Chapter 33

Cold. So cold it burned. It seeped under her clothing, it froze her eyes, her fingers, and her toes, and she could feel her breath—hard, sharp icicles before her. Alive, she thought frantically. I am still alive! But for how long? How long could she last in this cold in her absurdly unsuitable clothing and sandals? How long would Pan's minion play with her before it tore away her shadow? And when it did, could it possibly hurt more than this freezing darkness?

And then, she heard a voice, brittle and mocking in her ears. "Ah, Wendy, Wendy, Wendy. One thinks you've become quite the lazy little girl."

"No," she protested, trying to shout to be heard above the howling winds. "No… please!"

"You have a task to complete," the voice continued in a sinister sing-song. "Are you certain you haven't been shirking?"

"I haven't!" Wendy cried. "Please, you must believe me!"

The gale winds rose to a screaming pitch and Wendy tried to cover her ears, but her arms were blocks of ice, too heavy to lift. And then the voice spoke again.

"Pan's patience grows short, little Wendy-bird. As does your tether. Before either is at an end, you will succeed in your mission, or others will pay the price!"

Screaming, Wendy struggled against the inky blackness, which wrapped itself all the more tightly about her. And then, without warning, it released her!

Off-balance, her eyes squeezed shut against the light that suddenly filled the room once more, Wendy crashed heavily to the ground.

She couldn't say how long she lay there, shaking and whimpering. It was only when John found her on the floor some time later and took her in his arms that she was finally able to let her sobs come.

"I can't believe you wrote this!" Marla gushed. "I thought what we already had was good enough, but this is… is…"

"It's da bomb!" Julie exclaimed. When the other three girls turned to look at her, she quickly broke eye contact and scuffed her shoe on the carpet. "It's just something my brother used to say," she mumbled, and Kyla put an arm around her.

Emma hesitated. "Did I… miss something?"

Julie shook her head. "It's not… I… My brother said it all the time. We lived in a tough neighborhood before I came here." She winced. "I came home from a friend's house one day and there was yellow tape around our house. The social worker said… a drive-by. I don't know if Mike did anything… if they thought he did, or…" She drew a shuddering breath. "He and my folks were in the living room, and a car went by and…" Her voice trailed off, as she shook her head. "He was fifteen. I'm fifteen now. I…" She sucked in a breath. Then, softly, "Well, now you know how I got to be a Starlight girl," she said with a sad smile.

Emma took a step closer. "I'm sorry."

"You didn't do anything," Julie assured her. "I just said something without thinking about it, and it wasn't until I said it that I remembered the last person who used it around me was Mike and…"

"It's okay," Kyla said softly.

Emma wasn't sure if she should stay or go. In most of her foster placements, opening up the way Julie had was asking for trouble. Sympathy was rare. More often, such admissions were met with either derision, or an angry retort that just about every other kid in the system had some tragic past and it didn't make them special. Emma wasn't going to go that route. Finally, she said, "I heard kids in Boston say it, too. 'Da bomb.'"

Julie looked up. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She couldn't remember now if it had been any kids she'd actually known, or if she'd just heard it on TV. "We can do this stuff tomorrow, if you want," she added, holding up the sheet of paper with the new lyrics.

Julie half-rose. "No. No, I'm okay," she said at once.

"You're sure?" Marla, silent until now, asked the question almost in unison with Emma.

"I will be," Julie said. "Really. Singing helps."

"Okay," Emma said. "But anytime you want to call it a day…"

Julie nodded. "Thanks."

John found his sister curled up on the floor in the fetal position, whimpering softly. "Wendy!" he exclaimed, kneeling by her side. "Wendy!"

"C-c-cold," Wendy whispered faintly. "So cold. I n-never knew."

"Wendy?"

She didn't open her eyes, but her cheek lolled against his arm when he half-lifted her torso. "Do our shadows keep us warm, John?" she asked through still-chattering teeth. "Is that why ripping them away kills us? Because we freeze to death?"

John held his sister tighter as she trembled. "You're not freezing to death, Wendy," he whispered gently. "And you still have your shadow."

