Chapter 13
By the time I wander back to the main living room, the boys are gathered around John, besieging my brother with questions.
“Where are you from?”
“Why did Peter bring you here?”
“Don’t be stupid, Freckles. He doesn’t remember.”
“Nettle says he remembers.”
“Nettle is an attention-seeking idiot.”
The blond, spindly boy in the corner, whose nose looks like it’s been punched enough to be permanently crooked in the upward direction, sneers.
So that one’s Nettle.
I mark him to question later.
“I can’t answer a dozen questions at once,” says John, whose face grows paler with each word. He’s clutching Michael’s shoulder with his uninjured hand.
“It’s a shame you had to slice that off just to get in,” says a boy with dark brown skin and coiled black hair cut close to his scalp. He points at John’s stump of a finger.
“I think it’s pretty diehard,” says Smalls.
“Yeah, all of us are missing something already,” says Freckles, before flicking his neighbor on the skull. “Up here.”
“If you idiots don’t shut up, the new guy is going to pass out from that wound of his before we get any answers,” says Simon, who appears very much to be the head of the group, all dashing smiles and charisma.
John glances at me from behind the swarm of adolescent boys, exasperation written all over his face. It would be humorous if we hadn’t been dealt so much tragedy today. If I couldn’t read the pain of loss on my brother’s face so easily, in the weariness that sits like stagnant water behind his glassy eyes.
He looks so, so tired. And John has never been one to enjoy crowds.
I take a step forward, making sure to step on a twig this time. It snaps, and slowly the host of boys crane their necks over to me.
Honestly, the way the teenage boys look at me, you would have thought none of them had ever seen a girl before. John seems to notice it too, because he clears his throat to redirect the boys’ attention. It’s to no avail.
Only Victor, the boy with shadows underneath his eyes, seems uninterested in my presence.
Simon’s face lights up in a smile, and he crosses the room, bowing low before me, taking my hand and kissing my knuckles with a sparkle in his eyes. “My lady.”
“You don’t know she’s a lady.”
“Yeah, she could very well be a peasant.”
“Nah, Peter wouldn’t bother bringing back a peasant.”
“You’ll have to forgive us. We’re motherless orphans, after all,” says Simon. “Welcome to the Lost Boys.”
“The Lost Boys?” I ask, slightly endeared by the nickname this group of outcasts has come up with for themselves, though I have plenty of questions for them.
Simon’s grin is dazzling, the type that instantly makes you want to be his friend. “Yep, I’m Simon, but I’m assuming you already figured that out.” He winks, amused by his own presumptuousness. “This”—he points to the boy with dark brown skin who expressed lament over John’s injury—“is Benjamin. Nettle’s the one in the corner with his nose glued to the ceiling. Smalls is the baby. This is Joel”—I note a handsome boy with lightly tanned skin and shrewd green eyes—“Victor over here’s the one who looks like he’s been infected with vampirism. And these are the Twins.” Simon gestures to two boys in the corner, both with shaved ivory heads.
“And what are your names?” I ask.
Neither of them answer.
“Don’t bother trying to figure out their names. We’ve lived with them for years and can’t tell them apart, anyway.”
“What are their names, just in case I figure it out?” I ask.
Simon shrugs. “Not sure. We’ve called them the Twins for so long, we’ve all forgotten by this point. I’m fairly sure even they can’t remember.”
Again, something twists in my stomach. “How did you all end up here? And…what is this place?”
The boys let out amused laughs, but the noise dies down when they witness the confusion on my face.
“That wasn’t a joke, stupid,” says Freckles, slapping Smalls on the back of the head.
“I knew it wasn’t a joke.”
Simon is the only one who doesn’t look amused. He raises an eyebrow. “You remember how you got here?”
I frown, exchanging a glance with John. “Of course I do. We only just arrived.”
A frown flickers across Simon’s features, but he schools it into a smile quickly enough. “Well, that just made you three the most interesting thing to happen to Neverland in well, ever, I suppose.”
“Did you come to Neverland very young, then?” I ask, imagining Peter rounding up a band of street urchin toddlers, though the image is as ephemeral as the shadows themselves.
“Not exactly,” says Simon, his pointed ears flicking.
“We just don’t remember what happened to us before,” pipes up Smalls from the back.
“Well, except for Nettle,” Joel snickers.
Nettle doesn’t appear amused, but he doesn’t defend himself to the other boys either.
“You’ll have to tell us some stories from the world you hail from,” says Simon. “We get pretty bored around here. Would do us some good, especially the younger ones.”
