The Other Side of Never: Dark Tales from the World of Peter & Wendy E-Book

A.J. Elwood

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 464

Beschreibung

Dark tales inspired by J. M. Barrie's classic stories of Neverland, Captain Hook, Tinkerbell, and of course Peter Pan, from some the masters of science-fiction, horror and fantasy including A. C. Wise, Claire North, Lavie Tidhar and more. The award-winning Marie O'Regan & Paul Kane bring together the masters of fantasy, science-fiction and horror, to spin stories inspired by J. M. Barrie's classic tale. A murder investigation leads a detective to a strange place called Neverland; pupils attend a school for Peters; a young boy loses his shadow and goes to desperate lengths to retrieve it. These stories take the original tales of Peter & Wendy, the Lost Boys and Tinkerbell, twisting and turning them. From dystopias to the gritty streets of London, these stories will keep you reading all night and straight on 'til morning. Featuring stories from: Lavie Tidhar, Claire North, Premee Mohamed, Kirsty Logan, Edward Cox, Anna Smith Spark, Alison Littlewood, A. C. Wise, Rio Youers, Gama Ray Martinez, Juliet Marillier, Robert Shearman, A. K. Benedict, Laura Mauro, Cavan Scott, Guy Adams, Paul Finch Muriel Gray

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Also Available from Titan Books

Title Page

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Copyright

Introduction

Marie O’Regan & Paul Kane

Foreword

Jen Williams

A Visit to Kensington Gardens

Lavie Tidhar

Manic Pixie Girl

A. C. Wise

Fear of the Pan-Child

Robert Shearman

And On ’til Morning

Laura Mauro

The Other Side of Never

Edward Cox

The Lost Boys Monologues

Kirsty Logan

A School for Peters

Claire North

Chasing Shadows

Cavan Scott

Saturday Morning

Anna Smith Spark

The Land Between Her Eyelashes

Rio Youers

Boy

Guy Adams

Never Was Born His Equal

Premee Mohamed

The Shadow Stitcher

A. K. Benedict

A House the Size of Me

Alison Littlewood

Silver Hook

Gama Ray Martinez

The Reeds Remember

Juliet Marillier

No Such Place

Paul Finch

Far From Home

Muriel Gray

About the Authors

About the Editors

Acknowledgements

Also Available from Titan Books

Also available from Titan Books

A Universe of Wishes: A We Need Diverse Books Anthology

Cursed: An Anthology

Dark Cities: All-New Masterpieces of Urban Terror

Dark Detectives: An Anthology of Supernatural Mysteries

Dead Letters: An Anthology of the Undelivered, the Missing, theReturned…

Dead Man’s Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West

Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology

Exit Wounds

Hex Life

Infinite Stars

Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers

Invisible Blood

Daggers Drawn

New Fears: New Horror Stories by Masters of the Genre

New Fears 2: Brand New Horror Stories by Masters of the Macabre

Out of the Ruins: The Apocalyptic Anthology

Phantoms: Haunting Tales from the Masters of the Genre

Rogues

Vampires Never Get Old

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse

Wastelands: The New Apocalypse

Wonderland: An Anthology

When Things Get Dark

Isolation: The Horror Anthology

Multiverses: An Anthology of Alternate Realities

Twice Cursed

At Midnight

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The Other Side of Never

Print edition ISBN: 9781803361789

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803361796

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: May 2023

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organisations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

INTRODUCTION copyright © Marie O’Regan & Paul Kane 2023.

FOREWORD copyright © Jen Williams 2023.

A VISIT TO KENSINGTON GARDENS copyright © Lavie Tidhar 2023.

MANIC PIXIE GIRL copyright © A. C. Wise 2023.

FEAR OF THE PAN-CHILD copyright © Robert Shearman 2023.

AND ON ’TIL MORNING copyright © Laura Mauro 2023.

THE OTHER SIDE OF NEVER copyright © Edward Cox 2023.

THE LOST BOYS MONOLOGUES copyright © Kirsty Logan 2023.

A SCHOOL FOR PETERS copyright © Claire North 2023.

CHASING SHADOWS copyright © Cavan Scott 2023.

SATURDAY MORNING copyright © Anna Smith Spark 2023.

THE LAND BETWEEN HER EYELASHES copyright © Rio Youers 2023.

BOY © Guy Adams 2023.

NEVER WAS BORN HIS EQUAL copyright © Premee Mohamed 2023.

THE SHADOW STITCHER copyright © A. K. Benedict 2023.

A HOUSE THE SIZE OF ME copyright © Alison Littlewood 2023.

SILVER HOOK copyright © Gama Ray Martinez 2023.

THE REEDS REMEMBER copyright Juliet Marillier 2023.

NO SUCH PLACE copyright © Paul Finch 2023.

FAR FROM HOME copyright © Muriel Gray 2023.

The authors assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Introduction

MARIE O’REGAN & PAUL KANE

Even before we had finished working on the anthology Wonderland, we were thinking about which popular mythos to tackle afterwards – giving it that same, darker spin.

Just as we are both fans of the Alice tales, looking back on our childhoods provided a clue about what to turn our attentions to next. The original book Peter and Wendy – which began life as a play in 1904 – has always been as much a part of our lives as eating and sleeping, just like it has for so many generations. It has already inspired such a huge amount of work, from other plays (like the musical Neverland and also The Terrible Tragedy of Peter Pan) to radio (Dirk Maggs’s 1995 production for the BBC, for instance), from TV shows (including ABC’s popular series Once Upon a Time, which featured Colin O’Donoghue regularly as Hook), comics (Peter Pan – The Graphic Novel by Stephen White, Cheshire Crossing by Andy Weir) and books (Hook’s Revenge Series by Heidi Schulz, Peter Darling by Austin Chant, Son of Neverland by Cal Barnes) to films, of course: most recently, the movies Pan, Wendy and Come Away.

