A short note on this story: the setting is a steampunk universe (think Disney's "Treasure Planet") and I try to relay that by mentioning steampunk-y gadgets and whatnot, but if it's not coming through, or if you have a better way for me to set up such a setting, please let me know! Also, I apologize for the first couple chapters – you will notice they stick pretty closely to the original story. I promise things will take a much different turn later on…
Chapter 1
The sky sparkled as the solar-sails caught the light of the setting sun. The great sails of two arriving ships were almost blinding to look upon, while the smaller sails of the young wind-surfers glimmered as they flitted around the cove. They would be called in soon, their mothers would want them home before the light faded and their sails went dark. The large ships, now pulling up to the docks, would wait out the night.
As the sun went down, the sky went dark and the city lit up.
Wendy sat on the window seat, looking out as she coiled her hair around strips of rag. She and her brothers would be sent to bed soon; they had been ushered into the kitchen for an early dinner, then swept away again before the adult's party had begun. Wendy had almost asked to be allowed to stay up – all her friends were allowed to enjoy the first hour or so of their parents' parties – but her mother had been so distracted by the preparations, and when her father arrived home from the bank he had been so angry, that she thought better of it.
"Hurry up and turn off the light, Wendy!" little Michael called from his bed, "Mother said we have to go to sleep!"
"It's not that bright, you can sleep when it's on," John said from the floor where he was working on one of his clockwork toys which had broken, "I need the light for a while longer yet."
"But Mother said –"
"I don't care! I'm almost done!" John retorted petulantly. Michael screwed up his face, and Wendy knew if he was not diverted he would set to howling.
"Michael!" she said as she hurried to him, hoping to stave off his fury, "Would you like me to tell you a story while we wait for John to finish?"
Michael seemed to wrestle with the decision for a moment before giving a grudging nod.
"Alright, let's see here…" Wendy began, scouring her mind for a plot as she wrapped her arms around her youngest brother, "Have I told you the one about the ship and the windsurfer?"
"No," he answered as he snuggled closer to her.
"Well," Wendy began slowly, "Once there was a ship who was the fastest, largest, most handsome ship in the sky. He traveled all over the world, seeing many strange and exotic sights. But one day, as he pulled into dock, he met a little windsurfer –"
"Is this a love story?" John asked, making a face at the gears he held in his hands.
"Ewwww," Michael added on for good measure.
"It's…it's just a story," Wendy protested, backtracking quickly, "You see, the ship and the windsurfer didn't like each other at all. He thought she was tiny and useless, she had never been anywhere or done anything… And in return she thought he was mean, and too proud of himself that he did not notice anyone else existed."
"Like Father and Mother," John said quietly, placing his toy down.
"Hurry and get ready for bed, John, Nana will be in soon," Wendy admonished him, hoping Michael hadn't heard. The little boy's eyes were drooping, but his arms still maintained a strong grip around her waist.
"What happened to them?" Michael asked sleepily.
"Well… They decided to have a contest –" Wendy began again.
"They should fight!" Michael broke in, much louder than he had been speaking a moment before. Wendy could only look at him in shock.
"What –?"
"And the little windsurfer should win, and beat the other one black and blue," Michael declared, detaching himself and sitting up with all his pudgy four-year-old authority.
"Michael Nicholas Darling that is quite enough!" Wendy managed to stammer, "How could you make up such a horrid story? John, I hope you've cleaned up your things, it is time for us all to be in bed!"
John grumbled as he finished putting away his things, and Michael pouted as Wendy left his bed, but they both crawled beneath their covers and were softly snoring by the time Nana came in. She scratched at the door and Wendy let her in, hoping the mechanisms on her voice-box would not wake the boys.
"I see two have managed to make it to their cribs, the third ought to be going there soon," Nana said, and wuffled quietly as she fixed Wendy with a stern look.
"I was only waiting up for you to say good-night," Wendy responded innocently, clasping her hands behind her back. Nana shook herself.
"A sweet thought child, but it doesn't matter. Your father wishes to see you after this party's over. Go put on your shawl and wait in that chair. Take a little rest but don't be groggy and confused when I come for you later."
"Why does Father want to see me?" Wendy asked, trying to think of the last time her father had taken particular notice of any of his children. Nana bared her teeth.
"He'll forget it, likely as not with how he's been drinking tonight… Don't mind me child, I'm sure I don't know. Just make sure you do as I said, and if he doesn't want to speak with you after all, I'll come tuck you in again."
Nana trotted out the door as Wendy wrapped herself in her shawl and curled up on the large armchair. There was still the tiniest flicker of a flame in the glass lamp, and Wendy turned the knob up ever so slightly, hoping it would keep her awake until her father sent for her. This effort was in vain, for within minutes her head lolled to the side and she drifted off to sleep.
When she woke again she felt it was very early in the morning, almost early enough to still be last night. There was a sound from downstairs, and after a moment she realized that sound had been disturbing her dreams before she awoke. It was her father yelling.
She slid out of the chair, and as she made her way to the door she heard her brothers move. Looking over her shoulder, she saw both John and Michael crawling out of their beds. Father had woken them too.
All three children crept to the nursery door and cracked it open. The sound still distant, they crept to the balcony. Looking down the stairs to the first landing, they could see Nana, lying with her head on her paws, but alert and tense despite it all. She was facing down the stairway, standing guard. Over the noise she did not hear the children open the nursery door, and they did not have to attempt to sneak any closer because now they could see their parents as well as hear them perfectly.
"…as though we were but bugs beneath their feet!" Father was yelling, his voice growing hoarse, "And look at them, the bloody bastards, where do they think they get those fucking airs? I'll tell you, his father was nothing more than a fucking butcher, and his father before that! And here they come, lording it over us both, as though he were the fucking Prince of Wales and she a princess!"
