“That looked funny,” he said with a shrug.

“Shut up.”

He made no effort to hide his amusement. “Does it feel okay?”

“It feels like I got my leg caught in a bear trap,” she said tersely as she put her foot down and tried resting her weight on it. The cuts stung, but there didn’t seem to be any other damage.

But at least she could move now, even if she was seconds away from falling through the half-rotted floorboards. “What are you doing here?” she asked him. She heard the harshness in her own voice begin to slip away.

“Well, I just got you unstuck from the bed springs—”

“No, I mean what are you doing here?”

Peter groaned and tipped his head back. “Not this again.”

Wendy closed her eyes for a moment to rein in her frustration. “I mean,” she started again, “why are you in this old hunting shack?”

Peter glanced around and shrugged his shoulders. “’Cause I’m staying here?” he said slowly, as if to judge whether or not he was answering her question right.

It didn’t make sense. Why on earth would someone willingly decide to stay in a place like this? The woods had at least a dozen hunting shacks tucked into the logging roads. There was no sign of anyone other than Peter being here in the last several years.

“Where are your parents?” she asked. There was no way he was of legal age. He was much older than the magical boy, Peter Pan, that Wendy knew from her stories, but he definitely wasn’t eighteen.

“Haven’t got any.” He said it so simply, and with such lack of importance, that it took a moment for it to register.

He didn’t have any parents? So he was an orphan? Was he homeless?

“Are—are there other people in the woods?”

He shrugged. “Not that I’ve seen.”

“So what are you doing in the woods?” Wendy swallowed past a lump in her throat. A question was bubbling up that she needed to ask, but she was frightened of the answer. “Did someone … bring you here? Were you kidnapped?”

But Peter laughed. “What? No! Jeez, what is it with you and kidnapping?”

And the frustration was back.

“If that’s not it, then what are you doing here?” Wendy snapped. “Why were you in the middle of the road? Why did you come to my house?”

“Because…” His eyes dropped to the floor. “I need your help.”

“What do you need my help with?” Wendy asked slowly. A chill ran across her skin. The flame of the oil lantern flickered behind the dirty glass.

Peter frowned. “I need you to help me find my shadow.”

Wendy stared at him.

Again, he had said it so simply, as if this weren’t a completely bizarre thing to say to her. She forced a laugh, not knowing how else to respond.