But, as with our previous undertaking, we wanted to do something just a little different. Grown-up tales inspired by the legend of a boy who never grew up. Once again, we assembled a group of spectacular writers to help us with that mission, providing stories that are definitely not for children. And thankfully, each and every one of them has risen to the challenge.

In here you’ll find the supernatural, in Laura Mauro’s and Muriel Gray’s stories in particular, while A. K. Benedict and Cavan Scott take the idea of shadows and run with that. Robert Shearman focuses on a fear of the subject matter in hand, just as A. C. Wise, Kirsty Logan and Guy Adams put a very modern spin on the material. Edward Cox is deep in dystopian territory and Lavie Tidhar gives us a thoughtful piece to ponder over, both revolving around that all important question of “what if”? Rio Youers and Gama Ray Martinez use a certain famous hook as their jumping-off points in very different ways; Anna Smith Spark and Claire North give us, in turn, historical and social commentary; Juliet Marillier provides a throughline from Classical mythology to the original adventure; and there are also tales that deal with the “lost” in various ways – just look at Premee Mohamed’s, Alison Littlewood’s and Paul Finch’s contributions to find examples of that.

A stunning range of interpretations, by a stellar line-up of writers. All of them providing a glimpse of more thought-provoking or ominous alternatives…

The Other Side of Never.

Marie O’Regan and Paul KaneDerbyshire, September 2022

Foreword

JEN WILLIAMS

When I was at art college, I spent a lot of time in the campus library, browsing all sorts of art books for inspiration purposes (or, more often, procrastination purposes). On one of these slow days, rain pelting against the windows, I came across Paula Rego’s Peter Pan illustrations. Rego is celebrated for her dark, uncompromising and even uncomfortable art, and her Pan pictures pull no punches (try saying that three times quickly after a flagon of pirate grog). If you’ve never seen them, I encourage you to seek them out: you could hardly find a Peter further from the animated one many of us grew up with – except perhaps within the pages of this excellent anthology.

The image that particularly stuck with me was Rego’s buff, split-tailed mermaid, her muscular arms holding Wendy under the water, a fairy-tale sky crammed with stars wheeling overhead. It’s a shocking image, but on a deeper level I wasn’t entirely surprised by it. J. M. Barrie’s story is a timeless classic intertwined with the nursery, with story time, with faeries and adventure, but I think we instinctively know there is more to Neverland than that. We know darkness is just under the surface, like a crocodile waiting in the sapphire waters of the lagoon. After all, we know what it really means to “never grow up”.

These stories, expertly gathered by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, explore every facet of Neverland and the Peter Pan mythos. From the catastrophic fallout of losing your shadow to Lost children of all varieties; from the dark origins of Peter himself to the frankly terrifying spectre of lads who refuse to grow up – the short stories collected in The Other Side of Never offer the same creeping delights as Paula Rego’s alarming illustrations. Terror and magic, murder and monsters… We know there are teeth waiting for us under the water, but the pixie dust is just too tempting. So I invite you to step into these pages and discover all the surprises Neverland unleashed has to offer. You already know the way.

Jen WilliamsLondon, January 2023

A Visit to Kensington Gardens

LAVIE TIDHAR

Pitter patter Peter pipers pans across the tended green. Here’s a statue, here is Peter, here are parakeets preening green.

“The parakeets,” a man in faded jeans says nervously, addressing a group of young adults, “are said to originate from a pair that escaped the set of The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, in 1951.” He twists a silver wedding ring nervously. The students look bored. “The statue to Pan is also a Pokéstop,” the man adds, helplessly.

Pitter patter, Peter pipers, here across the changeless green. Here’s a statue, made by Frampton, all in bronze – it looks nothing like him.

No one pays any attention to the little boy in green. Demon-baby riding goat, that’s how Rackham drew him once. How he loved to torture fairies! Pull their wings, collect the dust! How he loved to sail his nest-boat, all across the Serpentine. Then the fairies lost their fear and found him friendly, baby Peter playing pipes. How he loved to watch their dances! How he loved to love his life.

Long-term memory is fleeting, Peter lives in here and now. Fairies die, and when they do he forgets them, but sometimes he remembers little bits of his life.

There was a girl, he is almost sure of that. She was going to be his wife. He isn’t sure what “wife” is, but he knew he wanted one and there was Maimie, but she went back to her mother. Years later he would still find little gifts and letters from her hidden in the shrubbery. He tore the letters and the goat faded away in the end, but still. They always left him in the end. They always grew up.

The man is still talking. He is balding on top. He says, “For your mid-term assignment, I’d like you to write your paper on Peter’s relationship with either Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies or with Mole and Rat’s visit to Pan’s Island in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.”

The students look confused. One girl raises her hand. “How many words?” she says.

“Two thousand,” the man says, “and please—” with a long-suffering sigh “—don’t forget to cite your sources and use a bibliography. Remember, Wikipedia is not an appropriate source for academic citation.”

The water-babies? Peter remembers them. Poor lost souls, drowned in the river. He used to pal with them from time to time. There was a young woman, too, a sort of mother to the little ghosts. Harriet, was that her name? She wore leaves in her hair and recited poetry. He had liked her. But she, too, faded away after a time.

The city, every time he comes back to it from the Neverlands, is the same but different. St Paul’s is always there, brooding, and the Tower with its poor ravens who can’t fly. The Thames and the Serpentine still sing to each other and gather the drowned into their watery depths. Once, Peter saw a lost whale come up the river. Later, its carcass washed up on the bank. He saw jumpers and those who were thrown. The rivers are Neverlands all of their own.

