“I don’t like this story. It’s boring.” He jumps up. “We’ll play a game instead.”
The words fall like a blow. Her mother’s stories aren’t boring; they’re the most wonderful things in the world. She opens her mouth to object, but something in Peter’s expression stops her. It’s like her mother’s expression, when storm clouds roll in, closing down her face, but worse. A suggestion of hurt lingers in his eyes, but it’s buried deep.
She glances around the fire for the boy with the bruise on his cheek, suspicion over how he got it filling her with fresh dread. Peter is exactly the kind of boy to lash out in his pain, like an animal cornered but still possessed of its teeth and claws.
“I want to hear the rest of the story.” It’s the youngest boy who speaks up, the one who sucked on the tail of his shirt on the beach and hid behind Peter.
His expression is open and guileless, eyes shining with hope as he looks between her and Peter. Peter rounds on the boy, but the boy who called himself Arthur reaches him first, cuffing the boy hard enough that he tumbles off the log he’d been sitting on to eat his supper.
Peter nods approvingly. Pride straightens Arthur’s spine even as the fallen boy struggles against tears. His face is a picture of misery, but she can see that he doesn’t want to cry in front of the others. She can only imagine what they would do to him if he dared. She wants to go to him, comfort him, but Peter brings his hands together in a sharp clap, drawing all attention his way.
“Everyone get up! No more sitting around. It’s time for games.”
He twists his head around, owl-like, to look at her. The boys get to their feet, even the one Arthur pushed. They mill around, full of nervous energy, the camp suddenly charged with the storm that is Peter. She’s the only one left sitting. She looks to Peter, but his anger is gone, replaced by disappointment, as though she’s gravely wounded him.
The considering frown on his lips now is like the sweet way he smiled at her before, only in reverse. It takes the air from her lungs, leaving her throat thick. She tastes salt, her frustration returning and threatening to overwhelm her. What does he expect of her, and why does it change from moment to moment? Why can’t she remember her mother’s stories right? What if she never sees her mother again? What if there are no more stories and she forgets more every day? What if one day she finds her mother is gone completely, not just her stories, but everything about her, vanished like her own name?
She vows silently to tell the stories to herself every night until she finds her way home, as much as she can remember. She won’t let Peter take them away from her, and with them, she’ll hold onto her mother too. As she moves to stand, her foot nudges her abandoned soup bowl. She scoops it up, tipping the bowl back and swallowing it all in one go, wincing as she does.
It’s gone cold, and worse, something catches and scrapes in her throat. She coughs, doubling over, and puts her hand to her mouth. Another violent cough expels a tiny stone into her palm. She stares at it, her eyes stinging and watering. Peter swoops to her side, thumping her back. She closes her fingers quickly, hiding the stone, and squints up at him. From this angle, he looks much taller, the shadows from the firelight carving into his face and changing its shape.
She blinks. Shadows and firelight. When did it get dark? She doesn’t remember the sun going down.
“All better,” he says. “Come along, Wendy. It’s time to play.” There’s no trace of anger, no disappointment either. He spins on his heel, all innocent joy as he skips away.
“I’m not Wendy, I’m—” But her name sticks in her throat like the stone, raw and scraping, and she coughs again.
The boys follow Peter, some eager, some dragging their feet. As he steps among the trees Peter seems to flicker, solid and real one moment, slipping out of the world the next. She squeezes the stone in her hand. She must keep trying to remember. Nothing here is what it seems. Peter may look like a regular boy, but in truth, he’s a dangerous thing. He may not be human at all.
STRAIGHT ON ’TIL MORNING
Wendy lands at dawn, both tired to the marrow of her bones and more awake and alive than she’s been in years. Her body aches as though she truly did fly all through the night, even though she knows time moves differently in Neverland. The sun rises and sets according to Peter’s whims; the weather changes with his moods. Days might pass with only the soft light of the moon and stars, or the sun might blaze high overhead for weeks at a time. And all the while, only an hour or two might go by in London.
How long has she been gone? Has Ned missed her yet? Has Mary? And what about Neverland? It’s been twenty-seven years for her, but how much time has passed here?
She surveys the long stretch of beach. This is the first part of Neverland she ever saw, tumbling breathless to the sand with her brothers all those years ago. The terrain looks unchanged, and yet everything is subtly different. There’s a loneliness, seeped into the very grains that make up the shore, hushing in the relentless tide.
On her first visit, a gaggle of boys waited to greet them, hailing Peter like a conquering hero come home. Hook’s pirate ship loomed in the distance, a
