Is she thinking of the day when Wendy stood on the narrow balcony on St. Bernadette’s second floor, when she’d meant to fly, meant to leave everything behind? Wendy squeezes Mary’s hand. A thrill runs through her, half exhilaration, half fear. Until this moment, she hadn’t fully thought what they might do.

Could they really climb over the wall, run and never look back? How would they live without money, two lone women on London’s streets? Could they disguise themselves as men and stow away on a ship back to Mary’s home in Canada? Or somewhere else? Perhaps join a traveling fair?

Wendy considers as they resume walking, then all at once they’re at the tree. Wendy stops, gaping up at it. Mary presses against her side, as if the tree itself embodies everything she might fear about the world beyond the wall. Wendy’s certain Mary isn’t even aware she’s doing it, and she doesn’t intend to point it out, even welcoming the sun-warmed length of her.

The tree is gray with age, seeming almost to melt into the stone wall, both running riot with vines. Other sections of the property are guarded with iron fences, buried in thick hedges, but here there’s only the wall, tall enough Wendy can’t see over it. The sky feels tantalizingly close, the tree’s branches scraping against the blue so that Wendy almost imagines that if she did climb, she too could scrape her fingers against it like thick paint.

Boldness seizes her, and Wendy can’t help but grin.

“Race you.”

At the challenge, Mary’s expression turns sly and bright and mischievous, all hints of doubt and fear gone. She answers Wendy with a grin of her own, showing the gap between her front teeth.

“You’re a proper Englishwoman; I bet you don’t even know how to climb a tree.”

Even though there’s nothing at all alike in their voices, Mary’s words bring Peter’s taunting to Wendy’s mind. She pictures him impossibly balanced on a branch that should be too slender to hold him, sticking out his tongue at her and wiggling his fingers by his ears like absurd horns or antlers gone awry. You can’t catch me, Wendy. Girls can’t even climb trees. Everyone knows that.

“I’ll show you.” Wendy answers Peter and Mary at once, gathering the rough fabric of her skirt. “I bet I can climb better than you.”