“Be good,” he said, then he’d let go of her so suddenly she’d stumbled back to a sitting position.
She remembers the bruising jolt of her tailbone hitting the ground, biting her tongue as her teeth snapped together. There’d been a moment, incandescent as a flash, when she could no longer remember her name. It was as though Peter had cut it out of her, so swiftly she hadn’t even felt the pain, hadn’t even thought to miss it until later. Then there’d been the ship, and the heavy coil of rope, and the sweet, sticky tea that had only made it harder to remember. And then everything else. Hide and seek and the boar. The weight of it crashes into her like a wave, smashing into her first, then trying to pull her out to sea with its undertow.
Peter took her name away from her.
Her stomach hurts, simultaneously hollow and full. Peter took her name. He tried to make her forget herself. Jane clenches her jaw so hard her teeth ache. He made her want to hunt. He even made her want to devour what they killed.
She crawls to the edge of the path, bringing up all the hot, crackling meat she devoured moments ago. The chaos of boys fighting each other and frightening Rufus continues behind her. She pulls herself up, gingerly testing her weight. Nothing broken, only bruised. She limps away, moving as fast as she can, welcoming the pain. It helps her focus, helps her remember herself, and she will not forget again.
She is Jane. Jane. Jane. Jane.
Her name is a rhythm, matched to her heart, matched to her ragged breath. A stitch laces up her side, hot and fast, and brings her to a halt.
“Are you alright?” Timothy’s voice comes out of the dark, soft and frightened, and Jane looks up, startled. Tree shadows dapple his skin as he emerges from beneath them. In the moonlight, he looks like a ghost.
She shakes her head, then nods, wiping at her tears and smearing them all over her face. She laughs, a huffing, uncontrolled sound that makes her stomach ache all over again, and it’s a moment before she can get herself under control.
“No, but I will be.” She straightens, makes herself smile for Timothy’s benefit, and some of the doubt and fear unwinds from him, his shoulders relaxing.
She looks around, realizing where she is. She’d found a hammock in a pile of salvage from the ship and strung it up outside the camp so she could sleep away from the scatter of boys. She sinks into it now, exhausted, and after a moment, Timothy sits beside her. She’s glad he’s here and not with the shouting mess of boys.
They should return for Rufus, try to help him. But even the thought makes her pulse seize, her eyes burn. What can she and Timothy do against all of Peter’s hunters? Better to let them grow bored, forget. They’re bound to sooner or later. She has to believe it’s true.
Timothy’s added weight—slight as he is—makes the hammock sway. His feet don’t even come close to touching the ground as he dangles them over the side.
Tiny lines crease the skin between Timothy’s brows. He looks like he’s trying hard to remember something as they sit in silence, Jane gathering herself, thinking what to do next. She can’t run off and leave him to look for a way home. She has to help him, and Rufus too, and any of the others she can convince of Peter’s wicked ways.
“Why were you running?” Timothy asks after a moment, his expression clearing from troubled to wide-eyed curiosity. “Is it because you saw a monster?”
The question catches her off guard, and she almost laughs, but Timothy’s expression is so serious she swallows the sound down.
“No, I wasn’t running from a monster.” Except, she thinks, she was, just not the kind Timothy means. “There are no monsters here.”
She makes her voice firm as she says it, as if will alone could make her words true.
“Is that because you’re here to be our mother? That’s what Peter said.” Timothy looks up at her.
“I’m not…” Surprise at his words turns into something else as she sees the hope in Timothy’s eyes.
“Peter says that’s what mothers are for,” Timothy goes on. He says the word “mother” like it’s a strange creature out of a fairy tale, one he’s only heard stories about but doesn’t really understand. “Mothers cook and tell stories, but the best thing is that mothers scare monsters away.”
“I…” Jane hesitates. The way Timothy looks at her makes her think for a moment that it could be true, she could be big and safe enough to protect him. Not a mother, but a big sister. At the same time, she feels terribly small. She misses her own mother, and she only wants to go home.
“No.” She lets out a breath, and it hurts; maybe she should have lied. “I don’t think so. I’m sorry.”
“Oh.” The disappointment in Timothy’s voice is clear, but like before, there’s a quicksilver mood change and he looks up again, grinning. “That’s okay. We can still be friends.”
“I don’t belong here.” She didn’t mean to say it out loud, but the truth rings in her and she can’t keep it quiet. “I need to go home.”
Timothy looks like he might cry.
“You could come with me,” Jane says quickly. The words expand inside her, feeling wild and dangerous, and she finds that she absolutely means them. “And Bertie, and Rufus, too. We can all go somewhere safe.”
Peter stole her, he stole from her; she will steal from him in turn.
“Bertie and Rufus won’t go with you.” Timothy picks at the edge of the hammock, deflating some of the hope growing inside her.
“Why not?” Jane can’t imagine Rufus would want to stay, not after what he’s been through.
“They never remember.” Timothy’s weary expression suddenly makes him seem like the older one between the two of them. “I tried to
