“Peter took Edmund to a place where there’s a little stream running out of a cave and into the sea. I climbed up a tree to watch. Peter made Edmund wait outside, then he went into the cave and came out holding a thing that was maybe a stone, or maybe a knife. I don’t know.” Timothy picks at the hammock’s ropes again. “I didn’t like looking at it. It made me feel bad, like there was something wrong inside my chest. Peter kept looking at Edmund, right in the face, and I think he was talking to him, but it was so quiet I couldn’t hear them…” Timothy falters.

Jane imagines the worst, seeing Peter falling on the boar, blood joining his freckles like constellations traced between stars.

“Did he… Did he kill Edmund, like he killed the boar?”

Timothy shakes his head, tears spilling, and now his expression is one of frustration as well as fear. It’s like there’s so much he wants to say, but it’s too big to explain. It’s the same expression he wore when Jane asked him about his mother and father, like he’s trying to remember something, and the remembering hurts.

“Peter touched Edmund with the stone, the knife, and then Edmund wasn’t there anymore.” Timothy’s brow scrunches, fingers clenched and twisting between the rope so it cuts into his skin.

“I mean, he was still here, but he was all empty inside. He wasn’t Edmund anymore. Peter pulled something out of him. It was dark and shiny like smoke and water, but like something alive and—” Timothy’s voice rises in pitch, and Jane pulls him close, cutting off his words before he gives them away.

“Shh. It’s okay.”

After a moment, when she’s certain he isn’t going to shout, she relaxes her hold.

“I ran away. I didn’t help Edmund even when he helped me.” Timothy’s words are muffled, the side of Jane’s nightgown wet with his tears.

“There’s nothing you could have done,” she says. “It’s not your fault.”

Timothy pulls back. She sees in his eyes how much he wants to believe her, but there’s misery there too, telling her he cannot. How long has Timothy been here? He looks like a little boy, but he might be older than her mother and father, or her grandfather even if what he’s saying is true, and all this happened a long time ago.