Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
JOHN
I f I had it to do over, I’d chop off my left forefinger instead of my pinkie. I’d been uncharacteristically emotional the night Peter brought us to the reaping tree—hadn’t been thinking straight. Watching your parents slit their own throats tends to do that to a person.
I’d gone with the pinkie because I read once that it’s the least utilized finger. Had my parents not been slaughtered in front of me that night, I might have recognized the flaw in this logic. The human body is so much more complex than that.
A fool thinks about which finger is employed the least. A wiser man would have considered the hand as a whole. Would have known that the hand can compensate much more efficiently for a missing forefinger than a missing pinkie.
This mistake has been bothering me for months. Perhaps more than the loss of my finger itself.
As it stands, the grip strength in my left hand is significantly diminished. I can hardly lug a basket of onions back to the Den, much less climb like I used to. The night Michael and I met Wendy at the storehouse on the edge of the cliffs in an attempt to escape Neverland, I’d had to go the long way around. Trek up a path on the sea-facing bluffs that I’d spent weeks clearing of brush. Secretly, of course.
It’s getting more difficult to hold on to Michael, too. It still sets me on edge—thinking about how for the past day, he’s been under the watch of Victor and Benjamin while I’ve been asleep, knocked out cold by Nettle’s somnium oil.
We’d been so close to getting out of here. Wendy had been so close.
I would have left weeks ago, once I cleared the sea-facing path up to the storehouse. I could have taken Michael and run—rather, soared—into the sky and left this horror novel of an island behind.
But that would have meant leaving Wendy behind.
My sister has changed during her time in Neverland, and not for the better. She thinks I don’t notice the bags under her eyes, the way she licks her dry lips when it’s been almost an entire day since her last dose of faerie dust. Peter says it’s to prevent the shadows from torturing her. To keep her from mistaking a nightmare for reality and strangling us like she did to Michael that one night.
But Wendy doesn’t need faerie dust. She needs help.
Wendy’s needed help for a long while now.
I can’t blame her; not really. Having Peter visit her from the shadows as a child messed with her psyche. The alienist my parents hired didn’t help much either. I used to listen in on their discussions from the vent in the library; it was big enough for me to crawl into before their sessions and camp out. I watched as he showed my sister charcoal sketches—dead, mutilated bodies, from what I inferred, though I never saw the depictions. I watched that familiar glassy emptiness wash over her expression.
The alienist had called my sister cold. Unnatural.
That’s because he never stuck around to hear her screams in the middle of the night. When we were older, she used to stuff her sheets into her mouth to muffle the sound. She didn’t wish to wake me.
My sister isn’t cold. She’s broken. Used. Has spent half her life fattened like a heifer, her owners hoping that instead of being led to the slaughter, she’d be bought and caged and paraded.
But my sister isn’t livestock to be bred.
I struggle with whether to fault my parents for their obsession with finding her a husband. To them, optimizing her chances of marriage was the logical decision to make. My parents only failed Wendy by not being clever enough to devise a better alternative.
And perhaps for being too inattentive to realize that a suitor had gotten her alone in the smoking parlor that one night.
I can’t exactly condemn my parents, as I’m guilty of a worse sin than ignorance.
We’d come so close to getting out of here. I’m not sure what had Wendy waking up to the danger of Peter. What dragged her out of his glamour for long enough to spook her and have her scrambling for a way to get us out of Neverland. But the window of time for escaping closed the moment she told Simon about our plans.
Cold-hearted, the alienist had said.
Unlike her, I’d have left the Lost Boys. Not out of malice. I even like some of them—Benjamin with his bluntness and affinity for whittling, and Smalls in his blustering innocence. But my duty belongs to my siblings first.
There’s no telling what lie Peter has woven to keep Wendy here with him, to keep that ring on her finger, claiming her. But whatever he’s told her, she’s his for good now.
I fear what I’ll have to do to get her out of this place.
I never want to force my sister into anything. Not after all she’s been compelled to do in her life. But Wendy has a tendency of letting others push her into things, and I fear that if I’m not the one to do it, someone else will. Someone who doesn’t have her best interests at heart.
Victor came by and explained the situation to me when I woke in bed an hour ago. After Wendy alerted Simon that we were escaping, he’d told Nettle about our plan to leave Neverland. Nettle, who, as it turns out, was telling the truth about remembering his past, though Victor didn’t know the details regarding how that was possible. Just that his memories had turned him paranoid, convincing him that Thomas, Freckles, Joel, and I were all killers at heart. Nettle had murdered the others. Thomas, Victor’s brother, was his first victim. I was supposed to be his last.
Apparently, Simon killed Nettle to save my life.
I’ll thank him when I’m convinced that’s the entire story.
