Happy Thoughts || Peter Pan

Chapter 17

Avery was up early the next morning, but not as early as Peter. She wondered if the boy had slept at all last night. He had been tossing restlessly above her in the hammock, and it wasn't until Avery had placed her hand against the bottom of the hammock that he seemed to relax again. She had left her hand against his back for a moment and then gone back to sleep; she had not woken up after that, but her thoughts also had caused many dreams that night. But because of those, she knew exactly what she was going to do today. That morning, when Peter returned to the nest to fetch her, she flung her sword into his arms.

'Today I decide what we are going to do, and whether you agree or not, we are going to look for the Indians.'

He wanted to say something, but Avery pressed a finger to his lips. Peter squinted as he looked at it. 'I can be just as stubborn as you, Pan,' she said with a grin, 'I believe the Indians are still here and waiting for you. Take me to camp.'

Peter stood with his mouth agape. It took a few moments before he really realized that she was not going to let this go and he sighed. 'Fine, if that's what you want.' He took her on his back and they flew toward the campsite. The location surprised her, but perhaps they had moved the camp toward the edge of the forest before Jacob had taken control. 

Peter lowered her to the ground. Avery got chills as she glanced around the dilapidated tent camp. Most of the canvases were torn, destroyed or damaged. Some were no longer even standing. Dry rot, vines and other unwanted vegetation had taken their place around the tents, creating their own kind of decoration around the canvases and broken and rotting tent poles. Avery could see where Peter had cut the piece of cloth from a tent, but it was different in everything from the rest of the tears in the tents; they were crude and violently made. There were broken weapons and bullets everywhere. She bent down to pick up a handmade doll from under a collapsed tent and knocked the dust off it.

'It looks like they left right after the attack.'

'That's correct,' Peter replied, 'I was too late to stop it and when I got here, the pirates were victorious and the Indians were nowhere to be found. None alive at least.' He cast her a sorrowful look. With the little doll in her hand, Avery walked around the tent camp and Peter watched her. Occasionally he flew up to see where she had gone  to, but after a while he let out a sigh and flew toward her. 'Avery, I don't believe we're going to find anything.'

'Believing is the first step, Pan, if I had stopped believing, I wouldn't be standing here now with my dirty feet in Neverland.'

An exasperated sigh from the air. Avery had no intention of giving up. She looked into the standing wigwams and searched the entire area. Peter believed the Indians had been in hiding since the time of the raid, but who's to say they hadn't come back? They should have known Peter was looking for them, right? They couldn't wait for him for days, she understood that too, but perhaps they had left a hint. 'Help me get this wigwam upright, will you?'

Avery ignored the groan that followed as he reluctantly slipped into the wigwam and flew up so Avery could get the tent poles upright. 'Peter, look.' Her fingers followed the markings on the inside of the tent. They seemed made with berries and brambles, but didn't look like letters or runes. They were insignificant marks, some larger than others, as if they were some kind of writing. 'What are these?'

Peter came to stand beside her. He looked at the canvas for a moment and soon said, 'If I didn't know better I'd say they look like smoke signals.'

He pointed to the canvas. 'This one means 'refugee' and these together mean 'mountains' and this one I'm not sure about. I think 'hollow' or 'hole,' something along those lines.'

'Caves,' Avery corrected him. 'There are caves in mountains, Peter! They're in caves in mountains!' Enthusiastically, she squeezed his shoulders. 'We have to go look for them.'

For the first time since Avery was in Neverland, Peter seemed to agree with her. She grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the tent to look for the vanished people.