He thinks Barrie got it almost right, when he’d tried to tell him the story. A Neverland is always an island in a child’s mind. The Neverlands change like the city changes. He vaguely remembers a man with a hook, a ticking clock. Then the rail tracks came and the trains, then all kinds of things that beeped and chirped and glowed white-light with screens. It doesn’t matter to Peter. Peter loves now. The man with the students swipes his finger across the screen of his phone. “See?” he says. “A Pokéstop.”

The students lose interest. Tourists feed the parakeets. The green birds fly down and peck seeds. Mothers go past pushing prams. Peter looks at the babies with hatred. His knife is always nearby. When did he last pull it out? On Wendy’s baby girl. But he had been startled then, scared.

It’s always confusing when they grow up.

Is Wendy there? Will she come today? He looks around him with hope in his eyes. It isn’t yet Lock-Out Time so the fairies are not out yet. Humans wander through the park without a clue.

“Did any of you read The Wind in the Willows?” the man says, with that same defeated voice. Peter looks at the students. They are Betwixt-and-Between, not quite grown-up yet, not quite children. Will they see him? The same young woman from earlier raises her hand.

“Yes?” the man says.

“I think so?”

“You remember the chapter where Mole and Rat find an enchanted island where the god Pan lives?” the man says.

“Um, no?”

“No one ever does,” the man says. “And Mole and Rat themselves forget, after they’ve been there.”

He smiles hopefully, like he’s made a joke somehow, but no one laughs. The girl looks to where Peter’s hiding. Does she see him? She blinks. He waves, hope breaking in his heart. She looks away and hope dies. What did she see? Just bushes, grass, a squirrel squirrelling a bag of crisps? Or did she glimpse him, Peter; did she see the shadow of a child?

“The water-babies,” the girl says, “they were dead?”

The lecturer brightens, the other students look at the girl as if to say they just want to go off. The lecturer says, “Well, it’s an interpretation.”

“Everything is an interpretation,” the girl says. The lecturer gives her a hopeful smile. He glances to the side, where Peter is. Does he see Peter? He says, “Have you looked into the notion of the Edwardian enchanted summer and how it relates to inter-war depiction of fairylands yet?”

“Professor…” a boy groans, and the man catches himself, startles, says to the girl, “Perhaps we can discuss this later, if you’d like—”

Something passes between them, but it is not a thing Peter can understand. Perhaps the man wants the young woman for a mother, just like Peter, who left his, keeps seeking Maimie – or was it Wendy? Or was it Margaret, or Jane? Who is it now? Are there still Darlings in London? Well, there must be, or something like them, for the Neverlands, though always changing, are still there; and so is Peter, and the first of the night fairies flies by his ear and laughs delightedly, the evening starts to settle on the park and the students are restless and the man says, “Well, we made it here with the old map from the book, so… Feel free to look around, and we’ll continue this next week in class.”

“See you, Professor,” a couple of them mumble, then they scatter off, eager to find something else to do, children at their play, and Peter longs to play with them. The man and the young woman walk away, too, and Peter is left there by the statue, and momentarily at a loss, he waits. A girl will come, sooner or later, who could see him. And then he’ll take her for a wife and they’ll fly home; second to the right, and straight on till morning.

*   *   *

“Peter?” she says.

He turns to her. She lies in the bed. Her long white hair spread against the cold white pillow. The window open, the stars beyond. A double-decker bus goes past. Peter watches the people on the upper deck. A woman in a head scarf stares at her phone. Can no one see him?

“Oh, Wendy,” he says.

“It is time, dearest,” she says weakly.

“Darling,” he says, and she tries to smile. “Me, or my family?” she says. Their old joke together. Jane’s in Australia, they spoke to her on Zoom only that morning. John’s hunting flamingos in Cyprus. Michael ran off to America with a showgirl, worked as a stagehand at first, moved through the ranks, directed a couple of films for Monogram Pictures, Lost Boy with Lugosi in ’42, then Hooked with Karloff in ’43. Wounded in Normandy and honourably discharged. Married, divorced, and married again. Drowned off the Santa Monica pier in ’58. God damn it, Michael, Peter thinks. He misses him still, and every day.

“It won’t be long now,” Wendy says. She closes her eyes. She breathes so softly. “Do you still have some of that fine fairy dust left?”

He sprinkles it on her. She rises, light as a feather. She hovers above the bedsheets, which are stained with her sweat. Peter’s fingers are messy with dust. He wipes his hand on his trousers.

“Must you go?” he says.

“You know I must.” She looks at him trustingly. “I just need a little bit more. Just a little more dust.”

He nods. He treads heavy. He goes to the cupboard that’s locked. He turns the key and tries not to look at the tiny cages inside. He hears their tiny voices. He reaches in, blind, picks one, squeezes until the dust coats his hand. It doesn’t matter, he thinks. He told Wendy’s mother long ago. He forgets them when they’re gone.

He goes back to her. She is almost at the window. The moon outside. Two stars in the sky. He sprinkles the dust. She rises higher. White as a sheet. White as a ghost. White as the moonlight that streams through the window. Another bus passes, but nobody looks. Nobody wonders at this slip of a woman, as white as an envelope, ready to go.

“There will be pirates there,” he tells her, “corals and jungles and shipwrecks and more.”

“I’ll have my own tiny house,” she tells him. “All to myself.”

“I will come!” he says, panicked.

“Yes, yes,” she says.

“You will mend my clothes?”

She doesn’t hear him. “I left a meal in the oven for you,” she says. “And a note by the washing machine. You must learn to use it.”

“But I don’t know how.”

“You just put the clothes in and a capsule, and turn the dial.”

“Must you go?” he says again helplessly.

