“Sometimes, though not often, he had dreams, and they were more painful than the dreams of other boys. For hours he could not be separated from these dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I think, with the riddle of his existence.” - Peter Pan
Peter hadn’t dropped by her house to ask her on a date. There’d been no first kisses or anything else one might expect during a late-night visit. He’d come to whisper about the kind of things you find in bedtime stories.
Lyric was no stranger to myths and tall tales. She was related to legends, acquainted with very real fairy tale love stories. But she never imagined she’d have her own story to tell, or that someone was already telling stories about her. It felt almost silly to even consider, but the longer she tossed and turned that night, the more real it seemed.
But Lyric was no angel. There was no way her voice could chase away the shadows that had crept into Olde Glory East, not when she couldn’t remove them from her own life.
Peter claimed her song had pushed back the shadows, but there was still a lingering darkness. Now that she knew it wasn’t just a figment of her imagination, she could see it everywhere. Stretching across the floorboards, hovering in the dark corners of her room, even in the flickering lamppost outside her window.
Grandpa Selah’s house was no longer her summer retreat. It felt as strange and as foreboding as everything else in her life lately. Like her father not being with them. Or the way her heart felt half crushed with panic at the thought of her sister leaving her behind. Her song writing was going nowhere, but Mel was going places. More specifically, Juilliard. From there, anything was possible.
Lyric was happy for her sister, but frightened for herself. She didn’t have a backup dream, but once her sister left, she knew her mom had more sensible plans waiting for her after senior year. Something reliable. Something safe and stable and more grown up. She shivered, burrowing deeper in her sheets and blankets. As if that could stop her impending doom.
Light spilled into her room, reflected from the glass window next door. Ms. Nova’s house. She didn’t have to look to know it was Peter’s light, Peter’s window. She traded her anxious thoughts of shadows and unwanted change for daydreams about a boy she barely knew who believed in her more than she believed in herself. A boy who smelled like cookies and books and coffee. She smiled at the thought of dimpled, crooked grins, ridiculous nicknames, and warm brown eyes.
The glow was like a comforting nightlight. Lyric found herself able to rest knowing she wasn’t the only one who saw the shadows, who had been touched by their malevolence. She wasn’t alone.
Though she had managed to fall asleep, Lyric was far from rested the next morning. She woke to the scent of bacon and biscuits, and it was enough to get her out of bed. She found her sister snoring, buried under a mass of blankets. She must have crawled into bed in the wee hours of the morning, the few hours Lyric had managed to sleep. Lyric nudged her sister awake, and after a moment of delayed grogginess, Mel shot up out of bed. Her eyes widened. “It smells like a Selah breakfast,” she said, and both girls scrambled for the door.
They raced down the stairs in time to see their mother fanning a smoking oven while their five-year-old brother Louis eyed a platter of burnt biscuits. Lyric opened the kitchen windows to clear out the building smoke while Mel surveyed the rest of the chaos in the kitchen. Lyric breathed in the fresh outside air before taking in the tainted smell of breakfast gone wrong.
“We thought Grandpa was down here …” Mel’s voice trailed off.
Their mother wiped flour from her face with the back of her hand and swiped at strands of wayward hair that managed to escape her messy updo. The stove was littered with cracked eggs, splotches of pancake batter and an empty burnt pot.
Their mother didn’t meet their eyes as she spoke. “I got distracted. Your father called, and I—”
“It’s okay, Mommy,” Louis said, “I’m not hungry, anyway.”
Lyric’s heart twisted. Louis was normally the bane of her peaceful existence. He was a constant nuisance who loved playing pranks on the family. But his laughter always made up for the trouble he caused. Lately, he’d been less of a lovable bugaboo and more quiet and withdrawn.
Lyric, Mel, and their mother shared a look.
“How about we all go out for breakfast and stop at that bookstore your sister likes to hide away at?” their mother suggested.
“No!” The objection came out much louder and squeakier than Lyric intended, nearly drowning out her family’s unanimous support of the idea. Now all eyes were on her. “You go. I’ll stay here with Grandpa.”
