“He thought you were Eden?”
“The blood made me young enough, and I’m not sure he’d ever seen Eden up close. He reached out and grabbed me. Old as he was, he was terribly strong, in a ropy, bony sort of way. He started muttering ‘Somebody had to choose old Peter. Who better than you? My own flesh and blood. That must be the secret.’ I asked him what he meant, but by then he’d spied the vial in my hand, filled with a concoction of red food coloring and sleeping pills mixed together when I’d fetched the whiskey. ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘For me?’？”
Jane lifts her chin. “So I gave it to him, as if it were a present. And greedy child that he is, he couldn’t resist. He used it on the spot. It didn’t take long. His eyelids fluttered a few times, and then . . .” She makes a toppling motion with her hand.
But there’s something in her face.
“What?” Holly prompts. Jack and Eden are still entwined, listening as raptly as she.
Jane bites her lip, then shrugs. “For all the magic, for all the beauty his tale brought to the world, it’s a rather sordid end, isn’t it? Sound asleep on the floor, undone by a simple drug. Not even the hero of his own story after all. But then again, he never was.” She looks away.
Holly slips her hand into her mother’s. “But you are,” she says. “The hero of yours, I mean. And of mine as well. Thank you.” Jane’s eyes brighten. She starts to speak, stops, squeezes Holly’s hand, then pulls her into a full embrace. Jane’s arms are firm, not soft, her skin unwrinkled, but Holly can feel her heart, and it has the same steady beat as always. They stand there, each lost in their own thoughts. Holly hates to break the spell, but she needs to know. Gently, she pulls away and looks at her mother’s face.
“Is he . . .”
“Alive? He was when we left, but we didn’t linger. I wasn’t certain how long the pills would work, if he’d wake in time to follow us. I grasped Jack, who was barely breathing, and Bell clutched me, and we flew out the same way we’d entered. That high, the wind was fierce. I couldn’t bear to look down. I just closed my eyes and hung on, terrified I’d drop him. But I didn’t, and here we are.” She smiles at Jack, then turns back to Holly, her face pensive. “Just before we took off, I called Christopher, so I suppose I can’t make any promises as to Peter’s health. I’ve become quite fond of that man, by the way.” She leans in, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You could do worse.”
Holly’s eyes widen in surprise. She’s about to respond when sirens thread the air. Still a ways off, but growing closer.
“Decision time,” Jane says, nodding toward Eden.
Holly lets go of Jane’s hand and crouches in front of her daughter. Gently brushes the hair back from Eden’s face and tucks it behind her ear. “What do you want to do?” she asks.
Eden untangles herself from Jack and sits up. The faintest smudge of color is returning to her cheeks. Her body responds so fast to injuries that the cut on her wrist has already started to heal. Yet somehow she looks older than she did when she came through the window this evening.
“I want to stay,” she says, biting her lip. “But I think . . . I think I have to go.” She looks anxiously at her mother.
If Holly asks, she knows that Eden won’t leave. They’ll stay right here, in London, or maybe go to Cornwall. In a few months or a year, the neighbors will wonder who the old woman is who loves to jump rope, who chases soap bubbles and feeds the birds and has the most infectious laugh they’ve ever heard. They’ll marvel at how patient Holly’s son is with her, how he spends hours sitting on the garden wall listening to her talk. They’ll shake their heads at seeing an elderly woman up that high. “Does she think she can fly?” they’ll ask. “It’s such a long way down.”
A year. Maybe two. Holly will keep working, keep trying to find a cure, but in her heart she knows the odds are against her. The only gift she can give her daughter is the hardest one of all—that of letting go.
“I think so too,” she says as steadily as she can.
Jane pats her back, her hand small but strong. “Well done,” she whispers so only Holly can hear. And then:
“How would you feel about a companion?”
Eden, Jack, and Holly all turn to gape at her.
“Grandma?” Jack says.
“Well, she shouldn’t go alone. And I certainly can’t stay here,” Jane says, gesturing to her body. “Not like this.”