Page 71 of Losing Wendy

I can’t help but note how they don’t mention the way all of their eyes are puffy underneath the lids, too. How scarlet veins thread the whites around their irises.

I suppose for them, it’s easier to focus on the crying girl.

I might take more offense if I didn’t know they’d been mourning along with me, separated only by the roots of this wretched tree. I’d wept myself to sleep, and when I woke, it was to a puffy face and constricted sinuses. But it was also as if someone had poured chilled water over my soul, washing the pain from my heart like a stain from cloth.

Of course, exhaustion lingers, making my muscles heavy. I might have stayed in my cot today, slept until noon, except that Michael’s internal clock had him up before the sun and trying to tiptoe on my back.

Next to me, John nudges me ever so slightly. When I glance at him, there’s a silent question in his thoughtful eyes.Are you okay?

I give him a soft smile and nod quietly.

It doesn’t feel like as much of a lie as it is.

Simon gives me an apologetic glance, then opens up discussion around the table about when the boys think the frostbugs will first appear.

It’s a clear attempt to distract the conversation away from their pain. The kind of thing Peter would do. The kind of thing Simon has likely learned from Peter.

I’m asking what the frostbugs are when Peter strides in from the hall.

He stops in his tracks when he sees me, the same blankness in his expression that was there yesterday. His eyes linger on the deep lines cut into and below my eyelids, the blotches that must remain around my cheeks, the shine of my eyes that deepens their blue hue.

He turns back around and disappears down the hallway.

“Frostbugs are like fireflies, except they come out when it’s cold,” says John.

Benjamin almost smiles. “Joel and I were looking for their dens yesterday. They’re easier to catch when you can find them sleeping. If you can trap them in a glass jar, they’ll bring you good luck.”

I’m about to ask why frostbugs would bestow luck upon their captors when John asks, “How long did it take you to find any?”

Joel cuts his eyes to John, but Benjamin just laughs. “I do wish we would have found some. We spent all day looking. Well, early in the morning until…” He trails off, eyes going glassy.

I try not to make eye contact with John, but I can tell he’s staring at me.

It seems Joel has an alibi.

The weakness broughton by yesterday’s murder has yet to leave my limbs by the day’s end. Simon pestered me about what was bothering me during our hunt today, but I found it didn’t feel quite fair to complain to him about my before-Never when he has no memories of his.

I’m sitting by the fire in the Den, curling the corner of Thomas’s sketch in my hand, when I hear a voice.

“Winds?”

I get the strangest sense that this moment in time has overlappedwith a moment from the past, but when I turn around, of course it’s not Freckles I find.

Because Freckles is dead.

Nettle approaches, hesitantly, his blond hair, usually combed neatly at his forehead, mussed. “Can I ask you a question?”

I’m too exhausted for questions, but I don’t feel that I can say as much, so I nod.

“That night you helped me cook,” he says. “Remember how I told you about my father being a duke?”

The muscles in my hand tense. I don’t think I can bear telling Nettle that the memory he clings to with all his might is the remnants of a nursery rhyme.

“Of course I do,” I respond, trying my best to sound chipper.

“It’s okay,” he says, kicking at the corner of the rug. “You don’t have to pretend. I heard Michael singing earlier. And as it seems a little far-fetched to assume that your little brother made up an entire song about my family…” He offers me a pained wince.

“I’m sorry, Nettle,” I say. “I should have told you.”

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