She is half out of the window now. The wind could snatch her away at any moment.

“You know I do,” she says. “It is time.”

“Will you come back sometimes?” he says. “I will be here, waiting.”

“You still have to grow up,” she says sadly. “But I am all done growing.”

Then she is gone. The wind takes her away. A bus goes past and she flies above it. On and on she goes, until she vanishes from sight; second to the right, and straight on till morning.

*   *   *

“You see,” the balding man says eagerly over his glass of house wine, “in all the British books about fairyland, the worst thing you can do as a girl is grow up. Growing up is worse than death itself – it is a loss of innocence.” He takes a sip of wine. The young woman watches, head inched. “Carroll mourns Alice at the end of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” the man says. “How, if she just opened her eyes from the dream, the world would change to ‘dull reality’ and she will grow into a woman who could only dream ‘of Wonderland of long ago’. Only kids escape into the Neverlands. Susan can’t go back to Narnia. And so on. But for Barrie, it isn’t Wendy who loses out on Neverland. It is poor Peter, stuck, forever infantile, while Wendy grows up as all children should. Do you understand?” He says it very earnestly.

“I think you’re full of shit,” the young woman says, and the man laughs. He is a little drunk perhaps.

“Lucy in Dracula,” he says.

“What about her?”

“She lets Dracula seduce her and loses her innocence, so she has to be destroyed. The stake to the heart, again and again, and the spouting blood. It’s very sexual. You see, they valued innocence, the Victorians, they made a fetish of it. I think the British still have it. The Carry Onfilms—”

“What are those?”

“Old comedies,” he says, dismissing them with a wave of his hand. “All the men are weak and fearful and the women are grotesque and domineering. It’s the other side of the coin. The henpecked men lust for youth.”

“And you?” she says.

“Your lips are red,” he says. “Like Lucy’s.”

“And you are Dracula?”

Something in her voice. She drinks her wine and pushes back her chair. Stands up to go.

“Is this your Neverland?” she says. “Because it’s shit.”

He watches as she walks away.

“There are pirates there,” he says, to no one in particular, “and coral reefs and shipwrecks and monkeys in the trees…”

He frowns. He finishes his wine. Then he walks alone to the tube station.

*   *   *

Peter tries to use the washing machine. The thing spins round and round and the clothes inside are wet. He goes back to the room and to the empty bed. He pours himself a glass of wine. He shakes some fairy dust into the wine and drinks.

The silence presses. Life goes on outside. The buses go past, faces in windows lit up by projected light from screens. Suddenly he can’t bear the silence anymore. He drops the glass. It shatters on the floor. The wine soaks into the old, old rug. Peter bends down, picks up shards. He cries softly as one cuts his finger. The red of the wine, the red of the blood. The red of Lucy’s lips.

He scoops up the rest of the shards and puts them carefully in the bin. He straightens, feeling the twinge in his back. He hears a rustle at the window.

“Wendy, you’re b— Oh, it’s you.”

His shadow creeps in sheepishly from outside. Peter takes it. The shadow is wet from the dew.

“Have you been out all night in the park again? I thought I lost you for good.”

The shadow says nothing. Peter shakes him to dry.

“Wait here,” he says.

He goes to the cupboard. Gets out the old kit. The shadow waits patiently on the bed. Peter comes back. Peter sits down. He places the shadow beside him and opens the kit, takes out needle and thread. His fingers are clumsy but he threads through the needle. Silence settles again. A bus goes past outside. Peter darns. Peter mends. Peter sews his shadow back on, stitch by stitch.

Manic Pixie Girl

A. C. WISE

Light seeping between curtains the color of rust; cheap motel sheets tangled around my legs. There’s a stain half-hidden beneath the melamine nightstand. I look at it for a long time, trying to pretend nothing’s wrong.

Dee’s going to be pissed. But I swear – this time, I really tried.

My legs wobble, all new-foal gangly when I pry myself upright and my head swims. I’m still high, starlight running through my veins, a little taste of another world.

Careful, careful, I tiptoe across the ugly carpet to the bathroom, making a game of trying to minimize contact between my feet and the floor. I almost lose my balance, giggling inappropriately for the situation. Thinking too many happy thoughts. I catch myself on the pedestal sink and manage to stay upright.

Looking in the mirror, it’s Dee’s voice I hear, and her face looking back at me with sad puppy-dog eyes.

Oh, Bell. What did you do?

I want to tell her it isn’t what she thinks, but that’s exactly what it is. I fucked up again. But just for the moment, I play pretend. I make believe I went home with someone nice; I’m waking up in their bedroom and not a shitty motel. Right now, they’re downstairs making me breakfast. I can almost smell coffee brewing and bacon sizzling. I could eat a whole fucking pig right now, I’m just that starved.

Cold water splashes on my face, scrubbing away last night’s make-up, applied like warpaint under the flickering light in the club’s graffiti-littered bathroom. I turn off the tap. Light catches the glitter still smeared on my skin. That part isn’t make-up. It never comes off.

Deep breath. Shoulders back. Chin up.

Time to face the music. I creep back to the bedroom, still wobbly, and survey the damage I’ve done.

The boy on the bed looks like someone carried him high into the air and dropped him a very long way down. Sunlight and shadow dissect him, a magician’s trick separating him into boxes. See his limbs (bent the wrong way) over here; see his neck (never mind the angle) over there; look at his eyes (wide open in surprise) over there. Blink once to let us know you’re okay.

See his lips (no breath passing them) and fuck me – he’s smiling. Like he died the happiest boy in the whole damn world.

He’s not really a boy, he’s a man – old enough to know better, but choosing to behave otherwise. He took a woman he just met back to a cheap motel because he thought she’d be an easy fuck, he wouldn’t have to try too hard, and just look what happened to him.

