by Ransom Riggs
I dreamed up a dozen escape plans. We’d scatter. No—he’d shoot at least a few of us. Maybe someone could pretend to faint in the road, then the person behind would trip, and in the confusion—no, he was too disciplined to fall for anything like that. One of us would have to get close enough to take his gun away.
Me. I was closest. Maybe if I walked a little slower, let him catch up, then ran at him … but who was I kidding? I was no action hero. I was so scared I could hardly breathe. Anyway, he was ten whole yards behind me, and had his gun aimed right at my back. He’d shoot me the second I turned around, and I’d bleed out in the middle of the road. That was my idea of stupidity, not heroism.
A jeep zoomed up from behind and pulled alongside us, slowing to match our pace. There were two more soldiers in it, and though both wore mirrored sunglasses, I knew what was behind them. The wight in the passenger seat nodded to the one who’d captured us and gave a little salute—Nice going!—then turned to us and stared. From that moment he never took his eyes off us or his hands off his rifle.
Now we had escorts, and one rifle-wielding wight had become three. Any hope of escape I’d had was dashed.
We walked and walked, our shoes crunching on the gravel road, the jeep’s engine grumbling beside us like a cheap lawnmower. The town receded and a farm sprang up on either side of the tree-lined road, its fields fallow and bare. The soldiers never exchanged a word. There was something robotic about them, as if their brains had been scooped out and replaced with wires. Wights were supposed to be brilliant, but these guys seemed like drones to me. Then I heard a drone in my ear, and looked up to see a bee circle my head and fly away.
Hugh, I thought. What’s he up to? I looked for him in line, worried he might be planning something that would get us all shot—but I didn’t see him.
I did a quick head count. One-two-three-four-five-six. In front of me was Emma, then Enoch, Horace, Olive, Millard, and Bronwyn.
Where was Hugh?
I nearly leapt into the air. Hugh wasn’t here! That meant he hadn’t been rounded up with the rest of us. He was still free! Maybe in the chaos at the depot he’d slipped down into the gap between the train and the platform, or hopped onto the train without the soldier noticing. I wondered if he was following us—wished I could look back at the road behind without giving him away.
I hoped he wasn’t, because that might mean he was with Miss Peregrine. Otherwise, how would we ever find her again? And what if she ran out of air, locked in that trunk? And what did they do with suspiciously abandoned baggage in 1940, anyway?
My face flushed hot and my throat tightened. There were too many things to be terrified of, a hundred horror scenarios all vying for attention in my brain.
“Back in line!” the soldier behind me shouted, and I realized that it was me he was talking to—that in my fevered state I’d strayed too far from the center of the road. I hurried back to my place behind Emma, who gave me a pleading look over her shoulder—Don’t make him angry!—and I promised myself I’d keep it together.
We walked on in edgy silence, tension humming through us like an electric current. I could see it in Emma as she clenched and unclenched her fists; in Enoch as he shook his head and muttered to himself; in Olive’s uneven steps. It seemed like just a matter of time before one of us did something desperate and bullets started flying.
Then I heard Bronwyn gasp and I looked up, a horror scenario I hadn’t yet imagined taking shape before my eyes. Three massive forms lay ahead of us, one in the road and two more in the field adjacent, just the other side of a shallow ditch. Heaps of black earth, I thought at first, refusing to see.
Then we got closer, and I couldn’t pretend they were anything other than what they were: three horses dead in the road.
Olive screamed. Bronwyn instinctively went to comfort her—“Don’t look, little magpie!”—and the soldier riding shotgun fired into the air. We dove to the ground and covered our heads.
“Do that again and you’ll be lying in the ditch beside them!” he shouted.
As we returned to our feet, Emma angled toward me and breathed the word Gypsies, then nodded at the closest horse. I took her meaning: these were their horses. I even recognized the markings on one—white spots on its hind legs—and realized it was the very horse I’d been clinging to just an hour ago.
I felt like I was about to be sick.
