by Ransom Riggs
Emma looked at her watch. “It’s almost six. We’d better be getting back.”
“The others are going to kill us,” said Olive. “We’ve been gone all afternoon, and we still haven’t got new clothes!”
Then I remembered Miss Peregrine’s promise. She’d have something to show me at nightfall, she said, which was in just an hour or two. Truth be told, I didn’t much care about whatever it was she had to show me anymore. All I could think about was getting home to my bedroom, closing the door, and reading my grandfather’s logbook from cover to cover.
* * *
• • •
When we got home, the sun was just starting to dip below the trees. The friends we’d left behind complained loudly about our having been gone so long, but when we told them why—and what we’d found—they forgot their anger and hung on Millard’s every word as he recounted the story.
My parents were gone. They had packed their bags and left for a trip to Asia. I found a note in my mom’s handwriting on the kitchen counter. They would miss me lots, the note read, were available by phone or email anytime, and would I please remember to pay the gardeners. I could tell from the breezy and casual tone of the note—Love you, Jakey!—that Miss Peregrine had done a great job erasing the last few months of worrying about me from their minds. They didn’t seem concerned that I might have a breakdown or run away again while they were gone. In fact, they didn’t seem to care very much at all. And that was fine. Good riddance, I thought. At least we had the place to ourselves.
Miss Peregrine wasn’t around, either. She’d left the house just after we had and had been gone all day, Horace reported.
“Did she say where she was going?” I asked.
“She only said that we were to meet her at precisely seven fifteen at the potting shed in your backyard.”
“The potting shed.”
“At seven fifteen, precisely.”
That gave me just over an hour of free time.
I snuck up to my room. I put IV by Led Zeppelin on the record player, which is what I listened to whenever I was doing something that required serious concentration. I climbed onto my bed with my grandfather’s logbook, laid it out in front of me, and began to read.
I hadn’t read more than a page when Emma poked her head into the room. I invited her to join me.
“No, thanks,” she said. “I’ve had quite enough of Abe Portman for one day.” And she went out.
There were many hundreds of pages in the logbook, spanning a period of decades. Most of the entries followed the format of the one I’d read down in the bunker: light on detail, free from emotion, and often accompanied by a photo or some other piece of visual evidence. It would’ve taken me a week to read every word, so even with an hour on my hands, I could only skim. But it was enough to form a sketchy outline of Abe’s work in America.
He usually worked alone, but not always. Some entries referenced other “operatives,” named only with single letters—F, P, V. But most often, H.
H was the man my father had met, if his partially wiped memory could be trusted. If Abe had trusted H enough to introduce his son to him, he must’ve been important. So who was he? What was the structure of their organization? Who assigned their missions? Every new piece of information spawned a dozen more questions.
In the early days, their work was focused almost exclusively on hunting and killing hollows. But as the years progressed, more and more of the missions involved finding and rescuing peculiar children. Which was admirable, no doubt, but Bronwyn’s question stayed with me: Wasn’t that the ymbrynes’ job? Was there something stopping American ymbrynes from doing it?
Was something wrong with them?
The entries began in 1953 and stopped abruptly in 1985. Why did they stop? Was there another logbook I hadn’t found yet? Had Abe retired in 1985? Or had something changed?
After an hour of reading, I had a few more answers and a lot more new questions. First among them: Was there more work like this to be done? Was there still a group of hollow-hunters out there somewhere, fighting monsters and rescuing peculiars? If so, I wanted very much to find them. I wanted to be part of it, to use my gift to carry on my grandfather’s work here in America. After all, maybe that’s what he wanted! Yes, he’d locked away his secrets, but he’d done it using the name he’d given me as the key. But he’d died too soon to tell me.
First things first. To get answers to my questions, I’d have to find the only person in the world likely to know Abe’s secrets.
I had to find H.
We milled around my backyard, waiting for Miss Peregrine. It was seven twelve, and the light had mostly gone out of the sky. I glanced at the potting shed, a neglected shack made from latticed wood that stood against the oleander hedges. My mother had gone through a gardening phase a few years back, but these days the shed was just a shelter for weeds and spiders.
Then, at precisely seven fifteen, there was a snap of static electricity in the air that we all felt—it made Horace go “Ooooh!” and Claire’s long hair rose and stood on end—and then the shed lit up from the inside. It was a brief, bright flash, the hundreds of holes in its latticed walls turning white before fading to shadow. Then we heard Miss Peregrine’s voice from inside the shed.
“Here we are!” She strode out onto the grass. “Ahh,” she said, taking in a lungful of air. “Yes, I much prefer this weather.” She looked around at all of us. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Only by thirty seconds,” said Horace.
“Mr. Portman, you look a bit confused.”
“I’m not super clear on what just happened,” I said. “Or where you were. Or . . . anything?”
“That,” she said, pointing to the shed, “is a loop.”
I looked from her to the shed. “There was a loop in my backyard?”
“There is now. I made it this afternoon.”
