“Everything happens for a reason,” I said.
I couldn’t believe those words had come out of my mouth, but as soon as they were spoken I felt the truth of them, resonating in me loud as a bell.
I was here for a reason. There was something I was meant not simply to be, but to do—and it wasn’t to run or hide or give up the minute things seemed terrifying and impossible.
“I thought you didn’t believe in destiny,” said Emma, assessing me skeptically.
I didn’t—not exactly—but I wasn’t quite sure how to explain what I did believe, either. I thought back to the stories my grandfather used to tell me. They were filled with wonder and adventure, but something deeper ran through them, as well—a sense of abiding gratitude. As a kid I’d focused on Grandpa Portman’s descriptions of a magical-sounding island and peculiar children with fantastic powers, but at heart his stories were about Miss Peregrine, and how, in a time of great need, she had helped him. When he arrived in Wales, my grandfather had been a young, frightened boy who didn’t speak the language, a boy hunted by two kinds of monsters: one that would eventually kill most of his family, and the other, cartoonishly grotesque and invisible to all but him, which must’ve seemed lifted directly from his nightmares. In the face of all this, Miss Peregrine had hidden him, given him a home, and helped him discover who he really was—she had saved his life, and in doing so had enabled my father’s life, and by extension, my own. My parents had birthed and raised and loved me, and for that I owed them a debt. But I would never have been born in the first place if not for the great and selfless kindness Miss Peregrine had shown my grandfather. I was coming to believe I had been sent here to repay that debt—my own, my father’s, and my grandfather’s, too.
I tried my best to explain. “It’s not about destiny,” I said, “but I do think there’s balance in the world, and sometimes forces we don’t understand intervene to tip the scales the right way. Miss Peregrine saved my grandfather—and now I’m here to help save her.”
Emma narrowed her eyes and nodded slowly. I couldn’t tell if she was agreeing with me or thinking of a polite way to tell me I’d lost my mind.
Then she hugged me.
I didn’t need to explain any further. She understood.
She owed Miss Peregrine her life, too.
“We’ve got three days,” I said. “We’ll go to London, free one of the ymbrynes, and fix Miss Peregrine. It’s not hopeless. We’ll save her, Emma—or we’ll die trying.” The words sounded so brave and resolute that for a moment I wondered if it was really me who’d said them.
Emma surprised me by laughing, as if this struck her as funny somehow, and then she looked away for a moment. When she looked back again her jaw was set and her eyes shone; her old confidence was returning. “Sometimes I can’t decide whether you’re completely mad or some sort of miracle,” she said. “Though I’m starting to think it’s the latter.”
She put her arms around me again and we held each other for a long moment, her head on my shoulder, breath warm on my neck, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to close all the little gaps that existed between our bodies, to collapse into one being. But then she pulled away and kissed my forehead and started back toward the others. I was too dazed to follow right away, because there was something new happening, a wheel inside my heart I’d never noticed before, and it was spinning so fast it made me dizzy. And the farther away she got, the faster it spun, like there was an invisible cord unreeling from it that stretched between us, and if she went too far it would snap—and kill me.
I wondered if this strange, sweet pain was love.
* * *
The others were clustered together beneath the shade tree, children and animals together. Emma and I strode toward them. I had an impulse to link arms with her, and nearly did before something caught me and I thought better of it. I was suddenly aware—as Enoch turned to look at us with that certain suspicion he always reserved for me and now, increasingly, for both of us—that Emma and I were becoming a unit apart from the others, a private alliance with its own secrets and promises.
Bronwyn stood as we approached. “Are you allright, Miss Emma?”
“Yes, yes,” Emma said quickly, “had something caught in my eye, was all. Now, everyone gather your things. We must go to London at once, and see about making Miss Peregrine whole again!”
“We’re thrilled you agree,” Enoch said with an eye roll. “We came to the same conclusion several minutes ago, while you two were over there whispering.”