It all came together, playing out like a movie in my head. The wights had done this—the same ones who’d raided our camp the night before. The Gypsies had met them along the road after leaving us at the edge of town. There’d been a skirmish, then a chase. The wights had shot the Gypsies’ horses right out from under them.
I knew the wights had killed people—killed peculiar children, Miss Avocet had said—but the brutality of shooting these animals seemed to exceed even that evil. An hour ago they’d been some of the most fully alive creatures I’d ever seen—eyes gleaming with intelligence, bodies rippling with muscle, radiating heat—and now, thanks to the intervention of a few pieces of metal, they were nothing but heaps of cold meat. These proud, strong animals, shot down and left in the road like garbage.
I shook with fear, seethed with anger. I was sorry, too, that I’d been so unappreciative of them. What a spoiled, ungrateful ass I was.
Pull it together, I told myself. Pull yourself together.
Where were Bekhir and his men now? Where was his son? All I knew was that the wights were going to shoot us. I was sure of it now. These impostors in soldiers’ costumes were nothing but animals themselves; more monstrous even than the hollowgast they controlled. The wights, at least, had minds that could reason—but they used that creative faculty to dismantle the world. To make living things into dead things. And for what? So that they might live a little longer. So that they might have a little more power over the world around them, and the creatures in it, for whom they cared so little.
Waste. Such a stupid waste.
And now they were going to waste us. Lead us to some killing field where we’d be interrogated and dumped. And if Hugh had been dumb enough to follow us—if the bee flying up and down our line meant he was nearby—then they’d kill him, too.
God help us all.
* * *
The fallen horses were well behind us when the soldiers ordered us to turn off the main road and down a narrow farm lane. It was hardly more than a footpath, just a few feet wide, so the soldiers who’d been riding alongside us had to park their jeep and walk, one in front and two behind. On either side of us the fields grew wild, bursting with flowering weeds and humming with late-summer insects.
A beautiful place to die.
After a while, a thatch-roofed shack came into sight at the edge of the fields. That’s where they’ll do it, I thought. That’s where they’ll kill us.
As we got closer, a door opened and a soldier stepped out of the shack. He was dressed differently than the ones around us: instead of a helmet he wore a black-brimmed officer’s hat, and instead of a rifle he carried a holstered revolver.
This one was in charge.
He stood in the lane as we approached, rocking on his heels and flashing a pearly grin. “We meet at last!” he called out. “You’ve given us quite the go-round, but I knew we’d catch you in the end. Only a matter of time!” He had pudgy, boyish features, thin hair that was so blond it was almost white, and he was full of weird, chipper energy, like an overcaffeinated Cub Scout leader. But all I could think when I looked at him was: Animal. Monster. Murderer.
“Come in, come in,” the officer said, pulling open the shack’s door. “Friends of yours are waiting inside.”
As his soldiers shoved us past him, I caught a glimpse of the name stitched on his shirt: WHITE. Like the color.
Mister White. A joke, maybe? Nothing about him seemed genuine; that least of all.
We were pushed inside, shouted into a corner. The shack’s one room was bare of furniture and crowded with people. Bekhir and his men sat on the
floor with their backs to the walls. They’d been treated badly; they were bruised, bleeding, and slouched in attitudes of defeat. A few were missing, including Bekhir’s boy. Standing guard were two more soldiers—that made six altogether, including Mr. White and our escorts.
Bekhir caught my eye and nodded gravely. His cheeks were purpled with bruises. I’m sorry, he mouthed to me.
Mr. White saw our exchange and skipped over to Bekhir. “Aha! You recognize these children?”
“No,” Bekhir said, looking down.
“No?” Mr. White feigned shock. “But you apologized to that one. You must know him, unless you make a habit of apologizing to strangers?”
“They aren’t the ones you’re looking for,” Bekhir said.
“I think they are,” said Mr. White. “I think these are the very children we’ve been looking for. And furthermore, I think they spent last night in your camp.”
“I told you, I’ve never seen them before.”
Mr. White clucked his tongue like a disapproving schoolmarm.
