by Aiden Thomas
Almost immediately, her heartbeat thudded in her veins. Wendy mentally chided herself—was she really that afraid of the dark?
But it was more than just that. Something was … off.
The air felt heavy and her chest felt tight. Something sharp dragged up her spine, like a nail ghosting over her skin. A violent shudder ran through her. The air shifted, as if someone was standing right behind her. Wendy sucked in a breath and turned to rush back inside.
“Hello.”
The sudden greeting caused all the nerves in her body to jump. Wendy swung around, clutching her duffel bag.
A boy who looked about her age stood just a couple of yards away. Wendy squinted at him. In the dark, she could make out his outline and vague features, but she couldn’t see the details of his face.
“Hi?” she said warily.
“You’re Wendy Darling, right?” he asked. As Wendy inched toward the front door, he took a step closer.
There was something strange about his voice. It was pleasant and almost lazy. The low, deep timbre of someone who had just woken up. Whatever clothes he was wearing must have been black. He had his hands tucked into his pockets. His stance and tone were so casual—too casual, for the way her heart hammered in her chest, thudding out a warning in her pulse.
Wendy hesitated. “I—yes.”
Peter?
“What are you doing out here at this time of night?” he asked. She could just make out the shape of his eyebrows as they arched with curiosity. Wendy had seen Peter do that same head tilt, but no, it definitely wasn’t Peter. This guy’s hair was jet black, far darker than the rest of his face, which was still bathed in shadows.
“I live here,” she said curtly.
He laughed, and, for the first time, she could make out a distinct feature: his white teeth and sharp smile. Too white, too sharp, like a caricature.
Wendy squinted again. “Do I know you?” she asked. The hair on the back of her neck prickled, like it knew something she didn’t.
He grinned, and it stretched unnaturally across his face. “No, you don’t know me,” he told her. “I’ve seen you around, though.” Something about his eyes was unnerving. Black like a shark’s, but it must’ve been a trick of the darkness.
“I was going for a nice walk in the woods. Maybe you could join me? We could get to know each other,” he offered, extending a hand.
His fingers were long, the joints angular.
Wendy backed up. “No,” she said firmly, tilting her chin up. “I need to go back inside now. Please leave.”
The boy laughed again. “That’s probably for the best. You shouldn’t wander, not with all those kids going missing.” A far-off streetlight glinted in his eyes. “Wouldn’t want to get lost in the woods again, would you?”
For a moment, she was so scared she couldn’t breathe, but fast on the heels of fear was white-hot anger. “What did you say?” Rage-induced bravery swelled inside her. “I don’t know who you think you are, but—”
A child’s scream cut through the air. She jumped and swung around toward the wail. It sounded like it had come from her backyard.
The stranger laughed again, but when Wendy turned back to face him, he was gone.
Another cry rang out, and this time it continued without stopping. It was a child.
And it was definitely coming from behind the backyard.
Without another thought, Wendy dropped her bag and ran for the gate. She raced along the side of the house, feet pounding on the cement. She tripped over the handle of a rake and sprinted into the backyard. It stretched out before her. The old swings waved in the breeze, and standing just past that on the other side of the small fence was a little boy. He continued to cry, and Wendy slowed her pace, taking cautious steps.
Closer now, she recognized the back of the little boy’s head, and his oversized blue hoodie.
“Alex?” Wendy said. The crying cut off abruptly. He remained still, facing the woods with his back to her. Wendy’s own breaths roared in her ears. “Alex, what are you doing here?” She slowly stepped closer to him.
Alex finally turned.
Small twigs and leaves were stuck in his mess of brown hair. His eyes were huge. Black pupils devoured any trace of his brown irises. Tears rolled down his dirt-stained cheeks.
“Alex, what happened?” she asked gently, extending a hand out for him to take. It quivered.
Something was very wrong. Not just the fact that he shouldn’t be here, in her backyard, but the stricken look on his face, the earthy smell in the breeze, even the deadly quiet that hung in the air.
