Another Pan (52 page)

Before leaving the attic, Wendy had taken the
Book of Gates
from Poet. She had run home, tears streaked down her face. She burned it in their fireplace when Professor Darling was still in school.

And now Peter was gone. He hadn’t contacted Wendy for days, and she was sure she wouldn’t hear from him again. He was off finding some other way to live forever, some other mythical fountain of youth. A part of her hoped that he would find it. But another part of her wished he would be lost in some faraway timeless place — that he’d never get the chance to come back to New York again.

Wendy did try to redeem herself with Tina. When the book went missing, Simon immediately called the police, making a huge spectacle of the robbery and blaming the new RA (the one who had yet to be fired) and the criminals from the boys’ dorm. Wendy could see in his face that he wanted revenge. When the police arrested Tina a few hours later, it was Wendy who gave her an alibi, claiming that Tina had been giving her one-on-one advising. As for the Marlowe LBs, they all had their parents’ lawyers on retainer. Tina left soon after to find Peter. She just quit her job and disappeared down a lonely alley off Lexington Avenue.

Professor Darling went back to teaching his famous unit on the five legends as if it were all just a story. But everything wasn’t the same. Not anymore. John and Wendy knew now that their father was no kook. As for Professor Darling, he walked to school with his head held higher, because suddenly his kids didn’t ask him to wait fifteen minutes after they had left the house. And John had finally accepted his father’s Facebook friend request. And this morning, John’s status update was
John Darling is dusting antiquities with the Professor
.

Simon went back to the British Museum, but what could he say? All that had been lost was one book, which most of them believed to be a copy anyway. They had already authorized its donation to the New York governor, so nobody really cared. Except for Simon, who lost his job as gubernatorial curator.

Meanwhile, in the basement of the Marlowe School, a statue of Neferat reclined silently next to a pile of discarded exhibit items. A few feet away, a marble that had once been its left eye rolled along the edge of the wall. A dark fog lingered in the basement, casting a layer of soot and filth over the objects in the room. Up above, the school had gone back to the cheerful place it had once been. But here in the basement, the darkness hung and waited, shapeless, motionless, its broken eye hidden from the world. Now, finally, the dark spirit could recover its strength, and it wouldn’t have to be cooped up, away from the malleable world of the living that it so craved. Better yet, it wouldn’t have to be satisfied with a weak and sickly body. There in the basement, the wicked nurse waited for her chance to haunt Marlowe once more.

That night, as Wendy turned over in her bed, she thought she saw something move — a long shadow in the windowsill. Was that a figure in the window? She looked again, but there was nobody there. She went back to sleep.

For Peter, too, this night had no end. As far as nighttime beasts are concerned, regret is a tough one to beat back. He lingered behind the glass for a few more seconds. Perched under Wendy’s windowpane, he stopped and watched her brush her strawberry hair one last time. Then he darted away, a lonely, haunted look coloring his face.

D
ANIEL
N
AYERI
has held many book-related jobs, including editor, literary agent, and children’s librarian. He is also a professional pastry chef and award-winning stuntman. His sister,
D
INA
N
AYERI,
is a former teaching fellow in economics who holds both an MBA and a master’s of education from Harvard University. They were born in Iran and now live in New York City and Amsterdam, respectively.