My throat goes dry. “I don’t have any stories.”
It’s not true, not in the least, but I’m not ready to tell these hopeful, excited-looking boys about a world that’s just as dreary as the one they inhabit.
“That’s a shame,” says Simon, disappointment flickering in the corners of his smile. “Well, I suppose we should get you oriented to your new home, then. This is the Den. There’s an extra room at the end of that hallway right there that the three of you can share. That is, unless you’ll be staying with Peter.”
My cheeks flush scarlet. “No. No, I won’t be.”
Simon nudges me. “Just checking. Wasn’t sure if Peter had kidnapped himself a bride or something.”
My stomach twists with unease, which Simon must pick up on, because he winces apologetically, then swiftly changes the subject. “We’re the Lost Boys—sorry, I think I already said that. Probably don’t have to do much imagining to figure out how we came up with the name. It’s not all that original, despite what Benjamin will tell you.”
I examine the surrounding boys, some barely two years younger than me. Though each one of them has a set of pointed-tipped ears, so even the youngest, Smalls, could very well be ten years my senior.
Fae in my world were cursed with mortality during the War, but from what I’ve read in books, fae from other realms live several centuries, to the point that some scholars believe them to be immortal, as one has never been known to die of old age. Granted, it’s not all that surprising none of them make it that long, when they tend to be bloodthirsty deceivers who rack up enemies faster than a drunk does a tab at the local tavern.
Once Simon is done with the introductions, the boys bombard me with questions, having given up entirely on John and Michael.
“What’s your world like?”
“Did you bring any food in your pockets?”
But then Victor, the sullen one in the corner, speaks up. “I take it you’re orphans too.”
Not a question.
My blood runs cold, the memory of my parents’ deaths still fresh, the scent of their spilled blood still caking my throat.
Orphans.
I feel as if I might throw up.
“I think we’d like to be shown to our rooms now,” I say.
Simon flicks a quieting glare at the other boys, who slowly cease their rambling.
Then he leads us to a dingy room where I wonder if we’ll live out the rest of our days.
If we even make it through them.
There’sno door to the room John, Michael, and I are to inhabit. Just a curtain of leaves draped over a cavity dug into the wall of earth. Now that we have a moment of quiet, devoid of the boys’ incessant questions, tonight’s events encroach on me. Just like the realization that the world is up there, and I’m stuck here, beneath the surface. The ground itself feels as if it’s suffocating me, like it might cave in on me at any moment. For years, I’ve sought escape from the shadows, secretly craving the shadows themselves. But never once did I consider darkness would come from the earth itself, cutting me off from the sun and the brush of fresh air against my skin.
There are no windows down here for me to crack. No shadows to cast a lantern on and pretend to banish. The shadows are not as alluring when there’s no light around to distinguish them, no illumination to flee into when the darkness gets too close.
The room itself is simple, decorated with a bear-skin rug on the floor, nothing on the walls.
There are three cots in the room, bare except for the blankets Simon had the other boys fetch us. Michael curls up on his and goes to sleep. I imagine he needs to recharge after expending so much emotional energy with the reaping tree, even if the faerie dust did work to calm him. He’s always done that. Escaped the room and hidden away for a while until he regains control over his body, at which point he’ll wander back to us.
All my life, everyone has acted as if there’s something strange about Michael, but I wonder if he’s the only one who has any of this figured out.
John doesn’t curl up on his cot. Instead, he sits on the earth with his back propped up against the wall, his elbows resting on his knees as he peers at his bandaged hand.
He’s staring at his finger, but that’s not the loss he’s contemplating.
“I’m so sorry, John,” I whisper.
Slowly, he cranes his head up to me. “Don’t go and try to make out like this is all your fault,” he says, his voice heavy, resigned. “It’s the type of thing characters in dramas do, and it makes it seem as if the world is concerned with them above all else. It’s insufferable and inaccurate,” he says, matter-of-factly. But then a cool smile tugs at the wrinkles beside my brother’s eyes, magnified by his spectacles. “I’ve had a rather bad day for you, a supporting character, to go and make it worse by pretending this isn’t all about me.”
I let out a laugh, one that frosts the air in front of my lips, and soon my brother and I are laughing so hard, we’re both clutching our stomachs. But then our gazes lock onto John’s wounded hand, the way he’s so poorly wrapped it. The laughter explodes into something more manic, until it’s indistinguishable from our sobs.
Eventually the hysteria fades, and the silence between us takes us with it, lulling us precariously close to the edge of despair.
“I know it’s just a truth my mind has to work through,” says my brother, “but I can’t seem to wrap myself around the fact that they’re gone.”
