She laughed gaily as Michael buried himself in the folds of her dress, at once needy and possessive of his older sister.
“Not tonight. But be on your best behavior!” The boys nodded and scampered off. She sat back down at the table and continued to sip on her warm rose liquid as the feasting continued. More large oak platters of food were brought up by the Pips, through the center of the table—bright yellow cheeses and buckets of berries, leafy greens and . . . Wendy poked a strange-looking fruit, bright green with a gaping red mouth. The bug wiggled off her plate, and she sat back, repulsed. An older Lost Boy plopped down next to her, effortlessly scooping it into his mouth with one hand.
“You don’t know what you are missing,” he said between sharp crunches. Wendy laughed and dove into the berries, smearing them on a hunk of bread. As the night went on, the boys got more rowdy, the bottles of wine whittling down steadily until there were only about twenty left. Wendy, on the other hand, just sipped her bottle slowly, taking it all in: the Table now full of boys lying around, swinging their bottles in the air, breaking them against the ground and then crying, arguing belligerently with each other one minute only to be best friends the next, wrapping their arms around each other with profound declarations of love. Peter had given a few of them temporary flight before the feast, and they were drifting lazily through the air, bumping into the perfectly round walls of the Table, then drifting downward, reminding Wendy of kites, their pants like tails lazily spinning behind them. Three Lost Boys were lying under the table at her feet, batting her shoes every once in a while as they slurred tearful memories:
“Remember when we raided the Vault? Peter was so brave. He killed a pirate with his feet. I saw it.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“That was today, I think!”
“I heard Peter killed them with a bottle!”
“No, it was his feet!”
“How many pirates were there?”
“A thousand thousands!”
Then a silence.
“I will miss Kitoko.”
Then giggles turned to sobs, and before she could even adjust to the sad sound of little boys crying, they were giggling again, poking each other.
“Your tears are fat!”
“They aren’t even real!”
“Crocodile tears!”
There was a boy quietly throwing up in the corner, and though Wendy longed to comfort him, she also longed to not get vomit on her dress. Besides, he was the first, but he certainly wouldn’t be the last that night. She began passing around some large wooden bowls that she found stacked behind the wall, just so that when the time came, the boys wouldn’t be throwing up willy-nilly all over the place. From the General’s alcove, she could hear Peter laughing hysterically at something Abbott had said, and she heard John and Oxley attempting to sing some form of a pirate song.
“Yo ho ho . . .”
Wendy herself felt dreamy and full, though when she closed her eyes, she had the strangest visions: a finger pointing to the stars, blood, books, a veil blowing in the wind. The smell of rain. Instead, she chose to keep her eyes open, and she kept her eyes on Peter. She watched the way his gray tunic rode up around his arms, showing the tan muscles, his skin the color of ripe honey, the texture of a smooth pebble. She watched the way he laughed easily with the Generals and the way the Lost Boys looked at him with desperation for his approval, which was given often and generously. Peter saw her watching him and gave a friendly wave in her direction; Wendy flushed and raised her hand to wave back. A small, delicate hand wrapped around her own, and Wendy felt a rush of heat gather and pool in her palm, felt its power dripping through her fingers. She turned with a grimace. Tink was standing behind her, her hand wrapped tightly around Wendy’s.
“May I sit?”
Wendy thought that she would rather keep company with a tiger but decided to be polite.
“Of course.”
Tink shrugged and sat beside her. “Quite a sight, isn’t it? All these boys, all this wine. It will be quite the night.”
Wendy stared at Tink as the fairy easily twirled the tip of a wooden fork on her finger, watching the way subtle streaks of liquid gold rippled across her hair when she turned her head.
“Tell me something, Wendy Darling . . .”
Tink reached out and curled one of Wendy’s hairs around her finger. Wendy watched as the stars in Tink’s eyes exploded and shrank, Tink’s cosmic beauty overpowering her own, even now, when Tink was dressed in rags, her wings hidden underneath the brown shroud. Glitter sprinkled the ground at Wendy’s feet.
“Tell me, was it worth it?”
“Was what worth it?”
Tink nodded to the bottles.