Page 48 of Losing Wendy

I’m about to give up and go find John to ask him to relieve me when a sheet of parchment tucked behind one of the shelves catches my attention. It’s rather small, about the size of a piece of letter paper, but someone has sketched on it with charcoal. It’s a beautiful portrait, the type that my parents would have paid good money to be professionally done back in Estelle. When I look closer, I realize it’s a drawing of the Lost Boys, each of their faces immortalized on the smooth side of this thin piece of hide.

The resemblances are uncanny, and I find my gaze lingering over how the artist managed to capture Simon’s toothy grin, Freckles’s dimples, Victor’s scowl and the shadowlike bruises that frame his eyes. Even the cunning glint in Peter’s expression.

As I examine the boys’ faces, my gaze halts and retreats back to one of the figures.

He looks to be the same age as the others—excluding Smalls—no older than sixteen, with messy hair and a captivating grin, though I can’t help but think his face looks distorted compared to the other boys’. As if the artist didn’t know it as well as the others.

As I stare into the boy’s smile, something cold and scaly slithers in my belly.

Because I’ve never met him.

CHAPTER 18

While the fear of my brothers and I losing our memories still lingers, my mind clings onto the face of the missing Lost Boy. Stories weave themselves into my dreams—all of them tragic, most of them bloody and reeking of death.

He becomes my new obsession, and I can’t help but wonder if he has something to do with Victor’s warning on the day we went trapping.

To my shame, it’s not the fear over what happened to him that grips me, so much as the dread that my brothers might meet the same fate. I try to get Victor alone, but he’s been elusive. Mealtimes make up our only interactions, and he usually leaves the table early, disappearing to who knows where.

Speaking of our dining situation.

After several meals with the Lost Boys, most of them featuring boar meat so tough I fear I’ll break a tooth, vegetables that are so underdone they’re chilled on the inside, and liberal use of sea salt that causes inflammation in my throat, I decide something must be done.

At first, I thought the meals were only so horrid because theboys rotate who’s on cooking duty for the day. I figured Smalls and Benjamin must simply be dreadful at it.

But days have passed, and I fear Smalls might actually prove to be the most talented of the group.

I can handle many things in life.

Knowing even as a youth that I was born to be given over to the shadows? Handled. Well, sort of.

But if I’m to be a prisoner, I intend to eat well if I have anything to say about it.

It’s certainly not that we don’t have the facilities to make an excellent meal. I peeked in the kitchen, and it’s complete with a cast-iron oven, its vent carved into the earthen ceiling. There are also plenty of knives, spices, cedar cutting boards, and pots and pans. Some appear to have been shaped by Benjamin’s blade. Others appear aged and like they might have been stolen from the kitchens of the unsuspecting.

One day during our trapping excursion, I ask Simon if I might help him with his cooking shift. Simon appears thrilled, though I’m not sure if it’s for my company or my assistance, but at this point I can’t worry about these things.

Later that day when I arrive at the kitchen, it’s Nettle who meets me, his blond bangs already sweat-soaked from the heat of the stove.

“Are you on duty with Simon?” I ask, confused.

Nettle shakes his head. “Simon’s got a bad stomach. He’s holed up in the outhouse, so I told him I’d trade shifts with him.”

I examine the thin boy. “That was kind of you,” I say.

Nettle gives me a bemused look. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

“No reason,” I lie, as Nettle has certainly not struck me as the kind and selfless type. Although, I’m unsure whether my impression of him is based off his actions or what the other boys have told me.

“You’re right though,” he says. “I didn’t do it out of kindness. Simon was bragging earlier about how you asked to help himtonight. I figured if I traded with him, I’d only have to do half the work.”

I let out an exasperated laugh. “And here you were, making me feel bad about my assumptions.”

Nettle turns to me, a smile threatening the edges of his mouth.

“Well, you’ll be displeased to discover that I have slightly higher expectations than you might be used to,” I tell him.

Nettle whisks out a kitchen knife. “Just tell me what needs to be cut.”

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