Lost in the Never Woods

by Aiden Thomas

  No one paid her much attention. The ER was cramped and chronically understaffed. There wasn’t enough storage space, so the walls were lined with shelves on wheels, stacked full of medical supplies that could be carted from room to room.

  At least here, everyone was too busy to notice Wendy. She only caught a glimpse of the boy lying on a gurney in the far alcove before a nurse tugged the curtain shut.

  Wendy sat in a plastic cushioned seat along the wall, watching the feet of the nurses and doctors crowding around the bed. She kept telling herself that he was just a boy who had gotten himself lost in the middle of the woods. It had been dark on the road, she hadn’t been able to see him properly. She was tired and stressed, and her mind was piecing together wild ideas. Once she could prove to herself he was just a stranger, she could go home and get some sleep.

  But she wasn’t going to leave without seeing him.

  “Back already?” Nurse Judy’s familiar voice snapped Wendy to attention. She stood behind the nurses’ desk, holding a tray of syringes as she peered at Wendy over the top of her glasses. Nurse Judy provided Wendy with an excuse before she had to make one up. “Oh, waiting for your mom?” Her expression relaxed. “She’s in the break room, should be out in a few.”

  “Thanks.” That seemed to satisfy Nurse Judy enough and she went back to her work. Sometimes Wendy and her mom would drive home together, when they worked the same shift.

  Wendy knotted her fingers into the hem of her tank top. She just needed to see the boy one more time. Then she could get out of there before anyone thought better of it, before anyone noticed her and started asking questions.

  But, of course, that was too much to ask.

  The ER doors swung open, and in walked Dallas, Marshall, Officer Smith, and another cop she didn’t recognize. Wendy’s stomach dropped and she pulled her feet up onto the chair and hugged her knees to her chest. Maybe they wouldn’t see her.

  Dallas handed Officer Smith some papers and nodded in Wendy’s direction. Officer Smith fixed her with a harsh look, and Wendy’s eyes darted back to the closed drapes.

  Great.

  Wendy didn’t like cops. After what had happened to her in the woods, she didn’t trust them anymore. They had done nothing but scare her and ask her the same questions over and over. They never believed her when she said she couldn’t remember anything.

  And they failed to get her brothers back.

  Officer Smith had been one of those cops.

  Wendy heard the clacking of their loaded belts and the squeak of their boots on the speckled linoleum. They came to a stop in front of her. Wendy tried to relax the muscles in her face and conjure up an expression of boredom as she continued to stare straight ahead. Her heart fluttered traitorously in her chest.

  The officer she didn’t recognize spoke first. “Miss Darling?” His voice was too gentle. He was in the wrong profession.

  Wendy hummed in acknowledgment.

  “We just have a few questions for you,” he said. There was a rustling of paper as he pulled out a notepad.

  “I already talked to the paramedics,” Wendy said flatly.

  Officer Smith stepped forward. His handcuffs glinted from his belt. “Yeah, well, we have a few more questions.”

  Angry defiance sparked in Wendy. “Shouldn’t you guys be out looking for those missing kids instead of bugging me?” She regretted saying it almost as soon as it left her lips.

  “Yes, we should, Wendy.” She glanced up at his rough tone. Officer Smith scowled deeply, his fists propped on his hips. The other cop—young, with even, short-cropped hair—looked uneasy.

  The name on his uniform read CECCO. Wendy knew it. She went to high school with a girl whose last name was Cecco. This must be her older brother.

  Officer Cecco’s eyes shifted between Wendy and Smith.

  “Which is why you should cooperate with us so we can determine if this boy was a victim,” Officer Smith added.

  Wendy swallowed hard but raised an eyebrow expectantly. “Well?”

  Cecco cleared his throat. “You said something fell onto the hood of your car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like a tree branch?” he prompted.

  “No—not a tree branch, it was like…” Wendy thought about the strange black thing she had seen. It hadn’t been solid enough to be a branch. It was murky and whatever it was made of swirled and shifted, like if you tried to touch it, it would just slip through your fingers.

  But how on earth could she describe that to the police? “It dented my hood and scratched my windshield.”

