Page 35 of Losing Wendy

If we even make it through them.

There’sno door to the room John, Michael, and I are to inhabit. Just a curtain of leaves draped over a cavity dug into the wall of earth. Now that we have a moment of quiet, devoid of the boys’ incessant questions, tonight’s events encroach on me. Just like the realization that the world is up there, and I’m stuck here, beneath the surface. The ground itself feels as if it’s suffocating me, like it might cave in on me at any moment. For years, I’ve sought escape from the shadows, secretly craving the shadows themselves. But never once did I consider darkness would come from the earth itself, cutting me off from the sun and the brush of fresh air against my skin.

There are no windows down here for me to crack. No shadows to cast a lantern on and pretend to banish. The shadows are not as alluring when there’s no light around to distinguish them, no illumination to flee into when the darkness gets too close.

The room itself is simple, decorated with a bear-skin rug on the floor, nothing on the walls.

There are three cots in the room, bare except for the blankets Simon had the other boys fetch us. Michael curls up on his and goes to sleep. I imagine he needs to recharge after expending so much emotional energy with the reaping tree, even if the faerie dust did work to calm him. He’s always done that. Escaped the room and hidden away for a while until he regains control over his body, at which point he’ll wander back to us.

All my life, everyone has acted as if there’s something strange about Michael, but I wonder if he’s the only one who has any of this figured out.

John doesn’t curl up on his cot. Instead, he sits on the earth with his back propped up against the wall, his elbows resting on his knees as he peers at his bandaged hand.

He’s staring at his finger, but that’s not the loss he’s contemplating.

“I’m so sorry, John,” I whisper.

Slowly, he cranes his head up to me. “Don’t go and try to make out like this is all your fault,” he says, his voice heavy, resigned. “It’s the type of thing characters in dramas do, and it makes it seem as if the world is concerned with them above all else. It’s insufferable and inaccurate,” he says, matter-of-factly. But then a cool smile tugs at the wrinkles beside my brother’s eyes, magnified by his spectacles. “I’ve had a rather bad day for you, a supporting character, to go and make it worse by pretending this isn’t all about me.”

I let out a laugh, one that frosts the air in front of my lips, and soon my brother and I are laughing so hard, we’re both clutching our stomachs. But then our gazes lock onto John’s wounded hand, the way he’s so poorly wrapped it. The laughter explodes into something more manic, until it’s indistinguishable from our sobs.

Eventually the hysteria fades, and the silence between us takes us with it, lulling us precariously close to the edge of despair.

“I know it’s just a truth my mind has to work through,” says mybrother, “but I can’t seem to wrap myself around the fact that they’re gone.”

“It’s someone else’s blood,” I say, nodding in agreement.

“Lookalike actors they hired in advance, knowing the pirates would attack.”

“They must have paid them quite well to die in their stead,” I say.

John shrugs. “It would surprise you what people would do for money.”

I chuckle, and the air scratches my throat. Eventually, we settle into a quiet that feels treacherous. The kind that might consume us whole. John’s right, the death of our parents doesn’t quite seem real, nor do the events of the evening. Which is strange, given the way this night ended the way it was always supposed to.

One would think I would have been prepared.

But I suppose it’s only natural to assume the inevitable can’t in fact happen to us. Isn’t that what humans do with death all the time? Set aside the only thing in life that’s actually guaranteed to happen. Determine to think about it later, then feign shock when it appears at our doorstep, just like it always promised it would.

“Permission to take up the role of the person around which the world revolves?” I ask.

“Permission granted.”

“Do you think he killed them because of me?”

My question hangs in the air for a moment.

“I think it’s probably down to how you define ‘because of.’”

My stomach sinks, but I appreciate my brother’s honesty. It’s always been the raw sort, the kind that others find coarse, but John’s mind is technical. He sees truth and filters out the lies that would attempt to warp it, dilute it.

There’s a kindness in that as well. To hear the truth spoken, with all the pain it carries with it. It’s not as if I don’t know the truth deep down anyway. It’s not as if I can’t feel it scraping against our insides.

John just surrenders a blade to it, so it can actually cut its way out.

“He claimed they wronged him. Took something—someone—ofhis away. He thought killing me would hurt them the same way it hurt him.”

John peers down at his wounded hand, not looking at me, then shrugs. “The man was a disillusioned captain turned pirate. Orprivateer, as most haughty pirates prefer to think of themselves. He probably ran a merchant voyage for Pa and Ma at some point. More than likely, they ran into trouble at sea and someone he loved was lost. Then he spent years unable to grapple with the truth of what an unfair realm we live in and decided it was easier to blame our parents.”

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