The Moment You Doubt (a peter pan story)

4 - Lost

"Aha! I've got 'im, now! I've got the scurvy sailor!"

"Svet! What are you doing? Get up!"

"Odysseus will be so proud of me, you know. Out of all you sad sacks, I'm the only one to manage a kill on one o' Hook's crew-- don't fight, you pathetic leech! What sort of a man can be taken down so --"

"Svettie, I said get up! Does that look like a man to you?"

Something warm swept over my forehead with the size and pressure of a small hand. She brushed the dirt away from my face, brushing my hair back. Silence fell like a sudden wave had doused out the screaming and crashing and then, after that, the murmuring and rustling.

My head smarted with angry flames. So quickly, so brutally, these little creatures had leapt from the wood and torn me away from . . . oh, I could hardly grasp his name, now. Something dense and stifling like fog had taken over my mind. I just felt the emotion that came with the thought -- abandonment, hollowness in my stomach and pin-pricking in my heart. Where had he gone and why, why so suddenly? Why no goodbye, no chance to thank him or kiss him or whatever it was I had been wanting to do so badly.

"A lady?" Said one of the voices, the smaller one, high but powerful like a . . . well, like a what? My mind lolled away from the conversation. I felt concussed, but then, my brain couldn't seem to decide what that word meant at all. Like a kazoo, I thought, a voice like a kazoo. Or no, like one of those colorful little horns you blow into on New Year's that rolls out with the air like you have a giant tongue sticking out of your mouth.

"Yes," said the other. "And you've killed her!"

A new voice, father, joined in, "Oh, Svettie. Dessa had brought her to us," she lamented, "A lady to take care of us. And now you've gone and killed her!"

Who did you kill, I wanted to asked. The little voice sounded so sweet and gentle. She wouldn't kill anyone, I tried to tell the rest, but words didn't come to me. When again a small hand brushed over my face, a knuckle tracing my lips, I realized that I must have some part in this strange conversation. Someone, the girl with the kazoo voice, perhaps, laid their head on my stomach and began to weep into my nightgown. There there, I would have said if I could.

"I always dreamed of this day," wept the little girl. She whimpered and wiped her eyes on my nightdown. "When our mother would come. I saw her in my dreams, I did, e'ery night. And then when she really came, I killed 'er! Oh," she groaned. "Dessa's gonna have my head, this time, and I right well deserve it."

I could feel the others moving closer, could hear their feet on the leaves. The other one, an older sounding girl with a quiet but severe tone, said in a voice that was almost sympathetic, "Oh, Svet. Don't you worry about Odysseus. We all saw -- we know you didn't mean any harm."

At the mention of the name, I nearly sat up straight and demanded to know who they were, but my instinct warned against it -- wait it out, it told me. Besides, my bones felt heavy as lead. It was so much easier to just lay in the brush and let this girl cry into my stomach.

"Yes," said another girl, then another, then another. "It wasn't your fault."

"Shall we hide her?" Wondered one.

The others were muttering in agreement (the mood was all very solemn) when the sky above shook, leaves scattering down like heavy rain, and every utterance ceased immediately. The girl weeping stifled her sobs, hastily jumping away from my limp body. I heard a gentle fluttering like the flap of hummingbird wings, followed by the crunch of feet on a ground covered in leaves and twigs. The girls held their breaths and so did I. I wished Jas's hand would reach for mine, protect me against the darkness behind my eyelids.

"Well, hullo, you lot," said a voice, one so wonderfully familiar that I felt my breath catch with relief the way I did so often when I realized that maybe the Lillian on my boyfriend's phone was actually just his sister, or something of the like. The fear and abandonment inflating in my stomach paused and looked up, wary. "I'm back," said Odysseus. "Aren't you glad to see me?"

After an awkward chunk of silence, one of the girls, the oldest sounding one, said, "Hello there, Dessa."

"Hello," Muttered the others. One piped up with a, "glad you're back."

"What a sad state you're all in," said the girl, disapproval bubbling in her voice. I could tell she hadn't seen me yet. A thought brewed in my head -- well, I couldn't move anyway, could I, so why not just stay "dead"? I wondered how she would react to my demise.

Deaths never really affected me much, not until Nan. When my grandparents died, I went to the funerals and wakes and sat around in black, feeling evil for shedding no tears. She lived a good life, people kept telling me, or He was a good man. Maybe that was why Nancy hit me so hard. No one said that. She hadn't lived any sort of a life, and no one knew what sort of a man she would have wound up being. I listened to the shuffle of Odysseus' footsteps in those strange leather shoes and shivered on the ground.

"I will cheer you up," said she. I heard Hestia jingling harshly nearby, staunch in disagreement. "Do you know what I've brought back for you?"

The girls shared a guilty silence. No one said anything until the small one sighed and said, "What is it?"

"Don't be so glum!" Odysseus exclaimed. "I've brought you back a mother, just like I promised! Have you seen her? I don't know where she's gotten off to . . ."

Up until then, I'd been thinking, What a strange misunderstanding, each time the girls mentioned me being their mother. What a strange thing for them to think. But once Odysseus said it, my heart began to race. What would I want with some random lady's purse, I heard her saying, so many nights ago when she'd snatched my bag. I heard Walker's deep, joyful laugh as the doctor showed us a tiny, fetal Nan bouncing around in my uterus on the sonogram. I wanted to reach for her, but I laid still and forced my eyelids to remain stoically shut.

"Well, you see, Dessa," said the older sounding one. "The thing about that is --"

"I did it!" cried the little one. I could feel the heat of her small, agitated body beside me as she sprang up to her feet, tears chopping up her words. The others uttered words of shock, some gasping at her admission. I felt the air go chilly as we awaited the next words. "I've gone and killed her, I did. Oh, Dessa! I ask you for a Mother and you go out an' get me one an' then I just off 'er like that --" I heard the unrelenting rustle of leaves as she (I assumed) fell to her knees in beg of Odysseus' forgiveness.

"You killed her?" said Odysseus. Her words sounded like sharp blades, striking one after another. I too felt frozen in fear, heart beating fast in my still chest.

The little girl gave a sob. No one else volunteered an answer.

Odysseus gave a little sniff, disapproving. "Well, then," Said she. "The lady is dead?"

"Yes," wept the small one. "She is lost forever."