  “Like a tree branch,” Smith insisted, shifting moodily.

  Wendy lifted her chin and tried to sound firm. “No.” Of course he didn’t believe her. “I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t a branch.”

  “The medics said there were no signs that the victim”—Wendy grimaced at the word—“was hit by a car,” Cecco continued. “And you said he talked to you. Did he say what had happened?”

  “No.”

  “You said he knew your name.” His voice went all soft again. “Do you know him?”

  She opened her mouth to say no, but the word lodged in her throat. She hesitated.

  Wendy’s eyes shifted to the nurse’s desk.

  Nurse Judy was watching the two officers talk to Wendy, startled. Her face was splotchy red, and for a moment, Wendy thought she was going to stomp over and tell the officers off. Instead, she marched quickly in the direction of the break room.

  Wendy’s grip around her legs tightened. Her breathing quickened. She hoped Smith and Cecco didn’t notice. “No.” But she didn’t sound nearly as confident as before. She couldn’t tell them that she thought she had almost run her truck over a boy she only knew from make-believe stories.

  Wendy’s head gave a painful throb.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Smith’s cold gray eyes narrowed. “How did he end up in the middle of the street?” he asked. “Did he come from the logging roads?”

  Wendy finally looked directly at the faces of the two officers. She smiled, squinting her eyes. “Maybe he fell out of the sky?”

  Smith’s lips pressed into a hard line, the muscle in his jaw clenching. It gave Wendy a small feeling of satisfaction. Cecco uselessly rubbed at the back of his neck. After cutting Smith a nervous glance, he pinned his attention back to Wendy. “How does he know your—?”

  “What’s going on here?” The voice was quiet but stern.

  “Mom,” Wendy breathed.

  Her mother appeared, standing between the two officers.

  Mary Darling was in a pair of faded blue scrubs, her light brown hair done up in a messy bun. Her hands were at her sides, fidgeting, as her sharp brown eyes looked back and forth between the officers. The stern authority she’d once had was belied by sagging shoulders and dark circles under her eyes.

  Wendy stood up, pushing past Smith and Cecco to get to her mother’s side.

  “Are you all right?” Mrs. Darling asked, giving Wendy a sidelong glance. “What happened? Your father—?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Wendy said quickly. Her mom could sort this all out, she could make sense of all this. “There was this boy—”

  “Mrs. Darling, we need to talk to your daughter,” Smith cut in.

  “And why is that, Officer Smith?”

  He took off his hat, clearly ready to launch into an explanation.

  “Wendy!”

  Everyone turned. The blue drapes around the boy’s bed rustled. Nurses ran behind the curtains.

  “WENDY!”

  She couldn’t make out what the doctors were saying over the frenzied shouts of her name. There were two loud bangs as metal trays were knocked to the floor.

  Everyone was staring at her. The nurses, the doctors, the officers, her mom.

  “WENDY!”

  Her head spun. All other sound became muffled and garbled, except for his piercing yells.

  This felt like a nig
htmare. Her chest heaved up and down and her hands curled into fists. She walked toward the curtained bed.

  “Wendy.” This time it was her mother, lightly placing a hand on her shoulder, but Wendy shrugged it off. She passed nurses who openly stared at her and moved out of her way.

  “WENDY!”

  She was close enough now to reach out and grab the cotton drape. She hesitated, noticing how hard her hand was shaking. Wendy yanked it back.

  Nurses darted around. Men in blue scrubs on either side of the boy tried to grab hold of his arms. His legs thrashed under the waffle-knit blanket. There was a doctor with a needle and a small glass bottle.

  But then everything stopped and it was Wendy looking at him, and him looking back. She could see now that his hair was a dark auburn, glints of red showing even in the dull hospital light. The color of late-autumn leaves. He was dressed in a blue hospital gown. They’d apparently cut him out of what he had been wearing.

  “Wendy?” He wasn’t yelling anymore. His head tipped to the side as he squinted at her with those brilliant blue eyes.

  Wendy couldn’t find her voice. She had no idea what to say. Her mouth was open, but nothing came out.

