“I don’t. I’m not like you.”
“Yes, you are,” she insisted.
“I’m not. I’m common, just like my grandfather.”
Emma shook her head. “Is that really what you think?”
“If I could do something spectacular like you, don’t you think I would’ve noticed by now?”
“I’m not meant to tell you this,” she said, “but common people can’t pass through time loops.”
I considered this for a moment, but couldn’t make sense of it. “There’s nothing peculiar about me. I’m the most average person you’ll ever meet.”
“I doubt that very much,” she replied. “Abe had a rare and peculiar talent, something almost no one else could do.”
And then she met my eyes and said, “He could see the monsters.”
Chapter 9
He could see the monsters. The moment she said it, all the horrors I thought I’d put behind me came flooding back. They were real. They were real and they’d killed my grandfather.
“I can see them, too,” I told her, whispering it like a secret shame.
Her eyes welled and she embraced me. “I knew there was something peculiar about you,” she said. “And I mean that as the highest compliment.”
I’d always known I was strange. I never dreamed I was peculiar. But if I could see things almost no one else could, it explained why Ricky hadn’t seen anything in the woods the night my grandfather was killed. It explained why everyone thought I was crazy. I wasn’t crazy or seeing things or having a stress reaction; the panicky twist in my gut whenever they were close—that and the awful sight of them—that was my gift.
“And you can’t see them at all?” I asked her.
“Only their shadows, which is why they hunt mainly at night.”
“What’s stopping them from coming after you right now?” I asked, then corrected myself. “All of us, I mean.”
She turned serious. “They don’t know where to find us. That and they can’t enter loops. So we’re safe on the island—but we can’t leave.”
“But Victor did.”
She nodded sadly. “He said he was going mad here. Said he couldn’t stand it any longer. Poor Bronwyn. My Abe left, too, but at least he wasn’t murdered by hollows.”
I forced myself to look at her. “I’m really sorry to have to tell you this …”
“What? Oh no.”
“They convinced me it was wild animals. But if what you’re saying is true, my grandfather was murdered by them, too. The first and only time I saw one was the night he died.”
She hugged her knees to her chest and closed her eyes. I slid my arm around her, and she tilted her head against mine.
“I knew they’d get him eventually,” she whispered. “He promised me he’d be safe in America. That he could protect himself. But we’re never safe—none of us—not really.”
We sat talking on the wrecked ship until the moon got low and the water lapped at our throats and Emma began to shiver. Then we linked hands and waded back to the canoe. Paddling toward the beach, we heard voices calling our names, and then we came around a rock and saw Hugh and Fiona waving at us on the shore. Even from a distance, it was clear something was wrong.
We tied the canoe and ran to meet them. Hugh was out of breath, bees darting around him in a state of agitation. “Something’s happened! You’ve got to come back with us!”
There was no time to argue. Emma pulled her clothes over her swimsuit and I tripped into my pants, all gritty with sand. Hugh regarded me uncertainly. “Not him, though,” he said. “This is serious.”
“No, Hugh,” Emma said. “The Bird was right. He’s one of us.”
He gaped at her, then at me. “You told him?!”
“I had to. He’d practically worked it out for himself, anyway.”
Hugh seemed taken aback for a moment but then turned and gave me a resolute handshake. “Then welcome to the family.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just said, “Thanks.”
On the way to the house, we gleaned sketchy bits of information from Hugh about what had happened, but mostly we just ran. When we stopped in the woods to catch our breath, he said, “It’s one of the Bird’s ymbryne friends. She winged in an hour ago in a terrible state, yelling blue murder and rousing everyone from their beds. Before we could understand what she was getting at she fainted dead off.” He wrung his hands, looking miserable. “Oh, I just know something wicked’s happened.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” said Emma, and we ran on.
* * *
In the hall just outside the sitting room’s closed door, children in rumpled nightclothes huddled around a kerosene lantern, trading rumors about what might have happened.
“Perhaps they forgot to reset their loop,” said Claire.
“Bet you it was hollows,” Enoch said. “Bet they ate the lot of ’em too, right down to their boots!”
Claire and Olive wailed and clapped their little hands over their faces. Horace knelt beside them and said in a comforting voice, “There, there. Don’t let Enoch fill your heads with rubbish. Everyone knows hollows like young ones best. That’s why they let Miss Peregrine’s friend go—she tastes like old coffee grounds!”
Olive peeked out from between her fingers. “What do young ones taste like?”
“Lingonberries,” he said matter-of-factly. The girls wailed again.
“Leave them alone!” Hugh shouted, and a squadron of bees sent Horace yelping down the hall.
“What’s going on out there?” Miss Peregrine called from inside the sitting room. “Is that Mr. Apiston I hear? Where are Miss Bloom and Mr. Portman?”
Emma cringed and shot Hugh a nervous look. “She knows?”
“When she found out you were gone, she just about went off her chump. Thought you’d been abducted by wights or some barminess. Sorry, Em. I had to tell her.”
Emma shook her head, but all we could do was go in and face the music. Fiona gave us a little salute—as if to wish us luck—and we opened the doors.
Inside the sitting room, the only light was a hearth fire that threw our quivering shadows against the wall. Bronwyn hovered anxiously around an old woman who was teetering half-conscious in a chair, mummied up in a blanket. Miss Peregrine sat on an ottoman, feeding the woman spoonfuls of dark liquid.