Jane wants to push her mother away, suffocated by the knowledge that has been handed to her. At the same time, she wants to throw her arms around her, and beg her to stay close. She’s afraid of the shadows in her room, of seeing Timothy again, of fingers tapping on her window and calling her out into the dark.

Jane doesn’t say anything at all.

After a moment, her mother stands. She smooths down the front of her skirt, and sighs. She leans forward and kisses Jane’s forehead. Her lips are dry.

“It’s almost morning,” her mother says, and her voice is indescribably weary, sadder than Jane has ever heard it before. “Even so, you should try to sleep, if you can.”

Her mother takes something from her pocket and sets it on one of the many shelves lining Jane’s room. The object makes a soft click. When her mother steps back, Jane sees it’s an arrowhead, like the one she used in Timothy’s slingshot to shoot at Arthur. Her mother has set it beside the one Cook gave to her, but only the one her mother set down glitters strangely in the dark. Her mother’s fingertips brush the knapped stone, her expression one of loss, then she turns away.

Jane watches her mother cross the room. She hesitates a moment, looking back with an expression Jane cannot read. It’s almost as though she is trying to puzzle Jane out, as though she’s a stranger her mother has never seen before. Jane thinks she understands. Her mother steps into the hallway, and pulls the door fully closed, stealing the light. It’s the first time Jane can ever remember her not leaving the door ajar, and the room seems so much darker in her wake. Only the faint light of the city, and the mundane light of the moon and stars—never as bright as in Neverland—will keep her company until the sun rises again.

Jane climbs out of bed, kneeling and reaching into the space between the mattress and the frame. She pulls free a small stone, the one from Peter’s soup, the one she nearly swallowed on her first night in Neverland—at least the first night she properly remembers. She holds it a moment in her palm. It looks like such an innocent thing. The way a monster can look like a boy, or a smile be a dangerous thing. She closes her fingers around it, letting the stone dig into her skin as she crosses to the spot her mother stood a moment before, setting the stone next to the arrowhead from Neverland.

She hasn’t decided what truths or lies she’ll tell to others yet, but there’s one thing Jane is certain of—she will not lie to herself, and she will always remember.

LONDON – TWO DAYS AFTER NEVERLAND