Lost in the Never Woods(39)

She threw herself forward, forcing herself to go faster, to keep up, not to lose him in the woods. “ALEX!” she tried to call out to him, but her lungs burned.

Wendy didn’t notice the voices at first.

They were quiet, just whispers coming from the woods around her. They could’ve been the hiss of passing branches. Then came the sound of light footfalls, like people—or things—ran in the woods around her. All she could make out were low-hanging branches and dark figures darting between the endless rows of trees. Voices snaked through the ivy-covered giants. They whispered against her neck, but Wendy couldn’t understand what they were saying. Each breath brought a new swell of fear.

It was disorienting. Everything was off-kilter. Wendy was lost. Was she running to Alex, or was she being chased?

“Wendy, help!” Alex’s wail broke through the murmuring.

A choked cry forced its way into her throat. Wendy threw herself forward with even greater abandon.

She latched on to his voice like a lifeline and ran after it. Her brain screamed at her to turn around and go back, but she couldn’t abandon Alex. She wouldn’t.

Suddenly, something caught around her ankle and she tumbled forward. Wendy pitched head over heels before slamming to the ground. The force sent her skidding onto her side. Leaves and rocks scraped against her shoulder.

Wendy groaned. Dirt and the coppery taste of blood were on her tongue. With effort, she pushed herself up onto her knees. Her body protested, but she couldn’t stop. She had to get up, she had to keep running, she had to find Alex.

Wendy staggered to her feet.

She had collapsed in a clearing. Tall trees stood around her in a circle. Their bodies towered over her, their branches reaching high above their heads. Thick leaves blotted out any view of the night sky. Sucking down air, Wendy tried to regain her bearings. She was completely turned around.

Which way had she come from? And where was Alex? She couldn’t hear his voice anymore. In fact, she couldn’t hear anything—no crickets, no wind, no owls. The silence pressed in around her, broken only by her labored breaths.

Then Wendy heard a faint noise, something she couldn’t quite make out, but it was growing steadily louder. Fingernails dug into her palms as she clenched her fists.

The sounds of breathing filled the air around her. It was like standing in a room packed with people she couldn’t see. She could only hear their breathing, could only feel it exhaled against her skin. Some breathed slowly, others erratically, all toppling over one another and only getting louder.

Wendy’s head jerked from side to side, desperately looking for where the noise was coming from, but no one was there. The breathing turned into indecipherable whispers.

Wendy grimaced against the sound. What was happening to her?

“ALEX!” Wendy shouted, trying to find his voice among the murmurs. Maybe if he heard her, he would call back. “ALEX, WHERE ARE YOU?!”

Something cold and wet slid across Wendy’s ankle.

When she looked down, something pitch black had seeped out of the ring of trees. Wendy stumbled back, but her feet sank into the muck, nearly knocking her off-balance. The whispers grew urgent and called out to her. Wendy tried to run, but her feet were stuck. Tendrils reached out and wrapped around her legs, ice cold as they traveled up. She was slowly sinking, being pulled down into the earth.

“No, no, no!” Panic seized Wendy. She tried to pull her leg free, but the shadows snatched her wrists. Sticky claws wound up her arms to her neck. Wendy thrashed as she sank to her waist. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks as she tried to pull it off her face, but it just stretched and oozed over her hands as it continued to make its way to her mouth.

As it started to curl over her lips, Wendy jerked her head back, sucked in a deep breath, and screamed for the only person she could think of.

“PETER!”

The blackness closed over her mouth. As it engulfed her, she had only one thought through her panic and searing fear: Was this what had happened to her brothers?

Just as the shadows slid over her eyes, there was an explosion of light. Suddenly, Wendy could see again. Gold sparks sizzled on contact with the blackness. A screech filled the clearing as the substance shriveled and fell away from Wendy in clumps of ash. The sparks disintegrated the blackness but didn’t hurt her.

A strong arm hooked across Wendy’s chest and pulled her free. She thrashed and fell to her knees. She scrambled back, frantically kicking away the last of the falling ash.

Ash, and a carpet of golden sparks that lit up the clearing. They danced and flickered around her. Was she dreaming?

Peter stood in the center. The sparks winked beneath his bare feet. He held his right hand at his side, palm forward in caution. In his left hand was a sword, but not a normal sword—not that Wendy had ever actually seen a sword in person. But this one was made of the same golden sparks that surrounded him. It looked solid and weighty in his hand, a shelled hilt that curved into a long blade. It sparked and glittered in his grip. The light caught in the deep lines of worry on Peter’s face. His eyes were intense as they searched Wendy’s. The light reflected and danced in them.

“Wendy, are you okay?” Peter took a step forward and Wendy flinched back. His gaze followed hers, which remained locked on the weapon in his hand. He cursed under his breath and, with a twist of his wrist, the sword disappeared in a shower of sparks.

It only made her feel a little better. She was in a daze, chest heaving up and down. All traces of that thing were gone.