“Yeah, we’ll watch him. We’ll make sure he’s hydrated and fed, and we’ll explain what happened once the healer gets here,” says the other.
“And I’ll make sure the rag on his forehead stays cold,” pipes up Benjamin. Tears well up in my eyes as I look at these Lost Boys.
“You shouldn’t have to do that,” I tell them. “It’s my responsibility.”
“But you took care of us,” says Benjamin matter-of-factly, as if I should have realized that long ago.
But we’re wasting breath with this conversation.
“We’re with you,” says Charlie, glancing up at Maddox expectantly.
He nods and heads toward the door.
I’m notsure how far the entrance to the trail up the mountain is from Victor’s house. It feels as if it takes us all night to get there, but that might just be the panic seeping through my bones. It’s quite possible we’ve only been gone for half an hour or less. Every second feels like a second wasted—a moment when my husband could have taken his last breath without me by his side.
I’m vaguely aware of how my presence will slow the rest of them down. I’m human, and so is Charlie, but she’s significantly faster than I am. It’s selfish, stupid of me.
I know.
But there’s something about the pull of this mountain—the urge I feel to scale toward the top. It’s an intuition I was too afraid to explain to the others. There’s a part of me that knows, deep down, that I need to be the one to talk to the Youngest Sister.
And I can’t explain why.
If she’s as kind and willing to help mortals as the legends say, Charlie should be able to talk to her. Maddox or Victor even. But there’s something about the stories, something about this place that I can’t put my finger on—something that reminds me that the shadows have always held a fondness for whispering to me.
At the base of the trail are two guards, one of whom is a pretty girl who looks to be about Victor’s age. She blushes when we approach, and Victor takes her aside, whispering something in her ear.
We watch as they argue for a bit, the other guard looking confused. But then the girl walks up to her companion and explains something. After a few moments of arguing, they decide to let us pass.
When we make it by, Maddox looks down at Victor.
“How did you manage that?” he asks.
Victor offers him a sly grin and shrugs. “People around here like me.”
As panicked as I am for my husband’s health, a glimmer of happiness touches my heart.
Victor was always the least liked of the Lost Boys—ever the outcast.
It makes my heart happy that here, in this town, he’s found a community of people who not only respect but also like him. Even in the way the other Lost Boys treated him back at their home, I can see that their perspective of him has changed.
But Victor has changed too.
He’s not the sullen boy full of anger that he used to be. I wonder if I’ll get to that point. I wonder if the pain inside me will eventually heal.
The only way I see that being possible is if I can manage to save Nolan’s life.
The trail up the mountain is arduous. I slip several times, Victor or Maddox or Charlie having to catch me.
It’s mortifying.
And I’m struck with how, in the weeks—months—since being in Neverland, I still haven’t fully recovered my strength.
There are other things that haven’t recovered as well.
I think of the potion I’ve been taking to prevent childbearing and how it seems, from my lack of cycles returning in the past two years, that there’s no need for it.
Not that I’ll stop drinking it.
