“The finger!” I said, holding up my finger. “She’s very touchy about it. No pun intended …”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “No idea.”
Emma went in. Three minutes later she came out snapping her fingers by her ears. “Amazing!” she said. “Clear as a bell.”
“Thank goodness,” I said. “Shouting is no fun.”
“Ha. I mentioned the finger, by the way.”
“What! Why?”
“I was curious.”
“And?”
“Her hands started shaking. Then she mumbled something Reynaldo wouldn’t translate, and he practically chased me out.”
We might’ve pursued it further, I think, if we hadn’t been so tired and hungry, and if at that moment the smell of food had not wafted its way past our noses.
“Come and get it!” Miss Wren shouted from down the hall, and the conversation was tabled.
* * *
As night fell we gathered to eat in Bentham’s library, the only room big enough to hold all of us comfortably. The fire was stoked and a feast donated by grateful locals brought in, roast chicken and potatoes and wild game and fish (which I avoided, on the off chance they might have been caught in the Ditch). We ate and talked and rehashed the adventures of the past few days. Miss Peregrine had heard only a little about our journey from Cairnholm to London, and then across bombed-out London to reach Miss Wren, and wanted to know every last detail. She was a great listener, always laughing at the funny parts and reacting with satisfying gasps to our dramatic flourishes.
“And then the bomb fell right on the hollow and blew it to smithereens!” Olive cried, leaping out of her chair as she reenacted the moment. “But we had Miss Wren’s peculiar sweaters on, so the shrapnel didn’t kill us!”
“Oh my heavens!” Miss Peregrine said. “That was very lucky!”
When our stories had finished, Miss Peregrine sat quietly for a time, studying us with a mixture of sadness and awe. “I’m so very, very proud of you,” she said, “and so sorry for all that happened. I can’t tell you how much I wish it had been me by your side, and not my deceitful brother.”
We observed a moment of silence for Fiona. She wasn’t dead, Hugh insisted, but merely lost. The trees had cushioned her fall, he said, and she was probably wandering in the forest somewhere near Miss Wren’s menagerie. Or had knocked her head on the way down and forgotten where she came from. Or was hiding …
He looked around hopefully at us, but we avoided his eyes.
“I’m sure she’ll turn up,” Bronwyn assured him.
“Don’t give him false hope,” Enoch said. “It’s cruel.”
“You would know about cruel,” Bronwyn replied scornfully.
“Let’s change the subject,” Horace said. “I want to know how the dog rescued Jacob and Emma in the Underground.”
Addison hopped gamely onto the table and began to narrate the story, but he embellished it with so many asides about his own heroism that Emma was forced to take over. Together, she and I told them how we’d found our way to Devil’s Acre, and how with Bentham’s help we’d mounted our mini-invasion of the wights’ compound. Then everyone had questions for me—they wanted to know about the hollows.
“How did you teach yourself their language?” Millard asked.
“What’s it like to control one?” asked Hugh. “Do you imagine you’re one of them, like I do my bees?”
“Does it tickle?” asked Bronwyn.
“Do you ever wish you could keep one as a pet?” asked Olive.
I answered as best I could but was feeling tongue-tied because it was a hard thing to describe, my connection with the hollows, like piecing together a dream the morning after. I was distracted, too, by the talk Emma and I had been putting off. When I’d finished, I caught Emma’s eye and nodded to the door, and we excused ourselves. As we walked away from the table, I could feel the eyes of the room on our backs.
We ducked into a lantern-lit cloakroom cramped with coats, hats, and umbrellas. It was not a spacious or comfortable place, but it was at least private; somewhere we wouldn’t be walked in on or overheard. I felt suddenly and irrationally terrified. I had a difficult choice to make, one I had not fully grappled with until now.
We were silent for a moment, facing each other, the room so deadened by fabric that I thought I could hear the beating of our hearts.
“So,” Emma said, because of course she would start first. Emma, always direct, never afraid of an awkward moment. “Will you stay?”
