Chapter 12 then, and my is this story powering along. Not long to go now...


Mrs Darlings cry woke Wendy when the telegram came. The sight of the red coated officer with a grave face trotting down the path was enough to elicit the scream and the sobs and in the end it was Wendy who had to answer the frantic knocking. The postman was very respectful as he handed over the note, offering his own condolences before striding down the path.

He delivered two items in the end, the small, yellow, rectangle on the telegraph and another, more bulky package. It read in simple terms the terrible news;

It is with deep regret the Army notifies you that your son,

Captain Peter Darling, lost his life in the line of duty for his country.

Our regrets.

Wendy glanced away immediately, her mind suddenly going numb. She handed it over to her mother, who broke into a renewed round of sobs. How did one respond to this sort of thing, she wondered, did one break out the mourning clothes or just go about one business as normal? It was not like losing John and Michael; they had been slow, far away losses which had numbed with time. This was immediate and strong, spirit crushing in its harshness.

She choked back a sob and then reached towards the second package; a bulky brown package with a stamped address. Not even handwritten; just like the telegram there was no note of personality in it. She opened it up and a letter floated out, which she seized like a lifeline; perhaps the telegram was wrong!

It was a handwritten note, on slightly stained white blotting paper. Unlike most communications from the front it had not been cut apart by the censors scissors, but instead it had been allowed an unrestricted passage from the writer to Wendy.

16th march, 1915

Dear Mrs Darling,

It is with great regret that I must inform you of the death of your son, Captain Peter Darling. He was a fine officer and a great example to both his company and his superiors. I feel that it is hard to express the regret I feel for Peters death, I counted him as both a good friend and one of the best captains in the army. It is rare that one has the honour to command a gentlemen of such honour, bravery and intellect and I shall severely miss his cheer presence and control under fire.

I feel honour bound to describe both his conduct at the front and the manner of his death. It was a little after Noon of the 14th that his section of the tench was struck by a small calibre artillery shell, which scored a direct hit upon Peters bunker. I know it is little comfort to one in mourning but his death would have been instant and painless.

As an officer Peter was one of the finest I ever knew, and his conduct in the trenches was exemplary. He managed to save his men from death on many occasions, and indeed once saved by own life after our trench was briefly sized by the Hun. It is for this reason that I have recommended that he be buried with full military honours as well as recommending him for a post-humorous Distinguished Service Cross.

It was said by the men who uncovered Peters body that they saw a golden angel heading skywards as they dug and that seems an appropriate icon for Peters life in the front, as I presume he lived at home as well. I hope this letter finds you in good health and I have enclosed what remains of Peters belongings in the hope that this will provide a slave to the grief.

If you have any wish to discuss Peter or ever need any aid please contact me,

Major Edmund Sharpe

Wendy placed the letter on the table and slowly reached into the package once more. She felt nothing. Pain and sadness would come later; she was sure, but for now she felt as though she was made of steel, numb to any such pain.

There was very little within the package, just a set of clean clothes and the letter that she had sent to Peter weeks ago. She supposed the rest had been destroyed in the blast, or soiled beyond measure. The letter seemed so unimportant now, a small token of pettiness that hadn't ever reached its intended target.

She looked at it again and noticed the grubby fingerprints that had stained the card, she knew those prints. Peter had opened it and read it and suddenly it seemed the most dear and important thing in the world. She didn't question how it had survived the blast, or how it had managed to avoid being muddied and bloodstained, she just turned it over and over in her hands.

She glanced at it again and it seemed to her that there was something written on the blank side of the writing paper. Maybe it was just an optical illusion but she could swear that a message glowed gold against the white of the paper;

'Don't worry'

She looked again and it was gone, just a blank sheet of paper.

The rest of the day was a maze of sobbing and condolences from various family and friends as the news spread round the neighbourhood of the Darling family's loss. Wendy hated the whole experience; the multiple cups of tea, the tears, the way that her mother seemed overcome by the loss. She just wanted to shake people and tell them that Peter wasn't dead, that Peter couldn't be dead.

She felt like people who hadn't known Peter where mourning for him, shedding tears for a man that they had never truly known. It all felt so false, so wrong that they'd act that way for a man that that they didn't know. They where morning, she decided, out of compulsion and protocol, rather than out of any real sadness at Peters loss. They where pretenders she decided and she hated them for it.

Hate was the only emotion she felt now, hate and an overwhelming apathy for life. She had loved Peter and yet she did not feel sad at his death; and for that she hated herself, she felt she should have been feeling so much regret at the death of her friend, her brother, her love... No. Not that. And now those hesitant dreams that came to her in the deep in the night would never be fulfilled.

She laid her head upon her pillow that day in despair and shut the window of the first time. She couldn't sleep, she lay awake and tossed and turned until well into the night, trying to come up with scenarios in which Peter hadn't died, in which he'd survived and the two of them would live happily ever after.

A knock on the window woke her from her semi-slumber, startling into a violent awakening. Was it John? It had not yet been a month but timekeeping in Neverland was notoriously inaccurate. She rose and headed to the window, opening it to let in the cool twilight. There was nothing there. She returned to bed, cursing her imagination.

Another knock.

She opened the window again to see nothing once more, and again cursed herself a second time. Was madness visiting her this night, stealing is like the sandman to poison her dreams? It could not be.

A third knock, and this time Wendy choose to ignore it. She would sleep, she decided, and the dreams of knocking would melt in the morning sun. A third. A fourth, till the knocking became so insistent that it dragged her from her bed and forced her to the window once more, and there, hovering above the window pane was Peter.


Well, I couldn't kill him off forever could I?

as usual I'm going to ask you to R/R, thanks for all the really good criticisms so far...

BrooklynRed