Wendy’s eyes kept darting to the woods behind him. The dark trees loomed over Alex’s tiny form. She couldn’t see into them, but the feeling of something waiting there in the dark made her skin crawl.
“Alex.” Urgency leapt in her throat. “Take my hand—” Wendy lunged forward to grab him, hips slamming into the short fence, but before she could reach, Alex’s mouth opened wide.
He screamed with his whole body.
Wendy cringed as the sound’s sharpness split through her. She stumbled forward, nearly toppling over the fence as she tried to reach him. With a violent gust of cold wind, something like large, crooked fingers made of tar lashed out from the trees and ensnared Alex’s legs, knocking him to the ground. He scrabbled at the dirt, trying to claw his way toward Wendy, but the fingers dragged him to the trees.
“Alex!” Wendy screamed.
His eyes found hers. For a moment, she could clearly see his face—terrified and chalky, his fingers digging into the dirt—before the woods swallowed him whole.
Without pause, Wendy jumped the fence and ran straight into the forest.
* * *
The woods were alive.
It was hard to see a path through the brambles and gnarled roots. Wendy kept tripping, her forward momentum the only thing keeping her upright. The tree branches reached out at her like thorny arms, trying to pull her into a painful embrace. They slapped her cheeks, tangled in her hair, and bit her legs, but Wendy urged herself forward. Each footfall on the uneven ground jarred, ankle to knee, ankle to knee. She had to get to Alex. She wouldn’t let him be taken by the woods or whatever that thing was.
Wendy ran as fast as she could after Alex, straining her ears to guide her to his voice. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear his cries up ahead.
She threw herself forward, forcing herself to go faster, to keep up, not to lose him in the woods. “ALEX!” she tried to call out to him, but her lungs burned.
Wendy didn’t notice the voices at first.
They were quiet, just whispers coming from the woods around her. They could’ve been the hiss of passing branches. Then came the sound of light footfalls, like people—or things—ran in the woods around her. All she could make out were low-hanging branches and dark figures darting between the endless rows of trees. Voices snaked through the ivy-covered giants. They whispered against her neck, but Wendy couldn’t understand what they were saying. Each breath brought a new swell of fear.
It was disorienting. Everything was off-kilter. Wendy was lost. Was she running to Alex, or was she being chased?
“Wendy, help!” Alex’s wail broke through the murmuring.
A choked cry forced its way into her throat. Wendy threw herself forward with even greater abandon.
She latched on to his voice like a lifeline and ran after it. Her brain screamed at her to turn around and go back, but she couldn’t abandon Alex. She wouldn’t.
Suddenly, something caught around her ankle and she tumbled forward. Wendy pitched head over heels before slamming to the ground. The force sent her skidding onto her side. Leaves and rocks scraped against her shoulder.
Wendy groaned. Dirt and the coppery taste of blood were on her tongue. With effort, she pushed herself up onto her knees. Her body protested, but she couldn’t stop. She had to get up, she had to keep running, she had to find Alex.
Wendy staggered to her feet.
&n
bsp; She had collapsed in a clearing. Tall trees stood around her in a circle. Their bodies towered over her, their branches reaching high above their heads. Thick leaves blotted out any view of the night sky. Sucking down air, Wendy tried to regain her bearings. She was completely turned around.
Which way had she come from? And where was Alex? She couldn’t hear his voice anymore. In fact, she couldn’t hear anything—no crickets, no wind, no owls. The silence pressed in around her, broken only by her labored breaths.
Then Wendy heard a faint noise, something she couldn’t quite make out, but it was growing steadily louder. Fingernails dug into her palms as she clenched her fists.
The sounds of breathing filled the air around her. It was like standing in a room packed with people she couldn’t see. She could only hear their breathing, could only feel it exhaled against her skin. Some breathed slowly, others erratically, all toppling over one another and only getting louder.
Wendy’s head jerked from side to side, desperately looking for where the noise was coming from, but no one was there. The breathing turned into indecipherable whispers.