I did not know what I would say until the words left my mouth. I was running on autopilot, no filter. “I have to see my parents.”
That was unquestionably true. They were hurting and frightened and didn’t deserve to be, and I had left them dangling too long.
“Of course,” Emma said. “I understand. Of course you do.”
A question hung in the air, unasked. See my parents had been a half-measure, a non-answer. See them, sure. And then what? What would I say to them?
I tried to imagine telling my parents the truth. In that regard, the phone conversation I’d had with my father in the Underground had been a preview of coming attractions. He’s lost it. Our son is insane. Or on drugs. Or maybe not on enough drugs.
No, the truth wouldn’t work. So, what? I would see them, assure them I was alive and well, make up a story about sightseeing in London, then tell them to go home without me? Ha. They would chase me. They’d have cops hiding in the bushes at our meeting place. Men in white coats with Jacob-sized nets. I’d have to run. Telling them the truth would only make things worse. Seeing them only to run away again would torture them more. But the idea of not seeing my parents at all, of never going home again—I couldn’t get my mind around it. Because, if I was really being honest with myself, as much as it hurt to think about leaving Emma and my friends and this world, part of me wanted to go home. My parents and their world represented a return to sanity and predictability, something I was longing for after all this madness. I needed to be normal for a while. To catch my breath. Just for a while.
I had repaid my debt to the peculiars and Miss Peregrine. I had become one of them. But I wasn’t only one of them. I was also my parents’ son, and as imperfect as they were, I missed them. I missed home. I even sort of missed my dumb, ordinary life. Of course, I would probably miss Emma more than any of those things. The problem was, I wanted too much. I wanted both lives. Dual citizenship. To be peculiar, and learn everything there was to learn about the peculiar world, and to be with Emma, and explore all the loops Bentham had catalogued in his Panloopticon. But also to do the stupid, ordinary things normal teenagers do, while I could still pass for one. Get my driver’s license. Make a friend my own age. Finish high school. Then I’d be eighteen, and I could go anywhere I wanted—or anywhen. I could come back.
Here was the truth, the root and bone of it: I couldn’t live the rest of my life in a time loop. I didn’t want to be a peculiar child forever. But one day, maybe, I could be a peculiar adult.
Maybe, if I was very careful, there was a way to have it all.
“I don’t want to go,” I said, “but I think I might need to, for a while.”
Emma’s expression flattened. “Then go,” she said.
I was stung. She hadn’t even asked what “a while” meant.
“I’ll come visit,” I said quickly. “I can come back anytime.”
Theoretically, this was true: now that the wight menace had been crushed, there would—bird willing—always be something to come back to. But it was hard to imagine my parents signing off on more trips to the U.K. anytime soon. I was lying to myself—to both of us—and Emma knew it.
“No,” she said. “I don’t want that.”
My heart dropped. “What?” I said quietly. “Why not?”
“Because that’s what Abe did. Every few years he’d come back. And every time he was older and I was the same. And then he met someone and got married …”
?
??I wouldn’t do that,” I said. “I love you.”
“I know,” she said, turning away. “So did he.”
“But we’re not … it won’t be like that with us …” I grasped blindly for the right words, but my thoughts were a muddle.
“It would, though. You know I’d go with you if I could, but I can’t—I would age forward. So I’d just be waiting for you. Frozen in amber. I can’t do that again.”
“It wouldn’t be long! Just a couple of years. And then I could do what I wanted. I could go to college somewhere. Maybe here in London!”
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe. But now you’re making promises you might not be able to keep, and that’s how people in love get very badly hurt.”
My heart was racing. I felt desperate and pathetic. Screw it, I’d never see my parents again. Fine. But I couldn’t lose Emma.
“I wasn’t thinking straight,” I said. “I didn’t mean it. I’ll stay.”
“No, I think you were being honest,” she said. “I think if you stay you won’t be happy. And eventually you’ll come to resent me for it. And that would be worse.”
