Lost in the Never Woods(4)

When she got older, Wendy took over the role as story-teller at bedtime. She recycled her mother’s tales, but also came up with her own Peter Pan adventures that she told her little brothers.

After what had happened to John and Michael, Wendy only spoke about Peter during story time at the hospital. When they volunteered with the kids, Jordan would usually play board games with the older children, but sometimes she would listen to Wendy’s stories.

“I’ve been having dreams about him, too,” Wendy added, straightening out the paper over the steering wheel to study the unfinished drawing. “Sort of, anyway. I always forget what happened when I wake up, but I remember small things like wet jungles, white beaches, and acorns.” She shifted uneasily in her seat. “A few nights ago I started sketching what I thought he’d look like.”

“And the trees?” Jordan asked. A quiet intensity had come over her as she listened to Wendy talk.

“I have no idea. Just trees, I guess.”

Jordan was silent for a moment. Wendy hated when she did that. She felt like Jordan could always tell when she was hiding something. But then Jordan shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe you’re feeling old and just want to stay young forever, like this Peter Pan guy,” she suggested. “Maybe you wanna run away with him to Neverland?” A smile started to creep across her lips.

Wendy rolled her eyes. “Ha ha.”

Jordan suddenly leaned into the truck and hooked her arm around Wendy in a tight hug. Before she could do more than tense in response, Jordan released her and stepped back. Wendy wasn’t much of a hugger. They always felt awkward and forced. Sometime over the last five years, she’d forgotten how to do it. She got teased for it a lot. It was painfully obvious how uncomfortable physical touch made her, but Jordan never made fun of her. And if anyone was going to give her a hug, Wendy preferred it be her best friend.

Jordan thumped her hand on the roof of Wendy’s truck. “Happy birthday, Legal Eagle!” she called before heading to her own car across the lot.

Wendy waited until Jordan drove away, giving her friend one last wave as she disappeared around the corner.

Slumping in her seat, Wendy let out a long breath. With the coast clear, she leaned over and placed the sketchbook on the passenger seat. Under it, the floor was littered with pieces of paper. Some folded, some crumpled up, some even torn into shreds. Yes, Wendy had started drawing pictures, but it was more than that.

She couldn’t get herself to stop.

It had all started innocently enough. She would be spacing out at the hospital and look down to see a pair of eyes drawn on the corner of a file. Sometimes she and Jordan would be at lunch and when she’d get distracted talking about the latest gossip from their friends, suddenly Wendy would find she had drawn a tree on the receipt she was supposed to be signing. It was happening more often, and Wendy never knew she was doing it until she looked down and there was the boy’s face looking up at her.

Peter’s face. Or something close to it. She knew it was supposed to be him, but there was always something off. Something about the eyes that wasn’t coming out right.

And they weren’t just trees. It was a tree. A specific tree.

Wendy didn’t know what it was. She didn’t remember ever seeing anything like it before, and it almost looked otherworldly. While the sketches of Peter Pan were pretty realistic—much more so than Wendy had even known she was capable of doing—there was something off about the tree. Something wrong with how twisted and sharp it was. For some reason, it gave her goosebumps, but she didn’t know why.

And she couldn’t explain why she kept doing it, or how she never knew she was doing it until it was already done. And now there were heaps of drawings on napkins, receipts, and even junk mail. She didn’t want anyone finding them, so she’d tossed them into her truck, but apparently Jordan had seen them.

Wendy’s stomach twisted. She didn’t like that her brain and hands were capable of conjuring things up without her noticing. Wendy grabbed her hoodie and threw it over the drawings so she didn’t have to see them out of the corner of her eye. When she got home, she’d throw them into the trash can. The last thing she needed was another reason for people to think she was strange. That she was a bad omen, if not cursed.

Wendy was starting to think they might be right.



* * *



Astoria was just a small outcropping of land surrounded by water, and the woods were a large inkblot of green spilled on a map, cutting them off from neighboring towns. Williamsport Road—or Dump Road, as the locals called it—twisted right through the woods to the far edge of town, where Wendy lived. Nestled against the hills, it was a road that only locals took. Several tire-worn logging roads splintered off from the asphalt street. They crisscrossed through the trees and looped back on themselves, and some just ended in the middle of the woods. Tourists constantly got lost on them and parents were always warning their kids to stay away, but they never listened. While she hated driving through the woods, especially at night, it got her home faster than the main streets.

For as long as Wendy could remember, all the kids in Astoria had been warned to never go down those paths. They were told the woods were dangerous, and to stay out of them. Wendy’s parents had forbidden her and her brothers to explore the logging roads even though they ran right through the woods behind their house.