Malevolence rolls from the boar’s bristled stance, hatred in its eyes, but even still, it doesn’t move. There’s intelligence there, not animal intelligence but something akin to human. The boar knows what is about to happen, and it loathes Peter for it, but there’s absolutely nothing it can do. It waits. The cruel sweep of its tusks could tear Peter apart, but it remains transfixed as Peter hops around it, jeering and taunting. Then all at once, Peter lunges. His blade goes in and a hot spray of blood splashes his skin.

The animal doesn’t bellow or make any sound at all, and that only makes it worse. It simply collapses under Peter as he falls on top of it, stabbing and stabbing again.

Her eyes sting. Leave. She has to leave and it has to be tonight. She’ll take Timothy and Rufus and even Bertie. She’ll take everyone she can and they’ll go somewhere far away where Peter can never find them.

The boar’s sides finally stop heaving, and Peter looks up, his eyes finding hers. The freckles scattered across his skin are joined with blood now, and his grin is as wide and wicked as ever, pure delight. Like the boar, she’s hypnotized. She can’t look away as Peter rises, wiping the short blade of his sword on his blood-spattered clothing. He gestures to the boys around him, and they dutifully come forward. Two of them hold a long pole, a third carries a coil of rope. They go to work in utter silence.

Peter approaches her, his eyes still shining. She wants to ask him why, but the breath in her throat merely wheezes and no words emerge. His hand lands on her shoulder. Rinds of crimson darken the ends of his nails. He leaves a smudge of red on the fabric of her nightgown.

“There,” he says. “Now you’re one of us properly. Wendy and Peter and the Lost Boys.”

9: The Frozen Girl

THE FROZEN GIRL

LONDON 1919

Colored threads trail from the embroidery hoop and lie across the drab gray of Wendy’s skirt—a tangle of roots, fresh-pulled from the ground. She moves her needle and the hoop just often enough to make it look like she’s stitching, but her attention is on the two attendants monitoring the room. It was a great deal of work to convince the nurses she could be trusted with a needle, even under supervision, acting the model patient for weeks on end. The attendants are always there, watching, and she, in turn, has been watching them. She knows their patterns as well as her stitching by now; she knows when they will grow bored and let their attention lapse. Any moment Jamieson will reach for his tobacco tin and rolling papers, prop the door to the garden open and step halfway outside to smoke.