“It’s someone else’s blood,” I say, nodding in agreement.
“Lookalike actors they hired in advance, knowing the pirates would attack.”
“They must have paid them quite well to die in their stead,” I say.
John shrugs. “It would surprise you what people would do for money.”
I chuckle, and the air scratches my throat. Eventually, we settle into a quiet that feels treacherous. The kind that might consume us whole. John’s right, the death of our parents doesn’t quite seem real, nor do the events of the evening. Which is strange, given the way this night ended the way it was always supposed to.
One would think I would have been prepared.
But I suppose it’s only natural to assume the inevitable can’t in fact happen to us. Isn’t that what humans do with death all the time? Set aside the only thing in life that’s actually guaranteed to happen. Determine to think about it later, then feign shock when it appears at our doorstep, just like it always promised it would.
“Permission to take up the role of the person around which the world revolves?” I ask.
“Permission granted.”
“Do you think he killed them because of me?”
My question hangs in the air for a moment.
“I think it’s probably down to how you define ‘because of.’”
My stomach sinks, but I appreciate my brother’s honesty. It’s always been the raw sort, the kind that others find coarse, but John’s mind is technical. He sees truth and filters out the lies that would attempt to warp it, dilute it.
There’s a kindness in that as well. To hear the truth spoken, with all the pain it carries with it. It’s not as if I don’t know the truth deep down anyway. It’s not as if I can’t feel it scraping against our insides.
John just surrenders a blade to it, so it can actually cut its way out.
“He claimed they wronged him. Took something—someone—of his away. He thought killing me would hurt them the same way it hurt him.”
John peers down at his wounded hand, not looking at me, then shrugs. “The man was a disillusioned captain turned pirate. Or privateer, as most haughty pirates prefer to think of themselves. He probably ran a merchant voyage for Pa and Ma at some point. More than likely, they ran into trouble at sea and someone he loved was lost. Then he spent years unable to grapple with the truth of what an unfair realm we live in and decided it was easier to blame our parents.”
“He didn’t seem completely illogical when I spoke to him. Do you think he might have had a legitimate complaint?”
John looks at me knowingly.
“What?” I ask.
“You do this thing where you betray what you believe in the form of questions.”
A knot forms in my throat. Not because I feel exposed, but because my brother has taken the time to get to know my tells.
“What’s your hypothesis, Wendy?”
I sigh, burying my face in my hands. “I don’t know.”
John shifts, and I know he’s staring me down. Challenging me.
I’m always so afraid the truth will hurt others. I forget that some people crave it, while others possess the ability to examine it without feeling.
“I wonder if somehow they were more at fault than we’d like to believe. The looks they exchanged when he asked if they knew who he was… They were hiding something.”
When I glance up at my brother, he’s thoughtfully picking at the bandage on his hand. “I got into some of Father’s accounting books last year. He’d run up quite a bit of debt in the past few years. With as much enthusiasm as he has—had—for life, I could see him making rash decisions in an attempt to pay off the debts, assuming all would work out fine. The most reasonable conclusion is that Father pressured someone to set sail under treacherous conditions. Perhaps he sent the captain off during a storm, or worse, in a vessel that had no business being in the water. And then Father’s enthusiasm wasn’t enough to carry it through to its destination. The captain must have lost someone along the way.”
“I didn’t know Father was in debt.”
John doesn’t explain why that might be. He doesn’t have to. Not with the weight of my failed dowry hanging around my neck.
“Did you figure out what the Shadow Keeper wants from you when you chased him down?”
I shake my head. “That’s the strange thing. He’s always tried to convince me to come with him. But now that I’m here, he acts like he doesn’t want me at all. Like…”
John cranes his head. I know better than to think I’m a match for my brother’s curiosity.
“Almost like I’m meant to be some sort of punishment.”
“You do have that gaping Mark on your face. Perhaps he displeased whoever cursed you and she hopes he’ll fall in love with a woman Marked to another. That he’ll be eaten alive with jealousy.”
“Perhaps,” I say.
“As long as whatever it is keeps him away from you,” John concedes.
I can’t help but agree. Little has gone my way tonight, but at least I’m not being forced to bed a stranger. At least I have the comfort of having my brothers nearby.
“I’ll figure out a way to get us home,” I tell my brother.
He looks at me a long time from behind his spectacles, his hair disheveled. I can practically feel the pain in his heart, like I’m the one with the missing finger, and it’s my pulse pounding. “I’ll be impressed when you make that happen, considering we don’t have a home to go back to.”