“No. No, I would never …”
But I’d shown my hand, and now it was too late to take it back.
“You should go,” she said. “You have a life and a family. This was never supposed to be forever.”
I sat down on the floor, then leaned back into the wall of coats and let them swallow me up. For a few long seconds I pretended none of this was happening, that I wasn’t here, that my entire world was woolen and black and smelled of mothballs. When I surfaced again to breathe, Emma was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside me.
“I don’t want this either,” she said. “But I think I understand why it has to be. You have your world to rebuild, and I have mine.”
“But it’s mine too, now,” I said.
“That’s true.” She thought for a moment, kneading her chin. “That’s true, and I very much hope you do come back, because you’ve become a part of us, and our family won’t feel whole without you. But when you do, I think you and I should just be friends.”
I thought about that for a moment. Friends. It sounded so pale and lifeless.
“I guess it’s better than never talking again.”
“I agree,” she said. “I don’t think I could bear that.”
I scooted next to her and put my arm around her waist. I thought she might pull away, but she didn’t. After a while, her head tipped onto my shoulder.
We sat like that for a long time.
* * *
When Emma and I finally emerged from the cloakroom, most everyone was asleep. The hearth in the library was burned down to embers, the platters overflowing with food reduced to scraps, the room’s high ceilings echoing with contented snores and murmurs. Kids and ymbrynes lay draped across couches and curled upon the rug, even though there were plenty of comfortable bedrooms upstairs. Having nearly lost one another, they weren’t about to let go again so soon, even if just for the night.
I would leave in the morning. Now that I knew what had to happen between Emma and me, a longer delay would only torment us. Right now, though, we needed sleep. How long had it been since we’d closed our eyes for more than a minute or two? I couldn’t remember feeling more exhausted.
We piled some cushions in a corner and fell asleep holding each other. It was our last night together, and I clung tight, my arms locked around her, as if by squeezing hard enough I could lock her into my sense memory. How she felt, how she smelled. The sound of her breathing as it slowed and evened. But sleep pulled me down hard, and it seemed I’d only just closed my eyes when suddenly I was squinting against glaring yellow daylight pouring in from a bank of high windows.
Everyone was awake and milling around the room, talking in whispers so as not to disturb us. We untangled ourselves in a hurry, self-conscious without the privacy of the dark. Before we’d had a chance to compose ourselves, in breezed Miss Peregrine with a pot of coffee and Nim with a tray of mugs. “Good morning, all! I trust you’re well-rested, because we’ve got lots of—”
Miss Peregrine saw us and stopped midsentence, her eyebrows rising.
Emma hid her face. “Oh, no.”
In the exhaustion and emotion of last night, it hadn’t occurred to me that sleeping in the same bed as Emma (even if sleeping is all we did) might offend Miss Peregrine’s Victorian sensibilities.
“Mr. Portman, a word.” Miss Peregrine set down the coffeepot and crooked a finger at me.
Guess I was taking the rap for this one. I stood up and smoothed my rumpled clothes, color rising in my cheeks. I wasn’t ashamed in the least, but it was hard not to feel a little embarrassed.
“Wish me luck,” I whispered to Emma.
“Admit nothing!” she whispered back.
I heard giggles as I crossed the room, and someone chanting, “Jacob and Emma, sittin’ in a tree … y-m-b-r-y-n-e!”
“Oh, grow up, Enoch,” said Bronwyn. “You’re just jealous.”
I followed Miss Peregrine into the hall.
“Nothing happened,” I said, “just so you know.”
“I’m sure I’m not interested,” she said. “You’re leaving us today, correct?”
“How did you know?”
“I may, strictly speaking, be an elderly woman, but I’ve still got my wits about me. I know you feel torn between your parents and us, your old home and your new one … or what’s left of it. You want to strike a balance without choosing sides, and without hurting any of the people you love. But it isn’t easy. Or even, necessarily, possible. Is that about the size of it?”
“It’s … yeah. That’s pretty much it.”
