At ten on the dot, Liza poked her head in and looked in on the children, as she always did when their parents were gone. Wendy knew that she would now don her nightgown and retire for good to the cozy servants’ quarters. She heard the loud click of Liza locking the nursery door from the outside, securing the children inside. When her parents returned, they would check the door, and finding it still locked, retire to bed. No use in waking sleeping children. At the sound of Liza’s footsteps fading in the distance, Wendy let herself breathe out for the first time in what seemed like hours. Moving ever so gently, she pulled herself away from Michael’s sticky forehead and rested him against a pillow where her form had been. He didn’t stir, a happy sleep smile stretching across his face. Wendy crouched behind her bed and looked over at John’s bed. He didn’t move.
She tiptoed over to the wardrobe, the mirrors reflecting back a flushed girl with terrified eyes that burned like coals. She pulled out a fitted black ankle-length coat and quickly buttoned it up over her blue nightgown. The wool pressed snug against her chin, the buttons tangling in her ponytail. She crossed to the window, stopping at the bookcase to grab Booth’s note, and looked back at the quiet nursery before hopping up on the window ledge. Wendy Darling had never done something like this, but she had known Booth’s lips on hers. She had failed him once already today, and she wasn’t about to repeat the pattern, her father be damned.
When she had sat in that drawing room, she saw her future without Booth, a still room without love, her years wasted to the ticking of a quiet clock, tick-tock, tick-tock, as she wished for her youth. No. Within an hour, she would be entwined in his strong arms, and that was all that mattered. They would figure out a plan. They would tell her parents and hold fast to each other until a compromise was made. This was her life, not theirs. She chose Booth and her family. Her slim fingers trembling, she straightened herself in front of the window and reached for the latch.
“How exactly do you plan on getting down?” She spun around. John was standing behind her, his glasses sitting crooked on his long nose.
“Go back to bed, John,” she hissed. “This is none of your concern.”
“It is my concern when you fall to your death outside our window and I’m the only one left to care for Michael. You know how he taxes my nerves.”
Wendy shooed him back with her hand. “John, I am going. You can’t stop me. Please go back to sleep and don’t worry.”
“I can’t stop you? What if I scream for Liza right now? Or tell Papa that you tried to sneak out to see Booth in the middle of the night? What would happen then?” He tilted his head. “They would blame me for not stopping you, and that’s truly not in my best interest.” An honest curiosity crossed his face. “What do you see in him anyway? He’s poor. A bookseller’s son.”
Wendy shook her head. “I love him because he’s the bookseller’s son. Because he’s witty and kind and smart. Booth is even smarter than you, and you know that, which is why you’ve always been threatened by him. How could I ever expect you to understand? Your love is always conditional and only when it suits your needs. I pity you, John.”
The words were tumbling out of her mouth with a surprising cruelty, but Wendy felt relieved. John’s eyes narrowed with anger. “I’m leaving. You can yell for Liza if you wish.” She cinched her coat tight around her and reached for the latch again. Then, as if God’s breath had blown through the room, all the lanterns in the nursery were extinguished.
“Wendy?” John asked, his voice peaking at the curve of her name. “Did you do that?” She barely had time to open her mouth before the chaos began.
Suddenly there was a loud slam against the window, and Wendy tumbled backward off the sill. The sound rang like a shot through the room. Another slam followed, as if a carriage were being thrown against the glass. Wendy leapt backward, her arm reaching for John. His hand was clammy as she curled her fingers around his.
“Is that Booth?” he whispered hopefully. Another slam echoed out from the panes, which were flexing outward, the glass bending as if it were fabric blowing in the wind.