Emma flushed, but she declined to take Enoch’s bait. There were more important things to attend to now than petty conflicts—namely, the many exotic dangers of the journey we were about to undertake. “As I’m sure you’re all aware,” Emma said, “this is by most standards a very poor plan with little hope of success.” She laid out some of the reasons why. London was far away—not by the standards of the present-day world, maybe, when we might’ve GPSed our way to the nearest train station and caught an express that would’ve whisked us to the city center in a few hours. In 1940, though, in a Britain convulsed by war, London was a world away: the roads and rails might be clogged by refugees, or ruined by bombs, or monopolized by military convoys, any of which would cost us time Miss Peregrine didn’t have to spare. Worse, we would be hunted—and even more intensely than we had already been, now that nearly all the other ymbrynes had been captured.
“Forget the journey!” said Addison. “That’s the least of your worries! Perhaps I was not sufficiently dissuasive when we discussed this earlier. Perhaps you do not fully understand the circumstances of the ymbrynes’ incarceration.” He enunciated each syllable as if we were hard of hearing. “Haven’t any of you read about the punishment loops in your peculiar history books?”
“Of course we have,” said Emma.
“Then you’ll know that attempting to breach them is tantamount to suicide. They’re death traps, every one of them, containing the very bloodiest episodes from London’s history—the Great Fire of 1666; the exceedingly lethal Viking Siege of 842; the pestilent height of the terrible Plague! They don’t publish temporal maps of these places, for obvious reasons. So unless one of you has a working knowledge of the secretest parts of peculiardom …”
“I am a student of obscure and unpleasant loops,” Millard spoke up. “Been a pet hobby for many years.”
“Bully for you!” said Addison. “Then I suppose you have a way to get past the horde of hollows who’ll be guarding their entrances as well!”
Suddenly it felt like everyone’s eyes were on me. I swallowed hard, kept my chin high, and said, “Yeah, in fact, we do.”
“We’d better,” grumbled Enoch.
Then Bronwyn said, “I believe in you, Jacob. I haven’t known you too long, but I feel I know your heart, and it’s a strong, true thing—a peculiar heart—and I trust you.” She leaned against me and hugged my shoulder with one arm, and I felt my throat tighten.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling lame and small in the face of her big emotion.
The dog clucked his tongue. “Madness. You children have no self-preservation instincts at all. It’s a wonder any of you are still breathing.”
Emma stepped in front of Addison and tried to shut him down. “Yes, wonderful,” she said, “thank you for illuminating us with your opinion. Now, doomsaying aside, I have to ask the rest of you: Are there any objections to what we’re proposing? I don’t want anyone volunteering because they feel pressured.”
Slowly, timidly, Horace raised his hand. “If London is where all the wights are, won’t going there be walking right into their hands? Is that a good idea?”
“It’s a genius idea,” Enoch said irritably. “The wights are convinced we peculiar children are docile and weak. Us coming after them is the last thing they’d expect.”
“And if we fail?” said Horace. “We’ll have hand-delivered Miss Peregrine right to their doorstep!”
“We don’t know that,” said Hugh. “
That London is their doorstep.”
Enoch snorted. “Don’t sugarcoat things. If they’ve broken open the prison loops and they’re using them to keep our ymbrynes, then you can bet your soft parts they’ve overrun the rest of the city, too! It’ll be absolutely crawling with them, mark my words. If it weren’t, the wights would never have bothered coming after us in little old Cairnholm. It’s basic military strategy. In battle you don’t aim for the enemy’s pinky toe first—you stab him right through the heart!”
“Please,” Horace moaned, “enough talk of smashing loops and stabbing hearts. You’ll frighten the little ones!”
“I ain’t scared!” said Olive.
Horace shrank into himself. Someone muttered the word coward.
“None of that!” Emma said sharply. “There’s nothing wrong with being frightened. It means you’re taking this very serious thing we’re proposing very seriously. Because, yes, it will be dangerous. Yes, the chances of success are abysmal. And should we even make it to London, there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to find the ymbrynes, much less rescue one. It’s entirely likely that we’ll end our days wasting away in some wightish prison cell or dissolved in the belly of a hollowgast. Everyone got that?”
