“You’ll take your orders from me,” Jake booms, and I hear Michael start to cry from the other room. “I'm the master of this house now. This will not be a democracy. It’s a dictatorship. In my house, you will respect what I say, and I will have as I please.”

I lock eyes with Jake and for the first time wish for the darkness to swallow me whole. Wish for numbness, so I don’t have to think. Don’t have to feel. Don’t have to understand the look in his eyes that terrifies me in the night.

“You’ll leave,” Jake continues as Michael’s cries increase from just beyond the doorway. “Now, Nana. Pack your bags, and never return.” His eyes once again search mine out in the darkness. “Wendy can manage beautifully from here on out.”

No!

It’s a screaming thought that roars to life through my head.

The magic. Think about the magic.

“No,” Nana says.

Jake’s stare flashes to our maids in an instant. “What was that?”

“No, Sir, I won’t be leaving. Not until Mrs. Darling…”

Slap!

I gasp as Jake’s fist collides with Nana’s face and her head flings back. She loses her footing but grabs ahold of a nearby chair to stop herself from falling to the floor. John has now joined Michael in his crying, and for the first time I feel the harsh reality of how selfish our mother truly is. She won’t come to our rescue. She never comes. It’s always been Nana who has stood between us and the monsters that seek to harm us in the night.

Nana grunts as Jake fists her uniform in his hand and starts to pull her towards the door. My maid, my companion through the years, my only friend, digs her feet into the floor and tries to stop him. I hear the faint tinkling of bells in the distance and wonder who could be stopping by at this time of night. Hopeful that it distracts Jake from what he came upstairs for, I sit up in bed and think about joining John and Michael. Jake wouldn’t dare come for me in their room. Would he?

“Don’t you fucking move,” Jake hisses at me a moment later, as if he can read my thoughts. My subconscious recognizes a rattling against the window a moment later, but I’m too caught up in fear, in the terror of what I might lose, that I don’t turn to look.

“She’s just a child,” I hear Nana scream as the rattling grows stronger and the tinkling relentlessly pierces my ears. “I won’t let you touch…”