because you are wiser than you let on—when you’re not distracted by boys—you can probably guess what it is.”
The fairy pulled a face.
You’re returning to stinky London.
“Yes, I’m afraid I am,” Wendy sighed. “Just like in all those terrible stories I said I would never, ever tell or write. The ones English authors love so much, about experiencing magic and wonder as a child and then giving it all up and putting it away to become an adult and take on responsibilities and children and a job—and all that somehow making it all right.
“But I cannot forget what the First said, about how Never Land is a reflection of London, my world. My world has a lot of problems. And not only is it unfair to foist them upon this unfinished, innocent world, it’s unfair to ignore them by staying here and pretending they don’t exist.
“Somewhere right now a toothless old grandfather is shivering in a poorhouse, starving and without visitors. Somewhere an orphan—who wasn’t rescued by Peter—is being beaten by a harsh nurse or sold as a slave to a factory owner. And everywhere in the world, girls have little ability to make their voices heard, or the power to change things. I think about the way I changed things in the Land of the First…and here, with your and Thorn’s help…and I wonder if I can use a little of that magic at home.
“I’ve had the best adventure a girl could ever want—and that is more than I ever dreamed was possible.”
But…I’ll miss you.
“I can’t even think about it, Tinker Bell. It hurts dreadfully. You’re the best friend I ever had. I feel like I’m cutting off a part of me. Forever.”
The little fairy drooped, and she was a sad sight indeed: tattered wings, trembling lips, limp hair out of its messy bun and draping her like an old cloak.
Then she looked up.
Maybe just one last adventure? For goodbye?
“I’d dearly love to see a dragon,” Wendy said eagerly. “I didn’t get to do that.”
The two girls smiled, and gently touched scratched-up, bruised hands.
In one of the less pleasant—but eminently affordable—neighborhoods of London was the in/famous flat of Ms. Wendy Darling.
Her apartment was modest but large enough for Wendy, her books, and gatherings of like-minded people. There was hot running water, electric lamps, and a private entrance. Every room had windows. There was a dining area large enough to serve as the nexus for organizing protests, staging letter-writing campaigns, publishing pamphlets, planning speeches, strategizing actions, and occasionally even feeding unannounced hordes of supporters who dropped by.
And none of them said Wendy talked too much. Some came from a hundred miles away just to hear her speak.
(Even Mr. and Mrs. Darling came over to attend her speeches. They were mostly embarrassed and very slightly proud, but more than anything else surprised by this enterprise of their eldest, dreamiest child.)
(Michael and John were absolutely on their sister’s side about changing the world and voting rights for women, even to the point of marching with her—but that might have been partially due to the number of passionate ladies attracted to the cause.)
Wendy looked mostly the same as an adult; her only nod to the passage of time was the decision to keep her hair up in a messy bun modeled after a dear friend’s style. She also found that her years of dreaming had either left her myopic or caused her to let it go unnoticed for a long time. She now sported a pair of glasses very similar to John’s.
(These were removed when fisticuffs were expected, as when she joined a number of ladies of Caribbean descent at Saxelbrees Café and Salon for a peaceful sit-in. Tea was an English right, regardless of race, color, or creed.)
This particular evening, all was quiet; constituents and suffragettes and equal-rights advocates and rabble-rousers had all been ordered out. Wendy was indulging herself in a pastime with which even her closest confidants were unacquainted.
First she set the kitchen table with a pretty cloth and her best un-chipped tea service.
Next to this she carefully placed another tea set—but this one was tiny: so dainty and perfect that an outside observer would have blinked in astonishment. For Wendy Darling was gifted, passionate, forgiving, and talkative, but not cracked in the head or prone to strange hobbies. And she did not have any cats.
(Or dogs. Nana had passed on peacefully. Snowball was happily adopted by Phoebe Shesbow.)
“Oh, I’ve forgotten a spoon, and a fork for the cake,” Wendy realized. She ran up the cramped flight of stairs that led to a dormer. Her neatly made bed was nestled under a brilliantly large pair of windows that looked out on the sky. Next to it was a rickety nightstand that supported a tall stack of pamphlets, chapbooks, and monographs. And next to that was a chest, on top of which was a very large dollhouse decorated with every conceivable realistic detail.
(“You never played with dolls as a child, Wendy,” Michael had pointed out upon seeing it. Perhaps with a touch of envy.
“Maybe this is just a physical manifestation of your reframing the desire for a child, the natural impulse of which has been subverted by mannish occupations?”
John was very fond of modern psychology.
This sort of thing was usually answered with a disappointed look from Wendy—and sometimes a slap.)
It was a work in progress. If Wendy had a little extra money for herself it went to things like having an exactly 1:12-scale Chesterfield sofa made to her specifications and upholstered in real leather with tiny covered buttons decorating the tufts.
If she had a little extra time for herself—even rarer—she tatted miniature antimacassars out of single-strand silk, or rolled tiny real beeswax tapers. Teensy gas and oil lamps she hadn’t quite worked out yet without teensy explosions.
She carefully opened the miniature china cabinet in the pantry and used the tip of her pinky to pull out a dainty silver spoon and matching fork. It was part of a brilliant charm set she had seen in a jeweler’s shop.
(She had received very funny looks from the jeweler when she had asked him to pull open the jump ring and separate the eating implements off it.)
She hurried back downstairs, laid the spoon and fork next to the cup, and put the kettle on the hob.
Then she proceeded to wait.
It looked like madness: a famous suffragette sitting at an empty table with two very different-sized saucers laid in front of her.
And if one managed to peep into the mind of Wendy Darling—well, that too might look like a bit of madness.
It had been ten years since she had reappeared in the garden of the Darling household, practically naked and covered with injuries, all of which the Darlings managed to keep a secret.
She was not sent to Ireland.
Those ten years had been full of hard decisions, harder work, and fights with her family and friends and even strangers on the street as her notoriety grew. There were small victories, large setbacks, and of course the endless, tiring, and unglamorous work that no one tells you about when you decide to change the world. Boring stuff like writing letters, keeping accounts, assigning funds, constantly reminding people to show up, and politely pursuing them to hold them to whatever promises they made. Usually about funds.
By the end of most days, her writing arm would ache like she had been battling thysolits the whole time.
But she kept herself going with hopes and dreams, with memories of severe deserts and voices that couldn’t be heard. Nothing she did, she reminded herself, was more dangerous than battling pirates—or more terrible than doing their laundry.
And on certain nights, when it felt right, when the moon was friendly and she didn’t recognize all the stars, she set out two cups of tea and waited.
And waited.
Of course, things happened at a different pace in Never Land, even if the years matched up. Peter Pan was a hard boy to keep in line. Promises over there could be put off for years when the promiser thought only an afternoon had slipped by.
“I have so much to tell her,” Wendy said to herself. “The protest outside of parliament where they hit me with that rotten tomato…and then that funny tree I saw growing at the botanical gardens that reminded me so much of rubyfruit!”
The mantel clock in the other room (humorously decorated with a time to change sign penned by one of her friends) continued to ticktock.
As midnight approached, Wendy sighed and stood up to clear the dishes. Again.
At midnight oh one, a golden glow appeared in her kitchen window.
Upon seeing it, Wendy’s face also glowed.
“Tinker Bell!” she sighed, and opened the door.