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“I need to go,” he said, his voice a husky whisper, his eyes moving from her face to the dissected bunny beside her.

“Stay, Warren. I really want you to stay.” She kissed him again.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he said, pulling back. “You have no idea how much I want to. It’s just that…”

“You’ve got a girlfriend, right?” It was Rhonda who pulled away now. “Waiting for you back in Pennsylvania?”

“No,” Warren said. “That’s not it. I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Is it because of everything I told you about Peter? Because if that’s it…”

“That’s not it.”

“Let me guess,” Rhonda said, smiling, drawing him to her, her fingers hooked in the belt loops of his jeans. “You’re a monk and you’ve taken a vow of celibacy?”

He shook his head, smiling as she pulled him down the hall toward her bedroom.

“Is it our age difference? Am I like an old lady to you?”

“Definitely not,” he said.

“Remember what you told me…how everything happens for a reason? Maybe this is it. Maybe this is part of why I was there in that parking lot when Ernie was taken. So I would meet you.”

“Rhonda, it was—” She put a finger on his lips.

“Shhh.”

Warren looked slightly worried.

“What do you feel right now?” she asked him.

“Too much,” he said.

“Good,” she told him. “That’s just perfect.”

She started to unbutton his shirt. Then she switched over to her own. Only when they were naked on the bed, kissing, did she tell him the truth.

“I’ve never done this before,” she whispered.

Warren pulled away. She guided him back on top of her.

“I want you to be the first,” she said.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

She was sure.

WHILE WARREN SLEPTnaked beside her, Rhonda dreamed of the rabbit. In the dream, she was a child again, chasing the giant white Easter Bunny through the seemingly endless woods behind her house. Brambles scraped at her face. She twisted her ankles on roots and loose stones. The rabbit ran ahead of her, stopped and waited until she’d nearly caught up with him, then bolted off through the trees. Soon, she was lost—unsure of the landscape around her. Then she looked up just in time to see the rabbit jump down into a hole, and eagerly, without fear, she followed.

The rabbit hole was a moist, earthy tunnel that smelled of worms and grubs, deep underground smells.Here, she thought,here is where I will find what I’m looking for, but in the dream she couldn’t recall just what that might be.

Peter!Rhonda cried in her dream, there in the dark of the cave, in the heart of his burrow, where she hoped the hidden rabbit would hear her and take pity.Peter.

And then, he appeared. Not the rabbit, buther Peter, only he was young again—thirteen or fourteen maybe—and he was dressed in his costume from their play, covered in his green suit of leaves, a ring of them woven like a crown around the top of his curly head. When he appeared in the cave, it filled with light, as if he was imbued with the power to dispel darkness, to banish
fear. She studied each detail of him, her beautiful Peter, running her fingers over the scar on his forehead just above his right eye. Even though he shouldn’t have had the scar yet, the cut came later, in the dream she didn’t question it. And there at the bottom of the rabbit hole, she threw her arms around him, thinking him a miracle. She let herself kiss him, her mouth fumbling against his in the half light, so happy to be rescued, so happy that she had realized that this was just what the rabbit was supposed to lead her to, this was where she was meant to be, now and forever. But then she pulled back and saw that he had blood on his hands and face. His cut was open again, and he was bleeding from the forehead. In his hands, he held tiny pieces of crumpled paper.

Our fears, he whispered.Do you remember?

JULY 4, 1993

AFTER PETER ANDRhonda left the coffin workshop, they walked across the driveway to his house. Daniel was nowhere to be seen. Aggie was doing the dishes in the kitchen, scrubbing at the cake pan, the big plastic bowls that held the salads. Peter called, “Night, Wendy,” and walked off to his room. Rhonda found Lizzy in her own room, stretched out on top of the covers in her Captain Hook outfit, pretending to be asleep. Rhonda could tell she was faking, but didn’t feel like talking anyway. Lizzy had laid out a nightgown for Rhonda on top of the extra bed. They’d planned all week for Rhonda to spend the night, and although Rhonda wanted more than anything to go home, she didn’t want to deal with the inevitable questions from Justine—Did you have a fight? Are you okay?Lately Justine always asked a million questions anyway whenever Rhonda got back from a night at Lizzy’s:What did you do? How late were you up? Was Aggie there? Peter? Daniel?

