The wind that carried them wasn’t wind at all.
It moved with a will of its own. Thick and strange, curling around Wendy’s limbs like invisible fingers. It wasn’t warm or cold. It was somewhere in between. Damp. Heavy. Full of whispers she couldn’t understand.
One moment, she was in her bedroom, clutching Peter’s hand. The next, the walls stretched away like melting wax, colors bleeding into stars that blinked through the cracks in the ceiling.
Below her, the floor was gone.
Beside her, her brothers hovered weightless and unaware.
Peter had touched their foreheads with two pale fingers, and just like that, they rose from their beds like dolls caught in a tide. Their arms hung limp. Their hair lifted in the still air. Their faces were blank, eyes shut, mouths slack.
For a heartbeat, Wendy panicked.
“Are they… are they breathing?”
Peter’s grip tightened just enough to still her.
“They’re fine,” he said. “Sleeping. Dreaming of flying.”
But it didn’t feel like flying.
There was no rush of wind, no exhilaration. It was like falling upward through nothing. Like the world had turned inside out. The stars above twisted in unfamiliar patterns. The moon grinned like a stranger.
Clouds passed through them, wet and whispering. Some giggled. Others sobbed. One screamed, faint and far away, like something falling forever.
And through the mist, shapes began to appear. Not solid, more like phantoms. Ghosts of children who never made it. Faces with hollow eyes blinked once and vanished. A little girl floating upside down, hair drifting like seaweed. A boy curled in on himself, skin glassy and cracked like porcelain.
“Who are they?” Wendy whispered.
Peter didn’t look at her. “Remnants,” he said softly. “Of those who failed to make it to Neverland.”
Wendy opened her mouth to ask Peter where they were or how long it would take, but the words dissolved in her tongue. Fear overtook her ability to speak. Time didn’t live here. There were no clocks in the sky between worlds. Only stars that pulsed like dying hearts and clouds that wept.
Wendy’s grip tightened on Peter’s hand, not out of trust, but fear.
Then a soft and ancient sound brushed the back of her mind.
“You chose this.”
She twisted around, searching for the source, but nothing was there. Only Peter was smiling calmly.
And in that drifting silence, something began to hum-not a sound exactly, but a pulse, like a heartbeat too large to belong to any one thing. Wendy felt it in her chest, her teeth, the tips of her fingers.
Wendy regained her breath.
“Where are we really?” she tried again.
Peter didn’t look at her. “In between,” he said. “A thread between dreams.”
They didn’t land so much as fall.
One moment, they floated in a tunnel of silver fog, and the next, Wendy hit the ground with a soft, breathless gasp. Moss cushioned her, wet and cool. Her fingers sank into it like flesh.
She rolled onto her back, blinking up at the dark green canopy.
The air smelled feral and sweet. Like honey poured over decay.
The impact hadn’t hurt- but her skin tingled, like something had passed through her. Her nightdress clung to her knees, damp with moss dew and torn at the hem. She pressed a palm into the earth, half-expecting it to push back. The leaves above were impossibly thick, overlapping like scales. She reached for Michael’s hand and held it until the tremor in her own fingers stopped.
She sat up quickly. “John? Michael?”
Peter was already standing. He brushed moss from his arms as if it offended him.
Wendy looked around.
“Is this it?” asked Wendy. “This is Neverland?”
Peter spread his arms wide, his silhouette framed by the crooked trees.
“Welcome.”
Wendy stood slowly, the moss shifting like water beneath her feet. Her bare toes sank deeper with each heartbeat, as if Neverland were tasting her.
“You live here?” she asked, brushing damp soil from her hands.
Peter gave a half-smile. “I belong here. There’s a difference.”
She frowned. “Is that supposed to sound comforting?”
“Only if you’re the kind who listens to comfort,” he said. The way he looked at her made her skin prickle. Like he already knew she wasn’t.
It wasn’t what she imagined.
