Page 4 of The First Lost Boy (The Shadows of Neverland Duet #2)

Ava

The fallen log I’m sitting on is still damp with morning dew. Rays of soft sunlight illuminate the shiny, lace-like trails snails left on the bark. Little moths have tucked themselves tightly into the bark’s small crevices to sleep the day away in safety. Embers smolder in the fire pit in front of me, delicate tendrils of pale smoke spewing into the lush canopy. This area is cozy, built into the stretch of grass growing between a circle of small treehouses.

I think I remember sitting here last night.

I rake my toes through the blades of grass to try to focus and clear that memory, imagining the night sky or what the temperature might have felt like, but I can’t quite grasp it.

A guy steps onto the narrow porch of a treehouse and slings an empty, netted bag over his shoulder. He chooses a wooden spear among the three propped against his wall before walking into a beam of soft sunlight that illuminates his chin-length brown hair.

I try not to watch as he wends around the trunk and down the stairs that spiral around it, then steps into the green grass.

I don’t remember his name, but his face is familiar.

At least, I think it is.

He’s barefoot. His wrinkled shirt and shorts are stained with dirt and blood. I’m not sure where he collected either substance.

And he’s walking toward me…

His pale blue eyes catch and hold mine. His lips are thin, and freckles smatter his cheeks and the bridge of his nose which is slightly crooked, like it’s been broken before.

I can’t tell if he’s friendly, but I hope he is.

I raise my hand, tentatively if not awkwardly, and say, “Hi.” My voice is rusted, my throat as sore as my neck.

Before he left, Peter told me who he was again because I had forgotten. Then he told me who I was because I’d forgotten that, too.

I’ve replayed those two moments over and over again in my mind so I don’t forget him before he comes back.

I have a head injury, so my memory is spotty. That was a kind way of putting it. I don’t remember much of anything before the conversation we had before he left and I came out here. And I think I only remember it because he was so worried this morning. He almost didn’t go… wherever it was he went.

Peter took me out to the porch of his house and pointed out this verdant circle of grass between the treehouses. He told me that the rest of our family lived in the other homes. “I have to leave for a little while. This circle is safe. Do not walk beyond it,” he warned. “Ask for help if you need it.” But he didn’t say who to ask.

Now, the other treehouses sit silent.

The strange guy stops in front of me. He looks older than I am by a few years. His features and build are familiar… He’s familiar.

My brow furrows until my face aches from it and I smooth my expression. Being unable to remember, well, anything, is incredibly frustrating.

“My name is Bones,” he rasps, his voice still rough from sleep.

I shift uncomfortably, thinking of the appropriate way to reply. I can’t tell him my name because I don’t remember it. “Good morning, Bones.”

I repeat his name in my mind again and again, hoping it’ll stick.

Bones.

Bones.

Bones.

“Morning, Six.”

Six. That’s right. That’s my name.

I’m not sure how I got that nickname, assuming it is one. This morning, Peter said my memory should return slowly. He claimed it would trickle back to me instead of rushing back all at once. He said I should be glad. Flash floods are deadly and if I had a flood of memory, it might kill me.

I don’t want to die.

My short nails dig into the bark.

“Are you okay?” Bones asks.

“I think so,” I tell him, even though it’s not entirely true. “Are you going somewhere?”

He hesitantly ventures closer but doesn’t look at me. He stares at the fire instead. “To comb the shore.”

I release the bark and sit straighter, hopeful. “Do you want company?”

His aquamarine eyes flick to mine again, then dart to the treehouse just behind me. “Where’s Peter?”

I sit up straighter and fight the urge to cry, to beg him to let me go with him. “Peter left at dawn. I don’t know where he went, though.” I’m not sure if he told me and I don’t remember or if perhaps he didn’t say, but I don’t tell Bones that. “Do you care if I go with you?”

I don’t remember the last time I saw the ocean, but I must have at some point, because I can imagine the water sparkling like a faceted diamond in the sun. I know the grainy sand would be warm under my feet and the salted breeze would feel cool tousling my hair.

Bones clears his throat. “I’m glad you’re on the mend, but it’s a long hike through the jungle to reach the southern shore. You should go back inside and rest. Maybe you can come with me in a few days if Peter says it’s okay.”