"Do I?" she asked. "Are you quite sure?"

For answer, John carried her toward the window. "Here," he said, holding her hand up before the glass. "Look. Look at the wall. See? That's your hand."

Wendy opened her eyes slowly. Smiling, John held up his free hand, contorting his fingers so that the shadow it cast on the wall resembled the head of a dog. A breath of air escaped Wendy's nostrils, almost like a laugh.

"You remember!" she said, for one moment back in the nursery of their home in Bloomsbury over a century earlier.

"How we got Michael to sleep?" John asked. "Of course. "Here. You do one."

And she did, raising both hands up to cast an eagle's silhouette on the wall.

John countered with a camel's head, which Wendy followed with a rabbit. By the time he'd produced a duck—the last puppet he knew how to create with only the one hand, Wendy was giggling. A bear's shape appeared on the wall beside it and with a mock growl, pounced on the duck.

Laughing, John dropped the illusion, splaying his fingers wide. He took a breath. "Are you quite all right, then?" he asked.

Sobering somewhat, Wendy nodded. "I think so," she said. "Pan's Shadow came at me."

John's expression hardened. "Did it?"

"It seemed to think I've been shirking," she said. "As if I could, with poor Michael a prisoner in Neverland!"

"Pan's a child," John pointed out. "Patience doesn't always come easy to him." He shook his head. "It would serve him right if his haste had him come a cropper one of these days."

"Don't think I haven't hoped for it," Wendy murmured. "But Peter Pan…"

"…Never fails," John finished with a sigh. "Well, since you're doing his bidding, it's safe to say, neither will you."

"But what should I do if the Shadow comes back again?"

John cast about looking for some words of reassurance, but found none. "What could you do?" he asked finally. "But rest assured, I'll be here to pick you up again, should that happen."

Unless it gets to you, first, Wendy thought, but she kept silent, as though voicing the words might make them reality.

"Hey," Stormer said, pausing before the cracked-open door, "they sound pretty good."

Kimber nodded, but her smile was tinged with concern. "I want to think that they're just practicing in case there's an amateur talent show coming up," she said carefully.

"But…" Stormer prompted.

Kimber sighed. "But I remember what being a teenager was like. You still have this idea that if you're in the right place, at the right time, and impress the right people…"

Stormer nodded. "It could happen," she said. "I wouldn't have been a Misfit if Phyllis hadn't found me performing at a club on," she smiled with a touch of embarrassment, "Amateur Night. But you're right. It doesn't happen often."

"And I bet you weren't eleven, or even sixteen," Kimber added, noting the ages of the youngest and eldest performers in the band.

"Nineteen with an ID that said I was twenty-three?" Stormer replied, her embarrassment growing a bit more pronounced. "Hey, the place wouldn't let anyone in who wasn't legal drinking age."

"Not judging," Kimber grinned back. Her expression turned serious once more. "I just hope they're not thinking that if they can impress Jerrica enough, they'll have a spot on the benefit bill. Reality's gonna really bite hard if they do."

Stormer shook her head sadly. "Rejection's part of showbiz," she said. "It's a lousy part, but it's something they're going to have to deal with. At least, this time."

"Well, maybe they are just rehearsing for a talent show or something," Kimber said unconvincingly. "At least, I hope so."

The two women continued down the corridor, the strains of music growing fainter behind them.

"I'm sorry, Jerrica," Synergy told her. "The reasons why my existence must be kept secret have not changed. My holographic powers still surpass anything that current technology is capable of replicating, and so long as that holds true, there is still the danger of what might transpire, should I fall into the wrong hands.

Jerrica nodded sadly. "I was afraid of that, but I thought I'd ask."

"Is there someone new in your life?" Synergy asked, and for a moment, Jerrica felt like she was twelve once more, having a heart-to-heart talk with her mother. Perhaps that wasn't as strange as it might have appeared at first blush: when her father had created Synergy, he'd poured a lot of Jacqui Benton into her voice and personality.