The woods were wrong. Beautiful, but wrong. The trees leaned at odd angles, like they were listening. One trunk nearby had what looked like a hollow-until she saw an eye inside. Not a creature’s, but the tree’s own. It blinked once, slowly, then closed again like it had been seen. Their branches reached too far. Their roots pulsed slightly beneath the moss. Some of the bark was red. Breathing red.
Firefly-like lights floated in the air, but they didn’t blink-they watched.
Wendy swallowed. “It’s… beautiful.”
Peter smiled but said nothing. His eyes scanned the woods, alert.
“Where exactly are we?” she asked. “Are there people here?”
Peter brushed a hand along a tree trunk that shivered under his touch.
“It’s alive,” he said absently. “Neverland always is. But it listens to me.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Usually.”
“Things live here,” he said. “You’ll like the Lost Boys. Most of them came just like you did-curious, hurt, dreaming of escape.”
Wendy turned. “The Lost Boys?”
“Boys,” Peter repeated. “And others. Children who fell through the cracks of their own worlds.”
He crouched by a tangle of roots, brushing his fingers along a stone half-swallowed by moss. A cluster of firefly-lights drifted from the underbrush, circling him, then scattered like birds.
“They don’t all stay boys,” he added softly.
“Not for long.”
“They’re always watching for new arrivals.”
Peter’s face didn’t change, but something in his voice cooled.
She stared back at her brothers. “Are they safe here?”
“That depends on the choices you make.”
Before she could press him, John stirred beside Michael.
“They’ll wake soon,” Peter repeated, softer.
Wendy stood, brushing dirt from her nightdress. The moss clung as if it didn’t want to let go.
“Should we go find them?” she asked, “The Lost Boys?”
Peter turned toward her slowly, like the question displeased him.
“All in time. We start here.”
The way he said it left no room for argument. Like the woods had chosen the place, not him.
Wendy glanced over her shoulder. The clearing seemed smaller than it had been a moment ago. Or maybe the trees had crept closer.
She looked around again. The clearing was quiet. But not peaceful.
It was the kind of quiet that knew your name.
Something rustled in the trees.
Wendy spun toward the sounds, heart thudding. A shape moved between the branches, too fast, too low to see clearly. Strange chittering came from the woods, louder and louder. Then it stopped.
Peter tensed beside her.
“Stay here.”
“Why? What is it?”
He didn’t answer. He was simply gone, slipping into the brush without a sound, as if the forest had opened a door for him.
Wendy stood frozen, watching the trees.
The silence that followed was thicker. Like the woods were waiting, holding their breath.
A low breath rustled through the canopy, but no branches moved. Michael whimpered softly, and for a moment, Wendy felt like they had dropped into the lungs of something ancient, something dreaming them into existence.
Then-a gasp.
John sat upright with a jolt, wild-eyed. “Where are we?”
Michael woke seconds later, flailing until Wendy grabbed him.
John scrambled to his feet, panic flashing in his eyes. “We were flying. Weren’t we? But then it was dark, and?”
“I know,” Wendy said quickly. “I know, just breathe.”
Michael clung to her neck. “Mum’s gonna be mad,” he mumbled into her shoulder.
“Mum’s not here,” John snapped, instantly looking guilty.
Wendy pulled them closer. Her chest ached. She didn’t know how to fix this. She didn’t even know where this was.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, trying to sound steady. “You’re safe.”
“Where’s mum?” John asked, panicked. “What’s going on?!”
Wendy’s throat tightened. “We’re… on an adventure.”
Michael still clinging to her, crying softly. “I don’t want an adventure…”
She held them tighter, her fear curling in her chest like smoke.
This was supposed to be better.
This was supposed to be an escape.
But already, the forest around them felt like it was watching.
And something in Neverland had opened its eyes.
She could feel it now behind the trees, beneath the moss. A presence that was neither friend nor foe, just… watching. Weighing. Wondering.