My shoulders cave, along with every bit of hope I had of seeing the sea. Tears sting my eyes. I hug my middle and look away from him to the fire pit and the slivers of smoke that won’t seem to die.

He shifts his weight. “Six, it’s not that I don’t want you to go, it’s just –”

I give him a fake smile and quickly look away. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry,” he softly says, lingering for a moment like he might stay with me for a while before crossing the green patch toward the woods. “Stay in the circle, okay?”

I nod so he’ll just… leave .

He enters thick foliage comprised of every shade of green imaginable. Broad leaves sway in his wake, waving me forward. I stand and crane my neck to see if I can tell which way he’s going. His head is easy to see amid the forest for a time, but soon, the dense growth overwhelms him. He’s about to disappear into the lowest part of the valley where a shallow creek burbles and flows around a hill.

I stare at the worn-to-dirt trail Bones just took for one second, then two. Before I can second-guess my choice, I rush toward it. I don’t know why, but I need to see the ocean.

The moment I step into the jungle, I’m taken aback by its vibrant beauty. Not an inch of space is wasted. Trees stretch toward the sun, their branches punching outward in every direction, living tributaries fed by a sea of sunlight.

Thick vines spill from branches until they drape onto the forest floor, bending over roots that wave like sand sculpted by the wind.

The creek water tumbles, lazily carving earth and rock.

And all of it thrives in this incredible humidity that plasters my dark shirt to the small of my back.

Frogs croak from the shelter of leaves, insects hum and flit past me as I move through, and birds sing so loud in the canopy that I stop and turn in a circle just to listen to all the different songs.

Something dark moves in my periphery. I turn to find some shadows dancing on the worn trail behind me, nothing more. But I could’ve sworn something or someone had been there, just a few steps away.

My heart skips at the dangerous implication and I scan the foliage again. Nothing is there. If it’s a person or creature, they’ve hidden themselves well. Gingerly, I start forward again, taking quiet steps until the fear ebbs.

I hear no other sounds. See no other phantoms along the path.

Eventually, the trail thins until it disappears altogether. Until I don’t know where to place my next step, don’t know which way Bones went or how to find him now. The only path is the one leading back to the small lawn I was told not to leave.

I bite my thumbnail.

I don’t want to go back, and I don’t know how to move forward the right way. But eventually I’ll find the sea if I keep moving. Won’t I?

Retracing my steps would be the wisest thing. If I just followed the trail back, I wouldn’t get lost. I could pretend I’d never seen anything beyond the circle of tree houses. That I hadn’t followed Bones when he told me not to.

So why can’t I do it? Why can’t I bring myself to take one step in the direction I came from when it would be the smartest option?

“You should always carry a weapon while walking through the Never Wood,” a male voice calls out from the crest of the next hill.

I close my eyes, relieved and slightly embarrassed to find Bones casually leaning against the broad trunk of a gnarled tree. “How did you know I was following you?”

He laughs. “You’re not exactly quiet.”

I wipe sweat from my brow, unsure what to say. Stealth is not my middle name, apparently.

“I should tell you to do exactly what you were just considering, which is to turn back and follow the trail. It’ll take you home,” he says. His lips quirk up on one side and a spark of hope ignites in my chest.

“You should ?” I offer a pleading smile I try to squash. I don’t want him to know how desperate I am to reach the shore.

He scrubs a hand over his mouth. “Oh, I definitely should.”

“But will you?” I squint against a beam of sunshine the canopy allows through as he mulls it over. “I just want to see the ocean.” I give him a genuine, hopeful smile. “I won’t be any trouble, I swear.”

“Too late for that,” he mumbles under his breath.

A long moment ticks by…but then he jerks his head and motions for me to come with him. He waits as I catch up, my tender feet bending to branch and stone alike.

Bones holds out a spear for me to take. “Like I said, you should always carry a weapon while walking through the Never Wood. The same is true of the coast.”

My fingers close around the handle and I follow him through the underbrush. “Nothing’s harmed me yet.” I curse as the arch of my foot lands on a sharp branch, forcing me to limp a few paces before the pain abates.

He snorts derisively and mutters something about it being a miracle that I survived this far on the trail and my nickname becoming Seven.

“What do you mean?” I hurry to his side.

He wipes sweat from his brow. “Have you ever heard the saying that cats have nine lives?”