I hear Michael humming from down the hall. Victor must be bringing him to visit me. That’s unnecessary. With the fluids I’ve been pushing thanks to Smalls keeping the jars of water next to my cot brimming over, my muscles should have recovered enough from the somnium oil to walk by now.
I’m pushing myself out of my cot when Victor reaches the doorway and pulls the leaf curtain aside. Michael rushes to my side and parks himself cross-legged on the bed, rocking back and forth, causing the rickety beams to creak.
Victor’s face is a shade paler than his usual bleached eggshell.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Victor swallows. It annoys me when people do that—pause before they deliver bad news, like they think they’re sparing you.
“Just tell me,” I say, though I have a sneaking suspicion I already know.
“Wendy’s gone.”
My first thought is that he killed her.
That’s the most logical explanation. The story practically writes itself.
Woman who’s only ever been bred to be a wife falls in love with a dangerous fae, thinking she sees the good in him—and she probably does, for what it’s worth. She agrees to marry him, because again, that’s all she’s ever been told that she wanted. Then she gets spooked. Discovers something that frightens her. Tries to run.
Jilted, he makes her disappear.
It’s the type of story that’s easy to paint, but it’s unsupported by evidence as of the moment. So when the fear of what Peter might have done to the one person in the world who’s ever really understood me threatens to eat away at my bones, I tell it to come back later. In case I have use for it.
There’s no use in hurting over something I’m not confident has happened. It won’t help me, and it certainly won’t help Wendy.
“Where was she last seen?” I ask.
Victor shakes his head. “I don’t know. She came to visit you a few times while you were out. She told me goodnight before she went to bed last night.”
Clearly, he’s not going to be of any use. “Where’s Peter?”
Victor blinks, stunned, but not by my question, then nods for me to follow him into the hallway. When I stand, I instinctively reach for Michael with my left hand.
He grabs for my pinkie. When he was young, he used to hold on to it. But of course, it isn’t there. Self-loathing wriggles its way into my chest. I should have considered that too, before I chopped off that finger. Should have remembered it was the finger Michael likes to hold on to.
I don’t like having him on my left side anymore, anyway. Not when I can’t keep a hold of him if I need to. So I maneuver him to my right side and we take off down the hall, following Victor.
Voices clamor through the tunnel as Victor, Michael, and I approach the living room of the Den.
As soon as we enter, all noise muffles to silence, the sound absorbed by our presence. Five sets of eyes avert themselves from our general direction and to their plates. This matters little to me. I’ve never kidded myself into thinking the Lost Boys are my friends. Besides, it’s Peter I need to speak with.
As if my thoughts summoned him, roots descend from the ceiling, depositing Peter in the center of the room before unfurling from around his body. He stretches his wings behind him. I search them for scratches, wounds.
As if Wendy would have fought him. As if my sister would have struggled.
Even if she had, Peter heals at a faster rate than humans. Unless she managed to get a blade in his flesh, there’d be little evidence of a struggle left behind on his body.
“Where is she?” I demand.
Peter, back facing me, turns slowly, and I mark the deliberation of his movement. The way he gives himself a moment longer to perfect his response. It must be an impressive lie he has to tell if he didn’t have time to shave off the rough edges while I slept. Especially for a master liar like Peter.
“Taken,” he says, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge.
I tap my foot and have to grit the next question out. “By whom?”
Peter’s jaw pulses. “Pirates.”
Imprinted in my memory, blood drains from my parents’ self-inflicted wounds. It took my father minutes to bleed out, my mother longer. I’d watched as their pulses slowed, trying to remember if the adrenaline brought on by the night’s events would have tempered their pain.
I still can’t remember.
“I take it at least one of these pirates has a name,” I say.
Peter nods, rubbing his forehead. “Astor took her.”
“So your story is that Captain Astor somehow tracked Wendy all the way to Neverland, a realm separate from all realms. What—did he just snatch her off the beach?”
At the breakfast table, the rest of the Lost Boys’ heads dart back and forth, following our conversation.
“It seems that way.”
“It seems, or it is?”
A cool indifference that I’ve come to loathe overcomes Peter’s features. “It is.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I see.”
I don’t buy Peter’s story. Not for the tick of a pocket watch. The only way Peter would know that it was Captain Astor who came to steal Wendy away would be if he saw Captain Astor. And if he truly witnessed Captain Astor kidnapping Wendy, wouldn’t he have stopped it from happening? Surely he could have managed it with those shadow powers of his.
“Well, how do you intend to get her back?” I ask, only because it would be less than wise to challenge Peter openly. He has the Lost Boys in his pocket. They’ll defend him no matter the evidence against him, just like Wendy did. If I cause trouble, I don’t trust that Peter won’t find a way to silence me.