Grim nods of understanding.
“Am I sugarcoating anything, Enoch?”
Enoch shook his head.
“If we try this,” Emma went on, “we may well lose Miss Peregrine. That much is uncontroversial. But if we don’t try, if we don’t go, then there’s no question we’ll lose her—and the wights will likely catch us anyway! That said, anyone who doesn’t feel up to it can stay behind.” She meant Horace and we all knew it. Horace stared at a spot on the ground. “You can stay here where it’s safe, and we’ll come collect you later, when the trouble’s through. There’s no shame in it.”
“My left ventricle!” said Horace. “If I sat this out, I’d never live it down.”
Even Claire refused to be left behind. “I’ve just had eighty years of pleasantly boring days,” she said, raising up on one elbow from the shady spot where she’d been sleeping. “Stay here while the rest of you go adventuring? Not a chance!” But when she tried to stand, she found she couldn’t, and lay back again, coughing and dizzy. Though the dishwatery liquid she’d drunk had cooled her fever some, there was no way she’d be able to make the journey to London—not today, not tomorrow, and certainly not in time to help Miss Peregrine. Someone would have to stay behind with Claire while she recuperated.
Emma asked for volunteers. Olive raised her hand, but Bronwyn told her to forget it—she was too young. Bronwyn started to raise her own hand, then thought better of it. She was torn, she said, between wanting to protect Claire and her sense of duty to Miss Peregrine.
Enoch elbowed Horace. “What’s the matter with you?” Enoch taunted. “Here’s your big chance to stay behind!”
“I want to go adventuring, I really and truly do,” Horace insisted. “But I should also like to see my 105th birthday, if at all possible. Promise we won’t try to save the whole blasted world?”
“We just want to save Miss P,” said Emma, “but I make no guarantees about anyone’s birthday.”
Horace seemed satisfied with this, and his hands stayed planted at his sides.
“Anyone else?” said Emma, looking around.
“It’s all right,” Claire said. “I can manage on my own.”
“Out of the question,” said Emma. “We peculiars stick together.”
Fiona’s hand drifted up. She’d been so quiet, I’d nearly forgotten she was sitting with us.
“Fee, you can’t!” said Hugh. He looked hurt, as if by volunteering to stay behind she was rejecting him. She looked at him with big, sad eyes, but her hand stayed in the air.
“Thank you, Fiona,” said Emma. “With any luck, we’ll see you both again in just a few days.”
“Bird willing,” said Bronwyn.
“Bird willing,” echoed the others.
* * *
Afternoon was slipping toward evening. In an hour the animals’ loop would be dark, and finding our way down the mountain would be much more dangerous. As we made preparations to leave, the animals kindly outfitted us with stores of fresh food and sweaters spun from the wool of peculiar sheep, which Deirdre swore had some peculiar property, though what exactly it was she couldn’t quite remember. “Impervious to fire, I think—or perhaps water. Yes, they never sink in water, like fluffy little lifejackets. Or maybe—oh, I don’t know, they’re warm in any case!”
We thanked her and folded them into Bronwyn’s trunk. Then Grunt came loping forward holding a package wrapped up with paper and twine. “A gift from the chickens,” Deirdre explained, winking as Grunt pressed it into my hands. “Don’t drop it.”
A smarter person than I might’ve thought twice about bringing explosives along on our trip, but we were feeling vulnerable, and both the dog and emu-raffe swore that if we were gentle with the eggs they wouldn’t go off, so we nestled them carefully between the sweaters in Bronwyn’s trunk. Now at least we wouldn’t have to face men with guns without weapons of our own.
Then we were nearly ready, except for one thing: when we left the animals’ loop, we’d be just as lost as when we’d come in. We needed directions.
“I can show you the way out of the forest,” said Addison. “Meet me at the top of Miss Wren’s tower.”
The space up top was so small that only two of us could fit at a time, so Emma and I went, climbing its railroad ties like the rungs of a giant ladder. Grunt monkeyed his way up in half the time, delivering Addison to the top under one arm.
