The opposite sensation of what she felt squeezed between the rocks as she wiggled her way into the cavern seizes her now. It’s as though she’s standing on the edge of something vast; at any moment, she might fall. Ahead of her, Peter’s silhouette is ragged, wavering as the light grows brighter around him.
“We’re here.” He stops, and Wendy teeters to a halt behind him.
“What—” But she doesn’t get any farther, forgetting the bones and everything else.
The cave floor slopes sharply, becoming a bowl. In the center of the bowl, there’s a monster.
“It’s my secret.” Peter beams.
The orange light cuts harsh shadows into his face, making him utterly inhuman. Wendy’s gaze slides to the thing crouched below them. It’s like night, but darker. The orange glow doesn’t illuminate the creature the way it illuminates her and Peter. There are no details, only a solid blot like spilled ink forming the impression of a hunched spine, bones pressed against skin, legs bending the wrong way, wicked, curving horns.
“No.” Wendy shakes her head. She doesn’t want to look at it, and she can’t look away. She takes a step backward.
The monster turns toward the sound of her voice. It has no eyes, but somehow it’s still looking at her. It huffs a breath, scenting for her, or showing displeasure, she can’t say. The air smells of struck matches, like Wendy’s old sheepdog when she comes in from the rain.
Wendy takes another step back and her heel catches on the uneven stone. She trips, hitting the ground hard, pain jarring all the way up her spine and making her teeth click together. The monster—it’s still looking at her, and she is looking at it. The shape of it. She knows it. It’s impossible. It…
Wendy feels a needle between her fingers, dragging thread through darkness and skin as Peter writhes and screams. That shadow, the one she sewed back onto him, withered and died. And the thing in the pit is…
“Wendy, what’s wrong?” Peter stands over her, blocking her view.
Her gaze snaps back to him, momentarily free of the creature so she can think again. She breathes, mouth open, shallow breaths on the edge of panic. The angle and the light make Peter look taller, his head scraping the cavern ceiling. He’s too big. Too terrible. A sliver of orange light has gotten trapped in his eyes, shivering like a flame.
“Monster.” Wendy’s voice breaks; she covers her face with her hands.
Neverland is so beautiful—the mermaids with their scales shining in the sun, their voices like flutes made of glass; Tiger Lily’s brown fingers next to hers, showing her how to weave reeds into crowns. Flying. Wendy has never had such adventures, never felt so free. This can’t be the truth of it.
“Look at it.” Peter crouches, pulling her hands away from her face and gripping her wrists. There’s a seriousness to his expression she’s never seen before. All at once, he looks like a totally different boy from the one who flew through their nursery window, who led them in games of follow the leader. He looks much older than his slight frame implies, like being here, now, next to the monster, has made him into another person entirely. “Look at me, Wendy. My secret.”
His face is inches from hers, his breath harsh. Behind Peter, the shadow-monster snorts again, its sides heaving like bellows.
“No.” Wendy shakes her head. Tears slide hot against her skin.
She wants Peter to be the boy who swooped in through her window. She wants the stars and the rushing dark, the velvety sky never letting her fall.
Behind Peter, his shadow moves. It doesn’t come closer, but Wendy feels the weight of it nonetheless, as if its long fingers— tipped in wicked nails—hold her wrists instead of Peter’s.
“Wendy!” Peter shakes her hard enough that she sees stars. Not flying. Falling.
“You’re hurting me.” She tries to pull away, but his grip tightens.
“You have to look at it, Wendy.”
“It’s horrible.” She doesn’t mean to, but she turns her head so she can see boy and monster both.
One crouched in front of her, one crouched in the bowl of stone; they’re the same. Until this moment, did Peter even remember what he was, how terrible the secret was he planned to show her? Outside of this cave, will he forget again? Darkness blots Peter’s skin, not like the leaf-shadows in the forest, but underneath and inside him. The monster—it’s that same jagged darkness writ large, outside Peter’s body as though he could cast away all the terrible parts of himself and be only one thing, all boy and nothing more.
“No!” Peter bellows the word, and the thing in the hollow roars back, the walls shaking.
“Mothers are supposed to love their children. If you love me, you have to love him, too.” His voice cracks.
Wendy yanks her arms away, hard enough that she smashes her elbow against the stone. She hisses in pain, trying to scramble back, but Peter catches her ankle. She kicks with her other foot. The rock scrapes her skin as Peter wrestles with her.
“No. No. No!” Peter is a child, throwing a tantrum.
He screws up his face, blotchy in the orange light. Tear tracks glitter and Wendy stills for a moment, pity stealing her breath. The moment leaves Peter enough room to seize her face between his hands. It hurts, as though his fingertips have burrowed straight to her bones beneath her skin.
“You have to love me.” It’s simultaneously a whisper and a shout. The boy whispering, the monster howling, or the other way around.
With the words, sharp as any scissor cut, Wendy feels the knowledge of the shadow snipped from her mind. Only the hole torn is jagged, cut by an inexpert hand. Threads trail, and the pain is the worst she’s ever felt. She howls too, and the monster shrieks back at her before she slams a door over the space, over the sound, blocking it all out.
She can see the monster, then she can’t. Peter crouches over her,