Rhonda slipped on her nightgown, lay down in the twin bed next to Lizzy’s. The room glowed from a rocking horse night-light plugged into the outlet next to the closet. Rhonda could see the pencil lines and dates Lizzy had scribbled on the frame of the closet doorway to measure her growth. She could see the last measurement was from July 1. So Lizzy hadn’t given up on being a Rockette. This gave Rhonda hope. She lay there listening to Lizzy’s fake snore, wondering if, once the play was over, she’d get the good Lizzy back. The door to the bedroom creaked open, then closed. Rhonda turned. No one was there. She shut her eyes and fell asleep, dreaming of a Lizzy so tall that she bumped her head on the ceilings.

She woke up later to find that Lizzy had crawled into bed next to her and had placed the hook on her pillow, next to Rhonda’s head, so that it was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes. The next thing she noticed was the foul smell coming from Lizzy: a mixture of body odor, stale urine, and breath as bad as any dog’s she’d ever smelled.

“I have a secret,” Lizzy whispered, her fetid breath hot on Rhonda’s face. “Do you want to hear?”

Rhonda closed her eyes and turned so that she was facedown, being comfortably smothered by the pillow. She waited, playing possum, wondering if Lizzy would tell her secret anyway, but she didn’t. Rhonda’s cheek was pressed against Lizzy’s hook, and when she awoke the next morning, she had a red mark there, like a scar.

JUNE 17, 2006

RHONDA WOKE UPand wrapped a blanket around herself. She watched Warren as he slept, tempted to wake him and tell him her dream about the rabbit hole.

Instead, she stood, put on her robe, padded gently out of the bedroom, and made a pot of coffee. Then she sat on the couch with the first cup in her hand. She found the remote and pressedPLAY . There was Peter again, struggling with his shadow, about to wake Wendy from her innocent slumber, and ferry her off to the Neverland.

“Hey,” Warren said, as he leaned over the back of the couch and kissed the top of her head. “I smell coffee.”

“I thought you didn’t drink coffee.”

Warren laughed. “I drink it on special occasions.”

“Well, I’m honored, then. There’s a pot in the kitchen. Cream’s in the fridge. Help yourself.” She watched as he sauntered into the kitchen in his boxers, seeming perfectly at ease.

I could get used to this, she thought, but then stopped herself. Who knew where this was going?

“What are you watching?”

“A video one of the parents shot of our lastPeter Pan performance. Tinker Bell’s father, I think.”

“No way!” Warren said, settling in on the couch. “Rewind, I want to watch from the beginning.”

He snuggled up to her and she pointed out the key players, the best scenes, the details of each costume.

They studied the few minutes of footage that followed the play: the parade of cast and audience through the woods, up the narrow path to Rhonda’s yard, then shots of the party in the backyard lit with luau lights and tiki torches. The camera panned the yard—the feast laid out on the picnic table; the players and audience mingling, drinking, laughing. There was Rhonda in her white nightgown talking with Aggie—Rhonda looked both embarrassed and terrified by whatever Aggie was saying. And then the camera caught Peter and Lizzy having a quiet argument. Peter’s hand was wrapped around her arm and he was leaning in, whispering something in her ear. Lizzy shook her head, the only audible words Rhonda caught were Lizzy saying, “I can’t.” She watched as Peter tightened his grip on his sister’s arm, giving it a slight twist. “You will,” he told her. Then the camera zoomed in on Tinker Bell eating cake, frosting covering her tiny nose and chin.

WHEN THE VIDEOwas over, Rhonda told Warren about her dream. “I feel like, one way or another, I’ve been chasing that rabbit for years,” she said.

Warren nodded. “Maybe you’ll catch up to him one of these days. What were the slips of paper in your dream?”