Her mother frowned, but Louis pulled on her, his eyes light again. “Let’s go! I want hot chocolate from the bookstore. He made it just right!”
Lyric couldn’t help wondering if Louis was talking about Peter. He sure knew how to leave a lasting impression.
Mel gave her a knowing look. “I’ll help Lyric clean the kitchen. Why don’t you and Lou get some fresh air?”
Their mother looked relieved. “Do you want us to bring you back anything special?”
“Surprise us,” Mel said, shooing them out the door in a way only she could get away with. With their mom and little brother gone, Mel herded Lyric to the kitchen table. “Judging by the bags under your eyes and the way you blush when you’re thinking about who I think you’re thinking of, last night either went extremely well or extremely wrong. Which is it?”
Lyric sighed and her sister rolled her eyes, shushing her before she could get a word out. “Before you tell me everything, there are some things you might want to know. Your barista boy has quite the reputation.”
Lyric groaned, and Mel slapped her hand. “Apparently, he was a track star at his old school. He was planning to go to some Ivy League on a track scholarship. But his family got into a car accident during a really bad storm. Their car hydroplaned. His parents died at the scene, and he injured his spine.”
Lyric went still, her chest aching a little more with every word her sister whispered. Her eyes grew hot with pressure as her heart squeezed, its beat echoing, the pulsing blood rushing to heat her face.
“Some of us don’t have the luxury of dreaming. Some people never will.”
She hadn’t been able to understand him then. She was too busy worrying about her own problems, about her own fears. She’d seen his pain, but she hadn’t asked about it. Didn’t think he wanted to talk about it. He could talk about shadows stalking the neighborhood, but he braced himself every time he showed a little piece of himself that wasn’t happy or likable.
“He learned to walk again, but he’ll never be able to run like he did before,” her sister continued. “He was in a bad place for a while. But Grandpa helped him get through it. R-right before Grandpa started to … well, you know.”
Right before their grandpa got stuck in his own rut. No one knew what triggered it, but now that she knew about Peter, she knew the shadows were connected.
Had her barista boy brought the shadows with him to Olde Glory East? Were they like a virus? Did they infect their victims? Did they feed on their sorrow?
Grandpa had always been such a light to everyone else. He had always been the one everyone came to with problems, the one who always had answers or an excuse to laugh and smile. How had the shadows come? Did they cling to him the way they had to Peter? Were they following anyone else?
“Lyric?” She looked up to find her sister frowning at her. Her brows were creased with worry. Lyric looked over her shoulders, wondering if the shadows were back, if they were coming for her now. But there was nothing. “Sis, what’s wrong?”
Lyric sighed, looking at the mess around the kitchen. “Besides everything?”
Mel rolled her eyes. “And you say I’m dramatic. You aren’t wrong, though. Stuff is messed up. But nothing’s too hard for a Selah. We’ll turn a depression into a renaissance,” she said, breaking into her best Grandpa Selah’s pep talk voice.
“Our songs can inspire revolutions and charm boys out of enchanted wolf skins!” Lyric chimed in, giving her own best impression.
“If we can build fashion empires in our slippers …” Mel declared.
“And beat the sandman at his own game …”
“We can sho’nuff clean this kitchen,” Mel concluded in her Grandpa Selah best.
He was famous for giving lectures disguised as pep talks. He never let his family or neighbors feel sorry for themselves for too long without a story, a moral, and a plan of action.
Mel snorted. Lyric echoed the sound, and before long, both girls were laughing and cleaning up the chaos in the kitchen.
Twenty minutes later, with a little sweat on their brows and large but tired smiles, the girls had the kitchen looking like it always did.
That small burst of joy and love for her sister felt a lot like the other night in the bookstore. The reminder of their grandpa’s rousing speeches and resonant voice stirred something even deeper. It wasn’t a heavy shadow, it wasn’t anxiety or fear. And though it was touched with a bittersweet tinge of sadness, it was light and butterfly-like and fiery.
It was hope.