Maybe that was why Jerrica was sure she was blushing. "No," she said at once. "Nothing like that. But… Pizzazz brought up Jem and she thought that Rio was fooling around with her and… the best I could come up with made it seem like I didn't care if he was dating other women on the side, when—"

"When you would have cared, had the other women not been you."

Jerrica nodded, but she was frowning, too. "I should have cared more, even back then, because Rio thought he was dating another woman. Two, if you count Jamie," she added, even though that holographic alter ego hadn't lasted long. "And I think I did. Some." She sighed. "It wasn't fair. He even guessed it once and I had you throw up a hologram of Jem to throw him off, when I should have just confirmed it."

"Perhaps," Synergy agreed. "But if he was willing to date Jem when he didn't know that she and you were the same person, there is a high probability that he would have been willing to date other women, even had he known the truth then. I suspect that the hurt and betrayal you felt later when the two of you parted ways for good would have been far sharper had it come when you shared your secret with him."

"It did come when I shared my secret with him," Jerrica reminded her. "Maybe if I'd told him sooner, he wouldn't have felt guilty about dating Jem and then felt… betrayed when he found out the truth. Maybe he could have handled it if I could have trusted him!"

Synergy made a sympathetic noise that sounded so exactly like her mother's that Jerrica almost wished she could hug the computer. She looked up to see that the holographic simulacrum was sitting on the console beside her. "You'll never know that for certain, I'm afraid," Synergy's voice was kind. "But what's prompted this conversation now? Has Rio come back?"

Jerrica shook her head. "No," she sighed. "I was just… having a conversation with Pizzazz, I mean Phyllis. Eight years ago, I'd never have considered telling her, but now, I want Jem to do this benefit. And maybe afterwards, she won't go back into retirement so fast. But I don't want to go back to the double life and the lies and the hiding and…"

She sighed.

Synergy was silent for a moment. "I can't make your decision for you, Jerrica," she said finally. "But whichever course you choose, there will be risks involved and you can't anticipate all of them. I can only trust that you'll consider your options and choose wisely."

And did choosing wisely always mean choosing right? Jerrica wondered.

Emma looked up when Stephanie sat down across from her at lunch. "Hey." Then she saw the other girl's expression. "What's the matter?"

Stephanie hesitated. "Can I ask you something kind of… bad?"

Emma frowned. "Bad, how?"

"Bad, like I think I already know the answer, but I want to know if I'm right."

Emma swallowed, suddenly feeling a bit nervous. "Is this… I know we haven't been hanging out as much, but I've been rehearsing with the band and it's been eating up a lot of free time. I know it's not fair and once it's over—"

Stephanie shook her head. "No, it's not about that, though Casey and me do miss you. It's… did you call me and Casey 'great sillies' and 'gigglemugs'?"

"What?" Emma's jaw dropped. "No, of course not!"

"Empty-headed poltroons?"

"Huh?"

A smile was tugging at Stephanie's lips now, as she continued. "Heinous harridans?"

"Does that even sound like anything I'd ever say?" Emma demanded.

"No," Stephanie said emphatically. "It doesn't."

"But then, why…?"

Stephanie sighed. "Because when I asked Wendy if she knew where you were, she told me that you didn't want to talk with either me or Casey, and that you'd told her that we were… all those things. What's a poltroon, anyway?"

"I have no clue," Emma said. "I've never heard that word before."

"Neither had I, until Wendy said you'd said it."

Emma shook her head, scarcely able to believe her ears. "What else did she say?" Emma asked.

"Only that if we asked you, you'd deny it because you didn't want to hurt our feelings."

"But you came to me anyway," Emma said slowly.

"Well, I wasn't going to believe Wendy without talking to you, first!" Stephanie exclaimed. "Look, you've been busy lately, and you were kind of shy when you first came to Starlight House, but you've never been mean."

Emma sighed. "Thanks." She frowned. "You don't believe Wendy, right?"

"I couldn't before and I don't now."

"Thanks," Emma said again, but her eyes were troubled. "I don't understand why she would have said those things." She paused for a beat. "But I'm going to find out."