I shrug. It sounds familiar enough. “Maybe.”

“Well, you are on your sixth,” he chuckles.

We have a comedian here. “Maybe you should’ve nicknamed me Lucky if I’ve escaped death so often.”

His laughter fades and he looks at his bare feet. He curls his toes, then stretches them. “You haven’t escaped anything.”

My brows knit together in confusion, but he waves off my inevitable question.

“Let’s head to the shore. It’s not far now. I’m sure your feet will thank me when they hit the sand.”

“Why are you willing to let me go with you now when you were determined to leave me behind earlier?”

“You’ve made it this far,” he teases with a shrug, but I see a flash of wariness in his eyes before they dart away from mine.

I don’t laugh and his attention drifts back. He can still see the question furrowing my brow.

He takes in a long breath, then blows it out. “Peter won’t like you leaving the safety of home. And he won’t like you going anywhere alone with me.”

My feet slow, then stop. I tighten my grip on the spear.

Is Bones a threat? “Why would he care if I went somewhere with you?”

He pauses and looks me over, throws back his head, and laughs so loud he startles a couple of birds from their nests overhead. “It’s not me we have to worry about. It’s him .”

“Him…” I repeat. “Peter?”

Bones nods quietly.

“Are you saying he would be jealous of us walking together?”

“He’s very…” He searches for a word I already dread hearing. “Possessive.”

I wipe the sweat off my brow and wonder what kind of relationship I have with Peter Pan. I want to press Bones for details, but I’m too afraid to let the words crawl from my throat. Instead I say, “I wish I could remember.”

He waves me forward. “Some things are better off forgotten.”

Bones tells me to watch out for crocodiles that have made their way inland, then in the next breath points out a buttercup yellow vine that I should avoid at all costs. It has matching yellow, needle-thin barbs lining its twisting stalk.

Bones is difficult to read and I’m not sure if he’s being helpful or trying to instill fear to dissuade me from following him again in the future.

The farther we walk, the more humid it gets and the hotter the sun becomes as it lumbers toward its zenith. But when I finally smell saltwater, I almost groan as I imagine running into the warm waves and letting the sea drag the sweat from my skin. I don’t remember seeing the ocean before, but I must have.

The shift from dense vegetation to sparse palms is abrupt. One moment, damp leaves are spongey under my feet, and the next, the forest floor gives way to powdery grains of sand that shift between my toes. I stop and wiggle them and laugh at the joy elicited by such a simple thing.

Turning to watch me, Bones tilts his head and grins, shaking his head. He looks younger when he’s not frowning.

“This feels weird in the best way,” I explain sheepishly.

He offers a broad smile, wiggles his bare toes with me, and seems to catch himself. He turns away and gazes out at the water. I wonder if we are friends, or if we once were. I don’t think it would be a hardship to be friends with Bones. I repeat his name a few more times in my head so I don’t lose it.

He clears his throat. “I don’t see any crocs close to the shore, but we need to be careful. Even the large ones are very fast – in the water and out. We’re lucky we didn’t stumble across any on the way here.”

I roll my eyes. “Right…”

Bones ticks his head back, looking offended. “I’m serious.”

I quirk a brow and give him a wry smile.

“You don’t believe me?” His brows raise with every word until they can’t climb any higher.

I gesture toward the crocodile-free shallows. “At this point, I believe only what I can see, and there’s not a crocodile in sight.”

Bones stares at me for a long, strange moment. “Beauty often cloaks danger, Six. The shore is not safe.”

“It sounds like the island itself is deadly.”

He catches my eye. “It is. Everything on Neverland is deadly, Six. So while we’re here, please stay close to me.”

The sincerity in his tone erases the easy air between us, so I nod and stay near him.

As we walk along the shore, Bones scans the shallow water, the choppy, deeper water beyond it, the horizon, the palm trees, and the thick foliage where sand is quickly swallowed by leaves and fronds and turns to mud. His attentiveness borders on fear, and his apprehension makes me so nervous, my eyes dart from place to place, too.

I forget what we’re looking for and what I’m supposed to fear. And then he thankfully begins to prattle quietly about saltwater crocodiles, plants that can make you sick with just a brush of their leaves as well as ones that can kill, and other animals I’m pretty certain I’ve never heard of before.

