Chapter 40
We bury Joel in the light of the moon, the wind howling a dirge as we do.
We dig him a proper grave. I suppose we tell ourselves that it’s to protect his body from the elements, the scavengers Victor wished upon the man who killed Thomas. But that’s a lie, just like any of the others we tell ourselves. The maggots and worms and natural decay will get him just the same.
The only difference is we won’t have to watch.
So we bury Joel deep, and we tell ourselves it’s for his sake, when we know good and well it’s for our own.
As we file solemnly back into the Den, our fingernails caked with dirt clots, John pulls me to the side, still clutching onto Michael’s hand. He stood back for most of the burial, not out of a lack of desire to help, but because he didn’t want Michael getting too close to the body.
I think we all agreed with his decision.
But now John has a crazed look in his eyes. They’re darting back and forth, following some course that’s invisible to the rest of us.
He waits until the last of the boys files in and says, “It’s one of them. It has to be.”
I shake my head, like I’m a puppy slogging water out of my ears after taking a plunge. Except there’s no clearing the way that everything feels more muffled. Is that from the guilt of losing Joel, when he shouldn’t have been looking for me to begin with, or is this just how the world feels now when I come down off of a high from the faerie dust?
“Joel was their friend. He was…different,” I say, finding it difficult to air my concerns about Joel now that he’s dead. Nausea froths at the base of my throat at the thought of the dead mouse in my satchel, the pet Joel was so proud of himself for tending to. “But I can’t think why anyone would want to kill him. And besides, they’re just…”
John raises a brow. “Just boys? Wendy, a decade ago, most of them would have been considered grown men in Estelle. You think none of them are capable of wielding a weapon?”
My mind flashes back to Joel, coaxing a mouse to the fire. To Victor, spitting on the corpse of the man who killed his brother. To John, who dreams of forcing Captain Astor to take a blade to his own throat.
My cheeks drain of color.
“Don’t tell me they don’t have it in them. I think you should know better than anyone that we all do.”
The lifeless face of Peter’s assailant paints itself on the back of my eyelids when I blink.
“I just don’t know why they would do it. Why Joel?”
“To be honest, I would have expected him to do the killing, not the other way around,” says John, finding the truth so much easier to say aloud than I ever do.
“After I saw him torturing those rats, I kept my distance for a while. Maybe someone else knew about his…habits. Maybe they were scared of him. People have a tendency to harm the things that frighten them.”
John shakes his head, placing the hand that’s not holding Michael’s onto his chin as he thinks. “Maybe.”
“John, do you think…” I squeeze my eyes shut, as if that will help me get the words out.
“That we got the wrong guy before?”
I peek at him from slitted lids, nodding.
“No. The man had Thomas’s bracelet. We found Thomas’s murderer, that’s for sure,” John says, each word hauling another coil of iron chain from my shoulders.
“But it’s possible that the same person who killed Joel killed Freckles?”
John nods.
I chew on my lip. “That would make some sense as to why Freckles’s murderer carved the constellation into his cheek. To make us think the murders were connected.”
John’s pacing in circles now, Michael following him. “That would explain why the methods of killing were different, too. Maybe whoever killed Freckles didn’t intend to do it. If it happened in the heat of the moment, the murderer could have panicked, then tried to make it look like the murders were connected afterward.” He halts in place, the abruptness causing Michael to slam into his back. “There’s only one problem with that theory.”
I gulp. “It would mean marking him with the Reaper’s fox wasn’t a coincidence. It would mean that whoever killed Freckles knew Thomas. Well enough to think of his favorite constellation, even while panicking.”
We stand in silence for a moment. “It could be someone else. In Neverland,” I say.
John peers at me from behind his spectacles. They’re smudged and scratched after weeks on the island. It’s a wonder he can still see out of them. I consider what will happen when they break. Will Peter travel outside of Neverland to fetch him new ones if I ask him to? Will the Sister even allow such an excursion?
“Do you know of anyone else on the island?” he asks.
The captain’s swarthy, cruel grin flashes before my eyes, but I quickly stuff it away. It’s not possible that he’s the murderer. He can barely bring a spoon to his mouth thanks to the drugs I’ve been force-feeding him. Much less murder a boy and hack off his finger.
