Page 52 of Never Landing

“He’samazing,” I whispered back.

Aurora looked between me and Everett’s back. He was measuring out one of the squares—he worked in one area at a time, breaking up the whole wall so he knew how to move the crane we’d rented that hoisted him high enough to work.

“So you’re happy?” Aurora turned toward me, narrowing her eyes. “Like, really happy. Out here with all the normal people. You don’t miss the forest?”

I bit my lip, taking a few seconds to really think about it. “No, I don’t miss the forest. I mean, it’s still there. But if you mean do I miss you, then yeah. I miss you all like crazy when you’re not around, but a lot of us are still in town, and there’s Everett, and I’m not alone. I don’t feel like I don’tfitanymore.”

Aurora nodded. I’d braced for her feelings to get hurt, but she seemed strangely satisfied with my announcement.

“Everett invited us to a cookout,” she reminded me, raising one perfect golden brow. “Jessie keeps talking about cookies.”

I grinned. “Yeah, we’d love that. Everett!”

When I called his name, he started, coming out of a daze as he’d been trying to figure out the exact right way to handle a swoop of color that I already knew would come out perfect. “Yeah?”

“Can we have a cookout with the kids this weekend?”

He turned in the basket of the crane and looked down at the pair of us, seeing Aurora for the first time. I knew he wasn’t thrilled about the kids in the woods, but we’d talked about it—we talked about everything now—and I knew he just wanted to see them safe, which meant keeping lines of communication open.

“Of course,” he called back. “Saturday okay?”

“That sounds lovely, Everett. We’ll look forward to it.” Aurora spun around and I watched, somewhat dazed, as she skipped off.

“Peter?”

“Hmm, yeah?” I looked up at him.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” It took me a second to shake myself out of it, and when I did, Everett was still watching me.

It was weird, to change and grow up and know I’d had a whole long life out there in the woods with Aurora, but it wasn’t bad. I wasn’t sad about it—wasn’t even sad about all I might’ve missed out on.

If I’d never been taken, Peter Hawking wouldn’t have done all his work. Dr. Hawking wouldn’t exist. I wouldn’t have Everett.

I didn’t want to take his life any more than I wanted to give up my own amazing future.

“Can you hand me that bucket?” he asked.

It was beneath the crane, and when I snatched it up, I looked around. There was nobody nearby, but it never hurt to be careful, even in Cider Landing.

I floated up to him, taking hold of the safety rail of the crane’s workspace when I could.

“Thanks,” Everett said, leaning in to give me a quick kiss when he took the paint bucket. “Does she look older?” he asked, glancing off after Aurora, a scowl on his face.

I bit my lip as I clung to the crane basket, considering the way she’d stuck her chin out, the way she’d carried herself, and that, I realized, was why our brief encounter had left me feeling off balance. “You know, I think she does.”

And maybe even for Aurora, growing up wasn’t the worst thing after all.

33

Connor

No one was running the market anymore.

Okay, that didn’t lastlong, but when Ezra and Martha went out into the woods, just kids instead of the octogenarians they’d been, it’d taken some amount of doing to find someone who was able to run the thing.

We’d... tried to get them to sell it, but they were busy. Playing pirates in the woods. Shit.

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