Chapter Nineteen
Over the next few days, Holly and Jane reach an uneasy agreement. Each night on her own, Holly lights the nursery candle and places it in the window, a “Come home, all is forgiven” message, of a sort. She whispers the same thing to the dark night sky, trying to let Peter sense her desperation, to lure him back with it. During the day, she follows Jane’s lead, traipsing to the places her mother suggests they look—a park that’s mentioned in the book, a house where the author once lived, a famous statue in Peter’s likeness. Once or twice Holly could swear she detects the faintest hint of that springtime scent. Jane does too. Holly can tell by the way she pivots her head this way and that, trying to locate the source. In those moments, Holly’s certain that when she turns around she’ll see him. She shivers, some animal response of dread and anticipation mixed. But he’s never there, and she’s running out of time.
So when Christopher Cooke calls her, she’s hoping for good news. He offers to meet with her at the house, but there’s no way in hell Holly’s going to do that. She still doesn’t know exactly who Christopher is. She hasn’t ruled out anything. His name and hook could be a wild coincidence. Or he could be a very motivated Darling stalker. But Holly’s leaning toward a third, more complex possibility, one that’s been developing since she and Christopher first met: that Neverland has more than one way to reach inside her world, that there are parts of the story that Wendy didn’t share with anyone. Peter can move back and forth; is it any more outlandish to meet a reincarnation of his nemesis who has crossed not just space but time?
Of course Christopher might be no more than a very attractive private detective. She still doesn’t want him in her home, near Jack. She suggests his office instead. They schedule it for later that afternoon, as soon as he is free.
While she waits, she distracts herself with an email from Elliot, who wants more funding to study the sea cucumbers. Over the past few weeks Holly has done plenty of bedtime reading on sea cucumbers, thanks to detailed and frequent reports from Elliot. She’s learned that not only do the creatures vomit up their intestines when threatened （Elliot used the more technical term expel）， they’re able to regrow entire parts of their bodies as well. Elliot believes that the proteins that cause the elasticity and regeneration could be used in a new line of skin care aimed at what he tactfully calls the “mature population.” His initial findings look extremely promising.
Could this be the breakthrough she needs for her own research? Holly shoots a quick reply, saying she’ll approve the funding but wants to be part of the test group. It will give her access to the product, and possibly the raw materials, without arousing suspicion. She couches it as a joke. “I’m a reluctant member of the target audience, after all,” she writes.
But Elliot’s response is a quick and unequivocal refusal: “Sorry. Including you could be seen as biased by outsiders at best—at worst, it might raise questions of data manipulation.”
She reads his answer and frowns. She respects Elliot’s ethics, she really does, but this isn’t the NIH. She debates on whether to insist, but decides to let it go. She’ll gain access some other way.
She spends the next hour brooding over the lab results on the last synthetic sample of Eden’s blood. It’s like a Rubik’s Cube—she gets one aspect of the sample to work, and the others fall apart. If she could just discover how the protein ages Eden, she might be able to figure out how to stop it and wake her up—and find the key to a synthesized version for Jack. She pores over her notes, looking for the solution. But she’s too close to the data, has been working on it for too long. Whatever the answer is, she’s not seeing it. Frustrated, she puts it away and heads downstairs to say goodbye to Jack.
“What’s on for your afternoon?” she asks.
“I dunno. I may try to go for a run when I finish,” he says, drumming his pencil on the library table. “And at some point I need to talk with my geometry teacher to go over this crap.”
“All right,” Holly says. “Let me know how it goes, okay? And if you run, take it easy.”
“Whatever,” he mutters, shifting restlessly away from her.
She lets the comment go. Keeping him on this short of a leash is tough on both of them, but it’s the best she can do right now. If she’s honest, it’s all she can do, at least until she figures out how to replicate the proteins in Eden’s blood. Or finds Eden.