She stands beneath the giant clock tower at noon, but there are no starlings, just a handful of pigeons cooing on the sidewalk. Despite the heat, the air around the tower smells fresh and clean. Like springtime. Like Eden. The website said there’s a tour, but the guard at the door tells her it’s been canceled for the foreseeable future. “Maintenance,” he says. “They’ll be doing a big restoration project soon.”
She walks around the clock tower searching for another way in. She doesn’t find it. So instead does the only thing she can—she calls her daughter’s name, screams it over and over again until the guard tells her to stop, that she’s being a nuisance, that if she doesn’t quit he’ll call the police and have her arrested for being a disturbance to the peace.
She’s no good to her children in jail, so she stops.
She doesn’t find Eden.
Her leg is aching—a sure sign of stress—but Holly doesn’t use the cream, can’t bring herself to even look at it. She tries not to smother Jack, but it’s so hard. Every time she looks at him, she sees his face the way it was in the hospital, so still and white he could have been carved of marble. There’s a clock ticking in her brain, moving relentlessly toward the time the last infusion from Eden will wear off completely.
And what then? Will he gradually weaken, his legs shriveling, his lungs contracting, the scars on his skin rising to the surface, forgotten monsters pushing up to show they’d been here all along? Or will it be a sudden, horrifying end, his body overtaxed by one of the activities—lacrosse, running for the bus, roughhousing with his friends—once made possible by Eden’s blood?
Even as she’s trying to hold on to him, he’s slipping through her fingers. He spends whatever time he can away from the house, leaving while she’s out and not coming home until she insists. When she asks where he’s going, he mutters and looks away. He won’t talk to her about anything—about Eden, about the injections, about how he feels. He’s flat-out refused to come to New York with her as well, a decision that surprises her and that he won’t explain. She spends every minute from the time she wakes up until the time she falls into a brief, restless sleep absolutely terrified.
She knows he’s spending time with Ed. Ed at least has the decency to look embarrassed when she stumbles across him on the front stairs or in the kitchen, where he’s most often waiting for Jack. He’ll unfold his long legs from whatever perch he’s found and stand to greet her. “Hey, Dr. Darling,” he’ll say, towering over her. “Thanks for having me.” Jack may snort and roll his eyes, but Holly can’t detect any sarcasm in Ed’s brown ones, just a bashful politeness.
She doesn’t like them together, not one bit. She worries that Ed, with his glowing good health, is a bad influence, always talking about lacrosse. She can tell by the tightness of her face that Nan’s worried too, that the boys will push it too far and something bad will happen and Holly will hold her responsible. She’s always shooing them out of the kitchen when Holly walks in, always suggesting movies and shopping or other low-key activities. And her squeamishness about storing the syringe of blood in the crisper bin has forced Holly to buy a small refrigerator she keeps padlocked in her room.
“If she quits,” Jane says once, after a particularly stressful breakfast where Holly discovered Jack had left the house at the light of dawn to meet Ed for a game, “I’ll blame you.”
“Add it to the list,” Holly says, pushing back her chair and taking her tea with her. It’s a banner start to her day.
* * *
Christopher too keeps his distance, and Holly is curiously disappointed by this. She tells herself it’s because she’s anxious. She wants to know what he’s going to do with the information he’s found. It has nothing to do with Christopher himself, his long black hair, the easy way he moves.
It has nothing to do with his dreams. Or his sense—and hers—that there’s some other link between them.
He sends her the occasional text, each one a single question. The information he asks for is esoteric, details about Peter that have long since slipped her memory, or that she never knew in the first place. He asks about Jack as well—whether the injections give him an immediate sense of euphoria, whether they wear off in a gentle decline or sudden crash.
He hasn’t asked her point-blank if she uses Eden’s blood herself. She doesn’t volunteer the information, either.
* * *
The night before she leaves, Holly does two things. She waits until Jack is asleep, then sneaks into his room and activates the GPS-location function on his mobile. Even at the worst of times in New York, she’s always respected his privacy. Now? At least this way she’ll be able to keep tabs on him, if she has to.
And then, even though it is late, she goes in search of her mother. She finds her propped up in bed, reading a book. Holly can see the title—Sexual Politics and Peter Pan: How to be a Tinker Bell in a Wendy World. She tries hard not to roll her eyes, she really does, but given Jane’s terse “Yes?” she clearly failed.
“I wanted to remind you I’m leaving first thing in the morning,” she says. Her mother’s hair is pinned in loose waves about her head, and if it weren’t for its color and the fine lines that cross her face, she could have been Holly’s age or younger.
“So you’ve told me. Multiple times.” Jane places her finger in the book to mark her place but doesn’t shut it. “Surely at sixteen Jack can survive without you for a few days.” Jane seems to think this is a good idea, a chance for Jack to grow. Holly tries to explain that in actuality, there’s a chance he could die.
“You need to watch him every minute,” Holly insists. Between the phantom of Peter, never far from her mind, and Jack’s willingness to compromise his own health, she’s almost canceled her trip a dozen times. But she owes Barry too much to let him down. And she’s come to the realization that there’s nothing else she can do in London for Eden or Jack. Plus, Elliot is in New York. If she can meet with him alone, if she has him face-to-face, she may be able to persuade him to help.
Jane peers at Holly over her reading glasses and may or may not give her own version of an eye roll.
“I raised you, didn’t I?” she says.
Holly thinks of all the days she spent alone in the Darling house while Jane was at a fundraiser or dinner. The way she scaled the roof at night or slipped easily in and out after curfew.
“That,” Holly says, “is exactly my point.”
Chapter Thirty
Holly goes directly to the office after landing. Her assistant has scheduled almost every minute. She attends the launch kickoff, held at a swanky restaurant and packed with fashion editors and beauty bloggers. The entire space has been dusted with gold glitter, and models dressed as fairies with oversized wings circulate, holding trays of champagne. Huge faux flowers line the walls, and in the corners are fountains with chocolate and punch. In the center of the room a girl dressed in green and silver dangles from the ceiling, delicate battery-operated sparkly wings flapping slowly up and down. The wires holding her are so fine they are almost invisible, and every now and then she performs a lazy somersault or low swoop, drawing oohs and aahs from the guests.
“Don’t you just love it? Isn’t it divine?” Lauren Lander gushes, wrapping an arm through Holly’s.