The ocean and its broad swath of sand are worth every one of the dangers he lists. The place where they meet is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Glistening water arranges itself into peaks and valleys again and again, stretching from the sand to the horizon in a never-ending push and pull.

The sight and feel of this place makes my heart ache at the thought of ever leaving it.

Even the scent of the shore smells right . Like this might be where I belong. Not in the jungle.

We walk for what feels like miles as the gentle, sparkling blue laps along the sand before dragging itself back again. Gulls squawk and spread their wings, catching the steady breeze that blows in off the water. That warm wind raises strands of my hair, toying with some of them and ignoring the rest. A few busy crabs carry lumps of sand from their homes and discard them outside the holes they’ve spent time digging.

The beach is so peaceful.

Until a horrifying, soul-rending noise comes from someplace in the island’s interior. I shrink at the sound and inch closer to Bones, gripping the spear he gave me to defend myself with for dear life. “What was that?” I slowly ask, eyes wide and scanning the island’s interior, praying the thing that made that sound doesn’t also enjoy walking on the beach. My heart clangs against my ribs as the creature shrieks again.

Bones waves me off, unconcerned. “It’s just a Neverbird.”

Just a Neverbird…

My heart pounds as my mind plays those words again and again. Something about them feels familiar, too.

“Right.” I try to recover, feigning nonchalance as I pretend to study a scalloped shell a few feet away.

“What’s that?” Bones absently asks himself, shielding his eyes to better see the carcass of an animal farther up the shore. At least a dozen gulls tear at it, but it’s not until we get close that the stench of death overwhelms us. Not even the sea breeze can stifle such a foul scent.

I cover my nose and mouth with my hand and desperately try not to gag. Clouds of flies and gnats swarm, buzzing against my eyes and ears. I swat furiously, trying to see through them to the…

My knees turn watery. Bile stings the back of my throat.

“It’s… that’s… human,” I breathe to Bones, who offers a sober nod.

“Stay back,” he orders before walking closer to the corpse, if you can even call it that. There’s nothing left but a ravaged torso.

The woman’s long, dark hair is stringy and tangled. Knotted strands crawl across what’s left of her back. There’s little flesh, just bone and the few strands of muscle and sinew that haven’t been torn away by beak or tooth.

With a hand firmly pressed over my mouth and nose, I watch as Bones rolls the body onto its shoulder, then flips her onto her back. Her ribs have been picked to the bone. The skin that remains on her face is pale and bloated, and…

My stomach heaves.

Something has eaten her lips away.

Her eyes, too.

I twist to the side and my back buckles as I retch.

Bones curses. “Get back, Six! Out of the insects and away from the smell.”

I stumble a few feet away on weak, trembling legs, doing as he says, yet heaving despite the respite the distance allows. “What happened to her?” I ask once I think I’m far enough, though I’m not sure such a place exists.

He’s been warning me of the crocodiles since we stepped foot on the sand. Is that what got ahold of her?

“Siren,” he shouts over his shoulder.

Hands still on my quaking knees, I raise my head, confused. Siren? “Like a mermaid?” I ask, incredulous. Those aren’t real.

“Judging by the teeth marks on her bones, yes.” With a frustrated growl, Bones waves away a gull that swoops in to try to steal another strip of her flesh. He heaves a curse, then leans back on his haunches as he looks toward the jungle, waiting for whatever he senses within it.

Something dark flies through the trees so quickly, I question whether I saw it or not… “What was that?” I whisper.

He doesn’t answer. Probably because something far worse is heading toward us.

The wind dies. The strands of my hair that had been dancing with the constant wind fall to my shoulders. The waving palms drift to a stop.

The birds in the canopy cease their trilling.

The gulls who’d been pacing nearby, waiting to return to the business of scouring the woman’s bones take flight, shrieking as they flee, carving harried paths over the cerulean sea.

The gnats and flies buzzing around the woman? They all fall dead at once, their tiny bodies peppering the corpse and the sand around her.

A second later, Peter emerges from the trees, as angry as a thunderhead. I want to rejoice that I remembered him this time, but it’s hard to be elated when someone looks as furious as he does. Crackling with malice, he nonchalantly strolls onto the shore with his hands in the pockets of his tan cut-offs, looking far too casual for the predatory look on his face.

