Panic

Prologue

Prologue

            In a large house on a busy street in London, there lived a family with the name Darling.  If you were to knock on the door at around eight o’ clock in the evening, when the traffic had died down, the door would be opened by Mary Darling, a lovely woman with red silky hair and deep blue eyes.  She would invite you in, and you’d be met in the hallway by George Darling, her husband.  George, a tall man, who, at some times, would look like a stiff cane used to punish naughty children.  George would shake your hand, and then usher you into the parlour.  Mary would offer you tea, and you would accept.

            Mary would then call for her daughter Wendy.  You would hear footsteps from above and then hear soft pattering on the stairs.  Wendy would poke her head into the room, and you would see a pretty girl of seventeen, with brown hair and hazel eyes that would probably appear green, if she was wearing blue, her favourite colour.  Mary would ask her to make tea, and Wendy would dash off to the kitchen. 

            George Darling would politely excuse himself and fetch his two sons, John, a young man of twenty three, and Michael, a handsome lad of twenty.  John would immediately begin conversing with you about Oxford University, the school he attended, and Michael would stare at the ceiling until Wendy re-appeared with the tea tray.  Michael would eat as much as he could get his hands on without seeming impolite, and George would ask you about work and your family.  Wendy would sit between John and Michael, and would seem interested in your answers.  If you looked closely, though, you would see that her mind was elsewhere. 

            After you left, if you stood outside, shrouded in darkness, you would see Mary and Wendy go into the kitchen to clean the dishes, and George and John would smoke a cigar, while Michael would bury his nose in a book.  When Mary and Wendy finish, you would see them re-enter the parlour.  John and Michael would bid their parents a goodnight, and Wendy would give her mother a hug and her father a kiss.

            They would disappear for a time, and then you would see the gas lamps in the upstairs turn on, and Wendy, John, and Michael would gather in John’s room to talk.  You would see a maid enter, and Wendy would wave her away.  Then you would see Michael ask Wendy something, and she would shake her head.  John would wheedle and Wendy would reluctantly begin talking.  And if you stayed long enough, you would see Wendy, getting more excited the longer she talked, telling a story, and Michael and John would be genuinely enamoured.  You would see Wendy finish, and she would leave, along with Michael.

            Now if you had visited the Darling home about five years ago, after the story Wendy and Michael would have left for a few minutes, only to return in their night clothes; Wendy in a blue nightgown and Michael in red striped pyjamas.  Together, the three children would sit on the window seat and stare off into the distance.  They would have waited so long, that you would have become tired of watching, and might have started to walk away.  As you began your journey home, you would see a young boy, dressed in green, fly to John Darling’s window.  You would turn around, and look back towards the Darling house.  John would open the window, and then the boy in green would enter the room.  After a few minutes, the boy would fly back out the window, this time followed by John, Michael, and Wendy.  They would fly, and if you looked up towards the sky after them, you would see them head for the second star to the right of the North Star.  You would watch them, and, suddenly, there would be nothing to watch.  John, Michael, Wendy, and the boy in green would simply not be there anymore.

            You would probably shake your head, trying to clear your head, and tell yourself that you were imagining things.  Yet as you walked home, you would think to yourself that there was definitely something different about the Darling family, and, about that, you would be perfectly correct.