I swipe my phone off the nightstand, fingers clumsy because I’m still coming down, still reacquainting myself with gravity. I hit the last number dialed.

Please answer, please answer, please answer.

Then the sweetest voice in the world.

“Bell? Where are you?”

“Motel.” I flick back the curtain, squint into the terrible glare of too much sunlight washing through the parking lot. I have no fucking idea. “By the highway? I don’t…”

“It’s okay. I’ll use the app to track your phone.” She doesn’t sigh, but I hear it anyway, under the jingle of her keys and movement toward the door.

“It hurts, Dee.” I sit at the foot of the bed, where the dead boy’s feet are, think better of that, then slither down to the floor.

I hate it, coming back, coming down. I was flying, a million miles away, tumbling through a field of stars.

“I know, honey. Hold on. I’ll be there soon.”

When Dee hangs up, I scooch around to the side of the bed, let my fingers rest ever so lightly against the dead-spider curl of the boy’s hand. Dee is too good; I don’t deserve her.

“Sorry.” I lean my head against the disgusting polyester comforter.

The dead boy hasn’t earned my apology, but it’s not for him.

*   *   *

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, Dee found me shivering in an alleyway. She didn’t know me, I barely knew me in that moment, but she asked me how she could help. I told her I remembered dying in a faraway land. I told her I used to have wings, I used to know how to fly. She didn’t laugh, or call me a liar, or tell me it was all in my head. She took me to a diner and bought me breakfast.

I’m trying to be better, for her. I’m trying to pay her back, but I keep fucking it up.

Oh, Bell. What did you do?

Let me tell you another story.

After she saved me, Dee let me crash on her couch for a while. She’s studying to be a social worker, but when she isn’t doing that, she spins at the local clubs. I didn’t know what to do with myself that first week she brought me home, so I went and watched her work.

Sweat-slick bodies, sliding against each other on the dance floor. Music thumping louder than a heartbeat. Colored lights flashing everywhere. There was a boy whose eyes picked up those colored lights and reflected them back, but seemed to have no color of their own.

Dee keeps a water bottle nearby when she works; it gets hot in the clubs. I watched the boy with every-color eyes slip something into it when Dee wasn’t looking. I knew he wanted to hurt her.

And then everything went all…

It was like touching my finger to an electric socket, like holding a star in the palm of my hand. Incandescent anger, a dog with its hackles raised. In that moment, I thought I knew exactly what I was made for: protecting Dee, tearing that boy apart.

I took Dee’s water bottle and I took the boy’s hand. I made sure he saw in my eyes that I knew what he’d done, and then I drank the entire bottle down and smiled. His every-color eyes went all wide – a girl who would do that, knowing the water was drugged. It should have been a red flag, but it only made him hungrier.

I stole him away while Dee was working and taught him how to fly.

Dee yelled at me for a good solid hour when I slunk back home. She didn’t know what had happened to me. She was scared. Didn’t I know I could have been killed? Not me, Dee. Never me. I already died once – at least once – and look at me, I’m perfectly okay. I didn’t want to lie to her, ever, so I told Dee everything. Then I made her waffles for breakfast.

The motel room door opens and I lift my head. Dee’s father installs high-end security systems. He’s a total nerd for locks. When they were kids, he made a game of challenging Dee and her sister to see who could pick a lock the fastest. Lucky for me, that means she’s really good at breaking into motel rooms to save my sorry ass.

“Up you get.” Dee’s arm goes around my waist. “Can you walk?”

“Uh huh.” But I’m not sure I can. There was too little gravity before, now there’s too much.

Dee shuffles me outside, bundles me into the back seat of her car.

“He was so bright, Dee.” She clicks her seat belt into place, starts the car like it will drown out my words. “Like starlight. He burned right up until there was nothing left inside.”

*   *   *

Dee’s apartment. Dee’s bed, which smells of freshly washed sheets. I roll over just in time to be sick in the trashcan.

“Water.” Dee enters holding a glass, puts it in my hand.

“Just let me die.” Self-pity, complete with an arm flung over my eyes to block the light even though the curtains are drawn. “It’s what I deserve.”

I’m trying to make Dee smile, hoping she’ll forgive me once again, but I mean it a little bit too. Can’t stop. Won’t stop. No matter how many times I try. The fact that I’m here, Dee nursing me back from the edge again, is proof of that.

“Do you hate me?” I lift my arm a little bit, sneak a look at her.

“Yes. Very much so.” Her arms are crossed as she leans in the doorway.

Like call and response, this is what we do to find our way back to normal.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve woken up like this, Dee brushing fingers over my sweaty brow. Each time, I promise myself and promise her I won’t do it again. Though sometimes I forget to say it out loud.

“What do you want to do with your life, Bell?” Dee has asked me more than once.

“I’m going to run away and join the circus.” I evade, I avoid. “I’m going to be a famous rock star.”

Dee just shakes her head.

“It can’t just be this forever, Bell. You have to want something from life, something more.”

My instinct screams: no I don’t, wanting to stick out my tongue. As far as I know, I don’t age. I have all the time in the world. This is what I’m good at, this is what I can do. Why does there have to be more?

None of which I say out loud, because I know deep down I’m avoiding Dee’s question. I was never allowed to want anything before I came here, before Dee found me. What if I get it wrong? What if I try and fail?

Dee’s mother is in data security. Between her and Dee’s father, protecting people is literally in Dee’s blood. But none of them could protect her big sister, so I know how even the best-laid plans can go horribly wrong.

Sometimes I’m afraid Dee only takes care of me because she couldn’t take care of her sister. Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone – for her, for me – if I could actually be what I project to all those sad and lonely boys who are just waiting for someone to tell them what to do?

