Page 82 of Lost in the Never Woods

CHAPTER 17

Fairy Lights

When they got back to Wendy’s truck, Wendy slid into her seat and leaned her forehead against the steering wheel. With her eyes closed, she took a deep breath to steady herself. The springs of the passenger seat groaned as Peter climbed in. “What now?” he asked quietly at her side.

Good question.

Wendy turned her head, her cheek pressed into the warmed leather as she looked at him. Red tinged his freckled cheeks. His shoulders slumped, hands clasped in his lap. The auburn hair at the nap of his neck was damp with sweat. There was a tilt to his eyebrows that made her want to reach out and touch his arm.

Peter couldn’t stay in the woods. Soon enough, they would be overrun with police officers and volunteers. Even then, there was no way she was going to let Peter be by himself, not after what the shadow had done to him last night. Peter needed to be protected, too. She wanted to hide him away somewhere safe. The idea of something—or another thing—happening to him was out of the question.

There was the fleeting and outlandish desire to just run away and disappear, but Wendy wouldn’t abandon her brothers, not again.

She sighed and forced herself to sit upright. “Now, you come home with me,” she said definitively. She glanced over at Peter, half expecting him to object.

Peter simply stared out the windshield and, after a pause, nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I don’t really have anywhere else to go.” An airy laugh escaped his lips.

“Good, then let’s go home.” Wendy moved to put her key into the ignition when she caught sight of the sun sinking below the tree line. She swore under her breath.

“What?” Peter said, suddenly alert, wide eyes jumping to the direction of the woods.

“The sun is going down and I haven’t called my dad yet,” she said, frantically digging her cell phone out of her pocket.

“Oh.” Peter sounded relieved. Wendy wished she felt the same.

She selected her father’s number from her favorites list and held the phone up to her ear. She pressed her lips together. The last thing she needed was to further piss her father off, or make him even more suspicious, when she was about to try to sneak Peter into the house overnight. Hiding a person in her room was a lot different than trying to hide something like a pet mouse, which she had done when she was little.

No. Peter was a person. A boy-type person.

Oh, God, was she really going to be one of those girls who snuck boys into their rooms?

The line rang once before he answered. “Hello?”

“Dad, hey,” Wendy said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’m leaving the hospital now and heading home.”

“Did Jordan go with you?” Muffled voices in the background made it difficult for her to hear him.

“Er, no.” She cringed. “I couldn’t get ahold of her,” she lied. Wendy sniffed and rubbed her nose against the back of her hand.

There was a pause. Mr. Darling’s voice became gruff. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

Wendy cleared her throat. “Nothing, I’m fine. I’m just getting really bad allergies,” she said. Out of the corner of her eye, Peter wrapped a stray thread from his shorts around his finger.

There was another pause. More muffled voices. Mr. Darling’s exhale crackled against her ear. “Go straight home. Your mother should be there waiting for you.”

“What do you mean?” Wendy asked. She frowned. “Wait, Dad, where are you?”

“I’m in the woods with the search parties,” he said. Wendy sat bolt upright. Quickly, her head jerked around, half expecting her father to be standing right in front of them at the edge of the woods.

Peter frowned. His head tilted curiously to the side.

“I told Donald Davies that I would help.”

Of course: Donald Davies, the father of the two boys who’d gone missing the night before. Wendy had completely forgotten that he worked with her father at the bank. They weren’t just neighbors, they were coworkers.

“But, like I said,” he went on, “your mom is home waiting for you, so hurry back. She’s had a long day and needs some rest. I won’t be home until late. Maybe in the morning.”

“Okay.”