Wendy looked up as three shadows fell across her picnic table. "Emma!" she greeted her friend. Her gaze traveled to the other two girls. "Casey," she said with a bit more strain in her voice, "Stephanie, how nice to see all of you!"

Emma didn't beat around the bush. "Did you tell them that I was trash-talking them to you behind their backs?"

Wendy flinched. "I-I don't know that I've heard that word before," she said, though she imagined she could guess at its meaning.

"That's okay," Stephanie said, her voice hard. "None of us had ever heard of gigglemugs or poltroons until this morning."

"But they don't sound like compliments," Casey added.

Wendy looked from one face to the next. "I-I didn't mean…"

"You didn't mean what?" Emma asked. "You didn't mean to lie to my friends to… I don't know, try to get them to dump me? What the hell is going on?"

"Emma!" Casey gasped, clapping a hand to her lips.

"Appropriate, under the circumstances," Stephanie muttered.

"No!" Wendy exclaimed. "That wasn't at all what I meant to do!"

Emma's eyes opened very wide. "You're lying to me," she said, sounding stunned. "That's exactly what you meant to do. Why?"

Wendy lowered her eyes. "B-because you're the first true friend I've ever had and I didn't want to share you!"

Stephanie's mouth hung open for a moment, and she took a step toward the stricken girl, but Emma's expression didn't thaw.

"I don't have a lot going for me," she said coldly, "but I do have this one talent. Call it a superpower if you like, but I've always been able to tell when someone's lying. So try telling us the truth. Am I really your first friend?"

Wendy nodded frantically. "Yes!"

Emma's expression thawed for a moment as a rush of warmth flowed over her. "Why did you try to break us up?"

Wendy hesitated. "I…" She looked at Casey and Stephanie. "I'm sorry."

"That's not an answer," Stephanie said.

"I-I know. I wanted Emma all to myself. I did. Truly. I know it was wrong of me, but I had hopes…"

Emma blinked. "I-I don't get it. You're telling the truth now, but you weren't before, I don't…" Her breath caught. "You said I was your first true friend. "I asked if I was your first friend. You said yes, but…" she drew another breath. "Wendy, are you my friend?"

Wendy smiled. "Yes, of course!" she exclaimed, but Emma's expression had hardened again.

"I should've known," she muttered. "What was the plan? Were you softening me up, so I'd tell you which boy I liked, so you could tell everyone else? Hide my clothes while I was showering after swimming?" Both had happened to her before.

"No!" Wendy cried. "Of course not! I—"

"Then why?"

Wendy looked down. "I can't tell you."

"Can't? Or won't?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Forget it. We're done here." She spun on her heel and stalked away. Her friends gave Wendy a brief glance before turning and following.

"I don't get it," Aja said with a puzzled frown. "Why now?"

Jerrica sighed. "Because when Kimber and Stormer came to me to ask how to deal with Roxy's blackmail attempt, I told them that owning it and getting ahead of the rumor was one option, and that living a double life could be pretty stressful. And ever since then, I've been thinking. For the last eight years, there's been no Jem, no trying to be in two places at once, no juggling two lives and trying to remember what Jerrica should know and what Jem should know and not slipping up…"

"And now, Jem's back," Aja said, understanding.

"Now Jem's back. And I don't want to live a double life anymore. I was hoping I wouldn't have to, but Synergy reminded me again of the risks if her hologram technology were to fall into the wrong hands."

"Yeah," Aja said, "but she's downstairs behind an illusion of a wall and she's… sort of big and heavy and hard to make off with. How big a risk is it?"

Jerrica shook her head. "I don't know. Even if the odds are ten thousand to one, there's that one chance. It's easy to think everything will be fine, but if it isn't, if someone uses her to commit crimes, that'll be my fault."

"Pretty sure it'll be the crooks' fault," Aja countered, "but I hear. So…"

"So," Jerrica sighed, "it's back to the double life. Until the benefit. Then Jem goes back into retirement. This time, for good."

"Emma!" Wendy exclaimed the next day. "I've found a piano! Now we can experiment!"