Look at me – I’m charming, I’m available, I’m fun. I don’t want anything at all from my own life, so let me be a supporting character in yours.

I could be that for Dee, except she’s the one who’s got her shit together, and I’m the one falling apart.

“Do you even remember his name?” Dee’s voice brings me back to the here and now.

“Ethan. No. Evan? It was one of those, I’m sure.”

Dee deserves so much better than a bad friend like me.

I hurry to catch up with her in the kitchen, sliding in front of her before she can reach for toast or a breakfast bar or something utterly boring.

“Waffles?” I give her a thousand-watt smile.

I see her wanting to be stern, to tell me off, but she relents and sits at the counter. It feels like a victory, even if I know it won’t last. I pull out ingredients and line them up. She watches me cook. I’m pretty good, actually. My waffles are always perfectly fluffy inside, perfectly crispy outside. Dee even has a carton of fresh strawberries waiting to be sliced, like she knew.

Maybe that’s something I could do? Scrounge together some cash and open my own bakery, an artisanal waffles-only food truck, a classic throwback diner serving nothing but breakfast, twenty-four hours a day?

Right, because bankers are just dying to give out loans to girls with no credit history who can barely make rent and can’t even hold down a regular fucking job. Visions of rejection dance through my head before I’ve even so much as tried, bringing me to the edge of panic. I hate that feeling, as much as I hate that word, so I push thoughts of considering the future, wanting too much, making real plans, right out of my head.

I slide the first batch across the counter, hot off the iron, and try to look chagrined.

“Forgive me?”

“Always,” Dee answers with her mouth full, so I can’t tell how much conviction is in her words.

She cuts her waffles into methodical squares. I nibble – top left corner, right edge, bottom middle – like each bite is part of an arcane code.

“Are you going out tonight?” Dee wipes syrup from her lips.

She tries to sound casual, like she doesn’t care, like it’s my business if I go hunting, and nothing to do with her. I know the answer Dee’s looking for, but I only shrug. She squints, like she’s trying to bring me into focus. Does she see the shine on my skin, the outline of wings? Sometimes I want to take Dee’s hand and ask her to run away with me.

Second to the right. Straight on ’til… You get the picture.

Except that would make me no better than him, the first boy who wouldn’t grow up. You know the one I mean.

I want to be the person Dee thinks I can be. I can’t fly here, and running away from problems never helped anyone.

“Just be careful, okay?” Dee looks like there’s more she wants to say, but she knows it’s pointless; it’s all been said before. “I’m working tonight until at least one a.m.”

A pointed look, an unspoken warning – don’t fuck up until then because I can’t drop everything to come save you.

“I need to shower now so I can hit the library before work.” A not-so-subtle hint to leave. “Be good.”

Dee squeezes my hand and shoos me toward the door. I smile for her, trying to mean it, trying not to make her worry. I promise, this time, I’m really going to try.

*   *   *

There’s an open interview session at one of the local hotels, drop in anytime between three and five, résumé in hand. I figure what the hell. I could clean rooms. I could wash dishes. Everyone has to start somewhere.

The interviewer spends most of our fifteen minutes trying to suppress an active frown, looking at the space just above my left shoulder, like shifting me to his peripheral vision will make me less disappointing somehow. Yeah, well, fuck you too, pal.

At the end, I get a handshake and a coupon for half off one drink in the hotel’s high-end cocktail bar. I’m not hunting, not really, just one drink to wind down and then straight home.

The boy glides up, smooth as a shark. Everything about him screams Finance Bro. His suit is a dead giveaway.

“Bourbon, rocks, and another of the same.” He points to my glass, flashing what I assume is his perfected-in-the-mirror-panty-dropping-smile.

I angle my seat in his direction, letting him get a good look at me. Spiked blonde hair, bitten nails, lipstick chewed to the faintest smudge of color. Glitter shimmering on my skin. Combat boots and a strappy floral sundress – clearly I don’t belong here in this fancy-pants bar. His impression of me is written all over his face: I’m “not like other girls”.

I smile my encouragement. Look at me, I’m quirky, I’m available, I’m fun. I’m your supporting character, here to make your life more interesting. You don’t have to try too hard with me, or even try at all. I’ll just fall right into your arms and be yours, straight on ’til morning.

The bartender places our drinks on the counter, and to his credit, shoots me a look that asks is this okay? I give the faintest of nods. The bartender asked; the Finance Douche assumed. First of what are sure to be many bright red warning flags.

“Are you here for the conference?” He twirls a finger, indicating the hotel.

“Nope.” I snag the orange peel from my drink and lick free the trailing drops of bourbon. “I just like visiting new places.”

“Alone?” Smirk blooming from his smile.

“It’s the best way to get to know a place, throw yourself into the deep end. No safety net, nothing familiar. Just close your eyes and fall.”

I let my hand move closer to his arm without touching. I save that to punctuate my answer to his next inane question. The faintest brush, a little sprinkling of pixie dust. Think happy thoughts. All sense of reason and restraint flies right out the window, and we’re off to never-never land.

*   *   *

Up in his suite, he tells me about himself, even though I didn’t ask. He lets drop casually how he’s tired of dating supermodels, how he wants something real. Ooh, yeah, Mr Finance Douchebag, neg on those high-maintenance girls to show me how down-to-earth you are. You don’t care about looks. Bonus neg, to make sure I don’t think I’m hot shit, then swoop in for the kill.

If he’d care to listen, I could tell him: nothing about this is real. I don’t give a fuck about his emotional growth. I don’t care if he’s ready to move on from hot girl summer to girl with deep thoughts and a tragic backstory fall.

I’m here for one thing: to feed.

