by Ransom Riggs
In the end, our real home had always been one another. And a real home was all I’d ever wanted.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
My friends and I had only just gotten back to Ditch House and were tilting fast toward our beds when Miss Peregrine returned and called us into the kitchen. “Don’t kick your shoes off just yet,” she said. “I’ve got something to share with you. But not here.”
She wouldn’t tell us a thing until she had dragged us all the way across the Acre to Bentham’s house, then upstairs to the lower Panloopticon hallway, still heavily damaged. “As you all know,” she said, walking backward past boarded-up loop doors as she spoke, “the loss of Miss Avocet has created a vacancy which must be filled as soon as possible. She was a giantess—a lion. None of us alone could fill her shoes. That is why Miss Cuckoo and I will be sharing the role of Head Ymbryne together.”
“What!” exclaimed Millard. “It’s never been done.”
“It’s a complex new world,” said Miss Peregrine, “and there are more young ymbrynes to teach than ever.”
“Then you’ll both run the Ymbryne Academy, too?” asked Emma.
“That’s right,” Miss Peregrine said.
“But will you still be our headmistress?” Claire asked, her little hands at her cheeks.
“Of course, dear! I’ll be a bit busier than before, but you’ll always be my wards.”
Claire practically melted with relief.
“Does that mean you’ll live with the ymbrynes-in-training somewhere else?” asked Olive. “Please don’t leave, miss.”
“No, no—they’ll live with us, and we’ll all be together. Oh, you children have the wrong idea completely.”
“But we won’t all live at Ditch House, will we?” Horace said in mild horror. “I mean, it’s wonderful, but—”
“A bit cramped and dingy?” said Miss Peregrine, laughing. “No, we’ll need some space to spread our wings. And I’m sure you’d all like to have bedrooms of your own again, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes! Oh, a million times, yes,” cried Horace, cutting his eyes at Enoch. “There are people no one should be forced to share a room with.”
“What have you found for us?” asked Olive, peeking past Miss Peregrine for clues. “Another loop?”
“I hope not somewhere tropical,” Enoch grumbled. “That weather does not agree with me.”
A lot of us were in foul moods. After so much upheaval, Miss Peregrine’s wards had grown wary of change, and this was shaping up to be a big one.
Miss Peregrine wasn’t letting their grumbles get to her. “I think the weather will suit you just fine, Enoch. Right this way.”
We came to a section of hallway with newly built doors. There were ten altogether, and Miss Peregrine stopped at the last one. There was no plaque on it, no marking.
“Where does it go?” I asked her.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
Smiling, she pushed open the door. Beyond the usual bed, nightstand, wardrobe, and missing fourth wall, there was a leafy, summery forest. It could’ve been almost any place, almost any year. We walked through the room and into dappled sunlight. A pleasant breeze was blowing, and it rustled the branches around us in a calming shh-shhhh.
Miss Peregrine walked ahead of us. “There’s a path just up here, though I haven’t marked the way yet. I’ve had to make a few adjustments, you see . . .”
We followed her through the trees. My friends were looking around with eyes like plates, trading whispers in a state of nervous excitement. I felt it, too, though I wasn’t sure why.
“Perplexus has been hard at work on a secret project,” Miss Peregrine said, “one I didn’t want to tell you about until he’d cracked it. For a few years now, we’ve been saving tiny, essential bits of loops, like a seed bank or a DNA archive, in the hopes that one day they might be used to regrow certain—”
“Miss?” interrupted Claire, her voice high and tremulous. “Why does this forest look so . . . familiar?”
Miss Peregrine held out her arm. “Go and see for yourself. The path’s just through those trees.”
Claire broke into a run, passed through a screen of leaves, and a moment later we heard a scream.
We all raced after her. I broke through the green and onto a familiar dirt path. Claire was in the middle of it, jumping up and down and squealing. Tingles shot down my spine.
Emma stopped dead beside me and gasped.
“It’s Cairnholm!” Olive cried. “We’re on Cairnholm!!”
This was the path that led from the old bog up to the house. Miss Peregrine’s house. The tingles began to spread through my whole body.
“As I was saying, I made a few alterations,” Miss Peregrine said, grinning from ear to ear. “The entrance doesn’t go through the cairn any longer . . . far too mucky out there . . .”
But we’d all started running up the path, and her voice quickly trailed off behind us.