Wendy grimaced against the sound. What was happening to her?
“ALEX!” Wendy shouted, trying to find his voice among the murmurs. Maybe if he heard her, he would call back. “ALEX, WHERE ARE YOU?!”
Something cold and wet slid across Wendy’s ankle.
When she looked down, something pitch black had seeped out of the ring of trees. Wendy stumbled back, but her feet sank into the muck, nearly knocking her off-balance. The whispers grew urgent and called out to her. Wendy tried to run, but her feet were stuck. Tendrils reached out and wrapped around her legs, ice cold as they traveled up. She was slowly sinking, being pulled down into the earth.
“No, no, no!” Panic seized Wendy. She tried to pull her leg free, but the shadows snatched her wrists. Sticky claws wound up her arms to her neck. Wendy thrashed as she sank to her waist. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks as she tried to pull it off her face, but it just stretched and oozed over her hands as it continued to make its way to her mouth.
As it started to curl over her lips, Wendy jerked her head back, sucked in a deep breath, and screamed for the only person she could think of.
“PETER!”
The blackness closed over her mouth. As it engulfed her, she had only one thought through her panic and searing fear: Was this what had happened to her brothers?
Just as the shadows slid over her eyes, there was an explosion of light. Suddenly, Wendy could see again. Gold sparks sizzled on contact with the blackness. A screech filled the clearing as the substance shriveled and fell away from Wendy in clumps of ash. The sparks disintegrated the blackness but didn’t hurt her.
A strong arm hooked across Wendy’s chest and pulled her free. She thrashed and fell to her knees. She scrambled back, frantically kicking away the last of the falling ash.
Ash, and a carpet of golden sparks that lit up the clearing. They danced and flickered around her. Was she dreaming?
Peter stood in the center. The sparks winked beneath his bare feet. He held his right hand at his side, palm forward in caution. In his left hand was a sword, but not a normal sword—not that Wendy had ever actually seen a sword in person. But this one was made of the same golden sparks that surrounded him. It looked solid and weighty in his hand, a shelled hilt that curved into a long blade. It sparked and glittered in his grip. The light caught in the deep lines of worry on Peter’s face. His eyes were intense as they searched Wendy’s. The light reflected and danced in them.
“Wendy, are you okay?” Peter took a step forward and Wendy flinched back. His gaze followed hers, which remained locked on the weapon in his hand. He cursed under his breath and, with a twist of his wrist, the sword disappeared in a shower of sparks.
It only made her feel a little better. She was in a daze, chest heaving up and down. All traces of that thing were gone.
“What was that?” Wendy croaked. She could see from the lights that whatever had attacked her was gone, but they were starting to fade. She didn’t want to be left alone in the dark again. Wendy scrambled to her feet, but her legs were shaky and fatigued. She stumbled, and this time she let Peter reach out and help her.
“Peter, please, we need to get out of here. There’s something in the woods,” Wendy pleaded, her voice hoarse and cracking. She tugged on his arm with her quivering hands. Her eyes dashed around wildly. They weren’t alone. Something was in there. It was going to take her. Tears blurred Wendy’s vision.
“Shh, it’s okay, it’s gone now,” Peter said, gently cupping her cheek in his warm hand, but his soft voice did nothing to reassure her.
Wendy shook her head violently. Her knees buckled under her. Their only source of light was fading rapidly.
She pulled harder on Peter’s arm. “We have to get out of here—we can’t stay here! I can’t!” She felt the woods pressing in around her. Any moment, fingers would reach out and snatch her up. She would be trapped and lost among the trees forever.
They needed to leave, they needed to escape—
It came crashing back with violent weight: the reason she was in the woods to begin with. “Alex,” Wendy choked out. “It took Alex!” She spun, looking in all directions. “ALEX!” she shouted, throat raw. Her head whipped around. Her hair stuck to her lips as she called out for him.
Which way had he gone? Where had it taken him? “We have to get him back,” Wendy said. She made for the woods, but Peter caught her by the elbow.
