He looks at her from beneath his lashes, his smile curling at the edges and encouraging her. Curious despite herself, she moves closer. When she has lessons with Cook, there are precise rules to follow, but what Peter does now is the opposite of scientific precision; it is utter chaos. He snatches handfuls of leaves and throws them haphazardly into the pot. She tries to catalog them, giving herself an anchor to hold onto—oak, rowan, ash. Those are common enough, but there are also leaves that look like coral wood and Java plum, leaves she’s never seen in person but has spent hours studying with her father from the books in his library. They aren’t leaves that should be growing all together in one place.

Peter adds a handful of gooseberries. Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. There are stones in his hand, too, smooth and salt-crusted from the sea. She wants to protest, but her voice has abandoned her again. Peter’s movements are mesmerizing. Her stomach growls, and she realizes how long it’s been since she’s eaten. As Peter stirs the whole mess with a stick, a smell wafts from the pot, delicious and impossible.

“See?” Peter’s eyes twinkle, sly and merry, but with a knapped-flint edge, daring her to contradict him. “I told you it was easy.”

“But that’s…” Her words trail off. Instead she nods, agreeing. The meal does smell nice. A little taste couldn’t hurt, could it?

“Now, you serve supper, and afterward we’ll all play a game.”

Peter’s words don’t sound like a suggestion, even though it doesn’t seem fair. She’s more of a guest than any of them, and guests aren’t meant to be put to work. But she nods again, collecting a stack of bowls from next to the cook fire. It’s easier to go along. Her head hurts less when she does.

The bowls are hollowed coconut shells, and something about this strikes her as terribly funny. Everything about this place is absurd. She can’t help laughing as she scoops bowls into the pot, filling them and handing one to each boy.

“See? Now we’re having fun!” Peter’s laugh echoes her own, light and delicate like a falling leaf brushing her skin. She shivers.

As she hands out the last bowl, the boy who takes it gives her a pained look. There’s a bruise on his cheek just below his left eye, and the skin is tight and swollen. Before she can ask what happened, Peter slurps loudly, drinking down the contents of his bowl in one go, smacking his lips.

“Eat up, everyone. While we eat, Wendy will tell us a story.”

“I don’t know any stories.”

“You must,” Peter says. “All mothers know stories. Otherwise what’s the good of them?”