Wendy scrambles up, ignoring the throb in her arm, the bruised feeling of her skull. She grabs Peter’s hand.
They run. She’s falling, then they’re flying, then everything goes black. The ground trembles; the sky rages like the world splitting open.
“Peter!” She shouts the name, but the wind snatches it from her, leaving her breathless.
The air refuses her for the first time since she stepped out of the nursery window, too shaken, too frightened to believe in anything as pure and good as flying. She plunges through the dark, pine branches and needles whipping at her and snapping beneath her weight. She strikes the forest floor, and somehow nothing breaks, but the breath is knocked out of her. Silence. Her ears ring. From very far away and very close by, Peter calls her name.
NEVERLAND – NOW
Wendy doubles over again, shuddering. There’s a taste in her mouth like bitter medicine and salt, like ash and wet leaves and smoke and meat served too raw. Her stomach clenches, but there’s nothing to bring up. She’s there in the cave with the shadow. She’s back in St. Bernadette’s being dropped into a tub full of ice. She’s clawing and fighting to get away from both.
“Wendy.” Tiger Lily speaks her name as though she’s saying it for the third or fourth time. She catches Wendy’s wrists, and only then does Wendy realize she’s raking at the sleeves of her blouse, nearly tearing the fabric.
“The monster…” Wendy falters; her voice breaks. “I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. I know what it is and where to find it. Him.” Her voice is steadier now, but Wendy still feels sick, dizzy.
Peter. His shadow. His first words to her in the nursery were a lie. I lost my shadow. Will you help me? Will you sew it back on?
Wendy touches her pockets. She touches the hilt of Hook’s sword. Her hands shake. Ever since she returned from Neverland, people have been calling her a liar, telling her she doesn’t know her own mind. The only consolation she had was her own steadfast knowledge of the truth—Neverland, solid and real all the way through. But Peter twisted that, he took it away from her. He made her forget.
“Peter showed me. He was proud. He… It was terrible. But he ripped it out of my mind. Like he tore a piece of me away, so I couldn’t know to be afraid of him, and I couldn’t remember for so long.”
Wendy takes a shuddering breath. She feels small again. Hurt. Betrayed. Peter turned her own mind against her. He made her memories into a lie. Tiger Lily’s arms go around her, and a tremor passes between them. Wendy can’t tell where it begins or ends. He hurt them both. A boy. A monster.
“Come.” Tiger Lily helps Wendy stand, leads her back to the ashes of the fire and the circle of light spilling through the rock above.
Wendy sits, and the tightness in her chest eases. The dark corner of the cave, the painting of the monster on the wall, wants to tug at her attention, but she refuses to look its way.
Peter. Should she have guessed the truth? Not a boy but an ancient creature, a wicked thing. Wendy tries to hold the words from Tiger Lily’s story in her mind—of a creature unfathomably old—but even now her thoughts shy away from the truth. She wants to slam the door again, to forget.
Dreaming of Peter, dreaming of Neverland—those thoughts saved her from St. Bernadette’s. And those thoughts put her there in the first place. She hurt her brothers for the sake of them. She kept them secret from Jane, from Ned, and for what? They were all lies.
Wendy feels herself crumbling and it’s a fight not to dig her nails into her flesh instead of her clothing now, clawing down as if she could shed every horrible thing she’s done with her skin. Like a shadow.
The thought goes through her, sharp as a needle, and she gasps aloud. She must tear the door in her mind from its hinges and never allow herself to forget again.
Which version of Tiger Lily’s story is true? The one where Peter took responsibility for his actions, or the one where he had it forced upon him? Is his forgetting a mercy he gave himself, or a deliberate lie? Or is the truth somewhere in-between? No wonder he hates age—it’s a reminder of what he once was, or a reminder of what he might one day be.
“Tell me,” Tiger Lily says softly. “You saw something, in here.” She touches a fingertip to Wendy’s forehead, peering at her.
Wendy opens her mouth, but she can’t find the words to answer. She sees Peter looming over her, the angles of his face sharp, his eyes raging and heartbroken. You have to love me.
A little boy. A monster. Both and neither. Peter wanted desperately for Wendy to see all of him, like looking at two sides of a coin at the same time. John and Michael had only ever seen the boy, the adventures. But he’d shown Wendy all the darkness along with the light, and he’d expected her to be infinitely vast enough to contain it all. A mother, strong enough to scare the monsters away, strong enough to love the monster even when it cannot love itself.
“Peter showed me the truth, then he took the memory away.” Wendy shakes her head. “The monster from your stories, that’s what he really is.”
Tiger Lily’s expression mirrors what Wendy imagines must be her own. They both failed. Somehow they should have known what Peter was, and kept others safe from him. Even as the thought crosses Wendy’s mind, anger rises in her. She wants to shout at Tiger Lily—how dare she think she bears even the
