Another Pan (51 page)

For an instant, Peter was stunned.

Wendy broke free from under Peter and crawled the few feet toward her brother, reaching out the arm holding the vial.

Peter tried to grab the vial away from her. But it was too late. Her hand trembled only once before she hoisted herself up and poured the dust over John’s mouth. She watched, expecting him to revive in seconds. But even though the dust hung in the air, then was absorbed quickly into John’s face, nothing more happened. John still lay unconscious on the floor. Wendy waited and waited for what seemed like ages. She shook him gently. But he didn’t move.

Peter was still on the floor, panting like an angry beast. He slapped the ground with unveiled ferocity. Then he got up and began to pace the small room, like a lost child without a plan.

The group must have sat in silence for five minutes or so. No one thought to just leave. They were mesmerized by what Peter would do next.

Finally, Peter gathered himself together and looked toward John and at Wendy’s expectant face as she sat with her brother. Tina and Cornrow eyed him cautiously.

Peter turned to Wendy. “It’ll take a little while. Let’s go.” He pointed to Cornrow. “Carry the kid.” Cornrow touched Wendy on the shoulder to get her to notice him and let him take John’s body.

As Tina helped Wendy to her feet, a low groan made them all freeze. The Dark Lady was twitching more violently now. Suddenly, Tina dropped Wendy’s arm and ran to Peter, pulling him away from the death god. Wendy wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. Even after all this, Tina wanted to help him above all others. She was still willing to put herself in danger for
his
sake. Wendy thought about the way she had looked down on Tina’s love for Peter, thinking that her own was of such better quality. But Peter hadn’t felt much for either of them, and in the end, it was Tina who loved him unconditionally, even after he had shown himself to be so impossibly selfish.

The exhausted group silently walked out of the office and into the larger Marlowe attic space. Wendy stayed close to Cornrow, looking for any signs of life in John.

Whatever this all had been, this supernatural stuff with a book and a labyrinth and mummies and gods, Wendy knew it was finally over. All the stress of being the only ones to know about it, the fear of Simon stealing it all, the terror of darkness enveloping the real world, all of it poured out of Wendy along with her heartbroken tears for Peter.

And now all she wanted was for John to wake up. And by the time they found a safe spot in the attic to hide from any adults, he did. At first he groaned, then, with a gasp for air, he woke. Cornrow put him down. His feet were unsteady and his shirt was sopping blood, but his stomach was perfectly healed. Wendy laughed at the sight of John rubbing his belly. He nodded to Tina, winked, and said, “How do you like me now?”

Even Tina had to smile. John would be just fine.

Peter sent Cornrow to check on the nurse’s office. He came back to the hiding place and said there was no sign of her anywhere.

“There wouldn’t be,” said Peter. “She’s done. No one can ever use the bonedust to live forever, so she doesn’t have to stick around.”

Then they all went back to the office to clean up the evidence they’d left there. As they wiped up the blood and swept up the dead moths, John puzzled over every detail of the underworld secrets they’d just uncovered. Why did the underworld disappear? Where did the nurse go? Would she come back? Would Peter recognize her next time?

“Figures her hideout is up here, though,” said John. “We should have known it was her. Not just the eye and the name, but
look
at this place. It’s the opposite of the lowest point in the pyramid.” The nurse’s office in the attic was the highest point in Marlowe, just as Neferat’s dark cave was situated at the tip of the upside-down pyramid. And just like that abysmal hole in the ground, the attic surrounding the office was filled with clutter, with boxes and old furniture where sarcophagi had been. Just like all the other places in Marlowe that corresponded to the underworld, this similarity unnerved Wendy — the way the underworld had molded itself to them, the way it had formed a negative Marlowe, a new hellish Marlowe, dark and backward, like an image imprinted on film.

“The girls’ bathroom is just below the attic,” added John. “I think there are pipes that lead right up from the bathroom to the attic, just like the way the women’s castle was right above the cave, so it led down to Neferat’s lair. See?”

“Would’ve been easier just to go directly through the nurse’s office,” said Wendy.

“If we’d known the dowdy nurse was
her,
I’m sure we would have,” shot Tina.

