Page 108 of Losing Wendy

“When there was no dinner at the table, we knew something was wrong,” says Simon.

“It had to have happened a few hours ago,” says Nettle.

“Not possible,” says Benjamin. “I asked him when dinner would be ready an hour ago. He said he was going to try to find Wendy because she hadn’t shown up for cooking duties and he was worried about her.”

My heart stills in my chest.

Simon looks at me and frowns, sympathy welling up in his eyes, but an unspoken question too. Awhere were you?

My jaw works, but no words come out.

Because lying dead on the ground is Joel.

His pinkie is missing.

I don’t knowhow long it takes for Peter to find us. He swoops in from above, toppling branches of the canopy as he barrels into the crowd. One shout from Peter, and the Lost Boys part a way for him.

He must have scented the blood.

I stay with Joel, grasping his cold hand in mine.

I don’t know why I do it. He’s dead. It’s not as if he knows I’m here.

Peter’s face pales and his whole body stills as he takes in the gruesome sight. Blood stains Joel’s shirt, remnants of a knife wound. His flesh is jagged around the stump where his finger used to be. Worse still, blood paints a fox across his cheek.

My stomach turns over, and I pray that he was already dead.

“Tell me everything,” Peter says to everyone and no one at once.

Simon’s the one who answers. “We found him after Smalls got to the dinner table and noticed it wasn’t set. He went to the kitchensand found them empty, then came yelling down the tunnel that something was wrong. That Joel and Wendy were missing.” Simon gives me a quick, sidelong glance, one that Peter follows with his gaze.

He doesn’t ask me where I was, but that terrifying stillness has overcome him. The blank sheet that seems to wash away all expression of emotion. Or smother it, wrap it up like a crystal ball and tuck it away.

I’m grateful that I don’t have to explain to the boys where I was, but I sense the shifting of their feet all the same. The suspicion.

“Benjamin told us that Joel had said an hour ago that he was going to go out looking for Wendy. The group of us set out. A few of us were planning to try to find you, but all it took was stepping out of the Den and…” Simon loses his words.

“You said that man we buried killed Thomas. Killed my brother.”

The voice is flat, coming out from the shadows. Victor is staring at Joel, a coldness in his expression that mirrors the corpse.

“Victor—” Peter says, his arms crossed, but Victor cuts him off.

“You said we got him. You said that was the man. That we buried him. That his flesh is rotting in a shallow grave.” Victor’s voice is warbling on the edge of mania. It’s nerve-racking hearing him like this.

“You said—”

My heart hammers in my chest, and before I realize what I’m doing, I grab at it. Peter glances at me, realization striking his face. “Victor, the man on the beach, he had Thomas’s bracelet. The one that was missing.”

Victor just points to Joel. “So what happened to him?”

“I suppose the most logical explanation is that we have another killer on the island,” says John, still holding Michael as he sways back and forth to the tune of the howling wind.

My mind flashes back to what Peter said, about the terrible fates that were woven into the boys’ tapestries. The ones this very realm was made to protect them from, to help them escape.

Thomas dead, the first boy who was supposed to meet a treacherous end. Now Freckles and Joel.

Peter and I exchange a knowing look, but he shakes his head, just enough for me to be the only one to notice. I hope.

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