The door creaks open. I freeze. My heart thuds louder. I don’t know what to do. All my waiting and listening and worrying, and I never planned what to do if anyone came in...
“Lauren?” It’s Claire. “Are you awake?”
“Yes.” I think I sound normal. I can still feel my heart race inside my rib cage. It’s as fast as the flutter of butterfly wings inside a trap. I think of the horror movie scene this would make: little angelic girl in a tattered pink princess dress, barefoot at midnight, knife in her hand. “Claire, out of curiosity, do you have your knife?”
“I left it with Prince Fluffernutter. He was scared.”
“Good. Can’t sleep, either?” I prop myself up onto my elbows. In the moonlight, her princess dress looks like it’s shimmery white, making her look ghostlike. Her face is in shadows, but I see the silhouette of strands of hair flying in all directions.
“It’s not that. I just thought you’d want to know that Peter is here.”
“Oh.” I process that information, trying to decide what it means that he came back. He wants to help me. He doesn’t hate me. Or he’s bored again and has nowhere else he wants to go. Or he plans to murder me in my sleep and display my head as a trophy on top of the eagle on the post office in the center of town... That last one seems unlikely. I decide I’m relieved that he’s back, whatever his intentions. “Thanks for telling me.”
“You’re welcome,” Claire says, always polite. “See you in the morning.”
“Good night.” I listen to her pad out of the room.
I lie awake a few minutes more, and then I dream of darkness and unfamiliar stars and my mother in a crisp, white hospital bed with calla lilies around her.
Chapter Eight
“Wake up, sleepyhead.”
Peter squats at the foot of the bed like a raven perched on a post. His feet are bare and so is his chest. I stare, my eyes feeling thick and gummy, at the swirled tattoos on his chest.
He’s as beautiful as an angel.
Over his shoulder, I see Claire tiptoe into the room. She then lets out a squeal and launches herself at him. He whips around, and she tackles him in the stomach. The two of them tumble to the floor beyond the end of the bed, his coat flying around them like black wings. Both of them are laughing.
I feel an ache inside my ribs. It hurts like a fist clenched inside my chest. I can’t remember when I last laughed like that, free and wild, and for an instant, I wish I could forget home and Mom and work and my life and learn to laugh like that again.
I turn my head and look out the window. It’s streaked with dirt, but I can see the pale barely dawn sky outside. The horizon beyond the houses is tinted with lemon-yellow.
Of course I can’t stay. Stupid to even think it. Mom needs me, and a mob tried to kill me. I don’t need any more incentive than that to find a way home as quickly as possible.
Sitting up, I look around the bedroom. It’s coated in a layer of reddish dust—the dresser, the chair by the window, the headboard. The door to the closet is ajar, and I try to remember if it was open last night. I swing my legs out of bed and cross to it. The closet has a few suits and dresses hanging in it. I push them aside and reach in to touch the back wall of the closet. I don’t know what I expect to find. Secret passageway maybe. Narnia. The closet is large enough to hold someone, and there’s a pile of blankets at the base, curled like a nest, and I have a sudden—and crazy—suspicion. “Did you sleep in here?” I ask Peter.
Peter looks at Claire. “No?”
Claire giggles.
He’s like Peter Pan. A dark, mysterious, sexy, grown Peter Pan, who can somehow be dangerous and charming at the same time. I don’t know if he’s teasing me or Claire.
“You didn’t because that would be creepy,” I tell him firmly.
“He’s not creepy!” Claire cries. “Take that back!”
As graceful as a gymnast, he springs to his feet. His speed and strength are both clear in that single movement. “It’s all right, fierce princess. You don’t need to defend my honor. At least not before breakfast.”
Jumping up next to him, Claire claps her hands. “Ooh, breakfast!”
Peter shakes his head. “I’m not supplying breakfast—Goldilocks is, if she can find our porridge.” He grins broadly at me, looking as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. “Ready to begin your training?”
Standing, I tug down my shirt. The wrinkled white business shirt hits midthigh, thankfully, but I’m aware of his eyes on me as I glance out the window. I see houses that look as if they washed up on shore, jumbled together without streets. Debris is piled between them. I could have sworn this view was empty desert yesterday. “Ready to go home. And that’s not a whine. You want revenge on the Missing Man. What could mess with him more than sending home someone he didn’t want to send home?”
“Stayed up late thinking of that argument, didn’t you?”
“It’s a sound argument.”