“Why are you here, Six?” His question is aimed at me, but Peter stares at Bones like he might litter the sand with him next.

Bones stands and faces Peter, unflinching. “She –” he begins, but I got him into this mess, and I will get him out of it.

“I followed him,” I cut in. “I wanted to see the ocean.” It sounds so stupid and insignificant when I say it to Peter, when earlier it was all I wanted in the world and the only thing I thought could heal whatever thing lays broken inside me.

Peter narrows his eyes at Bones. “And yet he didn’t escort you back home where you would be safe the moment he realized you were trailing him.”

“No!” I nearly shout. Peter’s head slowly swivels toward me. I clear my throat, lashes fluttering desperately. “No. I… I was feeling so anxious. I needed to see something other than the jungle. I’m claustrophobic.”

“You’re what?” he asks, tilting his head like a bird of prey.

I try to smile, to smooth things over. “I have a fear of being confined.”

“Our home is a haven, not a cage,” he says so coldly the air seems to chill.

Maybe if it felt like my home, I would agree.

I don’t want to anger him further, so I try to smile and offer a soft, “Anything can feel like a cage if it’s all you see. Especially if you sense that something else lays beyond it. Without my memory, I feel out of place.”

A muscle works in his jaw for a sharp moment. “I suppose that’s fair.”

He looks past Bones to what’s left of the woman’s body, and a slow, terrifyingly satisfied smile spreads over his lips. “This day is full of surprises, some far better than the rest.” He leaves me and makes his way to the corpse.

“Do you know her?” I rasp, afraid that the gleam in his eye might make me retch again.

“I’ve known her since childhood.” Peter’s knees hit the sand at her side. He carefully removes a few strands of hair draped through her lashes. Beyond her torn lips, in the gaping hollow of her mouth, it looks like her tongue is missing.

Peter brushes the pad of his thumb over her humerus, tracing the divots cut by the siren’s teeth. “Sirens.”

Bones nods once in agreement.

“How do you know?” I ask, curious even as disbelief claws at me. Bones may have already explained, but I can’t recall if he did. At some point while I was retching, I abandoned Bones’s spear. I bend to pick it up, digging the blunted end into the sand.

“Sirens don’t scavenge,” Peter says. “They kill their prey and while their skin is still warm, take them to whatever place they’ve claimed as their own where they defend their kill, even from curious and hungry sharks that dare to swim too close.

“They often go for weeks or months between meals, so they’re ravenous when they finally find someone to coax into the sea. They go for the softest parts first because they’re the easiest to remove. When those are gone and their hunger is the tiniest bit sated, Sirens will gut their prey and consume the organs first. The heart is their favorite.” His finger juts into the woman’s chest cavity, hooking around one of her ribs.

My memory might be unreliable at present, but I’m fairly certain this is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

“What’s her name?” Bones asks, jutting his sharp chin at the dead.

“Wendy Darling,” Peter answers, watching Bones carefully. His perusal makes me clench my teeth so hard I worry they’ll break. But if Bones recognizes the name, he doesn’t say so or indicate it in any way. And I can’t explain why, but I’m so glad he either doesn’t know her or is lying to Pan about it. “She was the first lost girl, and Wendy is her actual name. She loved it and wanted to keep it. So I let her.”

Let her?

Pan snaps the rib he’d hooked his finger around at her side, then breaks it where it connects to her sternum. He hands the long, slender bone to Bones.

My hand tightens around the spear again as I watch Bones walk to a tide pool. He uses the sand and seawater to scour Wendy’s rib clean.

His eyes meet mine and quickly dart away.

I don’t ask why Peter took it, why he gave it to Bones, or what he might use it for. I don’t ask why they call him Bones – though in hindsight, maybe I should have before following him into the woods and trusting him in any capacity.

Peter smiles victoriously at the corpse for a long moment.

He cups her face like she might have been someone dear to him, then lets his thumb drift over what’s left of her torn and ragged skin where her lips used to be.

I turn away, the strongest urge to run pounding through my body in the cadence my steps should take.

But where would I go?

Is there any place on this island where Peter and his friends, or some ravenous creature, wouldn’t find me?

Bones straightens and tucks Wendy Darling’s rib bone into his bag.

Peter stands, then looks at each of us and grins. “With Wendy’s death, life just got far more interesting.”