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For a long time afterwards, Michael can’t remember what exactly happened to them that night. Wendy moves into her own bedroom and spends most evenings with her door closed. Michael can hear her crying. He thinks her window’s often open because he can hear the breeze tickling the wind chimes their father brought her. John just shakes his head and tells him to be quiet when Michael asks. After a few months, Wendy smiles more often and takes him to the park for walks with Nana. But she won’t tell him any stories, even when he begs. She says her storytelling days are over. Instead, she sews in the evenings, though she’s developed a habit of worrying her thimble back and forth, so it takes her forever to darn Michael’s socks. Sometimes he has dreams about a pirate ship and a ticking crocodile. He can’t make sense of it, for how could a crocodile tick? He’s afraid to ask John. John spends most of his time reading about the history of England and lecturing them all on the Wars of the Roses.
Every spring, Michael hears the wind chimes jangling again and wonders why Wendy’s fallen asleep with her window open so early in the year. But John tells him to leave it alone.
By the time Wendy gets married (to William, the son of one of their father’s coworkers, who is quiet and good at maths and seems like he’s never told a story in his life), Michael only has dreams about normal things like falling and being late for his exams. Sometimes, he wakes up from a falling dream with his heart racing and a peculiar weightless feeling in his body. It’s a familiar feeling, somehow, and an old thrill races through him each time. The feeling passes after a few moments, but he wishes that Nana were still alive to push her tired wet nose into his palm.
Wendy decides to name her first baby Peter, and John shakes his head and mutters something that Michael doesn’t hear. Then it turns out to be a girl called Jane, and William, of all people, says it’ll be all right, she’ll have lots of adventures anyhow. Michael looks at the trembling, hopeful smile on Wendy’s face and feels something he can’t quite identify slide into place.