A little pheromone-based hypnotic suggestion and Mr Finance Douche is all over me, licking my skin, breathing the glitter-that-is-me deep into his lungs. Fairy dust is a fucking powerful thing. It makes kids leave their parents without a backward glance or a kiss goodbye. It pulls people out of themselves into another world and makes them believe they can fly.

The moment Mr Finance Douche gets me into his bloodstream, I’m a goner. The more he takes, the more he wants. The more he wants, the more I have to give. Like a kid eating candy until his stomach aches, he’s all hunger, no satiation. What I am gets inside his bones and shakes all his inhibitions free. No consequences, just abandon. It’s rollercoaster-drop-ice-cream-sugar-rush-favorite-song-blasting-wind-in-your-hair-best-damn-orgasm-ever all rolled into one.

A feedback loop, building like a storm inside me, setting me tip-to-toes on fire. Everything is fast and loud and bright, bright, bright. My eyes roll back in my head, my skin flickers with starlight. For one brief, beautiful moment, I lift off the ground. I remember how to fly.

It’s like Mr Finance Douche is plugged straight into an electric socket. I see his bones through his skin. Feel the current jolt straight through me. Feeding me with his desire, with his gimme-gimme-grabby-fists-and-call-you-never. But just on the cusp of everything flying apart, when the bed is no longer beneath us and gravity need no longer apply, I stop. Which is something I’ve never done before.

And for one brief, beautiful moment, the world stops with me.

I lean over and catch a reflection of myself in Mr Finance’s blown-wide eyes. Me in miniature, drifting against a field of stars. I remember how to find the second one to the right, feel wings spreading between my shoulder blades. I could keep going, chase that whisper of forever until he’s hollowed out and burnt to ash if I wanted. He might even deserve it. But that’s not what I want anymore.

Sooner or later, everyone has to grow up. I’ve seen firsthand what happens if you try to keep on running forever and never look back.

It catches me by surprise, but giving a shit, doing the work, and actually really trying this time doesn’t sound so terrible anymore.

So what if I try and fail? I’ll try again. Because when you’ve been given a second chance, that’s what you do.

I promised Dee, and I really mean it this time.

*   *   *

I’m out and running. Not away, but towards, through the city streets, dodging puddles, because it rained while I was inside.

I stole Mr Finance’s wallet on the way out. It’s not like I’m going to reform myself all in one go. I left him half-hollowed, bruised and aching, but alive. Maybe just enough of what passed between us will surface from the haze of his mind like a dream that he’ll think twice next time. Perhaps he’ll see a girl who catches his fancy, and take the time to get to know her. Maybe he’ll ask instead of assume.

If I can summon up some degree of hope for him, maybe there’s hope for me too.

The idea of it, of having hope, terrifies me. And panic is there waiting to trip me up, to pull me down.

I see it in the puddle first. The bus idling next to the curb, waiting for passengers to load. His name in bright green, emblazoned across the side, accompanied by a cartoon logo that looks nothing like him at all.

A sob lodges in my throat, caught on laughter trying to claw its way up and out. My heart lurches and swoops all at once, rising and falling, just like flying. It’s like he’s holding out his hand, giving me one more chance to fall back into my old ways.

I could get on the bus. I could find a new city. I could start all over again in fresh hunting grounds where at least I wouldn’t be hurting Dee. I could save her for good, by sheer virtue of not being stuck looking after me anymore.

But running away never solved any problems, and only those who refuse to grow up fly out the window without even saying goodbye.

I step back, put my foot down when it was halfway to the bus step and climbing aboard.

Stronger than the impulse to run is an impulse to go home and clean up my apartment. Invite Dee over to my place for once, and make her dinner instead of breakfast just to say I’m sorry. We could sit together with a blanket over our legs, make popcorn and plan to stay up all night watching bad movies, but fall asleep before the first one is halfway done.

I want so badly it hurts and my face aches from smiling.

Mr Finance Douchebag’s wallet is over-engineered, with a catch that releases to spread all his slick, impressive-looking cards in a fan. I rescue the cash, and rifle through the rest, finding Mr Finance’s business card. Turns out his name is Joseph. Who knew? Turns out he specializes in small business loans.

When he sees me again, he won’t remember me, but something in the back of his head will linger – an itching sensation telling him I deserve a break. Telling him he owes me one. And if I really try this time, I bet I can put together one hell of a business plan. I mean, who doesn’t like waffles, after all?

There’s one last story. It’s an old story, and it’s about me. I don’t know if it’s true, but once upon a time, I died in that other land, the one I came from. But I came back to life there too because somebody believed in me. Here, only Dee believes in me, but she can be almost as persuasive as I can when she tries, and maybe, just maybe, it’s enough to get me to believe in myself too.

I’m running again, so fast I’m almost flying. Escape velocity nearly achieved. I’m still grinning, thinking about what I’m going to cook for Dee when I get home.

Clap for Tinkerbell, children. I really think I’m going to make it this time.

Fear of the Pan-Child

ROBERT SHEARMAN

1

I once had a friend at school who’d got a pathological fear of REDACTED. You might well share my disbelief that anyone could be scared of anything as silly as REDACTED, but there you are. (You’ll appreciate my caution in saying the words out loud – it’s clearly for some a sensitive issue.) Certainly with this boy, you couldn’t mention the words to him. He’d go pale, or shake, or quiver – so much you thought there was no way this could be real, he must be putting it on – sometimes he would even scream. There’s a word for the fear of children’s literature, they call it bibliopedophobia. But this kid wasn’t bibliopedophobic. He had no problem with The Wind in the Willows or Enid Blyton, and he positively enjoyed the adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh. You might think that would be better, that his dread was focused on such a tiny thing, that it was specifically limited to REDACTED, and REDACTED’s appearances in the selected prose and dramatic works of J. M. Barrie. But it wasn’t better. His fear had no name. Fear is a lot more reassuring when you can put a name to it.

