There’s a vase of daffodils on the side table. Wendy’s favorite. The soft yellow, the sweet scent, the dim light, all tug at Holly. They bring her back to childhood—she was six, no, seven—in this same room with Wendy and her mother.
Her tights had been so itchy, but Holly couldn’t scratch. Her mother wouldn’t like it, doesn’t like the way that Holly lies across the chair, dangling her head over the armrest. Looking for a distraction, Holly sees a glass dome, tucked away into a corner. It’s like the ones people use to cover delicate plants. But instead of greenery underneath this one, there’s an old book. She points.
“What’s that?”
“Don’t point, Holly,” her mother says. “And sit up. You do have a spine.”
“What’s that?” she repeats without pointing. But she doesn’t sit up.
“An old book, dear,” her grandmother says.
“An heirloom,” her mother says, without looking at Grandma Wendy. “Something precious.”
Holly slides into a sitting position. “Will you read it to me? Please?” She asks the question of the room, careful not to make eye contact. The air is always funny when her mother and Grandma Wendy spend too much time together—electric, like lightning between them. She never knows what will make it spark. But she likes books.
“Oh, my dear,” her grandmother sighs, but Jane cuts her off. “Yes, Mother, why don’t you? I’ve told her bits and pieces, but you’re the one he came to see.” The lightning crackles beneath her words. Holly straightens in her chair.
There’s a long pause. “All right,” Wendy says at last. Jane crosses the room to lift the glass dome, and Holly slips onto the sofa next to her grandmother. Wendy is very old but very beautiful. Her skin is glowy, as if she’s eaten a candle and the light is still shining inside, and she smells good.
Jane brings the book to her mother, but she doesn’t sit on the other side of the sofa. Instead she stands by the door, arms crossed. Waiting. For the story to start? Holly’s waiting too. But Wendy doesn’t open the old book.
“Perhaps this isn’t such a good idea after all.”
“Please,” Holly says.
Wendy sighs again. “What has your mother told you? About our family and Peter Pan?”
That’s one of those questions that can make the lightning come out, so Holly thinks carefully before answering. “He’s a boy,” she says. “And you had adventures together. People think he’s just a story, but he’s not.”
Her grandmother looks out the window. “Yes, I suppose that’s true enough.”
“Will you tell me about them? Your adventures?” Holly isn’t certain if she wants to have her own adventures with this boy when she’s older. But she knows her mother does.
“It was all very long ago,” Wendy says softly. She glances at Jane, still by the door. “But I’ll try.”
Grandmother is a very good storyteller. Not like Jane, who skips ahead and only talks about the exciting bits, like flying through the sky and fighting pirates. Grandmother Wendy starts at the proper beginning, which Holly hasn’t heard before.
“Once upon a time, a very long time ago, when I was just a girl, I was in the nursery with my brothers, John and Michael. It was just after bedtime.”
“What were you doing?” Holly has always wanted a brother or sister to play with.
“Oh, dreaming. Telling stories.”
“Were you sad?”
Holly tells herself stories at night in the nursery when she’s all alone and her parents have gone out and her nanny is sleeping. The stories keep the shadows away. Most of the time.
“Yes, I was,” her grandmother says, a glimmer of surprise in her eyes.
“Why?”
Wendy shakes her head. “That’s not the story. And it was a very long time ago. It doesn’t matter anymore.” She smooths the fabric of her blue dress across her lap, though Holly can’t see any wrinkles. And then she tells Holly about the boy who came to visit.
When Wendy gets to the part about Tinker Bell, Holly can’t help it. Excitement wells in her. The yellow daffodils on the side table, the last of the day’s sunlight streaming through the library’s heavy curtains, all catch and reflect the dust motes, flaming them into gold. Into pixie dust.
“I see her! I see Tinker Bell!” she shrieks, pointing to the window where the gold specks are thickest.
Jane is there before either of them can move, pulling back the curtains, opening the window wide and peering outside. She shakes her head, disgusted. “It’s only pollen. Only dust.”