Page 44 of Losing Wendy

“Free to do what?”

“Free to…” I stop, something catching in my throat.

Peter advances, though he doesn’t touch me. Instead, he examines me with those glinting blue eyes of his. “What is it you’d so love to do out there that you can’t do here?”

“That’s not the point. The point is that I can’t leave.”

“Where can’t you leave? This island? Neverland? Your manor? Estelle? Or…” He places his thumb on my temple and caresses it. “Is it here you long to escape?”

I swallow, wrapping my arms around my waist and turning away, brushing aside his touch as if that will sweep away the thorns his words leave behind.

“Getting off this island won’t free you from what’s lurking in your own head.”

A lump rises in my throat. “You have no idea what’s in my head.”

Peter raises an amused brow. “Is that so? Tell me, what was it that had you so paralyzed by the warehouse that you couldn’t even support your own weight? What had a woman fearless enough to climb a cliffside with bare feet keeled over with terror? It wasn’t the nightstalker. You didn’t even know it was there when I arrived. So tell me, I insist, what makes you believe I’m the one imprisoning you?”

I blink away tears, and though anger rises in my throat, I can’t form the words to answer.

“Goodnight, Wendy Darling,” says Peter, before disappearing into the shadows.

Faintly, in the edges of my memory, I remember a voice caressing me from the chaise in my bedroom.

I could take away your pain.

I don’t go backto my room. Not yet. Not when I’m barely holding back sobs. I don’t know if it’s the aftermath of my adrenal response to almost being ripped to shreds, or if it’s the dread of having mymemories slip away from me. The eerie anticipation of what Peter might make me into once there’s nothing left of my mother’s careful warnings, once the little bit of myself I managed to tuck away, to salvage during my upbringing, is gone. Will I forget that John and Michael are my brothers? Peter wasn’t keen on bringing them to Neverland. It could very well be that if I forget they exist, he could dispose of them without worrying about me giving him trouble over it. Our deal was that he would bring them to Neverland, not that he would allow them to stay forever.

Of course, I suppose if Peter wanted me to forget, he could make good on the bargain I offered him.

Anything. A blank check, for him to use as he pleases. Absentmindedly, I run my thumb over the silvery ovals that mark the crease of my inner right elbow.

I suppose if he hasn’t used it to wipe my memories, it’s only because he has something more strategic in mind. Or perhaps because the island will do the memory-wiping for him.

“Winds?” someone asks from the doorway to the Den. I look up to find Freckles standing there, shuffling between his feet awkwardly.

I’m not sure when the Lost Boys convened and decided to call me Winds. Maybe I’m just sensitive right now because I feel my memories, my control, slipping like oil through my fingertips, but I snap, “That’s not my name.”

His eyes widen, and guilt instantly pierces my chest.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

I sigh, wiping tears from my cheek, embarrassed by my outburst. “I know. I’m sorry. You can call me Winds,” I say, remembering how I didn’t mind when Simon said it only a few hours ago.

Freckles actually smiles at that, and my chest cracks open a little bit. He’s tended to be a tad prickly in my estimation, but there’s a softness in his cheeks I haven’t noticed until now.

“Are you missing home?” he asks, approaching me like one might a stray kitten hiding in a gutter.

My throat bobs, stinging. I don’t know how to answer thatquestion, so I don’t. “It’s not that, so much as I don’t like the idea of—” Propriety stops me. Freckles probably doesn’t want to hear me complaining about the potential of losing my memories when he’s already lost his.

“You’re afraid of what the island might do to your head, aren’t you?” Light from the dwindling fire in the hearth dances across the smattering of freckles on his nose and cheeks.

Hindered from replying by the throbbing pain in my throat, I nod, clutching my knees to my chest I huddle against the wall.

Freckles pivots back and forth on his feet for a moment, then holds out a finger. “Wait here,” he says, before scrambling off.

He returns a few minutes later with his hand behind his back. When he sits cross-legged on the floor in front of me, he whips the hidden object out and presses it into my hands.

The wrapping is hasty at best, a broad leaf bent around the object’s edges and secured with twine. When I open it, out falls a leather journal.

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