Another thing the Lost Boys won’t question.
Benjamin taps the fork he carved himself against his plate, his knee bouncing at the same rate.
Simon looks as if he’s going to be sick. I’m shocked the other boys let him eat with them after he killed one of their own. But Peter calmed their apprehensions about Simon, too. He’s an expert in that arena.
Where I expect Peter to scoff at me, to confront my challenging of his care for Wendy, he doesn’t. Instead, he strides over to me and puts his hand on my shoulder.
I have to fight my instincts to squirm out from under his touch. I hate being touched. If someone’s incapable of communicating their thoughts and feelings with words, that shouldn’t have to be my problem. I shouldn’t have to submit to their proximity.
But I don’t pull away. Something tells me Peter knows I won’t be placated by a pat on the shoulder, so I’d better face his power flex instead of cowering from it.
“Trust me, John,” he says, his voice all brotherly affection. “I’m as worried for Wendy as you are. There’s not a night I’ll rest before I find her. I’ll scour the realms to get her back, I assure you.”
His promise isn’t worth much, especially since many of his nights are already spoken for by the Sister and her errands. But we both know that, so I don’t bother mentioning it.
“And if the captain slaughters her first? Like he did our parents?”
Peter examines me carefully. “I think we both know if he wanted her dead, he would have killed her that night.”
“If he wanted her dead yet ,” I correct.
Peter sighs, then pats me on the shoulder before finally removing his hand and giving me space to breathe.
“Just let me know what I can do to help,” I say.
Peter nods, as if he’ll let me anywhere near any evidence of what might have happened to Wendy. I don’t buy for a second that he’s telling me the entire truth, but it’s not as if I’m going to be able to pry it out of him.
Before Peter leaves, he makes his rounds about the table, patting the Lost Boys on the shoulders. I hear their whispers, though just fragments. Mostly I hear words like Winds and safe and okay.
The Lost Boys might be blind to Peter’s manipulations, but at least they care for my sister.
Michael wriggles out of my grip and dashes to Peter, who rustles his hair and offers him a smile that my brother returns with a whistle. My gut writhes, and I can’t tell if it’s from hatred for the fae who ruined our lives and is now hiding the reason behind Wendy’s disappearance, or if I’m simply being petulant about Michael favoring him.
The only person Peter doesn’t clap on the back is Simon. The Lost Boy who supposedly saved my life from Nettle and typically worships Peter stares at his barely touched meal. Victor must notice, because he glances at me and cocks a brow.
When Peter leaves, Simon slides his onions onto Smalls’s plate.
Later, someone grabs at me as I’m leaving the Den, the reaping tree having just deposited Michael and me outside. I flinch at the touch, but the grip remains firm. When I turn, I’m met with shaggy black hair and empty eyes framed by dark bruises.
“Walk with me,” says Victor, sliding his hand off my shoulder and gesturing for me to follow him.
Michael hums to himself as we accompany Victor into the woods. If he’d asked me to follow him down a dark path alone only a few days ago, I would have found an excuse not to. Or outright refused. But now that we know that Nettle was the killer, I’m less inclined to mistrust Victor.
That’s not accurate. I still have a blade inside my belt—I found it in Thomas’s old rooms when I was digging around there for information on his disappearance—but I don’t anticipate having to use it. Besides, I’m fairly sure I already know what this is about.
“You don’t think Peter’s telling us the truth about what happened to Wendy,” I say as soon as we reach a clearing.
Victor cocks a bushy black brow at me. “How’d you know?”
Seems obvious enough, but I don’t mind explaining. “Peter deflected attention away from your brother’s murder. Made the Lost Boys feel as if it wasn’t actually a murder, even though all logic pointed otherwise. If he wasn’t forthright about Thomas’s death, why would you believe what he claims about Wendy’s disappearance?”
Victor harrumphs and plucks a twig off a nearby tree, rolling it between his forefinger and thumb. “You’re a know-it-all. You know that, right?”
“I suppose if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be a know-it-all, would I?”
It’s meant to be a joke, but Victor hardly pays me attention. He just scans the area.
“You think Peter’s listening?” I ask.
Victor shakes his head. “Not Peter. Something else, though. I get the feeling this island’s always listening.”
I frown, and Michael says, “It’s time to use our listening ears.”
“I guess you’re always listening too, aren’t you, buddy?” Victor asks Michael. He goes to rub the top of my brother’s head, then must think better of it because he retracts his hands to his sides. Strange. It’s the first glimpse of tenderness I’ve ever witnessed in the guy.
“Always,” I say, offering a faint smile down at my brother. Michael squeezes my hand. It’s about the only comfort I have at the moment, so I cling to it.
