Page 4 of Losing Wendy

“Wendy.” She says my name with such feigned optimism, it snaps my ribs one at a time.

Mary Darling is a woman built of poise, the by-product of countless generations of aristocratic mothers passing along their grace and tact until it all became concentrated in my mother. My smile—the one I don so that others won’t have to feel the rattle of my lungs as I drown in the twilight tide of my future—I got from her.

She beams down at me with such love and adoration, it almost hides the way her stomach must be twisting on the inside. Almost. She’s a professional at hiding agony, my mother. She has the look perfected, even down to the wrinkles at the edges of her eyes upholding her smile.

But if you look closely, you can see the way her jaw bulges ever so slightly. Like she’s keeping that smile not buoyed but bolstered, feet planted in the sand as she holds her breath and hoists the edges of her barely wrinkled lips above the crashing waves.

“Mother,” I respond with equal affection.

“I suppose we should be getting you ready.”

She makes it sound as if it’s not a death sentence.

If my Markweren’t raised, simple ivory paint would probably do to cover it up completely. The golden tint has a tendency to shimmer in the light, but the color itself is faint enough to be easily obscured.

At least, it is with two coats.

My maids twist my chestnut hair into a plait at the crown of my head. I prefer to wear my hair down, but Mother says if my pretty features are going to be buried underneath a mask, we’d better let the men see as much of my face as possible.

I’m just thankful the gown she’s chosen for me better covers my bosom this time. As desperate as my mother is to marry me off and break this dreadful curse, I suspect the modest gown is meant to be an apology of sorts for a betrayal neither of us dare speak aloud.

When the maids finish preparing me for a night full of charming men twice my age, they step aside, clearing the path for my mother to look at me.

For me to look at her.

In so many ways, I’m her mirror image. In her eyes, I find the same deep blue that dwells in mine. She keeps her chestnut hair pinned back, but if she ever let it down from its ornate combs, it would fall in the same cascading waves as mine. Her pinkish face has a heart shape to it, one that makes her full cheeks stand out.

My mother is lovely, but she’s aging faster than she should.

I suppose that’s mostly to do with me.

“You look stunning, Wendy,” she says, her words a muffled whisper as she covers her mouth, probably to give her lips a break from her feigned smile. “It’s amazing, the young woman you’ve—”

The facade of my mother’s impenetrable face fissures—a cracking line that snakes up her slender neck, tensing the muscles in her throat as she fights back a sob. And just like that, she’s weeping, her hands still dutifully clamped to her mouth like she owes me the memory of a smile, rather than whatever warped and twisted thing her mouth is currently doing.

“Mama.” I take my weeping mother into my arms, settling her tear-soaked face into my chest as she cries. Rivulets of salty tears trail down my silk dressing gown. The maids were foresighted enough to know better than to fully dress me yet.

Indeed, I peer over my mother’s pearl-crested comb as my maids slip into the corner of the room, making themselves unobtrusive.

“It’s all my fault,” my mother—my strong, sanguine mother—wails into my chest. She clutches the fabric at my back, the silk protecting my skin from her fingernails digging in. It’s as if she’s convinced herself that if she only clings tightly enough, she might get to keep me. “It’s all my fault. I should have never spoken to that wretched creature. Should have known the evil I was inviting into this house.”

“You didn’t know,” I say, wrapping my hand at the back of my mother’s neck, allowing my thumb to scrape the chain of the three-pronged pendant she wears for me, John, and Michael. “You thought—” I stop myself, correcting myself mid-sentence. “You did save me. I would have died from the plague if it wasn’t for the bargain you and Papa struck.”

“I condemned you, my sweet little girl.”

My heart aches, and when I shake my head in disagreement, my mother’s tears wipe against my cheek. “You bought me time. And time—isn’t that the most valuable thing we have?”

My mother pulls away from me, and now that her hands areremoved from her face, occupied with holding me like she intends to force the shadows to wrench me from her arms themselves, her smile has returned.

It’s not the happy sort, but it’s there. Clinging for purchase on my mother’s jaw.

“I’m so sorry, Wendy.”

I open my mouth to protest, but Ma shushes me.

“No. Sweetheart. I thought I was bargaining for your life. But all I gifted you were years of dread. Years of anticipating your nightmares being fulfilled. I fear—” She sweeps her gaze over me, taking me in, and she curls her finger above her quivering lip. “I fear I’ve sold you from one miserable Fate to another, always bargaining for more time, never considering it would be you who paid the higher price.”

I stare at my mother, unable to blink back nonexistent tears.

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