Stars (Wendy Darling #1)(37)
“Fairy money. Very rare. You must be careful with it.”
Abbott looked up at them. “Peter collects them. He thinks he has almost all of them.”
The flying boy grinned. “Of course I do! But that doesn’t stop us from looking for them on raids, ain’t that right?”
Peter slowly floated back down to her and replaced the coin with a dazzling jeweled bracelet made of pear-shaped aqua stones and bright white pearls, each surrounded by gold trinkets of every shape: ships and fairies, trees, flowers and moons. He slipped it onto her wrist, his fingers lingering on her own. Wendy felt as if his gaze could peel the clothes from her body. She gave herself a tiny shake.
“Peter,” she admonished, embarrassed, remembering that the Generals were all watching them.
Peter simply grinned. John rolled his eyes, and Abbott fidgeted nervously. Kitoko finally cleared his throat. It was the first sound she ever heard him make.
“Oh, all right. I suppose we should get back to the raid. Wendy, sit there.” Peter pointed to a stump in the corner of the room. Wendy sat obediently, feeling quite awkward indeed. She fingered the bracelet on her wrist. Peter had given it to her as if it were nothing. Feeling undeserving, she quietly slipped it off her wrist and back into the treasure chest. She turned her attention back to the Battle Room. In the middle of the circle of boys, there was a table, and upon the table, besides several glasses filled with a deep red liquid, was a crinkled map of Neverland. It looked ancient, drawn with a whimsical hand. Dragons and mermaids danced on the bottom of the map, where the sea was drawn in curling strokes. In the left-hand corner of the map, there was an upside-down compass. Wendy watched with amazement as Peter carefully brushed the compass with his finger and the map changed before her eyes; north became south, west and east changed places.
“How . . .” John was breathless.
Peter grinned. “Fairy magic. It’s still around here and there. And Neverland is not a place that wants to be mapped.”
Wendy was bursting with questions but instead chose to listen as the boys laid out their plan for the next night. She had to sit on her hands to keep from being fidgety. Peter circled around the table, leaning forward to put a tiny black ship into the wide crook that was the Bay of Treasures.
“Here’s where Hook will be tomorrow night. My spies in town say that he comes into Port Duette once every two weeks or so for food, drink, and of course, the tarts that grace Harlots Grove. He normally comes in on a Sunday night, the holy man that he is, but . . .” Peter laughed. “My spies deposited some rats into his cheese supply before he left for his last voyage. His men will be bellyaching for food. Hook will agree to go back to port a day early. He will land in the morning and will quickly dispatch his crew to get more cheese. Which means . . .”
Peter reached out and brought down another two tiny model ships onto the northern section of the map, far away from the first ship. “That the Coral Plunder and the Vicious Seas will be here, unguarded by the Sudden Night . . .” He turned to Wendy. “That’s Hook’s ship, an unholy black beast, built for the killing of Lost Boys.”
He turned back to the table and brought the two ships down with the palm of his hand. “Unguarded by the Sudden Night, they are open to an attack. Now, we must remember to tell the troops that they are not looking for gold; no, rather, we are in need of replenishing our other treasure.”
The other boys laughed as Peter raised his glass of red liquid. He turned to Kitoko. “You say this is the last of it?” The third General nodded. “Well, hell then, we better get some more.”
Abbott was rocking back and forth on his toes. “What about the Undertow and Viper’s Strike? Do we know where they will be?”
Peter nodded. “They should be out to sea on their usual rotation. Although who knows what Viper’s Strike is doing. Hook doesn’t even know.” Peter gestured to two small ships that sat on the side of the table. “Those ships should have at least a few months’ worth, wouldn’t you say?”
Wendy saw John furrowing his brow, his forehead wrinkled.
“What say you, John?” Peter turned to him, noticing his silence. “Out with it! We value your thoughts here.”
John flushed with pride before running his fingers over the map and the two downed ships. Then he ran his fingers inland, to where the ocean met a river that snaked around Neverland. He planted his finger on a large drawing of a skull with an X over it. He turned to Abbott, obviously trying to win the grumpy boy over.
“This is where Hook keeps his treasure, correct? The Vault? Isn’t that what you told me?”
Abbott’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, not that it’s any of your business.”
“Abbott. Answer him clearly,” Peter ordered.
Abbott’s eyes lingered angrily on Peter before he sighed and turned back to John. “Fine. I’ll tell the whelp. Hook indeed keeps most of his treasure in the Vault, which is a huge cave at the mouth of this river. From there, the river leads out to the sea.” He paused, his eyes narrowing as he brought up a painful memory.
“We tried to raid it before. A bunch of Lost Boys died.” He looked up at Peter. “You can’t be serious about trying again. They always have guards posted, which we can handle, but if we get trapped in the Vault, and then these two ships, plus the Sudden Night, come up the river like they did last time . . .” With two hands, he righted the downed ships and moved them to the X, following with the large model of the Sudden Night, painted black and three times the size of the other ships. “And they bear down on us with nowhere to go . . .” He shuddered. “It was a massacre. Eleven Lost Boys dead. Hook’s dream, our nightmare. It’s a trap. It’s always been a trap. You remember. They have heavy guards, especially at night.”