"I'm sure they don't mean it like that –" came Mother's soft voice, soon drowned out again by her husband's.
"Of course they mean it, madam! They look at us in this squalor… Dammnit if I'd known what a mess children make of the household I wouldn't have kept any of them!"
"Sir!"
"Don't you 'sir' me, madam, you've seen what's happen since they came along. I can't walk across the fucking parlor without stepping on a train or a teddy or a doll cradle! And have you seen what happens to my clothes should I lay them out on the bed? Fucking crumpled and wrinkled and absolutely spoiled by the time I return! And that bloody dog leaving her hair everywhere, what's to be done about it, madam? Out, the lot of them must go out!"
"Oh dearest, please reconsider," Mother said soothingly, "You're not calm now, I'm sure things will look better in the morning –"
"Have they looked any better in the last twelve years of mornings?" Father demanded, his fury overtaking him. The wine glass in his hand slipped, shattering on the ground and staining Mother's beautiful white dress. Father did not notice, and continued his rampage, "I won't have it, I tell you, I won't bloody have it! My grandfather was apprenticed by the time he was John's age, and my grandmother was running the house for her parents when she was Wendy's age! They must all start earning their keep around here, I am bloody tired of their lazy ways. Play time? Nana tells me they have a play time! Do I get a play time? Most certainly not! And neither shall they! It's a harsh world out there, and they might as well learn that straight away, madam! And if that man ever comes to dinner and treats me in such a way again…"
Wendy pulled her brothers back into the nursery, shutting the door quietly. She had heard enough, as her mother would say. She looked at her brothers, worried at the toll their father's tirade had taken on them. John was stoically trying to fight tears, and Michael was already hiccupping his quietly back.
"Come on, we must all go back to bed," Wendy said, trying to be stern to mask her own feelings.
"I don't think I can go to sleep again," John said quietly.
"Me neither," Michael declared. Wendy looked from one to the other, knowing she could not order them back into their beds, not when she was not feeling tired anymore either.
"Come, both of you, everyone get in my bed and I'll tell a story," she said, picking up Michael. John followed with more obedience than had been his habit of late, and Michael did not protest.
"There once was a girl," Wendy began, "She'd lost her mother when she was very young, and when she'd grown up a bit her father remarried. The woman he married was harsh and cold, with two daughters of her own who were hateful to the girl. The girl's father died, and after that the stepmother and her daughters made the girl do all the chores, and they made her sleep by the fireplace. Because of this, they took to calling her Cinderella."
"Where did you hear this story Wendy?" Michael asked.
"From Mother," Wendy answered, and they were all reminded again of the scene from downstairs. They were quiet, so quiet that when a bang on the window sounded, they all jumped. It was a very loud bang, and a minute later Nana was bursting into the room, barking and running to the window. Wendy ran after her and opened the window, looking out.
Down below she saw a figure, running away with a board tucked under his arm. Nana continued to bark at the boy until he was out of sight, and then began sniffing at something caught in the hinges of the window. Wendy caught the dark fabric, and had just worked it free when the nursery door burst open again. She hid the thing quickly behind her back as she whirled to face her mother.
"Nana what is it, what's happened?" Mother demanded, looking over each of her children.
"There was a noise at the window," Nana answered gruffly, "When I looked out there was a person running down the street."
"That window is two stories high!" Mother exclaimed, "How on earth could someone have gotten up or down?"
Nana could only growl and shake herself. Mother sighed and came and locked the window personally before drawing the curtains.
"Back to bed now, Wendy," she said softly, "John, Michael to your own beds."
Wendy ran to her bed and brought the dark cloth with her so her mother would not see it. Mrs. Darling looked over her children one last time before leaving the room with Nana.
"Wendy?" John hissed from his bed, "Wendy, what did you get from the window?"
Wendy turned the lamp up ever so slightly, knowing they would be in very great trouble if the light was seen from under the door at this hour. She pulled the dark fabric out from under her covers and spread it across the bed. John and Michael again abandoned their own beds to come to hers, touching the fabric and peering at it intensely. It felt coarse to the touch, but the blackness of it swallowed light like velvet, except where sometimes blue streaks of lights skittered across. It was no ordinary fabric.
"I don't believe it," John said slowly, "I swear I don't believe it."
"What don't you believe, John?" Wendy asked, wishing he'd say it already.
"Look here, Wendy, do you know what this looks like?"
"It looks…it looks almost like a solar sail," Wendy said hesitantly. She really didn't know that much about technology, if only John would go ahead and tell her what it was.
"Exactly – but it's not!" John said excitedly and entirely unhelpfully, "This is a lunar sail, or as it's sometimes called, a shadow sail."
"And?"
"'And?!' Well, these things are illegal! Usually used by pirates because they rely on moonlight and you can't see them coming, the way you can solar sails. There are a great many rules governing the visibility of airships, don't you know, because of how horrible it would be if two airships didn't see each other and crashed."
"But if these can only harness moonlight, won't they be useless during the day?" Wendy asked, confused.
"Well yes, but pirates hide out during the day so it doesn't make much difference. And I guess they're forced to rely on pure steam power during the new moon, just as a solar-sail ship must rely on steam power during foggy weather."
"Oh gee," Michael said, his eyes wide, "A pirate, right there outside our window. We could have been killed!"
"Oh Michael!" Wendy exclaimed. She took the sail away from John's excited fingers and folded it carefully before putting it away in a drawer, "Now that is quite enough talk of pirates, it is high past time we were all in bed. Go on now, I'll tuck you in Michael."
The boys grumbled, but they went to their beds, and finally all was quiet in the Darling house.