Page 106 of Losing Wendy

This seems to satisfy Joel, because he nods and says, “Makes sense. Especially since you have cooking duty with me tonight.”

“Right,” I say, neglecting to mention that I’d forgotten all about that.

“Hey, I’m glad I ran into you.” Joel plunges his hand into his own satchel. When he pulls out a furry white mouse, I cringe, which he immediately misinterprets as pity for the disgusting creature.

“No, it’s not like that,” he says, eyes wide as he clings to the wriggling animal. “I’m not going to hurt him. I’ve been keeping him as a pet. Found him in the garden a week ago, caught in the tomato vines. I’ve been taking care of him ever since. I thought…” He stops, swallowing, desperation haunting his sallow cheeks, begging me to understand.

“You’re replacing a bad habit with a good one,” I say, though keeping a rodent as a pet isn’t exactly what I would normally classify as a good habit.

Joel’s face lights up. “Yeah. And it’s working, too. But it’s all because of you. Knowing that there was someone out there who knew about my…well, problem, but didn’t treat me any differently. It helped, somehow.”

My stomach sinks as I recall all the times I’ve had to school myself to hide my fear of Joel.

“Anyway,” he says, extending his hand to me, “I wanted you to have him.”

I blink, staring at the squirming rodent. “You what?”

I endup back outside the reaping tree with a splitting headache and a mouse named Benedict squeaking in my satchel.

When I’d turned to go back to my room, Joel had reminded me that I was supposed to be out picking herbs, so now I have to find a way to kill time before I return to the Den.

I’m not sure how it happens. At first I tell myself I’m just taking a walk.

The route is circuitous, but I need time to think anyway, time to clear my head. Walking does nothing to cleanse my mind of thecaptain’s cruel words, though, so I end up climbing a cliffside, hoping the exertion will distract me.

I don’t even realize I’m by the shed until I’m standing at its door, picking the lock, my hands and fingers more steady than they ever are these days.

The door creaks open, and there’s a blissful moment when the scent of faerie dust wafts through the air, already filling my lungs with a gentle, pleasant numbness, a weightless euphoria that feels like nothing, nothing at all.

It sounds like the absence of Captain Astor’s voice in my head. Smells like velvet untouched by lingering incense.

I don’t wait until I’m outside the shed. I convince myself it’s because I’m afraid of the shadows attacking me like they did the last time I scoured for faerie dust.

I dig my fingers into the nearest pouch and lick the faerie dust off my finger like I might honey I’d just found in a stray piece of comb, fallen from the hive.

It tastes like silence.

It’sdark by the time I come to myself. At first, I don’t know where I am. Wood scrapes against my cheek. It takes several blinks for my eyes to adjust in the dark, but when my vision clears, I realize I’m lying atop a rafter, my cheek pressed to its flank. Drool has already hardened at the edge of my lips.

Unease fills my gut. I didn’t think about floating being a side effect when I dosed myself. It’s a good thing I was in the shed rather than out in the open. The splashing of the waves against the cliffs outside reminds me as much.

Panicked, I scramble down the nearest beam, stuffing my pockets with as many pouches as I can reasonably hide. Once I’ve locked the storehouse door behind me, I check for the moon’s position. It’s still over the ocean, meaning there’s hope I haven’t yet missed dinner.

I’ll definitely have missed cooking it, which is unfortunate, since Joel seemed so excited about it this morning. I can’t imagine it will do him good if he thinks I forgot about him.

Not to mention, I feel guilty for letting the boys go hungry tonight. So I grab my satchel and begin making my descent, hoping the boys will forgive me, and that no one will smell the honeysuckle on me.

By the timeI reach the reaping tree, I already know something’s wrong.

I know it before I hear the voices, high and panicked.

I know it before I hear the pacing footsteps.

I know it before I hear Michael’s song.

I know it because the shadows tell me. They don’t encroach on my vision like they used to. They don’t speak to me aloud. The shadows know better than to get close now that I’m consistently dosing myself with faerie dust, but that doesn’t mean the shadows disappear.

They sway in the corners of my vision, keeping their distance, moaning softly as they speckle the ground in the pattern of leaves above, stopping the moonlight. They sway and cry and shift and mourn. If they’re screaming, the faerie dust mutes the sound, leaves them shapeless, blurred, harmless.

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