  A wide smile cut across his face, revealing a small chip in his front tooth, and deep dimples. Those starry eyes of his lit up—the ones she’d never been able to capture in her dozens of drawings. But that wasn’t possible …

  “I found you,” he said triumphantly. He continued to struggle against the two men holding him back, the smile never leaving his face. That look made heat bloom in Wendy’s cheeks and sent her stomach flipping.

  The doctor stuck the needle into his arm and depressed the plunger.

  “No, don’t!” The words flew from her mouth, but it was too late. The boy flinched but couldn’t pull away. Almost immediately, those brilliant eyes went glassy.

  His head swayed, and he sank back into the hospital bed. “I knew I’d find you.” His speech was slurred and his eyes began to wander around the room in a daze, but he was so happy—so relieved.

  Wendy slipped past a nurse and stood next to him. “Who are you?” she asked, gripping the bed rail.

  The boy frowned and his eyebrows pulled upward, trying to stay awake. “You forgot about me?” His eyes swept back and forth in search of her face.

  Wendy’s heart raced. She didn’t know what to do, and she was acutely aware of everyone watching. She had so many questions, but the sedative was quickly pulling him under. “What’s your name?” she asked urgently.

  His drowsy eyes finally found hers. “Peter.” He blinked slowly and his head dropped back onto the pillows. He let out a small, drunk-sounding laugh. “You’re so old…” His eyes slid shut and he went still, except for the slow rise and fall of his chest.

  Peter.

  The movement around her started again. People were asking her questions, but she couldn’t hear them. She was swept up by people in scrubs, gently pulled away from Peter’s side. Wendy suddenly felt like she was going to vomit. Saliva pooled in her mouth as the room swayed around her.

  You forgot about me?

  Wendy buried her face in her hands. Her heart pounded. She could still smell the soil and wet grass of his skin. She squeezed her eyes shut and images of trees and twilight between leaves flashed through her vision.

  Hands rubbed her back and guided her into a seat where she put her head between her knees, clasped her hands behind her sweaty neck, and pressed her forearms against her ears.

  How did he know her? Why had he been looking for her? And who was he? He couldn’t be Peter Pan, her Peter. He wasn’t real, he was just a made-up story. Wasn’t he?

  You forgot about me?

  There was so much that she had forgotten—huge gaps of time just missing from her memory. What if he was one of them? What if he knew what happened?

  Suddenly, the thought of him waking up terrified her.

  All of the bodies around her backed away and she felt the light pressure of what could only be her mother’s touch on the crown of her head. Wendy looked up at her mom from between her arms.

  “I’m going to take you home, okay?” The nurses behind Mrs. Darling were still staring, but Mrs. Darling was looking at Wendy’s hair, looping a finger around a lock of it and gently pulling it through.

  Wendy nodded.

  “Mrs. Darling.” Smith was still there. “We have more questions we need to ask your daughter.” The suspicion he had shown earlier was now replaced with a look of wary apprehension as he peered down at Wendy.

  Mrs. Darling crossed her arms. “None of that will be happening tonight. My daughter has been through quite enough already, but we’ll be happy to speak with you tomorrow.”

  Officer Cecco stood back and spoke quickly into his radio.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but—”

  Wendy stopped listening.

  She leaned her cheek against her knee and looked back at Peter’s bed.

  The spilled tray had been picked up, and she could just make out one of his hands, the wrist bound in a padded leather cuff. They’d shackled him to the bed.

  She remembered what those cuffs had felt like around her own wrists after they found her in the woods on her thirteenth birthday.

  At first, she was just at the hospital to get her minor injuries checked out, but when the crying wouldn’t stop and Wendy kept waking up in the middle of the night screaming and thrashing, they started buckling down her wrists and ankles. To protect her, they’d said. She couldn’t remember much after that except for the steady ebb and flow of doctors, social workers, and psychologists.

  Her brothers were still missing, and it was all her fault.

  A nurse stood next to Peter, reading his vitals. Her mother and Officer Smith were deep in conversation. His face had turned a plum red, and her mother’s chin was tilted stubbornly. The other officer was now talking into a cell phone, his back toward them all.

