Every single memory returned to her. The letter tucked in the book. John’s face, filled with anger as they fought. Michael curling against her as she slept. The nursery window melting, the arrival of Peter. Wendy fell to her knees, taking the veil with her. Her memories continued to fall around her. When they had all come, she knelt down, waiting for the memory of him, him.
Finally, the bookseller’s son came. Booth. His memory was the sweetest, a painful cut across her heart, a delicious guilt that was both wonderful and devastating. Booth. Booth, the name that had rested on her lips when she slept, the face that had haunted her dreams here on Pan Island. Wendy raised her hand and traced through the air as she remembered the strong line of his cheekbones, his bright blue eyes that looked out with such kindness, such intelligence. She remembered how he had kissed her, his breath quaking as it washed over her lips. She remembered the way he had cautiously pulled the glove off her hand. Oh, Booth. “Be brave, Wendy.” He had told her to be brave, and she had betrayed him.
Wendy buried her head in her hands and began sobbing. What had she done? Why had she forgotten who she was? Had she been responsible for this? She frantically wiped the tears from her eyes. She had forgotten her parents. The Darlings. Oh God, her parents. Did they know that their children were gone? Were they holding each other right now, fearing the worst? Had she broken her parents’ hearts? She had a vision of them kneeling at the nursery window, her mother looking at the ground below that was suddenly so tempting, her father suspiciously eyeing the stars.
Peter had said that time was different in London than it was in Neverland, that her parents would never even know that they had gone. Was he lying? She prayed that he wasn’t and that somewhere, past the morning stars, her parents were still laughing at the party, her father swirling his brandy glass, her mother talking much too loud. Her lips clenched at the memory of them, of the love that rose up inside of her. The hollow of her heart that she had ignored since she arrived here was full, brimming over with happy memories, with love for her parents, with love for Booth.
Wendy pulled her arms back from the veil. No. That wasn’t right. She felt the wood under her fingers. She was still lying on the floor. There was no veil in her hands. It had all been in her mind. But Wendy remembered. Every moment of her life, she remembered. She was Wendy Darling of No. 14 Kensington Park Gardens, and she was whole again.
And they needed to go home.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE NEXT MORNING, Wendy stayed quietly in her room, rocking silently in the hammock, slowly drinking in all of her memories, precious jewels, each one of them treasured and tucked away. She would never lose them again. She turned over as the hammock swayed underneath her and watched the shadows play across the room.
Wendy couldn’t even remember when she had started forgetting. Had it been right when they had left London? Was it when she saw Neverland for the first time? Had Peter known that she couldn’t remember? He must have. Tink had known Wendy was forgetting, had known about the veil. Wendy considered, not for the first time that morning, that maybe her memory loss was connected to Peter’s presence. When he was near her, she was rendered into blind passion, disarmed by his charm. He made her forget who she was.
Wendy frowned as she sat up, resting her forehead on her knees. Her feelings for Peter were complicated, complicated even more now that she remembered Booth. Had she led Peter on? Perhaps. She experienced overwhelming guilt when she remembered how she had felt when they had kissed in the mist and then again in the lantern. It had felt so right at the moment, and yet, she knew that Booth’s kiss was right in a different way. Booth’s kiss was earned—somehow that made it more real.
Even now, though her heart was nestling happily into the memory of Booth, she still felt a pull toward Peter, toward his magnetic smile. Peter made her skin flush, made her heart hammer, but what was he expecting would happen? That she would live here on Pan Island with him forever? No, that couldn’t happen. Wendy shook her head and then remembered the rush of fear that she had felt with Peter last night in the lantern. He hadn’t seemed entirely in control when he had looked at her, in the way he had clutched at her so desperately—as if he were a drowning man and she were the shore—how quickly his hand had inched up her skirt. No, they couldn’t stay here. They had to go home. Leaving this magical island of delights and adventure would be hard, but the Darlings belonged in London, with their parents. With Booth.