There’s nothing like it in England. It might be a whole new species, and she could be the first one to discover it. Excitement thrills though her, and she touches one of the delicate stamens. Her finger comes away dusty with bright yellow pollen, and she has the sudden impulse to lick it. She imagines it would taste like crystallized honey, like the sweet drink Peter gave her.
“Don’t.” The word startles her, a rustle among the leaves followed by a small, pale face, and she jumps back.
The youngest of the boys, the one who sucked at his shirttail, gazes up at her, eyes wide and frightened.
“The flowers are bad.” One hand is clapped over his mouth and nose, as if he’s trying to stay quiet, or trying not to breathe too deeply, and his words are muffled.
She looks down at her finger, smeared in pollen, and hastily wipes it on her nightgown. Was she really about to taste it? Whatever would make her do such a thing? She knows far better than to put strange plants in her mouth. It could be poison. But the heady scent of the flower, making her feel warm and safe and…
She lifts the collar of her nightgown over her mouth to stop from breathing the intoxicating smell. Where is she? She’s never seen this part of the island before. She was in the camp and… and she ran. Peter on the path, and then the game. She stares at the boy, but he makes no move to tag her, or give her position away.
“Are you all right, Wendy?”
“That’s not my name. I’m…”
Oh, she wants to shout in frustration, but if any of the other boys are near, she’ll give them both away. She tucked the stone from her soup, the one that was almost in her throat, into her sleeve earlier, and she slips it free now, squeezing it until her hand hurts and her eyes sting.
“Did Peter make up a new name for you too?” Above his fingers covering his nose and mouth, the boy’s eyes are wide with curiosity now instead of fear. “I used to be called something else, but I’m called Timothy now. Peter gave me a name, but I didn’t like it so I chose a new one. We’re allowed sometimes if…”
He darts a glance away down the path, body tense. She follows his gaze to a scrap of shadow shifting beneath one of the trees.
“What—” But Timothy is already gone, flying down the path and leaving her alone.
She squints, but she can no longer see the shadow. Maybe it was only her imagination. An insect chirrs, a sound like a cricket, but also like rubbing a finger around the rim of a dampened glass to make it sing. If only she had her collecting net and specimen jars. She takes a step forward. The sound cuts off abruptly and a sudden chill passes over her. Between one footfall and the next, the sense of someone watching her creeps over her, certain and unshakeable. She spins around, expecting to find Bertie, or even Peter, ready to leap out and tag her. But there’s no one. It’s like hearing someone call her name in an empty room, except worse, because she doesn’t even know her name right now.
She puts her shoulders back and lifts her chin. She will not cry again, and she will not let the weight of what she doesn’t know crush her. And she will certainly not let any of the boys play tricks to scare her just because she’s a girl.
“Hello?” She makes her voice loud, stepping forward as she calls out. “Is someone there?”
A branch cracks. She turns toward the sound, but she can’t make out anything in the dark. The path narrows ahead, trees leaning in to form a tunnel. There’s something ominous in the way the trees bend unnaturally close. They make her think of a deep hole burrowing into the earth, or the mouth of a great beast waiting to swallow her, like Jonah and the whale. But what if the path leads to a way out?
She takes another step. Something strikes the top of her foot. She jumps back, and something else hits her shoulder, sharp as an insect sting. She whirls in a circle, but she still can’t see anyone, and anger rises in her, making her shout.
“Peter, is that you? Stop it right now! You aren’t being funn—” Her words are cut off as the next blow just misses her, the flying object skipping into the fallen leaves covering the path.
Her mouth hangs open, stunned. Then all at once the projectiles fly thick and fast, like hard, pelting rain, driving her back from the tunnel-like path.
She ducks, covering her head with her arms, managing to snatch up a few of the missiles without being hit. She raises an arm, meaning to throw them back into the trees and show that she isn’t defenseless, but she can’t even see her attackers to aim.
She backs along the path, and once she can no longer hear projectiles hitting the ground, she pauses to look at the objects in her hand. Stones, and among them is an arrowhead. She has one in her collection at home. Cook gave it to her. She had it sent specially from Canada. A long time ago, her people used to make them, and use them to hunt. Now they still make them, but they don’t use them for hunting as much anymore.
The one in her hand isn’t sharp, but still she feels lucky that none of them hit her with more than a glancing blow. Perhaps whoever threw them wasn’t trying to hurt her, merely scare her away.
She drops the stones and turns the arrowhead in her hand, studying it more closely, wishing she knew more. Maybe then it would give her some kind of clue. She’d tried to ask Cook more about the arrowhead she’d given her, but unlike the stories