“It’s a pocket loop,” said Millard. “Miss P, that’s brilliant! I didn’t think the council had approved any yet.”
“Only this one, and just today,” she said, grinning with pride.
“Why would you want a loop of this afternoon?” I asked.
“The time you loop isn’t the point of a pocket loop. The advantage is their extremely small size, which makes them a snap to maintain. Unlike a normal loop, these only need to be reset once or twice a month, as opposed to daily.”
The others were grinning and trading excited looks, but I was still baffled.
“But what good is a loop the size of a potting shed?”
“None as a place of refuge, but they are extraordinarily useful as a portal.” She reached into her dress pocket and pulled out a slim brass object that looked like an oversized bullet with vents cut into it. “With the shuttle—another of my brother Bentham’s ingenious inventions—I can stitch this loop back into his Panloopticon. And voilà! We have a door to Devil’s Acre.”
“Right here,” I said. “In the backyard.”
“You don’t have to take my word for it,” she said, holding her hand out toward the potting shed. “Go and see for yourself.”
I took a step toward it. “Really?”
“It’s a brave new world, Mr. Portman. And we’ll be right behind you.”
* * *
• • •
Forty seconds: That’s all the time it took for me to travel from my backyard to a nineteenth-century time loop in London. Forty seconds from reaching the back of the potting shed to stepping out of a broom closet in Devil’s Acre. The sensation left me dizzy, my head and stomach no longer accustomed to the sudden lurch of loop travel.
I stepped out of the broom closet and into a familiar hallway: long, lushly carpeted, and lined with identical doors, each bearing a small plaque. The one across the hall read:
DEN HAAG, NETHERLANDS, APRIL 8, 1937
I turned to look at the door behind me
. There was a piece of paper fixed to the wall:
JACOB PORTMAN HOME, FLORIDA, PRESENT DAY.
A. PEREGRINE AND WARDS ONLY
I was in the heart of Bentham’s reality-bending Panloopticon machine, to which my house was now connected. I was still trying to wrap my mind around that when the door opened and Emma walked out. “Hello, stranger!” she said, and kissed me on the face. She was followed by Miss Peregrine and the rest of my peculiar friends. They were chattering excitedly, unfazed by their instantaneous journey across an ocean and a century.
“This means we don’t have to sleep in Devil’s Acre ever again, if we don’t want to,” Horace was saying.
“Or make that long drive to the swamp just to reach Jacob’s house,” said Claire. “I get carsick.”
“The best part is the food,” Olive said, shoving her way through the pack. “Just think, we can have a proper English breakfast, pizza at Jacob’s house for lunch, and mutton chops fresh from Smithfield Market for supper!”
“Who knew such a little person could eat so much,” said Horace.
“Eat enough and maybe you won’t need those lead shoes!” said Enoch.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Miss Peregrine said, taking me aside. “Now you see what I meant about a solution. With this pocket loop, you can live in one world without cutting yourself off from the other. With your help, we can continue to expand our knowledge of present-day America without shirking our duties here in Devil’s Acre. There are loops to be rebuilt, traumatized peculiars to be rehabilitated, captured wights to be dealt with . . . and I haven’t forgotten my promise to you. You shall have very engaging work to do here. How does that sound?”
“What kind of work did you have in mind?” I said, my head spinning with the possibilities that had just opened up before me.
“The Ymbryne Council gives out the assignments, so I don’t know just yet. But they’ve told me they have something very interesting for you.”
“What about the rest of us?” said Enoch.
“We want assignments of consequence,” said Millard. “Not just busywork.”
“Or cleaning up,” added Bronwyn.
“You’ll have important work to do, I promise,” said Miss Peregrine.
“I thought learning to pass as normals in the present was the important work,” said Enoch. “So why are we wasting our time in this dump?”
The headmistress pursed her lips. “While you build your knowledge and skills in the present, you can simultaneously aid the reconstruction effort here in the Acre. We’ll commute back and forth, just like modern people. Isn’t that fun?”
Enoch shook his head and looked away. “It’s politics. That’s what you won’t admit.”
Miss Peregrine’s eyes flared.
“You’re being rude,” said Claire.
“No, go on, Enoch,” said Miss Peregrine. “I want to hear this.”
“Someone high up on the food chain decided it doesn’t look good, us hanging around Jacob’s house in the present while everyone else is stuck here, living like refugees and cleaning up the wights’ mess. But I don’t care what anybody thinks about it. We deserve a holiday, damn it!”
“Everyone here deserves a holiday!” Miss Peregrine snapped. She shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if battling a sudden headache. “Think of it this way. It will be inspiring to the other children to see you, the heroes of the Battle for Devil’s Acre, working alongside them for the common good.”
“Bah,” Enoch said, and started cleaning his fingernails.
“Well, I’m excited,” said Bronwyn. “I always wanted a real job with real responsibilities, even if it means cutting into our normalling lessons a bit.”
“Cutting into?” said Horace. “We haven’t had a single one yet!”
“Not even one?” Miss Peregrine looked at me. “What about the shopping trip?”
