply stated that the user couldn’t be reached. What did that mean? She tried her mother again, but it went straight to voicemail.