Page 136 of Losing Wendy

“I don’t understand why you’re protecting Peter. If the two of you know what he plans to do to you.”

Nettle shakes his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Wendy. Peter’s the best of us, but it means that he was never going to be strong enough to do what had to be done.”

My heart stops in my chest. “Peter didn’t kill Thomas?”

Slowly, Nettle shakes his head.

“How do you know?”

Simon lifts his face, his fingers still twined in Michael’s hand. “Because I did.”

My breath leaves me, panic overtaking my bones. My mind tries to picture it—innocent, kind Simon killing Thomas in cold blood. Strangling the air from his lungs, but I can’t picture it. Can’t imagine it. Simon, who was the first to befriend me. Simon, who talked and joked with me for long hours as we went on hunts.

“No. No, Simon, you couldn’t. You couldn’t have…”

“Winds, please,” he says, his face distressed and pleading. “Please don’t make this worse. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean…” His eyes go out of focus, like they’re trying to roll back in his head, but he’s willing them to stay put. “We were just roughhousing, like we always did. It was nothing. I got him in a headlock, then I…” His breathing goes ragged. “I didn’t know. Didn’t realize what I was doing. I guess I held on too long. We were just having fun, I swear. I didn’t mean to…”

The picture swarms in my head, making me dizzy. A pair of boys laughing as they wrestle, like they always do. Simon getting a hold of Thomas’s neck. Squeezing too hard. Thomas beating at his shoulders, trying to tell him something is wrong. Simon thinking it’s just part of their game. Thomas’s lips turning blue. Simon not being able to tell from behind.

Simon blanches, and I watch as he tugs Michael further away from the edge.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I tell Simon. “It couldn’t have been your fault.”

Simon stares at me blankly. “Tell Victor that.”

“Does he know?” I ask.

“None of them can know,” says Nettle.

“Simon,” I say, breathlessly. I hate to feel relieved at this news. In fact, I feel sick, but it’s not as if this misunderstanding can’t be resolved. “I know you didn’t mean to. I know you. I promise I won’ttell the other boys. Not unless you ask me to. You don’t deserve for them to hate you.”

He just stares at me blankly, like he’s not processing what I’m saying.

“The rest of Peter’s journal,” I say. “Remember what I told you on the beach? Each of you were destined to meet terrible fates, too early. Too young. Before you came to Neverland, you were supposed to die of the plague. Peter worried that, even though you escaped death once, fate might still find you here. It wasn’t you, Simon. It was an accident. Thomas’s fate, come to get him. There’s nothing you could have done.”

I expect a reaction from Simon. Signs that he’s struggling with relief and guilt, something. But he just keeps staring at me with mournful eyes, and says, “Oh, Winds.”

I glance back and forth between him and Nettle. “You don’t understand,” I say. “Simon’s not a killer. Neither of you are.”

Nettle shakes his head. “That, Wendy, is where you’re wrong. I’m afraid you’re the one who doesn’t understand.”

I shake my head. “No, Simon. You’ve just gone through something traumatic. And Nettle, you lost your friend. But there’s help, I promise. The two of you are good kids.” Except they lost more than one friend, my mind reminds me. But I’m scared to ask what happened to Freckles and Joel.

Simon sobs. Nettle doesn’t. He just lets out a wry laugh.

“Come on, Winds. Who told you that Neverland was created to keep the Lost Boys from suffering untimely deaths?”

“Peter,” I say, who I now realize wasn’t behind the death of Thomas at all. Meaning he was lying to the Sister about killing him. Who’s to say he didn’t lie about killing Freckles and Joel, too?

“Think, Wendy. Is that really what Peter said?”

I frown, crinkling my brow. “Of course. He told me the Sister came to take your lives early to keep you from suffering. To keep you from dying of the plague.”

“Think. Did Peter ever say that? Did he ever say that we were going to die oftheplague?”

I run back through my memories, siphoning through them.

She told me there was a plague within the walls of the orphanage, one that had already infected the boy. A disease that he’d already spread to some of the others.

---