Rhonda reached up and touched the scar on her forehead. “It’s silly, really. We had this…this pretend funeral in the woods that
summer. We buried this stuffed bogeyman. And Peter had us write down our fears on little scraps of paper, then dump them in on top of him. It was like we were having a funeral for fear.”

“Do you remember what you wrote on your paper?” Warren asked.

“No.”

“You’ve given Peter an awful lot of power, both in your life and in your dreams.”

Rhonda nodded. “I convinced myself he was innocent. I believed it so much that I refused to look at the evidence. But now I see that we can’t just go around creating whatever truth happens to suit us.”

Warren nodded grimly and fell silent.

“Say something,” Rhonda begged.

“I think…” He hesitated. “Rhonda?”

“What?” she asked, taking his hand.

He bit his lip. “I think you’re right. We can’t just invent truths that don’t exist. We have to face the reality of the situation, no matter how grim.”

Rhonda nodded. “That’s why I’m going to Peter with what I know.”

Warren shook his head. “No. I think you should wait.”

“Wait for what, Warren? I’ve spent my life waiting for shit that doesn’t happen. What if Peter knows something? What if he’s got Ernie locked up somewhere?”

“Then you should start with Crowley. Tell him what you know.”

“No. I need to talk to Peter first. I mean, what if I’m wrong?”

“And what if you’re not? He could be dangerous, Rhonda. At least let me come with you.”

“No,” said Rhonda. “I need to do this alone. The one thing I know for sure is that there are things he’s not telling me. If we both go, he’ll feel cornered and shut down. I might have a chance
of actually finding out something if I go alone. Can I meet you later?”

“Of course. I’m going to go back to Jim and Pat’s and get cleaned up, then I’ll be at the Mini Mart. Why don’t you head over when you’re through with Peter?”

“It’s a date,” Rhonda said.

“We can have microwave burritos and Twinkies for dinner. My treat,” Warren said.

“Ooh, so romantic.”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he promised, taking her in his arms and kissing the top of her head.

In spite of everything, she was happy. But still, a little voice in the back of her head warned her not to get used to it, that the rabbit wasn’t finished with her yet.

JULY 21, 1993

GO AHEAD, LOOK,”Peter instructed, pointing to the dark space under Lizzy’s bed.

Lizzy and Rhonda had turned eleven the week before, and the remains of Lizzy’s balloons were tied to her bedpost, hovering sadly, half-deflated. The Rockette video, leg warmers, and the dancing doll she got were all sitting on her dresser, still in their packages. Rhonda had bought Lizzy a goldfish in a bowl with blue marbles and a little sunken pirate ship at the bottom. The fish died the third day, but the bowl still sat on the dresser, growing stagnant and giving off a foul odor.

Lizzy shifted from foot to foot, played nervously with her coat hanger hook.

“C’mon, you can do it,” Tock said. “Captain Hook’s not afraid of anything.”

“Who said I was scared?” Lizzy asked.

But that was the trouble. Lizzywas scared. And that’s why they were all there: to cure her.

For weeks she’d been afraid, and it was getting worse. She wasn’t sleeping at night, and the dark circles under her eyes made her look like a much more sinister Captain Hook. When she did go to bed, she left the lights in her room blazing. She claimed the bogeyman was out to get her. She stuffed coats and clothing under her bed so he couldn’t hide there. Then she started to be afraid in the daytime, too. It was like the bogeyman could be anywhere: in the old garage, the trunk of a car, the hole under the stage.

“Get down there and look!” Peter ordered.

“Maybe this isn’t such a great idea,” Rhonda suggested.

“Go on, Lizzy, you’ll be fine,” promised Tock.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Rhonda said, placing her hand on Lizzy’s shoulder. But Lizzy shook it off and very gingerly got down on her hands and knees. When she peered under the bed, she let out a scream that made the hairs all over Rhonda’s body stand up, giving her skin a prickly feel.

“Pull him out,” Peter said.

“No!” Lizzy wailed.

“Help her,” Peter ordered the other two girls.