Page 63 of Lost in the Never Woods

The smile the cashier gave Wendy was markedly less warm.

Wendy slid her debit card across the counter to the cashier. When she looked down, she saw Benjamin Lane, Ashley Ford, and Alex Forestay smiling up at her. They had taped the missing posters to the countertop. HAVE YOU SEEN ME? was written in big, bold letters at the top of all three.

Guilt cramped Wendy’s empty stomach.

When they got their order, they sat down at one of the picnic tables outside, where a cool breeze rolled in from the Columbia River. In the distance, sea lions crooned from the piers. She sucked down large gulps of ice water. The cold in her throat was refreshing.

As soon as he sat down, Peter swept a finger through the whipped cream and popped it into his mouth. “Mmm,” he hummed, eyes rolling back and lids fluttering in euphoria. He held out the paper bowl to Wendy. Waggling his eyebrows, he asked, “Wanna try?”

“When was the last time you washed your hands?” Wendy asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

“You don’t want to know,” Peter told her, grinning around the stem of the cherry he’d popped into his mouth.

Wendy shook her head at him, but she loved whipped cream. Leaning onto her elbow, she got a dab of the whipped cream on the tip of her finger and licked it off. It was real whipped cream, the thick, heavy stuff. Not the kind that came out of a can and tasted like an oil slick.

Peter dug in with his plastic spoon. He hummed to himself and Wendy wondered if he always did that when he ate.

Wendy went for her fries first. They were fresh and piping hot. She had to blow on a golden brown fry before taking a bite. The outside was crispy, the inside soft and fluffy. It was perfectly salty. They were the best fries in town by far. She cooled off her tongue with a taste of ice cream. The cool sweetness of the London Fog, with a nice balance of bergamot and vanilla bean, was the perfect mix.

“How is it?” Wendy asked as she bit into another fry.

Peter’s lips pressed together but his smile was still big enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes. “So good,” Peter said through a mouthful of chocolate and espresso beans.

Wendy laughed and shook her head. “Gross.” He clearly was no ace at table manners. She ate another scoop of her own light gray ice cream.

“Did you come here with John and Michael?”

The question jarred Wendy, causing her hand to hover mid-air, ice cream dripping from her spoon.

No one ever asked her about her brothers, especially in public, especially something so … normal. When John’s and Michael’s names came up, it was in hushed tones and whispers, usually when people thought Wendy couldn’t hear them. Or, like the past couple of days, in reference to something terrible happening.

But Peter asked it so casually. He patiently waited for her reply, his tongue chasing melted chocolate down the side of his hand.

Wendy cleared her tight throat and put her spoon back into the bowl. “Yeah, actually … All of us used to go along the Riverwalk during the summer.” She gestured to the path that went along the edge of the river, lined with piers. “We’d get fries and ice cream.” Wendy toyed with the straw in her ice water. “You know, bubblegum is Michael’s favorite flavor, too,” she told Peter.

He paused from scraping his spoon along the bottom of his bowl. “Michael’s got excellent taste.” Peter’s soft smile encouraged her to keep talking. He was the only person who didn’t give her that look of pity, like she was some wounded dog, whenever her brothers came up.

Wendy smiled and shook her head. “Whenever we came here, he picked out all the gumballs as he ate and saved them in a little paper cup,” she explained. “After he finished all the actual ice cream, he’d shove this pile of slobbery gumballs into his mouth all at once.” Wendy crinkled her nose. “It was disgusting.” She let out a small laugh. “He would crash so hard from all the sugar, my dad would have to carry him back to the car.”

Wendy remembered Michael’s small body draped across her father’s strong arms, brown curls bobbing with every step, completely knocked out. She and John would follow behind, holding their mother’s hands and dancing along dusk’s shadows as the sun set behind the hills.

Peter laughed. “That seems like something he would do,” he mused. “Michael was always sucking all the nectar out of the honeysuckles in Neverland. Really pissed off the hummingbirds.”

Wendy put her spoon down and listened intently, eager to hear stories about being on the magical island with John and Michael.

“You gathered up all the flowers and strung them into a canopy over your bed,” he explained. “You said you liked how the light shone through the pink petals. Do you remember that?”

Wendy gave her head a small shake. “No. Not really, anyway,” she confessed. “All I ever get are flashes of Neverland, short glimpses of it in my dreams sometimes. I remember you, though you were a lot younger looking.”

Peter made a sound of acknowledgment. Clearly, the fact that his body was aging was weighing heavily on both their minds.

“The jungle,” she continued. “And a beach?”

“John really liked the beaches,” Peter told her. “We had to beat some sea lions at a game of tug-of-war to get dibs on the nicest one.” He said this like it was a completely normal, run-of-the-mill, everyday occurrence.

Wendy’s brows furrowed. “I’m still having a hard time with all this,” she confessed, dropping her voice low so no one could overhear. “It still sounds like a children’s book or something. A story.” And it had been. Several stories, ones her mother had told her, and Wendy had told her brothers, and now the kids at the hospital. “Like it’s all make-believe.”

“That’s the point, though, isn’t it?” Peter said. “Whatever you can imagine, you can do.” His tone sounded nostalgic as he stared off toward the river, the ghost of a smile playing across his lips.