  When the nurse left, Wendy slipped out of her seat.

  She walked to the bedside again. Her eyes roved over the contours of his jaw, his ears, his hair. She searched for some sign to prove that he wasn’t Peter Pan. He was definitely older than the boy from her stories and drawings. The Peter Pan she knew was a child who never aged. The boy in the hospital bed was definitely a teenager. It was a silly thing to grasp at, the idea that this couldn’t be Peter Pan because Peter Pan could never grow up, but it was something.

  The boy had defined cheekbones and, even in the pale fluorescent light, his skin was sun-warmed and tan. His freckles stood out like flecks of cracked autumn leaves among the smudges of dirt.

  There was a small crease between his eyebrows. Wendy leaned in closer. He was frowning in his sleep, like he was having a bad dream.

  Wendy gently brushed her thumb across the crease, over and over, until his brow relaxed and his face was nothing but smooth slopes and planes.

  She looked down at his banded wrist again, her eyes following along the back of his palm to his long, lean fingers. His fingernails were bitten down, almost to nubs, and the nail beds were caked in dirt.

  The image of her own fingernails when she had been found came flooding back. Dirty, broken, with bits of red stuck underneath.

  Wendy lurched back, a tremor rolling up her spine. She squeezed sanitizer into her palm from the pump attached to the wall and rubbed it vigorously into her hands. The sharp, acidic smell stung her nose.

  “Wendy.”

  She jumped and spun to see her mother down the hall, waving for her to come back.

  “We’re leaving now,” her mom said, her hands tightly gripping her purse. Wendy thought her mother suddenly looked much older. As though something were pressing down on her shoulders, bowing her head and curving her back.

  Wendy wiped the back of her hand across her sweaty brow. “What about my truck?”

  “You can pick it up in the morning,” her mother said, digging into her purse for her keys.

  Wendy nodded. “Okay.”

&
nbsp; Mrs. Darling walked away at a brisk pace, and Wendy followed. As they passed through the sliding glass doors, two people in suits walked in.

  As the doors slid shut, Wendy thought about Peter lying in bed and that smile playing across his lips.

  CHAPTER 3

  Closed Doors

  On the drive home, Wendy sat in the back seat behind her mother. She curled up and pressed her forehead to the cool glass of the window, keeping her back to the woods. In an effort to keep her mind from wandering, she closed her eyes and repeated the lyrics to her favorite song over and over again in her head.

  Tires rolling over gravel let her know they were home. Wendy sat up and pushed the door open, careful not to bump into the side of her father’s car.

  “I have to head back and finish my shift,” her mom said.

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  “Okay.” Wendy hesitated. Something like curiosity, or maybe just guilt, kept her in the car. “Mom, are you okay?”

  Mrs. Darling sighed. Wendy tried to catch her mother’s eye in the rearview mirror, but she continued to stare at the steering wheel. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

  Wendy couldn’t tell who she was trying to convince.

  Her mom drove away before Wendy could pull out her keys. Her father had forgotten to turn on the porch light again. She fumbled for a moment before she could get the front door unlocked.

  The living room was dark except for the strip of light visible under the door of her father’s study. She walked over, pressed her ear to the doorjamb, and listened. Everything was silent except for the sound of her father’s deep, heavy snores.

  Good. At least she wouldn’t have to deal with getting questioned by him. For now, anyway.

  Wendy’s mind and body buzzed with anxious energy. She needed to distract herself with something, to put her restless hands to work, so she straightened up the kitchen. She emptied the dishwasher, which she had filled the night before. She broke down the small pile of beer cases and stacked them with the rest of the recycling. At the sink, she scrubbed at her hands again, the skin red and cracked from the compulsive habit.

  The busywork kept her distracted for the most part until she sat down to write a grocery list. She stared at the small notepad, the tip of the blue pen poised, but she couldn’t concentrate on what she needed to buy for groceries that week, one of the many chores she took up around the house. Now that she was sitting still, her mind raced. She contemplated turning on the TV to drown out her thoughts, but she didn’t want to see the faces of Benjamin Lane and Ashley Ford staring back at her.