Page 22 of Hush Darling

“No.” Every step squished more mud between her toes and made her wince.

“Just follow me, princess. I’ll get you there!” His voice echoed through the trees.

Wendy wrinkled her nose and shadowed him down the dark path. “I’m on a vacation with a lunatic.”

Mist hung low in the air, clinging closely to the gnarled roots of trees that appeared centuries old. The forest was a mixture of danger and discovery that left her in a constant state of awe. The tangy essence of fruit on the breeze sweetened every breath. She couldn’t wait to see this untamed land in daylight and hoped they would have a little time to explore its secrets before returning to London in the morning.

Peter loped back to walk beside her, studying her expectantly. “Is it not the most exotic place you’ve ever seen?”

Their arrival invigorated him to an almost intoxicated point. Or perhaps he’d had too much nectar from the flask. The way he pranced beside her with his hands in his pockets and a wide grin stretched across his elfin face made him boyish and childlike.

“I hope to see it in daylight.”

“Oh, you will! And then at sunset, and under a full moon when everything is aglow with blue light, and by sea, and from the trees, and on the backs of wild beasts, and from the cliffs of the wildlings?—”

“Peter,” she laughed at his hyper enthusiasm. “I have to go back to London eventually. I can’t stay here.”

He frowned. “But you wanted an adventure.”

“And I’m on one, but I have responsibilities at home. My family will expect me to return.”

He cocked his head. “But you wanted to escape.”

“I have a family, Peter?—”

“A family that suppresses your right to live.”

“That’s a little extreme.”

“Is it? When was the last time you wrapped your legs around something for the sheer joy of it?”

She scowled at him. “You know perfectly well that I’ve never wrapped my legs around anything.”

“Not even a tree swing?”

She gaped at him. He totally set her up for that. “I didn’t realize you were talking about the trees.”

He laughed. “That’s okay. You don’t strike me as much of a swinger anyway. But I am!” He rushed into the woods, leaving her on the trail in the dark.

Only shadows and the trill of insects surrounded her. “Peter?”

His crowing voice echoed from deep within the woods, and then a large creature flew from the trees, swooping low to the ground. Wendy ducked as the bird nearly buzzed her head in a flash of green and gold. But it was not a bird. It was Peter, swinging from a vine that must have been a hundred feet long.

“Come on, Wendy, swing with me!” he yelled, winding back and forth like a pendulum.

He was insane. “I don’t swing!”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” He swooped by again, losing momentum as gravity slowed him to a twirling dangle. “Are you afraid of heights?”

“No, but I’m in a nightgown with muddy feet, and I’d much rather reach the house than climb trees.” He was lucky he didn’t break his neck. The vine was nothing more than a tangle of leaves and branches. “Can we please keep moving?”

“All I hear is priss, priss, priss, priss, priss, priss, priss.”

She ground her molars. “Look, I’m not in the mood for juvenile games.” She slapped her ankle when a mosquito bit it. “Could you please go back to acting like an adult and take me to your house?”

Dangling ten feet overhead, his foot held in a loose knot where the vine looped. He laughed at her. “Ms. Darling, you sound rather irritable.”

“Mr. Pangbourne, that’s because I am irritated,” she said between clenched teeth.