“Ouch!”

“Sorry!” Wendy said as she caught her balance.

“Would you be more comfortable on my back?” Peter asked, hopping on one foot as he tugged his shoe back onto his foot. “Maybe a nice piggyback ride would save us both some trouble?” He grinned at her, but Wendy couldn’t manage to return it.

“I’m just a bit jumpy, okay?” she said, rubbing her sweaty palms on her thighs.

“A bit?” Peter repeated, arching his eyebrow.

“The woods and I aren’t exactly on good terms.” She squeezed her eyes shut and sucked in a deep breath through her nose. Every muscle in her body was tense. She could feel herself starting to shake.

Peter’s grin faded, lips twisting into a guilty smile. “At least walk next to me, then,” he said, no longer teasing. He stepped to the side and, as Wendy caught up to him, closed the space between them. Their arms were close enough that Wendy could practically feel the warmth radiating off his skin. The brush of his shoulder against hers was a grounding rhythm as they walked.

They walked farther in silence. Wendy was jealous of how he avoided tripping on roots or running into low-hanging branches, his feet moving deftly and with ease. Meanwhile, she kept stumbling at his side over uneven ground pitted with rocks and roots. To Peter’s credit, he did pause and wait every time she faltered.

When they walked into a clearing, Peter slowed to a stop. The towering trees around them formed an almost perfect circle. Tilting his head back, he looked around, blue eyes squinting in the sun. “This is where I found you last night,” he said, nodding to himself.

Wendy nodded along as she followed his gaze around. “I recognize the clearing … sort of,” she said. “The woods pretty much all look the same to me … but I definitely remember the clearing looking like this and being surrounded by trees and shadows.” She looked at the ground, curious whether there was still ash from the pixie dust’s destruction of the shadows, but there was only the spongy crunch of layers of dead pine needles and twigs underfoot.

Wind shuddered through the branches. In the distance, trees creaked and groaned.

“My shack is that way,” Peter said, pointing into the distance. “There’s a creek up ahead. Maybe we can follow that to go deeper into the woods?” he suggested.

Sure enough, Wendy could hear babbling water off in the distance if she held her breath.

“That way, we can retrace our steps.” He was looking at her—staring, really—a bit too closely. It made her feel like he was carefully gauging her reaction. Peter could push things too far and get distracted, but she was also starting to see that he was a Noticer. And the worst thing about Noticers is that it was hard to hide from them.