Wendy looked at him. That wasn’t much of a plan. She was a decent seamstress. One of the doctors at the hospital had even showed her and Jordan how to do basic surgical stitches on an orange, but how would it work with a shadow?

Suddenly, Peter jerked to look over his shoulder. Wendy’s gaze followed, but she didn’t see anything in the mix of greens and browns.

A shiver ran from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She edged closer to Peter and twisted her fingers into the back of his shirt. She looked between Peter’s sharp expression and the unmoving trees. “What is it?” she asked.

The woods were getting darker as the trees grew closer together, blocking out the sunlight from above the canopy of branches. When had it become so cold? She moved still closer to him, her shoulder pressing into his warm back.

Peter kept staring into the distance, standing still as the silent trees. Fear swelled in Wendy’s body and thrummed through her veins. She tugged on his shirt. “Peter?” Was he even breathing?

“I thought I heard something,” Peter murmured. He tilted his head, listening to something Wendy couldn’t hear over the pounding of her own heart. After a moment, he gave his head a small shake and sighed, though his shoulders remained tense. “It was nothing.”

A nervous laugh escaped her tight throat. “I thought you weren’t afraid of anything,” she said in an attempt to ease the tension.

Peter only looked at her. When he started walking again, she let the material of his shirt slip through her fingers. “What’ll happen if we can’t do it?” Wendy asked, rooted to the spot, hands clenched into fists at her sides.

Peter turned. His hard expression softened. “My magic is supposed to keep me young forever so that I can help lost kids find their way,” he said. “If I keep growing up, then I lose my magic, and I can’t fly or find those kids or take them to Neverland with me. Without me, there’d be no one to guide them. They’d just…” His shoulder lifted in a shrug. “Stay lost.”

Wendy wanted to ask what that meant, but the prickling on the back of her neck pulled her attention.

Peter must have felt it, too, because his body tensed and his blue eyes darted around them.

A long silence stretched. Wendy’s skin crawled.

“Do the lost kids stay in Neverland forever?” Wendy asked. Maybe if she just kept talking, the feeling would go away.

Something breathed against her neck, like a quiet whisper. Wendy jumped and spun around.

Only motionless trees stood, flanked and waiting, as far as her eyes could see.

A dense and heavy silence hung in the air. It was like she was underwater. The air felt like it was pressing against her skin, and her ears needed to pop.