I say he was a friend. He wasn’t a friend. I don’t think he had any friends, actually. There was something so determinedly odd about him. Children can be very cruel to outsiders.

If you’re scared of heights or spiders, that’s easy – you just do your level best to avoid high towers with cobwebs. But when you have a fear of something that doesn’t exist, where does that leave you? There’d be no relief to it, I think – and he’d be constantly terrified that at any moment REDACTED might burst out of nowhere and drag him off to the NeverPlace. In class he always had to sit in the very centre of the room, at the farthest possible point from any of the windows. And the windows always had to be fastened tight shut, even in summer, even in a heatwave. He wouldn’t thank us for that, of course, all we had to put up with for his sake. He’d be too busy darting his head towards the windows on all sides, looking for signs of danger like a frenzied meerkat. God, I think we hated him.

Children can be cruel, yes – and I don’t say that to exonerate myself, but I wasn’t one of the worst, and I don’t say that to exonerate myself either. (But it’s true, I wasn’t one of the worst.) We called him a lot of names – he might have expected that, that was fair game. But it was a bit relentless. We probably made his life hell. And then there was that time when some of us – not me – held him down in the playground and forced open his mouth – not me – and we put mud in it, and leaves, and I don’t know, anything we could pull up from the flower beds, worms, probably. I watched, but it wasn’t my idea, and I wasn’t the ringleader.

All in all it was no great surprise when one day the teacher told us he was dead. I mean, really, caught between us and REDACTED, what did he have to live for? The teacher told us there’d been an accident, and that she’d answer any questions we might have. Yes, it had been a horrible accident, he’d fallen out of his bedroom window. No, he wouldn’t have suffered, she was sure of that, it would have been very quick. Yes, he’d fallen. Yes, he’d just fallen. No, there was no reason to believe he might have jumped, why would he have jumped, let’s not jump to conclusions. No, he hadn’t left a note. And at that point she looked a bit stern – why, she asked, would he have left a note? Why would I even ask that? Because, yes, I’d been the one to ask. I said I didn’t know, I’d just wondered. No, she said, no note, no jumping, just an accident, a terrible, terrible shame. Should we get back to Maths? Or was there anything else we wanted to ask? Now or never – and she folded her arms, and we just sat there in the classroom, and she glared at us, daring us to come up with something. It was so hot in there. It was stifling. “Oh, at least we can get some bloody air in here at last,” she muttered, and went to open the windows.

2

When Harriet died, I only wanted to do the best thing for our son. Some people said that my decision we move house was selfish – especially my in-laws, but I had never got on with my in-laws, and if there were any little benefit to Harriet’s death it was surely that I could move far away and never have to see them again. The school had given Philip a counsellor. The counsellor advised me that what Philip needed most was a reinforcement of structure and routine. That I needed to offer recognisable stability and resist the temptation to cast all that aside. But he would say that, wouldn’t he? That my son should stay at his school, that I should continue paying his salary. I asked Philip about it. I did – I said, are you happy at your school? Are you actually happy? And he shrugged, which I hardly felt was a ringing endorsement. So we moved. Away from Harriet’s parents, and those dreadful Sunday visits every other month, and all that nagging, and all that grief. And went back home, back to where I’d grown up, back to my parents. It’d be a brand new start. Or not brand new, back to basics. Look, either way, I knew it would be good for him.

My point is, I gave Philip a choice – and if he’d made a choice, I would definitely have taken it into consideration. He wasn’t a very confident child, even before his mother died so suddenly – the stammer was already there, and that way he wouldn’t look at you when he spoke to you, and that way he’d hide so he wouldn’t have to speak in the first place. Was it normal shyness? I don’t know, what’s normal for a seven-year-old? Had I been like that? I can’t remember. I thought my parents would remember. I thought my parents might help.

And I did want help, I did. If it were selfishness to move, then all right, can’t I be allowed a bit of selfishness? Everyone asking me about Philip, how poor Phil was bearing up, how he was coping, and giving him a counsellor – and no one asking me how I was, not very much, not in particular.

I hadn’t seen Mum and Dad in so long, Harriet hadn’t liked them much. Mum put her arms around me and I thought for one ludicrous moment she was going to say I’d grown, but she didn’t, she said she was sorry, and I said there was no need, and she said she was sorry anyway, and I told her not to be. It was fine, it was all fine. Dad had his hands in his pockets. You doing all right, then? I said I was fine. They were shy of Philip, they didn’t know him very well. So Philip was shy right back, which was a shame. Let’s go eat, said Dad, at last; Mum said, let’s eat, I’ve made you your favourite! And I thanked her, and I was a bit curious, I’d honestly forgotten what my favourite was.

It hadn’t occurred to me that Philip would now be going to my old school! It excited me when I realised it, and that seemed to excite Philip too. The day we took a tour around and we met the headmaster Philip looked really smiley again, like it was an adventure! The headmaster was young and full of energy, and I liked his new teacher, Miss Collins, I thought she was sweet. I pointed out old classrooms – “I learned Maths in there!” I said. “You’ll be learning Maths there too!”

And what about REDACTED? Well, nothing, to begin with. That school counsellor had suggested that I try to comfort Philip by maintaining any bonds he had shared with his mother – had she, for example, ever read him bedtime stories? I asked Philip if she had; he said, yeah, sometimes. So I’d read to Philip most nights: a bit of The Lion, the Witchand the Wardrobe, a bit of Harry Potter. But we never read any REDACTED. There was no reason for that in particular. There are lots of other books to read.