Unlike her classmates, Avery doesn't really care about boys, romance and fashion. Her phone contains fewer contacts than there are pens in her pencil case. Her classmates don't seem to care about her excistance, and at home it's basically the same s...
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'Wine?' Jacob poured a glass of red wine and set the already half-empty bottle on the large table.
Avery remained standing in the doorway, blinking her eyes indignantly. 'You're underage.'
Jacob laughed. 'Here in Neverland, age has no value. I may even be decades older than you.' He held up a hand to one of the chairs and gestured for her to take a seat. Hesitantly, she walked into the cabin and sat down. The room was larger than she had expected and especially very full of all sorts of frills among all the red and gold. Lots of maps, wood-carved figurines and other junk you might come across in a thrift store or grandma's house.
To the right behind the large dining table was a heavy, oak desk on which a number of maps had been rolled out. There were compasses, feather pens with empty inkwells and stacks of books. In one of the open books, she could see a map of Neverland with little red circles in various places, some with crosses through them, but none in the mountain area where the Nest was located, Avery noticed. At the top of the page was written in thick letters, "The Heart." And next to it were more books, some also about nature and geography. She was marveled at how mature the cabin looked compared to its captain. Although she had to admit that although Jacob was young, his thoughts and plans were grander than Captain Hook's had ever been.
To the right she discovered the captain's sleeping quarters, where a curtain still hung half in front of the bed. High above the bedrest a stuffed head of a large boar with broken tusks hung on the wall. Avery remembered the traps she had dismantled with Peter in the woods and felt a surge of emotion surface. She swallowed away the lump in her throat and looked away from the defenseless animal on the wall. The walls around it were filled with hardcover books, whose spines were so worn she couldn't read them. Actually, it was exactly what she had expected from a cabin, except for a single cabinet awkwardly positioned in front of a bookcase. The wood was different, newer and coarser, as if it had not been properly worked and it seemed to be made of very different wood. A chain with a large lock was wrapped all the way around it.
'It's beautiful, isn't it?' said Jacob as he looked around the cabin proudly. He looked at her again and then pulled a string on the wall. A bell rang and not much later the cook walked in and placed a plate of food in front of Avery's nose. It looked like mashed potatoes, a piece of steak and some grilled vegetables. Avery heard her stomach rumble.
'Spare me the etiquettes, eat.' Jacob poked his fork into the vegetables and began to eat himself. He took a sip of the wine. 'Tell me, what's your name?'
'Avery,' she replied as she scooped the mashed potatoes onto her fork.
'And how old are you, Avery? If you remember.'
'I haven't been here that long. Seventeen.' She wondered how old the boy was. She could estimate, but he had probably been in Neverland for quite a while. Could he have met Wendy?
'Did you make those clothes yourself?'
Avery looked briefly at the dress she had gotten from Tigerlily. Jacob was smart, she concluded. She was not to betray to him that she knew the location of Tigerlily and her tribe. She certainly believed Jacob would eradicate the tribe immediately. 'From the canvases of the old Indian tent camp.' She put her fork down again. 'What happened there?'