“Gypsy, do you remember what I promised to do if I found out you were lying to me?” He unsheathed a knife from his belt and held it against Bekhir’s cheek. “That’s right. I promised to cut your lying tongue out and feed it to my dog. And I always keep my promises.”
Bekhir met Mr. White’s blank stare and stared back, unflinching. The seconds spun out in unbearable silence. My eyes were fixed on the knife. Finally, Mr. White cracked a smile and stood smartly upright again, breaking the spell. “But,” he said cheerily, “first things first!” He turned to face the soldiers who had escorted us. “Which of you has their bird?”
The soldiers looked at one another. One shook his head, then another.
“We didn’t see it,” said the one who’d taken us prisoner at the depot.
Mr. White’s smile faltered. He knelt down next to Bekhir. “You told me they had the bird with them,” he said.
Bekhir shrugged. “Birds have wings. They come and go.”
Mr. White stabbed Bekhir in the thigh. Just like that: quick and emotionless, the blade going in and out. Bekhir howled in surprise and pain and rolled onto his side, gripping his leg as blood began to flow.
Horace fainted and slid to the floor. Olive gasped and covered her eyes.
“That’s twice you’ve lied to me,” Mr. White said, wiping the blade clean on a handkerchief.
The rest of us clenched our teeth and held our tongues, but I could see Emma plotting revenge already, clasping her hands together behind her back, getting them nice and warm.
Mr. White dropped the bloody handkerchief on the floor, slid the knife back into its sheath, and stood up to face us. He was almost but not quite smiling, his eyes wide, unibrow raised in a capital M.
“Where is your bird?” he asked calmly. The nicer he pretended to be, the more it scared the hell out of me.
“She flew away,” Emma said bitterly. “Just like that man told you.”
I wished she hadn’t said anything; now I was afraid he’d single her out for torment.
Mr. White stepped toward Emma and said, “Her wing was injured. You were seen with her just yesterday. She couldn’t be far from here.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll ask you again.”
“She died,” I said. “We threw her in a river.”
Maybe if I were a bigger pain in his butt than Emma, he’d forget she’d ever spoken.
Mr. White sighed. His right hand glided across his holstered gun, lingered over the handle of his knife, then came to rest on his belt’s brass buckle. He lowered his voice, as if what he was about to say were meant for my ears only.
“I see what the trouble is. You believe there’s nothing to be gained by being honest with me. That we will kill you regardless of what you do or say. I need you to know this is not the case. However, in the spirit of total honesty, I will say this: you shouldn’t have made us chase you. That was a mistake. This could’ve been so much easier, but now everyone’s angry, you see, because you’ve wasted so much of our time.”
He flicked a finger toward his soldiers. “These men? They’d like very much to hurt you. I, on the other hand, am able to consider things from your point of view. We do seem frightening, I understand that. Our first meeting, on board my submarine, was regrettably uncivil. What’s more, your ymbrynes have been poisoning you with misinformation about us for generations. So it’s only natural that you’d run. In light of all that, I’m willing to make you what I believe to be a reasonable offer. Show us to the bird right now, and rather than hurting you, we’ll send you off to a nice facility where you’ll be well looked after. Fed every day, each with your own bed … a place no more restrictive than that ridiculous loop you’ve been hiding in all these years.”
Mr. White looked at his men and laughed. “Can you believe they spent the last—what is it, seventy years?—on a tiny island, living the same day over and over? Worse than any prison camp I can think of. It would’ve been so much easier to cooperate!” He shrugged, looked back at us. “But pride, venal pride, got the better of you. And to think, all this time we could’ve been working together toward a common good!”
“Working together?” said Emma. “You hunted us! Sent monsters to kill us!”
Damn it, I thought. Keep quiet.
Mr. White made a sad puppy-dog face. “Monsters?” he said.
“That hurts. That’s me you’re talking about, you know! Me and all my men here, before we evolved. I’ll try not to take your slight personally, though. The adolescent phase is rarely attractive, whatever the species.” He clapped his hands sharply, which made me jump.
“Now then, down to business!”