I was pulling Noor by the hand. “What’s everyone freaking out about?” she said.
“We’re back on the island!” I shouted.
It was still here—or rather, here again. The woods, the path. But what about . . .
Then, around a bend in the path, at the top of a gentle slope, there it was. Miss Peregrine’s house. Our house. And it was glorious: not a stone out of place, not a window broken. Fresh paint, flower beds a riot of color, sun glinting off the roof. I stopped at the edge of the yard to admire it while our friends ran through the grass, shouting with glee and disbelief.
“It’s even more beautiful than I imagined,” Noor said, catching her breath.
I could only nod. A lump had formed in my throat.
“Our house, our lovely old house!” Horace was shouting. “It’s perfect!”
Fiona and Hugh were dancing in the rose garden. Bronwyn was overcome and stood bawling by the old well, tears wetting her cheeks while Emma and Millard hugged her.
Miss Peregrine jogged up alongside Noor and me. “September 2, 1940. Another adjustment: I managed to wind the clock back just a bit, and now you’ve a whole new day to learn—one with no cursed bombs falling!”
She went to comfort Bronwyn, then gathered us all in the garden path. Nine other ymbrynes had also gotten their loops restored, she told us, and now all the peculiars marooned in Devil’s Acre would be able to go home again, if they chose. “And of course, no one’s stuck in their loops the way they used to be. The Panloopticon’s just back through the woods, and from there you can go—”
“Anywhere, almost,” Millard said.
“I don’t want to go anywhere ever again,” Claire declared. “From this day forward I’m never stepping foot off this island.”
Miss Peregrine stroked her blond ringlets and smiled. “That’s entirely up to you.”
Claire let out a hitching sob and latched on to Miss Peregrine’s leg, and Miss Peregrine limped along with Claire attached to her like a koala.
“That’s all right, love, have a cry.”
Cairnholm was no longer a golden prison. It wasn’t a life sentence of postcard-perfect days you could never escape. We could leave anytime we liked. Or not at all.
We circled the house. The air smelled like ocean breeze and flowers. The sun shone off the windows. It looked absolutely new, but otherwise most things about it were just as I remembered them, down to the arrangement of the wicker chairs in the back garden. One thing had changed, though: Our famous topiary sculpture was no longer a replica of Michelangelo’s Adam pointing to the sky, but a leafy memorial statue in the likeness of Miss Avocet, spreading her arms in welcome.
With Claire still clinging to her leg, Miss Peregrine climbed the steps to the front door, then turned to look at us. Tears glistened in her eyes. “I’m so very, very . . .” She sniffled, looked away, then drew a deep breat
h. “I’m so very proud to call you my children. It’s been the honor of my life to care for you, and to have been cared for by you. You’ve made me a very happy ymbryne.”
“Oh, miss, we love you so much!” Olive burst out, and having unstrapped her shoes she flung herself up the stairs and around Miss Peregrine’s other leg.
The rest of us quickly followed, and one by one she gathered us into her open arms. “Welcome home,” she said. “Welcome home, all of you.”
We stood like that, all in a knot, some of us crying and some of us laughing, until Miss Peregrine finally extracted herself and clapped her hands for quiet. “Now, then! Supper’s on the table. Everyone at your usual places, please. Horace, set a new one for Miss Pradesh.”
Then she turned and opened the door, and the smell of something delicious wafted out, and together we went inside.
ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHY
The images that appear in this book are authentic, vintage found photographs, and with the exception of a handful that have undergone a bit of digital processing, they are unaltered. They were painstakingly collected over the course of several years: discovered at flea markets, vintage paper shows, and in the archives of photo collectors more accomplished than I, who were kind enough to part with some of their most peculiar treasures to help create this book.
The following photos were graciously lent for use by their owners:
PAGE
TITLE
FROM THE COLLECTION OF
1
Girl in front of pictures
Jack Mord / The Thanatos Archive
2
Bentham and pets
Jack Mord / The Thanatos Archive
3
Bear
John Van Noate
4
Banjo-playing boy
Jack Mord / The Thanatos Archive
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ransom Riggs is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children novels. Riggs was born on a farm in Maryland and grew up in southern Florida. He studied literature at Kenyon College and film at the University of Southern California. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, bestselling author Tahereh Mafi, and their family.
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