Page 67 of Lost in the Never Woods

“So, I ran after you. It was pretty easy to hear your crashing through the woods.” He frowned, glancing over at Wendy. “They’ve been unnaturally quiet at night. No owls, no crickets. I haven’t even heard any animals scurrying around. Anyway, when I caught up to you at the clearing, I saw that the shadows were trying to take you, so I used the only thing I could think of to try to stop it: pixie dust. But if we have to rely on that in order to stop my shadow, I think we’re in trouble.” Peter’s hands went back to his sides as he hopped to the next rotting tree.

“Like I said, my magic is still getting weaker. The longer I’m here, the faster it fades. These shoes could barely stay on my feet yesterday morning,” he said, balancing on one foot and raising the other as evidence. “Now my toes are crammed into them.”

Wendy tried to look at him more closely as he stood perched on the fallen tree. It was hard to tell exactly how much he was changing day by day.

No one could possibly mistake him for a middle school–aged boy now. Indeed, he looked like he could be one of the senior guys on her swim team: tall, toned, and tanned. This was good news, really. It meant it was far less likely that someone from the emergency room or one of the police officers would recognize him.

But the far more dire reality was that they were running out of time. Wendy didn’t want to think about what might happen to Peter if he lost all of his magic. Would he turn into an old man? Disappear? Turn to dust? Something worse?

“Peter, what if that was all part of the shadow’s plan?” she asked.

He jumped down from the tree, landing lightly beside her. “What do you mean?” he asked, eyebrows knitting together as he looked down at her, head canting to the side.

“What if it used Alex to lure me into the woods because it knew you’d come after me and use more of your magic?” Wendy said. “What if it’s just buying time, trying to wait you out until your pixie dust is gone and your magic has been drained out of you?” She didn’t want to think it was possible. Peter gleamed with energy, from his quick smile to his easy laugh. Standing next to him was like being bathed in sunlight. Even now she could feel his warmth on her cheeks. Could the shadow really suck all of that brightness from him?

Peter said nothing for a moment. His eyes stared off into the distance, flickering with intensity and thought. When his face grew pale and his expression fell, Wendy wished she had never brought it up.

“Then I guess we better hurry up and put a stop to it,” Peter said, trying to force a confident smile. He didn’t do a very good job.

As they continued their trek, Peter’s eyes stayed on the ground. Wendy wanted to reach out, to touch his arm and tell him that they would figure it out and find a way to get him back home. But what if the doubt she felt was thick in her voice? So she said nothing.

The trees were denser now. They stood close together, their branches reaching out and embracing one another. Peter suddenly stopped and looked around. “Does any of this look like where you were in your dream?” he asked before letting out a huff of air and dragging the back of his hand across his sweaty brow. “Do you remember hearing running water?”

“No,” Wendy said. She rubbed her temple and tried to remember every detail, but the more time passed, the more they slipped away from her. She was irritated with herself for not writing it all down when she woke up. “The sun was setting, and everything was covered in snow,” she told Peter. “I couldn’t hear anything at first. Then, when I noticed the tree, I started to hear whispers, just like the ones I heard when I was chasing Alex and your shadow…” The intense heat wasn’t making her focus any better. She sighed and shook her head, and her hand fell back to her side. “But no running water.”

Peter turned in a slow circle, looking at their surroundings. The filtered light caught the copper in his hair. “If the tree was really that old, and the other trees around it were really that dense, then we need to go right into the heart of the woods,” he explained. He stopped and turned to Wendy. “And that is going to take longer than just a few hours.”

As much as she hated the idea of going even farther into the woods, Wendy knew he was right. She wrapped her arms tightly around her middle. “You’re right,” she said. Thick defeat settled inside her. There would be no outsmarting the forest. “But we haven’t got enough time to do it now. We should probably head back for the day.”

Peter nodded.

Wendy closed her eyes for a moment, trying to fight off a sense of impending doom crawling under her skin.

There was a crunch of leaves and then the light pressure of Peter’s hand against her arm.

“Hey.” She opened her eyes to find his, brilliant and blue, watching her. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s go this way,” he told her with a quiet smile, tilting his head down the slope.

Seeing as she had no idea where they were, let alone how to get back home, Wendy nodded in agreement.

Instead of going back the way they’d come, Peter led her farther down the ravine. She did her best to navigate the flat rocks and boulders.

Peter was an entirely different creature. Instead of moving slow and lazy, taking his time teetering across the terrain, now he was alert. He leapt from rock to log, pausing every so often to listen before setting off again.

Wendy panted, doing her best to keep up, but the farther they went into the woods, the quicker Peter moved. Her hair clung to her sweaty forehead and stuck to her lips. “Is this the way back home?” she asked through huffs of air. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see!” Peter said, flashing her a smile over his shoulder.

Wendy scowled in reply. She was too hot and winded to argue. Gradually, she noticed slight changes in the scenery. The foliage was a darker green in this part of the woods. The earth was damp, and Wendy nearly broke her butt sliding on a patch of mushrooms. Gradually, she could hear a steady sound, like thunder, growing louder over her own heavy breathing. Was it passing traffic?

“Peter, where are we going?” she finally demanded, fatigued and annoyed.

He was up ahead, standing on a large boulder. Peter’s posture straightened and he let out a whoop. “Found it!” he cheered, beaming at Wendy before bounding out of sight.

“Ugh, Peter!” Wendy scrambled after him.

When she found him, he was standing on a flat rock at an outcropping, his back to her.

A frothy cascade of water tumbled from a cliff tucked into the back of the ravine. It spilled into a pool at its base before flowing over rocks and boulders down a stream and deeper into the woods. Wendy’s jaw went slack. It wasn’t a huge waterfall, maybe only thirty feet high, but the pool was a glistening blue-green. Mist ghosted over Wendy’s cheeks, cool and welcoming.