As Tina looked around for a mop, Poet charged into the nurse’s office dragging a sloppy wet Simon behind him. When he saw Peter, Poet stood at attention. He held Simon up by the collar and said, “Yo, Pete, check it out.” He clearly wanted his RA to see his handiwork, but Peter didn’t even acknowledge it. He just stomped out of the attic, slapping away Tina’s arm as she reached out to console him. On his way out, he dropped a pile of bones he had collected in Neferat’s cave — a toe, a forearm, a hand — bones from various mummies that he was planning to use to trick Simon, if it came down to that.

Simon wheezed, “Can you please call this hooligan off me?” Now that there was no more bonedust and no one left for him to threaten, his voice sounded whiny and pleading.

They turned their attention to the slimy assistant professor. “How’d it go?” said Tina.

“We came to an understanding,” reported Poet.

It was time to go, to sneak back into the crowded hall between classes, as though nothing had happened. John peeled off his bloody shirt and threw it in the trash. He’d probably have to run shirtless to the boys’ locker room to get his gym clothes. But Poet took off his Marlowe shirt and jacket and handed it to John.

John looked at the clothes, then at the shirtless guy in front of him. “What are you gonna wear?” he asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Poet, smiling, “You’re one of us now, and LBs look out for their own.”

John beamed. He proudly pulled the shirt over his head. It looked like a dress on him, but that didn’t matter.

Wendy knew she would have to tell him about what had happened with Peter, but not yet. Besides, somehow, she knew John wouldn’t mind. He hadn’t admired the LBs because of Peter; that was for sure. John had plenty of heroes, but he’d never been foolish enough for Peter to be one of them. In that way, Wendy mused with a little sadness, John had always been right. He’d always been right to suspect Peter.

Something told Wendy that the shirt, the acceptance, was all that John was looking for anyway. John bumped fists with both the LBs and strutted out of the attic. Wendy and Tina followed, and they immediately split up in the hallway crowd at the bottom of the stairs, each heading her own way.

When Simon found out that the fourth bone had been stolen, he began to rant and threaten John. But one warning glance from Poet was enough to shut him up. Besides, John didn’t care. John knew when he brought the bone into the labyrinth in his gym bag that he was bringing the five pieces of bonedust together. He knew when he stopped at his locker for the bag that before the night was over, one of them would consume that immortal cocktail; he knew they wouldn’t be throwing the bones out into the girls’ bathroom for Simon to find.

He just didn’t realize that the person consuming the dust would be
him
.

But in all that, Peter was nowhere to be found. He had disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. Wendy couldn’t say she was sorry to see him go. But somehow, she couldn’t say she was sorry to have met him, either. She couldn’t say that it didn’t make her chest tighten to imagine him all alone again. After all, regardless of how old Peter was, this was still a high-school romance. Even the worst experiences have parts that are really nice to think about. And the other parts, well, Wendy consoled herself, if you’ve got just a couple of happy thoughts in the end, you’ve done all right for yourself.

All nights, except for one, come to an end. That is to say, there’s always that one night in every lifetime that stands out as endless — the night when all those nocturnal monsters, the creeping, slithering hazards of the dark, with names like shame and sorrow and guilt, grab ahold of you and won’t let you sleep. In Wendy’s case, the culprit was sheer humiliation.

She sat on her bed and tried to remember what her father had said. She had been so ashamed to tell him about Peter — to finally say out loud how she felt. Her father had said that he could never imagine a smarter daughter, or a braver or more loyal one. Why would someone as gifted as Wendy Darling ever cry over such things? Why would she waste her time caring about someone like Peter? Then he had recounted all the embarrassing Peter stories from his LB days, in hopes of cheering her up a bit. And so, Wendy had decided that she didn’t care anymore about her borrowed house, or her father’s crazy streak, or even the fact that her mother had left. She was nothing like her, and tomorrow she would call Connor. Maybe they could be friends again.

She barely remembered now what happened after she left the attic. She could see herself stumbling, confused and disoriented, through the halls, ignoring the spoiled gossipmongers who wanted to know about Peter. She kept thinking the same thought over and over again:
Peter was going to let John die
. Peter had shown himself for what he was, the most selfish boy she had ever met. How could she love him now?