Page 2 of Losing Wendy

To my surprise, the shadows actually deflate, separating the two of us—flesh and darkness—with a wide berth. When the shadows speak, their usual silkiness is absent, replaced by cool indifference. “If that’s the case, you might as well let me have you.”

I stand my ground, even as the estate clock tower tolls midnight. “One more day. One more day before you can have me.”

“Oh, Wendy Darling. Have you forgotten?” The shadows circumvent me in a playful dance, resuming their taunting demeanor. “You’re already mine.”

I fight not to close my eyes as the shadows deepen around me, their wisps concentrating into a black as thick as sludge. When I was a child, I made a habit of slamming my eyes shut when the shadows visited me.

Closing my eyes never did much to drown out the darkness. So now I watch, keeping a close eye on them at all times, tracing their approach lest they come for me.

They never do. They can’t touch me. That part of the curse I learned the night I burst into my parents’ bedroom screaming.

My mother meant well when she told me they weren’t allowed to touch me. Yet.

As the midnight bells toll, “yet” is a dwindling wick, a dry twig readying to snap.

I watch the shadows take form at my feet, spreading across the rug in a pool of tar. As they pile atop themselves, they grow, until directly in front of me floats a whirl of darkness. Beads of black spread out behind the swirling form, the silhouette of wings slicing across my petal-patterned wallpaper.

When the wings beat, I shudder, a chill too direct to be slipping in through the cracked window caressing my face.

“Come on, Wendy Darling,” whisper the shadows, and for the first time, it’s not a slippery taunt I hear. This time, the shadows offer a sincere invitation. “What have you got to lose?”

From the shadowy mass appears a tendril that soon snakes into the shape of a hand. Extending. Offering.

My chest heaves. And not for the first time, I reach out—not to touch—at least, I tell myself I won’t. Just to revel in the space between its outstretched hand and my trembling fingertips.

Only a flicker of light from my lamp separates us now—flesh from shadow.

We’re so close, it would only take a mildly violent tremor, and I will have initiated contact.

Just one more day.

There’s nothing about the offer that should tempt me. I should be taking advantage of my last day in the light of this world. Should be plotting and scheming just like my parents to break my curse. Their bargain.

But part of me wonders if the curse has already been fulfilled. If I’ve been living it since the moment my mother pulled her sweat-soaked daughter into her lap and told me of the fate that awaited me upon my twentieth birthday.

A tutor once told me that humans receive more pleasure from anticipating an event than from the event itself. I can’t help but wonder if anticipation and terror share this phenomenon. Perhaps I welcome the moment the shadows engulf me, taking me for their own, drowning me in darkness. At least then there will be nothing to fear.

One cannot fear what one knows, after all.

“Come on. It won’t be so bad,” whisper the shadows. “I promise.”

I made a vow to myself years ago I wouldn’t close my eyes, but tonight I make an exception.

And reach.

“Wendy?”

My eyes shoot open as light floods my bedroom.

When I turn to meet my brother’s concerned gaze, the shadows have already retreated, leaving me to wallow in my last hours of freedom.

“You were talking to it again.”

My brother’s silhouette is framed in the doorway, backlit by the faerie lanterns that line the hallway of our parents’ manor.

“Talking to what?” I ask, schooling an ever-practiced smile onto my face.

John frowns, letting his shoulders sag. He’s only eleven months younger than me, so it’s no surprise that the spindly frame I’m used to has filled out with lean muscle over the last few months. Still, the weight he’s put on, coupled with the set of round spectacles he switched to last week, gives him the air of a man rather than a child.

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