He raked us with a slow, icy stare, as if scanning our ranks for weakness. Which of us would crack first? Which would actually tell him the truth about where Miss Peregrine was?
Mr. White zeroed in on Horace. He’d recovered from his faint but was still on the floor, crouched and shaking. Mr. White took a decisive step toward him. Horace flinched at the click of his boots.
“Stand up, boy.”
Horace didn’t move.
“Someone get him up.”
A soldier yanked Horace up roughly by his arm. Horace cowered before Mr. White, his eyes on the floor.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Huh-huh-Horace …”
“Well, Huh-Horace, you seem like someone with abundant common sense. So I’ll let you choose.”
Horace raised his head slightly. “Choose …?”
Mr. White unsheathed the knife from his belt and pointed it at the Gypsies. “Which of these men to kill first. Unless, of course, you’d like to tell me where your ymbryne is. Then no one has to die.”
Horace squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could simply wish himself away from here.
“Or,” Mr. White said, “if you’d rather not choose one of them, I’d be happy to choose one of you. Would you rather do that?”
“No!”
“Then tell me!” Mr. White thundered, his lips snarling back to reveal gleaming teeth.
“Don’t tell them anything, syndrigasti!” shouted Bekhir—and then one of the soldiers kicked him in the stomach, and he groaned and fell quiet.
Mr. White reached out and grabbed Horace by the chin, trying to force him to look right into his horrible blank eyes. “You’ll tell me, won’t you? You’ll tell me, and I won’t hurt you.”
“Yes,” Horace said, still squeezing his eyes shut—still wishing himself gone, yet still here.
“Yes, what?”
Horace drew a shaking breath. “Yes, I’ll tell you.”
“Don’t!” shouted Emma.
Oh God, I thought. He’s going to give her up. He’s too weak.
We should’ve left him at the menagerie …
“Shh,” Mr. White hissed in his ear. “Don’t listen to them. Now, go ahead, son. Tell me where that bird is.”
“She’s in the drawer,” said Horace.
Mr. White’s unibrow knit toget
her. “The drawer. What drawer?”
“Same one she’s always been in,” said Horace.
He shook Horace by the jaw and shouted, “What drawer?!”
Horace started to say something, then closed his mouth. Swallowed hard. Stiffened his back. Then his eyes came open and he looked hard into Mr. White’s and said, “Your mother’s knickers drawer,” and he spat right in Mr. White’s face.
Mr. White slammed Horace in the side of the head with the handle of his knife. Olive screamed and several of us flinched in vicarious pain as Horace dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes, loose change and train tickets spilling out of his pockets.
“What’s this?” said Mr. White, bending down to look.
“I caught them trying to catch a train,” said the soldier who’d caught us.
“Why are you just telling me this now?”
The soldier faltered. “I thought—”
“Never mind,” Mr. White said. “Go intercept it. Now.”
“Sir?”
Mr. White glanced at the ticket, then at his watch. “The eight-thirty to London makes a long stop at Porthmadog. If you’re quick, it’ll be waiting for you there. Search it from front to back—starting with first class.”
The soldier saluted him and ran outside.
Mr. White turned to the other soldiers. “Search the rest of them,” he said. “Let’s see if they’re carrying anything else of interest. If they resist, shoot them.”
While two soldiers with rifles covered us, a third went from peculiar to peculiar, rooting through our pockets. Most of us had nothing but crumbs and lint, but the soldier found an ivory comb on Bronwyn—“Please, it belonged to my mother!” she begged, but he only laughed and said, “She might’ve taught you how to use it, mannish girl!”
Enoch was carrying a small bag of worm-packed grave dirt, which the soldier opened, sniffed, and dropped in disgust. In my pocket he found my dead cell phone. Emma saw it clatter to the floor and looked at me strangely, wondering why I still had it. Horace lay unmoving on the floor, either knocked out or playing possum. Then it was Emma’s turn, but she wasn’t having it. When the soldier came toward her, she snarled, “Lay a hand on me and I’ll burn it off!”