Emma looked at her coldly. "Experiment?" she repeated as though Wendy had spoken a foreign language.

Wendy's smile dimmed. "Well… yes. For your song. The harmonies. I-I thought we could find them together."

Emma shook her head. "No thanks," she said, her voice almost a monotone. "The band and me can work on those."

"But I thought we…"

Emma's gaze seemed to bore right through Wendy. "There is no 'we'," Emma informed her. "There's me and my friends… and then there's you."

"I'm your friend, too!" Wendy said desperately.

Emma shook her head. "No," she said, sounding both surprised and disappointed. "You aren't."

"Please! I-I'll prove it to you."

"You can't," Emma said. "It's like I told you before: I don't know how, but I can always tell when someone is outright lying to me. You are now and you were yesterday. I've been trying to figure out why, whether it was something I did, or whether it's just some game you're playing until you get tired of me and start laughing at me to my face, instead of behind my back—"

"I'd never!" Wendy interjected.

Emma's lips twitched. "Well, that's something," she said. Her voice hardened once more. "But it's not enough. Don't talk to me again." She stalked off to join Stephanie, who was standing by a cluster of trees some distance away.

Wendy watched, a wave of cold dread washing over her, as she recalled her last encounter with Pan's Shadow.

Joellen smiled at the three girls. "Well, there is a piano in the main hall," she said slowly. "We're using it for the camp talent show. The hard part is booking time on it; you can't be in there alone without supervision, and if some of the other people in the show need time to practice, you can't monopolize it during every free period." A puzzled frown came to her face. "Why not just use the one at Starlight House?"

"Same issue," Emma shrugged. "One piano, a bunch of kids and…" she winced. "I-I'm really not very good at it. I want to experiment, see if I can figure out how to do the harmony, but to everyone else, it's just going to sound like I'm banging on the piano, when I'm trying to find out what works."

Joellen thought for a moment. "Maybe there's a way," she said slowly. "I-I don't want to get your hopes up, especially with the benefit coming up; it might not be available."

"What?" Casey asked.

"Wait," Stephanie said, with dawning excitement. "You mean the one in the re—"

"Yes, but let me make sure it's possible!" Joellen interrupted. "And there's still the supervision aspect. Look. Let me… talk to Jerrica. I'll get back to you tomorrow."

John was back when Wendy returned home. He took one look at his sister's stony expression and moved to set the kettle on. "Bad day?" he asked.

Wendy sat down heavily at the table. "She has magic," Wendy said.

John blinked. "That isn't possible."

"Oh," Wendy said hurriedly, "I don't mean she can cast spells or fly or anything. But she can tell when someone's fibbing and she caught me out." She groaned. "She asked me if I was her friend. Now she knows the truth."

John didn't speak for a long moment. Then, "How much have you told her."

"About Pan?" Wendy laughed bitterly. "Nothing. Who would believe me?"

"If she can tell when a person's lying, I daresay you've your answer," John said dryly, "but all the same, it's a relief you didn't."

"Is it?" Wendy asked. "Of course, if I tell her the truth, then Michael's life is forfeit. But if I fail, Michael's life is forfeit, just the same. Oh, John. Whatever am I to do?"

John set a cup of tea down before her. "You're going to drink this," he said. "And then, you're going to have a good supper and go to bed. Perhaps befriending Emma is now out of the question, but that was never a requirement."

"But…"

"Pan wants her to be miserable," John reminded her, "wary, mistrustful, and above all, separated from Starlight House and any other place that might show her the warmth and affection that would allow her to find her place in the world. You were hoping to entice her to run away?"

Wendy nodded. "Or at least, make her other friends cross enough with her to shun her before I abandoned her, too."

"It was good thinking," John agreed. "But since it hasn't worked as you'd hoped, well, I suppose the other alternative would be to have her sent away."

"From Starlight House?" Wendy asked. She frowned. "Well, yes, I can see how that would work, but how am I to arrange for that to happen?"

John smiled a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Well, you're a smart girl, Wendy. I'm quite certain you'll concoct something…"