“No, but we didn’t know Thomas’s murderer was here until he attacked Peter, either.”
“Which begs the question, how did the murderer end up here?”
John looks at me with that curious gaze I’m so familiar with. This is the point in the conversation when we’d usually brainstorm together, except I already know how the murderer came to be on the island. Through the flaws in Neverland itself. The gaps in the Fabric.
I just can’t tell John that. Not without him questioning what else I know about why the Lost Boys are here.
But then another thought strikes me. “There’s Tink.”
John frowns.
“The faerie who attacked me when she found me in Peter’s rooms,” I say.
“Ah. The one you called ‘suspicious and jealous for no reason,’” says John, referencing a conversation we had after the attack.
I draw back. “Surely you’re not defending her.”
“I didn’t say that. I’m just saying that perhaps she has better intuition than you gave her credit for.”
I cross my arms, but it’s not as if I have anything to say to that. I am engaged to Peter, after all, which I suppose was exactly what Tink was afraid of.
John just shrugs and continues on, not nearly as bothered by the sentiment he just expressed as I am. “Do you think she has motive?” he asks, wiping his hair from his forehead. It’s grown out since we arrived in Neverland. I suppose he no longer has Mother fussing over its length. The thought makes my heart hurt.
“Does a jealous psycho have to have motive?”
In all seriousness, John says, “Jealousy is a motive, Wendy.”
“Well, I don’t see why she’d hurt one of the Lost Boys,” I say. “Not when it’s me she’s jealous of.”
John shrugs. “If she’s as obsessed with Peter as he claims, it’s possible she envies anyone who has a close relationship with him. Though I still don’t think that’s the most likely explanation.”
“Are you going to share what is, or leave me in suspense?”
“She could be punishing him.”
“I’m only doing this because I love you,” whispers Michael, staring off into the distance.
My stomach aches, and I reach for my little brother’s hand. When he flinches from my touch, a part of me wilts. Things haven’t returned to normal between Michael and me since the night I woke up choking him.
I’m not sure if they ever will.
“For what?” I ask, withdrawing my hand to my chest.
John’s gaze dips to my finger, where I’m still twisting my cold ring. I try not to think about the possibility that Michael will never trust me again and return to the more urgent matter of the killer loose on the island.
My gut turns over. “You think she killed Joel because Peter proposed to me?”
John, oblivious to the pain this is kindling inside me, says, “How better to punish Peter than to kill one of the people he cares for most in the world?”
My heart pounds, anger flooding my head. “Then why not kill me? Wouldn’t that serve more of a purpose? Wouldn’t that be more fair?”
John shrugs. “Maybe she went looking for you and instead found the next best thing.”
He turns to go, but I grab him by the shoulder, pulling him in for a hug. John tenses, but he wraps his arms around me all the same.
“The murderer cut off Joel’s pinkie,” I whisper, unable to keep my body from shaking.
John tenses, but his voice remains light. “Maybe the killer thought they could trick the reaping tree into letting them into the Den.”
“Freckles’s hair was singed at the tips. When I smelled it, it reminded me of the way the rat stank when Joel made it get close to the fire.”
We let that settle between us for a moment.
“I know. I’ll watch my back. Promise.” When John pulls away, he offers me a sad smile. “And Wendy?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry. About snapping at you that night.” He clears his throat, unable to bring himself to be more specific, which is fine with me. I’d rather not relive the moment my brother walked in on my and Peter’s passionate kiss—or John’s assumptions about where that kiss was headed. “I’d been up all night with Michael. It’s not an excuse but…” He trails off, and as he rubs the back of his neck, I glimpse the silvery scars from where Michael’s scratches have only recently healed and have to look away. “I just…I’ve watched you hurt for a long time, you know?”
“Peter’s not going to hurt me, John,” I say, hugging my torso. “He loves me.”
Again, John’s gaze fixates on the glint of my ring. “Yeah,” he says, as if his mind has been transported to another world entirely. “Ma and Pa loved you too.”
For a moment, my limbs turn to stone, thinking John has linked our parents’ desperation to protect me to what he overheard outside of the parlor. I prepare their defense, all the reasons they thought they were acting in my best interest, misguided as their actions were.
But John only says, “And you still ended up taken, didn’t you?”
It shouldn’t be as much of a relief as it is.