“And where have you left things with Miss Bloom?”
“We’re friends,” I said, testing the word uneasily.
“And you’re unhappy about it.”
“Well, yeah. But I understand … I think.”
She cocked her head. “Do you?”
“She’s protecting herself.”
“And you,” Miss Peregrine added.
“That I don’t get.”
“You’re very young, Jacob. There are many things you’re not likely to ‘get.’ ”
“I don’t see what my age has to do with it.”
“Everything!” She laughed, quick and sharp. And then she saw that I really didn’t understand, and she softened a bit. “Miss Bloom was born near the turn of the last century,” she said. “Her heart is old and steady. Perhaps you worry she’ll soon replace you—that some peculiar Romeo will turn her head. I wouldn’t count it likely. She’s fixed on you. I’ve never seen her as happy with anyone. Even Abe.”
“Really?” I said, a surge of warmth building in my chest.
“Really. But as we’ve established, you’re young. Only sixteen—sixteen for the first time. Your heart is just waking up, and Miss Bloom is your first love. Is she not?”
I nodded sheepishly. But yes, undoubtedly. Anyone could see it.
“You may have other loves,” Miss Peregrine said. “Young hearts, like young brains, can have short attention spans.”
“I don’t,” I said. “I’m not like that.”
I knew it sounded like something an impulsive teenager would say, but at that moment, I was as sure about Emma as I’d ever been about anything.
Miss Peregrine nodded slowly. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “Miss Bloom may have given you permission to break her heart, but I have not. She’s very important to me, and not half as tough as she lets on. I can’t have her mooning about and setting things on fire should you find yourself distracted by the feeble charms of some normal girl. I’ve been through that already, and we simply haven’t the furniture to spare. Do you understand?”
“Um,” I said, caught off guard, “I think so …”
She stepped closer and said it again, her voice dropping low and stony. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Miss Peregrine.”
She nodded sharply, th
en smiled and patted my shoulder. “Okay, then. Good talk.” And before I could respond she was marching back into the library and calling out, “Breakfast!”
* * *
I left an hour later, accompanied to the dock by Emma and Miss Peregrine and a full complement of our friends and ymbrynes. Sharon was waiting with a new boat left behind by fleeing Ditch pirates. There was a long exchange of hugs and tearful goodbyes, which ended with me promising I would come and see everyone again—even though I didn’t know how I’d manage that anytime soon, what with international flights to pay for and parents to convince.
“We’ll never forget you, Jacob!” Olive said, sniffling.
“I shall record your story for posterity,” Millard promised. “That will be my new project. And I’ll see that it’s included in a new edition of the Tales of the Peculiar. You’ll be famous!”
Addison approached with the two grimbear cubs trailing him. I couldn’t tell if he had adopted them or they him. “You’re the fourth-bravest human I’ve ever known,” he said. “I hope we’ll meet again.”
“I hope so, too,” I said, and meant it.
“Oh, Jacob, may we come and visit you?” begged Claire. “I’ve always wanted to see America.”
I didn’t have the heart to explain why it wasn’t possible. “Of course you can,” I said. “I’d love that.”
Sharon rapped his staff on the side of the boat. “All aboard!”
Reluctantly I climbed in, and then Emma and Miss Peregrine boarded, too. They had insisted on staying with me until I met my parents, and I hadn’t put up a fight. It would be easier to say goodbye in stages.
Sharon unmoored the boat and we pushed off. Our friends waved and called to us as we floated away. I waved back, but it hurt too much to watch them recede, so I half closed my eyes until the current had taken us around a bend in the Ditch, and they were gone.
None of us felt like talking. In silence we watched the sagging buildings and rickety bridges pass. After a while we came to the crossover, were sucked rudely through the same underpass by which we’d entered, and spat out the other side into a muggy, modern afternoon. The crumbling tenements of Devil’s Acre were gone, glass-fronted condos and shining office towers risen up in their place. A motorboat buzzed past.