The view from the top was amazing. To the east, forested slopes stretched away to a vast, barren plain. To the west, you could see all the way to the ocean, where an old-looking ship rigged with giant, complicated sails glided down the coast. I’d never asked what year it was here—1492? 1750?—though to the animals I guess it hardly mattered. This was a safe place apart from the world of people, and only in the world of people did the year make any difference.
“You’ll head north,” Addison said, jabbing his pipe in the direction of a road, just visible, tracing through the trees below like a faint, pencil-drawn line. “Down that road is a town, and in that town—in your time, anyway—is a train station. Your medium of inter-loop travel is when—1940?”
“That’s right,” Emma replied.
Though I only vaguely understood what they were talking about, I’d never been afraid to ask dumb questions. “Why can’t we just go out into this world?” I asked. “Travel to London through whatever year it is here?”
“The only way is by horse and carriage,” said Addison, “which takes several days … and causes considerable chafing, in my experience. I’m afraid you don’t have that much time to spare.” He turned and nosed open the door to the tower’s little shack. “Please,” he said, “there’s one more thing I’d like to show you.”
We followed him inside. The shack was modest and tiny, a far cry from Miss Peregrine’s queenly setup. The entirety of its furniture was a small bed, a wardrobe, and a rolltop desk. A telescope sat mounted on a tripod, aimed out the window: Miss Wren’s lookout station, where she watched for trouble, and the comings and goings of her spy pigeons.
Addison went to the desk. “Should you have any difficulty locating the road,” he said, “there’s a map of the forest in here.”
Emma opened the desk and found the map, an old, yellowed roll of paper. Underneath it was a creased snapshot. It showed a woman in a black sequined shawl with gray-streaked hair worn in a dramatic upsweep. She was standing next to a chicken. At first glance the photo looked like a discard, taken during an off moment when the woman was looking away with her eyes closed, and yet there was something just right about it, too—how the woman’s hair and clothes matched the black-and-white speckle of the chicken’s feathers; how she and the chicken were facing opposite directions, implying some odd connection between them, as if they were speaking without w
ords; dreaming at one another.
This, clearly, was Miss Wren.
Addison saw the photo and seemed to wince. I could tell he was worried for her, much more than he wanted to admit. “Please don’t take this as an endorsement of your suicidal plans,” he said, “but if you should succeed in your mad quest … and should happen to encounter Miss Wren along the way … you might consider … I mean, might you consider …”
“We’ll send her home,” Emma said, and then scratched him on the head. It was a perfectly normal thing to do to a dog, but seemed a strange thing to do to a talking one.
“Dog bless you,” Addison replied.
Then I tried petting him, but he reared up on his hind legs and said, “Do you mind? Keep your hands at bay, sir!”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, and in the awkward moment that followed it became obvious that it was time to go.
We climbed down the tower to join our friends, where we exchanged tearful goodbyes with Claire and Fiona under the big shade tree. By now Claire had been given a cushion and blanket to lie on, and like a princess she received us one by one at her makeshift bedside on the ground, extracting promises as we knelt down beside her.
“Promise you’ll come back,” she said to me when it was my turn, “and promise you’ll save Miss Peregrine.”
“I’ll try my best,” I said.
“That isn’t good enough!” she said sternly.
“I’ll come back,” I said. “I promise.”
“And save Miss Peregrine!”
“And save Miss Peregrine,” I repeated, though the words felt empty; the more confident I tried to sound, the less confident I actually felt.
“Good,” she said with a nod. “It’s been awfully nice knowing you, Jacob, and I’m glad you came to stay.”
“Me, too,” I said, and then I got up quickly because her bright, blonde-framed face was so earnest it killed me. She believed, unequivocally, everything we told her: that she and Fiona would be all right here, among these strange animals, in a loop abandoned by its ymbryne. That we’d return for them. I hoped with all my heart that it was more than just theater, staged to make this hard thing we had to do seem possible.