“In exchange for what?”
“Depends on the boy, doesn’t it?” He shrugs. “Sometimes it’s a boost in grades. Parents put so much store in the pesky things. And a nice, friendly teacher can make a difference in a struggling student’s life. For a price.
“But there are other boys as well, ones who lurk the same streets I used to. They want simpler things. A pair of new trainers. A hot meal. A place to sleep and a bit of—fatherly attention, shall we say?” He smirks.
“Those types of boys—they’re the easy ones. Bit boring, but they have what I want, so I play nice, I do. It’s another group of wayward youth I find more . . . interesting. Imagine a young boy growing up in a posh house without a father for guidance. With a mum always working. He might run wild. Might start drinking. Smoking pot. Might start pushing boundaries. Taking risks. For them, I add a few special ingredients. Give it a bit of a kick, keep them coming back for more. Keeps me in pocket change.”
Jack. He’s talking about Jack. Holly goes cold. The tea does nothing to warm her. But Peter’s leering, dangling information in front of her like a worm on a hook. And if she takes the bait, he’ll have her. So she doesn’t bite.
“Are those the boys who won’t wake up?” she asks instead.
He shrugs again. “They’re the ones who are looking for the next high. I simply help them find it. ‘Product testers’ is what you’d call them. I can’t very well test it on myself, can I? If something went wrong, then where would I be? I have to make sure it’s safe first. And then again, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes the first dose is the last one they take. Sometimes those special ingredients are hard to source. Expensive too. Never know what they might be cut with.”
As Peter talks, a humming fills the room. At first Holly thinks it must be the refrigerator in the kitchen, but the sound is too close. She realizes it is coming from Tinker Bell, who is still stretched across the sofa. She’s finished another package of crisps and is licking the bag.
“Quiet, you.” Peter stretches out a foot from his place in an overstuffed chair and kicks her. She moans but doesn’t stop humming, doesn’t stop licking the bag.
“She’s getting rusty,” he explains. “She’s not what she once was. Well, none of us are. Except for maybe you. You’re as lovely as ever.” He looks at her, considering. “And why might that be, eh?”
Holly waits, looking back at him. When Peter doesn’t speak, she prompts him.
“Jack,” she says for the umpteenth time. “Where is Jack?”
“I’m getting to that,” he says irritably. “Where was I?” He snaps his fingers. “Present day, right? This school seemed to be the trick. There’s plenty of young blood, plenty of experiences to dine on. But none of the new formulas I come up with slow the aging anymore. It’s accelerating instead. It’s Tink, I think. With no more pixie dust, I’ve been using her blood, and it’s no good. She’s changed somehow.”
Tink flops her arms out wide, as if she’s being crucified, and Holly sees that the inner skin is cross-stitched with thousands of little scars that interlace.
“She’s sodding useless. Oh, I can still combine a few drops with this and that, give the boys a bit of a buzz when I test it on them. But it does naught for me. If she weren’t so stupid, I’d swear she was doing it on purpose,” he says glumly.
Holly looks at Tink, but the little woman won’t meet her gaze.
“But then you come back to town,” Peter continues. “Details start knocking around in the old noggin, and I remember that present company”—he sweeps her an ironic bow—“had a boy child. There’s something about the Darlings, always has been. Something that attracted me, drew me to you above all others. Whatever it is, we’re linked. My troubles started when you kicked me out. So, if the Darlings had something to do with my aging, they might have something to do with turning it back.”
“What do you mean?” Holly’s careful to look Peter in the eye so he won’t realize how terrified she is.
“Your boy,” Peter says, his exasperation plain. “He’s the new generation, isn’t he? All that fresh Darling enthusiasm. All that young Darling blood. What better kind? After all, if it’s good with a stranger’s blood, how much better will it be with his? Besides, it’s not a matter of want anymore. It’s a matter of need. Without a tweak to the formula, without something to boost what I take from Tink, I age. And what’s at the end of age? Death. Which, it transpires, is not such an appealing adventure after all.”
“Not appealing for you,” Holly points out. “You have no qualms about sending other people on it.”
Peter grins at her. “Not such a great loss, those boys. They got greedy, all on their own. No discipline.”
“Greedy for what you gave them.”
He shrugs. “It’s not like I put the needle in their arms. I only showed them the possibility. They’re the ones who took it too far. Besides, I’ve been a little too busy to supervise lately. Something new’s caught my attention, something I first caught a whiff of at your Cornwall house. Nothing panned out there. The scent went cold. Then, one night a few weeks ago, when we’re sniffing around the Darling house, this one perks up.”
He kicks Tink again, savagely. She makes no move to avoid the blow, just keeps humming. “She tries to hide it, but I notice. And then what do we see, eh? We see a glimmer, a glow, a bit of a slip of a thing buzzing about our old stomping grounds, the nursery. It visits another bedroom on a lower floor, one where the windows are locked. With your Jack inside. The glimmer causes a terrible kerfuffle. And then it’s gone. But where it’s been, the air smells . . .” He throws his head back, his tea-stained teeth bared in a smile that’s positively crocodilian. “It smells like springtime. Fresh and new. Like the old place. Like Tink and I used to, once upon a time. And we think to ourselves that there’s hope after all.”
Holly’s stomach twists. She sets down her teacup to mask how hard her hands are shaking. It’s not just Peter’s matter-of-fact cruelty, the way he casually hurts Tinker Bell. It’s the idea that he’s been this close to Holly, to her family, and she never knew. He’s been in her house. In her bedroom.
“Unfortunately, the slip of a thing is gone before we can catch it. But I start to think again of Cornwall, of that vanished scent. Then one night, not long after that first visit, I catch her staring at you while you sleep. She doesn’t come in, just peeks through the windows. She’s gone in a flash, but I get a better look and she reminds me of someone, someone I couldn’t place. My memory’s notoriously bad. But then I get it. Finally.” He’s still speaking, but she can’t hear him, not over the rushing in her ears. The room is spinning, she’s sliding on the chair, her legs too weak to hold her in place. She imagines herself on the floor, the boards cool and comforting beneath her cheek.
But he’s watching her. Like a cat playing with a mouse. Every time she thinks she’s escaped, there’s the razor-sharp flash of claw. She thinks of Jack, of Eden, and forces her mind back into her body, forces herself to take in air, to let it out, until she can speak.
“What? What do you get?”
“Who our little bit is, of course—and what she can do for me. Young Jack’s blood helped some. But this one, she’s the best of two worlds—Darling blood and me. Now, she’s shy of her proud papa. She won’t come. But for you . . .”
“Eden,” Holly whispers, the name slipping out before she can stop it. “You want Eden.”
“Exactly.” He smiles winningly at her. “I like the name, by the way. Good choice. Paradise lost and all that. And I find it has a certain . . . symmetry.” He looks away, as if remembering something, then back at her. “She’s a canny girl, our Eden. I’ve been close, once or twice. But she’s too quick for me.”