“We, uh . . . got a little sidetracked,” I said.
“Oh,” she said with a frown. “No matter, there’s plenty of time. Just not today!” And then she was tromping down the hall, waving at us to catch up.
* * *
• • •
As we followed Miss Peregrine down the long hall, people came and went through the Panloopticon’s many doors. They were all very serious-looking and busy, and they wore vastly different outfits suited to very different purposes. There was a lady in a blue bustle dress that ballooned around her so widely that we had to fall into single file and squeeze against the wall to get by her. There was a man in a heavy white snowsuit and a round fur hat, and another man in seven-league boots that reached his mid-thigh and a naval coat that shone with gold buckles. I was so distracted by all the wardrobe that when we rounded a corner I nearly smacked into a wall—or what I thought was a wall until it began speaking to me.
“Young Portman!” a voice boomed, and I looked up, craning my neck to take in the man’s full height. Seven feet tall, in a heavy black robe, he was both a vision of death incarnate and an old friend I’d found myself missing from time to time.
“Sharon!”
He bowed and greeted Miss Peregrine, then reached out and shook my hand, his long, icy fingers wrapping so far around mine that they met his thumb on the other side.
“Finally come to greet your fans, have you?”
“Ha-ha,” I said. “Right.”
“He isn’t joking,” Millard said. “You’re a celebrity now. When we go outside, watch out.”
“What? Seriously?”
“Oh yeah,” said Emma. “Don’t be surprised if you get asked for autographs.”
“Don’t get a big head about it,” said Enoch. “We’re all a bit famous now, after what we did in the Library of Souls.”
“Oh, really!” Emma said. “You’re famous?”
“A little,” Enoch said. “I get fan letters.”
“You got one. Singular.”
Enoch shuffled his feet. “That you know of.”
Miss Peregrine cleared her throat. “In any case! The children are to receive their reconstruction assignments from the council today. Sharon, if you wouldn’t mind escorting us to the ministries building?”
“Of course.” Sharon bowed to her, and the scent that wafted from his cloak was one of mildew and wet earth. “For esteemed guests like yourselves, I’m happy to carve some time out of my busy schedule.”
As he walked us down the hall, he turned to me and said, “You see, I’m the majordome of this house, as well as the general overseer of the Panloopticon and its many portals.”
“I still can’t believe they put him in charge,” muttered Enoch.
Sharon turned to look straight at him, and a demented smile gleamed out of his dark hood.
Enoch shrank behind Emma and tried to disappear.
“We have a saying around here,” said Sharon. “‘The pope is busy and Mother Teresa is dead.’ No one knows this place better than me—except perhaps old Bentham, who is, thanks to young Portman, permanently indisposed.” His tone was carefully neutral; it was impossible to tell whether or not he regretted the death of his former employer. “So I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
We turned another corner and came into a wide hallway. It was as busy as an airline terminal at the holidays: Travelers laden with heavy bags came and went through doors that lined both walls. Long lines trailed away from podiums where uniformed clerks checked documents. Gruff border guards kept watch over everyone.
Sharon barked at a nearby clerk. “Keep that door shut! You’re letting in half of Helsinki, Christmas of 1911!”
The clerk snapped up from his chair and slammed a door that had been open a crack, out from which snowflakes had been drifting.
“We’re making sure people travel only to loops they’ve been approved to visit,” Sharon explained. “There are over a hundred loop doors in these halls
, and the Ministry of Temporal Affairs has declared fewer than half of them safe. Many have not been sufficiently explored; some haven’t been opened in years. So, until further notice, all Panloopticon trips must be cleared by the ministry—and yours truly.”
Sharon snatched a ticket from the hand of a mousy fellow in a brown trench coat. “Who are you and where are you going?” He was clearly delighted to have been given some authority, and couldn’t help showing it off.
“My name’s Wellington Weebus,” the man lisped. “Destination Pennsylvania Station, New York City, June 8, 1929. Sir.”
“What’s your business there?”
“Sir, I’m a linguistical outreach officer assigned to the American colonies. I’m a translator.”
“Why would we need a translator in New York City? Don’t they speak the King’s English?”
“Not exactly, sir. They have a rather odd way of speaking, actually, sir.”
“Why the umbrella?”
“It’s raining there, sir.”
“Have your clothes been vetted for anachronisms by the Costumers?”
“They have, sir.”
“I thought all New Yorkers of that era wore hats.”
The man pulled a small cap from his trench coat. “I have one here, sir.”
Miss Peregrine, who had been tapping her foot for some time now, reached the end of her fuse. “If you’re needed here, Sharon, I’m sure we can find our own way to the ministries building.”
“I won’t hear of it!” he said, then handed back the man’s ticket. “Look sharp, Weebus, I’m watching you.”
The man scurried off.
“This way, children. It isn’t far.”
He cleared a path for us through the crowded hall, then led us down a flight of stairs. On the ground floor we passed Bentham’s grand library, where the furniture had been cleared away to make room for a hundred or more cots.