“So what do you think happened to Wendy?” I ask. Hopefully, Victor will recount the events that occurred while I was drugged. He’s already told me some down in the Den, but now that we’re away from prying ears, I’m hoping there’s more to the story.
Victor paces, thinking. “She was snooping around, your sister.”
Wendy wasn’t the only one, but I don’t mention as much.
“She had a sketch of Thomas in her pocket the day we all wrestled,” Victor says. “She had to have been looking into what happened to him.”
“And Wendy figured it out,” I say, thinking. “You said Nettle was the one going around killing people. Wendy confirmed as much before she went missing, didn’t she?”
Victor works the corner of his lip. “Yeah, she, Peter, and Simon came back and told all of us what happened. That Nettle had gone mad, thinking you were the killer. And that Simon killed him to defend you.”
I snort. “Why would Simon do that?”
“Man, you really haven’t taken to us, have you?”
I shrug. It’s always been difficult for me to get close to others. Getting close to the Lost Boys has been at odds with keeping my siblings safe. No need to attempt something that’s both difficult and counterproductive. Sure, I’ve spent time with them since arriving in Neverland, but that doesn’t change that we’re more acquaintances than friends.
“You know what? That’s not important,” Victor says, one hand on his hip while he waves the other in front of him. “It’s not Simon killing him to save your life that seemed odd to me. Not even how shaken up he was. I’m sure anyone would be shaken up after killing their friend. It’s how he’s been acting around Peter.”
This piques my interest. “Simon’s always been Peter’s biggest fan.”
“Exactly.” Victor flicks a low-hanging tree branch. “And now he breaks into a sweat every time Peter enters the room.”
I stroke the bridge of my glasses. “You think Simon knows something about Peter? Something that frightens him?”
“That, or Peter knows something about Simon,” says Victor.
I tuck that thought away for the time being. “And what does that have to do with my sister?”
“Whatever it was that happened that night, your sister witnessed it. What if she was lying to us when she told us about Nettle? What if there was more to the story, and Peter told her to keep it quiet?”
My mouth goes dry. Something had spooked Wendy the night she tried to get us to run—something about Peter. Obviously, by the time she came back to the Den, her fears had been assuaged. I’d assumed it was because Nettle was found to be the killer.
“Simon was there the night we tried to run,” I say. “Wendy tried to get him to bring the rest of the Lost Boys to run with us. When he showed back up, he said the other Lost Boys refused to run away with us.” I grit my teeth, annoyed that I don’t remember anything after that, Nettle having dosed me with somnium oil.
Victor runs his hands through his hair. “Well, I can confirm that was a lie. Simon didn’t alert us that you were leaving.”
I frown. “Unless you were the only one he didn’t try to save.”
“Thanks,” says Victor, but he’s too self-aware of his standing with the other Lost Boys to dispute me.
“You’re probably right, though,” I say. “I doubt Simon told the rest of the boys about the escape attempt.”
“Yet Nettle somehow found where you were and attacked you,” says Victor. “Then Simon was conveniently there to save the day.”
“Leading us back to the beginning. That the only people who know what happened that night are Peter, Simon, and Wendy.” I have to admit, it’s all a bit suspicious. I don’t at all like where this train of thought is headed, though.
Apparently Victor doesn’t either, because he says, “You don’t think they would have killed her, right?” There’s desperation in his eyes. Strange. He’s the most cynical of all the Lost Boys after what happened to Thomas. But there’s still hope there. For Wendy. For my sister. “It’s just hard to imagine anyone wanting to hurt her, that’s all,” says Victor.
My head aches. “I suppose it’s possible that Peter has her tucked away somewhere. I agree with you; it seems more like him to make her disappear than to kill her.” I tell myself I’m being logical, that this has nothing to do with what I want the truth to be. “He stalked her for years. If it was all just to kill her in the end…”
I can’t finish that sentence, because I know it’s not intellectually honest. Stalkers murder their victims all the time. Especially when it becomes clear that the love they feel for their victims is unreciprocated.
And Wendy had just tried to escape the island. To escape Peter. The thought raps against my skull, refusing to let me ignore it.
“I know you have a brain where you should have a heart,” says Victor, “but I’m glad you’re here.”
“Why’s that?” I ask, unable to fathom a reason.
“Because,” says Victor, “you’re the only other person on this island who Peter doesn’t have in his pocket.”
Before I can respond, Michael starts humming. It’s a song our father used to sing to him before bed. Totally inappropriate for a child, now that I understand the lyrics. It’s a song about a man who keeps his ex-lover’s ring-finger bone in his pocket after hunting her down when she refused to marry him.
I suppose Victor saying pocket was what made Michael think of it.
Or…
The rusted wheels in my head begin to crank. “You know, Victor, I don’t think that’s entirely true.”