Page 87 of Lost in the Never Woods

Every nerve in her body was tense and screaming. She couldn’t relax. There was no way she could fall asleep.

Wendy’s hand shot out and clicked the fairy lights back on.

Peter was already watching.

“Sorry, I … can’t,” Wendy muttered. Shame sweltered on her skin. She felt like she needed to explain herself to him. “I—”

“It’s okay,” was all Peter said. His voice was gentle, which only made her feel more pathetic.

Wendy rolled onto her back and tried to will herself to sleep, but her mind wandered to the woods.

The gentle chirping of crickets drifted to her ears. She looked over at Peter. His eyes were closed, arms still tucked lazily behind his head, but his mouth was pressed into a small circle. Delicate cricket chirps flowed past his lips. Wendy blinked slowly, admiring the warm glow of the fairy lights on his skin. The slight dip in his throat. The trail of freckles down his bare arms. Wendy’s eyes slid shut. She drifted off with Peter’s cricket song and his smell enveloping her, lulling her to sleep with thoughts of Neverland.

CHAPTER 18

Pain

Wendy didn’t know how long she had been asleep, or what had woken her up. The fairy lights stood watch over her head and a soft breeze floated in through her window. Everything was dark and silent as it only was in the dead of night. There were no sounds drifting in from outside and no crickets chirping. Wendy rolled onto her side, searching for Peter, but she found only the abandoned sleeping bag and pillow.

Quickly, she sat up and looked around the room. “Peter?” she whispered into the room, but it was empty.

Through the haze of sleep, a thought occurred to her: What if the shadow had taken him? What if it had gotten into her room and did something to Peter while she was asleep? Wendy’s fists squeezed her rumpled sheets.

She leapt from bed, ran into the hall, and stopped at the top of the stairs, perched on her tiptoes. Where did he go? Wendy’s heart raced and she struggled to form a coherent plan. She was about to run down the stairs, to see if maybe—hopefully—he’d just gone to the kitchen for a drink of water, when she heard a soft noise behind her.

Wendy spun around. She expected the shadow to be standing there, waiting for her, but the hallway was empty. Just the locked door to her old room. She heard the noise again. This time, she could tell it was coming from behind the door. Again, she glanced around. The sound of her own breathing felt deafening in the quiet hallway.

Slowly, she stepped closer. Anticipation tingled in her fingers, like she was breaking a sacred, unspoken rule. Carefully, she leaned her ear against the door.

There were voices coming from the other side. The quiet murmurings from the woods. The same whispers that had followed her when she was chasing Alex, the same ones she heard coming from the tree. They were on the other side of the door, whispering to her. They grew louder, clearer.

Wendy pressed her ear to the doorjamb. For a long moment, there was only silence. Had she been imagining it? Maybe she was just—

Wendy.

The voice hissed right into her ear with such sudden nearness, Wendy leapt back. Her breath caught in her throat and a thrill ran up her spine. Hope swirled in her chest, dangerous and sharp. Wendy’s eyebrows tipped as she pressed her fingers lightly to the cold wood. If she could just open the door, she could hear what the voices were saying, she could understand them.

Her mother’s voice floated down the hall. Wendy jumped. She glanced in the direction of her parents’ room before turning back to the locked door.

The voices behind the door had gone silent.

Wendy’s hand fell back to her side. The hope drained out of her, all the way to her bare toes. Embarrassment flared on her neck. She turned her back to the bedroom door and shook her head at herself. She rubbed her nose on the back of her hand. She really needed to get a grip.

Again, her mother’s faint voice tickled her ears.

Wendy crept down the hallway to her parents’ room. The door was cracked open and she could clearly hear her mother speaking.

“Are you all right, my darlings?” she gently cooed. Wendy’s grip on the doorframe tightened. Her mother was just talking in her sleep again. “You aren’t hurt?”

“Of course not, Mommy.”

Wendy froze. Her heart lodged in her throat.

She knew that voice. That was her brother Michael, so soft and always on the verge of laughter. She could hear the smile in his voice.

“I would never let anything happen to Michael, you know that.” And that was John. His voice was distinct. He always sounded much older than he was, like he was impersonating their father’s timbre, always speaking in absolutes. Wendy could picture him pushing his glasses up on his nose by nudging the lower corner with a knuckle.

It was John and Michael. They were just on the other side of the door. They were here, they had come back.