With some coaxing, she was able to talk Peter into coming inside.
Mr. Darling wasn’t sleeping in the living room anymore, and, after checking that his car was gone, Wendy assumed her dad had gone to the store or something. He never left notes about where he went, so she could only guess when he’d be back. Either way, she knew she would be in trouble when he did. She’d told him she wouldn’t be out past dark.
But there were more pressing matters at hand.
“Pixie dust,” Wendy repeated, wiping her nose off on the back of her hand.
Peter nodded, drumming his fingers on the counter. “Yup.”
Standing in her kitchen, leaning against the counter, it struck her how weird this all was. She believed him now, that he was Peter Pan—her Peter—because how else could she explain what had just happened? She kept catching herself openly staring at him.
Peter Pan was in her kitchen. To her annoyance, she felt more nervous now, like she was meeting her favorite singer.
Under the fluorescent lights, she could see how much of a mess Peter was.
He’d found a new set of clothes again. This time, it was a pair of faded jeans with a hole in the left knee and a dark green T-shirt. She wondered where he had gotten them. Maybe he’d stolen them from someone’s backyard or nicked them from a lost and found.
Peter’s face was flushed and had a couple of small cuts. His hair stuck out in disheveled tufts and dirt was smeared across his cheek. Wendy was certain she didn’t look much better. Her own hands were filthy.
She quickly walked to the sink and ran her hands under hot water.
“As in the stuff that makes you fly?” she continued. In the stories her mom had passed down, Peter used pixie dust from the fairies in Neverland to help himself and the lost kids fly.
“It’s supposed to, yeah,” he said, lightly touching a cut on his temple that was caked in dried blood. He winced. A branch must have scratched him. “Usually, I don’t even need it, but ever since I brought you to Neverland…” Peter glanced away and toyed with the lighthouse-shaped pepper shaker by the stove. “I have to use a bunch of it just to get off the ground.” His brow furrowed, his expression pinched, as he ran his finger around the spiral base of the shaker.
Wendy squeezed the dish towel she was using to dry her hands and ran a corner of it under warm water. “So, what, do you just keep pixie dust in your pocket?” she asked.
Peter moved to the fridge and began rearranging the magnets. “What? No!” He chuckled as he examined a Fort Stevens State Park one. “I don’t need pixie dust—or, I mean, pixie dust is a part of me. I’m made up of it, I guess?” Peter frowned and scratched his chin.
Apparently he hadn’t put much thought into it, either.
He tried again. “It’s like—it’s like it’s already in my veins, you know?”
Wendy nodded slightly when he turned to her for confirmation. “And the sword?”
“I can conjure it up with pixie dust,” Peter said. “It’s a way to focus my magic and defend myself and the lost kids.”
Wendy frowned. “From what?”
Peter shrugged and snatched a red apple from the bowl on the counter. “I don’t know … stuff.”
“Stuff?” Wendy repeated, annoyed.
Seeing that she wasn’t going to let it go without some kind of answer, Peter huffed. “Like keeping bad stuff away—like bad thoughts,” he said, eyes following the apple as he tossed it between his hands. “Lost kids’ bad thoughts can manifest as dark things on the island, like huge spiders, or killer hippos, or—”
“Pirates?” She said the word without even thinking.
Peter caught the apple out of the air and stared at Wendy. The intense look in his eyes made Wendy shift uncomfortably.
After being found in the woods, Wendy remembered, she’d had nightmares for months about being chased by a pirate captain, cloaked in bright red with a black beard, who always wielded a silver pistol. She would wake up in the middle of the night sobbing until her mother could coax her down.
Had that pirate been the bad thought that had chased her in Neverland?
Finally, Peter cleared his throat. “Yeah, like pirates.” He slowly turned the apple over and over in his hands as he spoke. “The sword is how I protect the lost kids and keep those manifestations of their bad thoughts at bay.”
“Can you turn it into something else?” Wendy wondered, picturing the glowing sword again. “Like a net?”