“We need to get you home,” Peter said. His voice was steady, which only angered Wendy.
Peter was calm, and she was furious with him for it.
“No, we need to find Alex,” Wendy insisted. “We can’t just abandon him here!” She tried to jerk her arm away, but Peter held on.
“They’re already gone,” he said. His expression was defeated but certain. “It’s dark, we don’t know which way it went, we need to go back—”
“No!” Wendy shouted at him. Wrenching her arm free from his grasp, she shoved him away. “He’s alone!” She squeezed her hands into fists. “You don’t know what it’s like, being in these woods! We can’t just leave him!”
Wendy’s eyes stung and her vision blurred. She rubbed at them angrily. Couldn’t he see that? Didn’t he understand?
Peter’s arms fell to his sides. His eyebrows tipped and the look of pity on his face made her want to slap him.
“Wendy,” he said gently.
But gentleness was not what Wendy needed. She needed to rage and scream against the night.
“We have to find him!” Wendy imagined Alex’s terrified cries. She pictured him lost and alone. It was her fault he was gone. She should’ve rescued him. She should’ve kept him safe. Wendy imagined her brothers.
“WE CAN’T LEAVE THEM!” she shouted before sobs overcame her. Collapsing on her knees, she ducked and twisted her arms over the top of her head, trying to shield herself. Her fingers tangled themselves in her hair. She was terrified and exhausted. She wanted to find Alex. She wanted to find her brothers.
She wanted to go home.
Wendy felt Peter kneel down next to her. Through her elbows, she could see him hold a closed fist out in front of her.
Just as the last of the lights died out on the forest floor, right before they were plunged into darkness, Peter opened his hand and sparks jumped to life in his palm. The clearing was silent for a moment before, slowly, crickets began to sing from deep in the woods.
Wendy stared at the glittering lights. They were bright and danced around his fingertips. They gave off no heat and didn’t seem to burn him.
It was mesmerizing. Wendy stared and wiped her nose on her shoulder. “W-what is that?” She hiccupped into the fabric of her shirt.
Peter gave her a weak smile. “Would you believe me if I said pixie dust?”
CHAPTER 11
Old Friends
By the light of the pixie dust sparking in his hand, Peter navigated
them through the woods. He told her they couldn’t stay any longer, in case the shadow came back. Wendy would’ve fought him, but he made a good point—they would be blindly searching the woods. Wendy’s body was so heavy and stiff with grief and exhaustion, she simply didn’t have enough fight left to object further. It took every ounce of energy she had left to walk back to her house.
Peter led the way, and, though it bruised her pride, Wendy held on to his arm as they wove between trees and ducked under branches. She had a hard time looking at where she was going. Her eyes kept getting drawn to the pixie dust in Peter’s hand.
The small flecks of light leapt and bounced on his skin. They looked like they were dancing, or shaking with welled-up excitement. It reminded her of how Michael often looked, sitting in bed and squirming with glee when she began telling a story before bed.
The light danced on Peter’s face, casting a warm glow across his cheekbones and the tip of his nose and sparkling in his already bright eyes. Some shot up higher into the air, making corkscrew swirls before fizzling out, like embers popping in a bonfire, but with more life. Wendy wondered if they tickled his hand.
The woods no longer whispered, but Wendy still felt like they were being watched. After what seemed like ages, they hopped the fence into her backyard. Just as she was wondering what he would do with the pixie dust, Peter simply clapped his hands and the lights went out.
Wendy didn’t want to be near the woods any longer. The crushing sense of loss threatened to pull her down a path she tried hard to stay away from.
With some coaxing, she was able to talk Peter into coming inside.
Mr. Darling wasn’t sleeping in the living room anymore, and, after checking that his car was gone, Wendy assumed her dad had gone to the store or something. He never left notes about where he went, so she could only guess when he’d be back. Either way, she knew she would be in trouble when he did. She’d told him she wouldn’t be out past dark.
