Page 119 of Losing Wendy

There’s no landmark in sight. Until, that is, my bare foot steps on something cold, and moist, and pliable.

The instant urge to retch spikes my stomach, especially when the spongy substance beneath my feet makes a popping sound, a horrible stench filling my nostrils.

I know what it is before I even look down. Fighting back a disgusted sob, I pull my foot from a purposefully shallow grave.

Dizziness overwhelms me when I make the mistake of looking down. Thomas’s killer has met the fate Victor wished for him. His eyes are plucked out, probably by a murder of crows. Judging by the way something white and opaque still glows within their sockets in the moonlight, I’d venture to guess larvae have taken up residence. The man’s cheeks are sunken in. There’s barely any flesh left on him.

It’s shameful and awful, and I want to vomit, because I did this to this man with my dagger. If Peter or the captain or Victor or John were here, they’d tell me I shouldn’t feel guilty. That the man murdered a child and deserved what he got.

But I’m so tired of being told how I feel.

I have a hard enough time determining that for myself without everyone in the world inserting their opinion, confusing me and muddling my mind.

It’s half shame and half anger that propels me as I thrust my fingers into the soft dirt and begin throwing clumps of it on the body. Victor’s had his time to mourn. His time to stew in anger. It’snot healthy for him to sit and watch this man’s body rot every day; I don’t care what anyone else says. It’s not good. Not natural.

Not natural. That’s what my mother’s alienist had said about me. When he showed me those vile sketches and I didn’t shed a tear.

I cover the man’s face first, the face where Victor spat. I don’t want to have to look at it anymore, don’t want to have to know it’s out here.

When I move on to the chest, I discover a bulge in the man’s front coat pocket. I didn’t notice it before, not when the man was alive and his body filled out his clothes. Now that he’s decomposed, every bulge in his clothing seems more noticeable.

I slip my hand into the pocket. My fingers brush against parchment. My memory goes back to the closet, to finding the sketch of Thomas and the other boys. Wind ruffles the tattered parchment’s edges as I pull it out.

Unfolding it proves to be a task, my fingers trembling, but as I open it, the moon shifts into a window in the canopy, illuminating its contents.

My heart trembles. It’s another sketch of Thomas’s, except this one’s just of him and Victor. It’s not nearly as advanced as the one I found in the pantry. This sketch is done with less precise hands, the shading overdone, leaving both his and Victor’s faces looking warped. It shouldn’t surprise me that the murderer picked this, too, off of Thomas’s body after he killed him. I used to read stories about serial murderers who kept trophies from their victims. Why take just the bracelet when you could take this, as well?

Still, I find it odd that Thomas would have kept this one on his person, when it’s clearly not his best work. Maybe it was the first he ever felt proud of. Or maybe he just liked to keep it with him because it’s of him and his only family.

Either way, I stuff the parchment into my pocket. If Victor’s pain is at all like mine, I think he might appreciate keeping this. Especially if it was special to Thomas.

I finish burying the man, then, my limbs worn with exhaustion,stumble back home, no longer lost now that I have the starting point of the shallow grave.

On the way, I find myself tapping my fingers against the parchment, the beginnings of a dreadful idea tugging at the back of my mind.

CHAPTER 43

I’m staring at the parchment the next morning when Peter slips into my room.

Immediately, I pull my coat collar up to hide the bruises on my neck from where Tink held me down last night. The wounds between my knuckles I tuck underneath my sleeves.

“There’s my utterly traditional fiancée,” Peter says, sliding on the bed next to me, then saying “Oops” as he scoots further from me.

My stomach twists in me. I don’t particularly find the joke funny, so why does my laugh come out so genuine?

He’s been teasing me incessantly about choosing not to move into his room quite yet. I can’t quite explain why I’m not ready for that. Not when I already made the mistake of telling Captain Astor. Not when I can still feel the sting of his taunts scraping at my throat.

You shouldn’t have told me that.

Besides, I find comfort in the fact that Peter doesn’t expect me to open those wounds for him until I’m ready.

Peter leans in, sweeping me into his arms and pressing a kiss to my lips, drowning away any of the gnawing in my stomach I feel athis jesting. I melt into his arms, though I swat him away when he starts to play with the buttons of my dress.

“You know, you could have already been my wife,” he says, “considering that matters to you so much.”

“It wouldn’t have counted,” I say. “You wanted to marry me in the sky.”

Peter presses soft kisses against my jawline. “I would have thought you’d have found that romantic.”

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