A Map of Days

by Ransom Riggs

  Millard cleared his throat and turned to Paul. “You said the entrance point . . . changes?”

  “It does,” he said. “Now, could you stop here?” Paul said. “I’ll need to fetch my rod.”

  I braked and pulled onto the shoulder. Paul got out and walked to the PORTAL sign. He took a small key out of his coat, knelt down and fit it into the base of the wooden signpost, and unlocked a hidden door. From a narrow compartment inside it, he removed what looked like a wooden orb and an armload of oddly shaped sticks.

  “What on earth is he up to?” Emma muttered.

  Paul attached the larger stick to the orb, connected two smaller sticks, then screwed them both into the top of it. It looked like some bizarre root vegetable that had sprouted a pair of antennae. He started walking back toward the car with the thing held aloft. But before he’d reached us, the rod jerked to the right. He stopped and gripped it with both hands. It began to vibrate, and then it looked like the rod nearly flew away from him. He planted his feet and leaned back, and the rod pointed its antennae somewhere behind us. After a moment the rod stopped vibrating, and he lowered it and walked back to the car.

  “It’s juiced up today!” Paul said, laughing. He got in, hung the rod and the upper half of his body out the window, and let the rod point the way as I drove. When it jerked suddenly to the right, Paul cried, “That way!” and I hung a quick right down a dirt road. After about a half mile it pulled sharply to the left, pointing into a field of corn.

  “Left!” Paul cried.

  I looked at him doubtfully. “Through the field?”

  The crop had been harvested and bundled, and what was left were rows of stubble and little pyramids of corn that stretched away over a low hill and out of sight.

  “Loop entrance is somewhere over that way,” Paul said, the rod pulling his arm so hard I worried it might dislocate his shoulder.

  I gazed across the rough, uneven ground. “I don’t want to mess the car up.”

  “Yes, don’t,” said Enoch. “You’ll throw the wheels out of alignment. Or worse.”

  “Couldn’t we just walk into the loop?” asked Millard.

  “You can’t leave this car outside the loop,” said Paul. “If someone finds it, they’ll know just where to look for the entrance.”

  “You said there were no highwaymen around here,” I said.

  “There aren’t, usually. But one could be following us.”

  “Well, then.” I put the car into gear. “I’ll try to be gentle.”

  “Actually,” Paul said, “don’t be. Our loop is such that such a big, heavy thing needs a lot of momentum to get inside. You’d better go as fast as you can.”

  I felt a smile forming on my face.

  “Well. If I have to.”

  “If you break the car, you’re fixing it this time,” Enoch grumbled.

  “Oh, fun,” said Bronwyn, rubbing her hands together.

  “Everybody hang on,” I said. “Ready?”

  Paul leaned back out the window with the divining rod gripped in both hands, his back pressed against the doorjamb and his feet planted against the inside of the windshield. He looked at me and nodded.

  “Ready.”

  I revved the engine twice, let off the brake, jammed my foot down on the gas. We took off through the field. Suddenly everything was vibrating—the car, the steering wheel, my teeth.

  “To the right!” Paul shouted, and I veered right, around a corn pyramid.

  “Left!” he said, leaning way out the window.

  The tires sprayed jets of dirt behind us. Stands of unharvested corn drummed the car’s undercarriage and slapped against Paul’s body.

  “Now stay straight!” he yelled.

  We were aimed directly at one of the corn pyramids, which was fast approaching.

  “I have to turn!” I shouted.

  “Straight, I said! Straight!”

  I fought an overwhelming instinct to cut the wheel. The corn pyramid came rushing toward us, and everyone but Paul screamed. There was an instant of blackness, like a missing frame in a movie, then a moment of weightlessness, and a pressure change. Then the corn pyramid was gone, and the field we were hurtling through was nothing but dirt.

  Paul pulled himself back inside the car and shouted, “Okay, okay, brake, brake, YOU SHOULD BRAKE,” and I hit the brake as we crested a rise. All four wheels of the car left the ground for a second, and when we landed again I felt the car bottom out before we skidded to a stop.

  “Ughhhhh,” Millard groaned from the back seat.

  Dust swirled in the air. The engine ticked. We had come to rest by an old red barn at the edge of a little town.

  Paul opened his door and stepped out. “Welcome to Portal!”

  “Oh, thank Hades,” said Millard. He shoved his way out of the car, and a moment later I heard him throwing up.

  Everyone got out, grateful to have solid ground beneath their feet. The car’s windows had been open as we barreled through the field, and now everyone was covered in a film of dust and sweat. I raked a hand down my face and my fingers came away gritty.

  “Now you’ve got stripes,” Emma said, using her sleeve to wipe my cheek.

  “You can clean up at my house,” said Paul, and he waved us after him.

  * * *

  • • •

  We followed him into town. It was all of three blocks from end to end and looked as if had been made entirely, but expertly, by hand, from the houses to the packed-dirt streets to the wooden sidewalks. It was 1935 here, Paul explained, and the loop at Portal had been made in the worst depths of the Great Depression. Despite all that, it was neat as a pin, and everywhere someone could’ve planted flowers or painted a happy color it had been done, and the dozen or so people I saw walking were all dressed to the nines. It was a cheerful, homey place, and I already wished we didn’t have to leave in such a hurry.

  “Paul Hemsley!” someone shouted.

  “Uh-oh,” I heard Paul mutter.

  A teenage girl came running toward him. She wore a crisp white dress and a fashionable floppy hat, and there was fire in her eyes. “You don’t call, you don’t write—”

  “Sorry I’m late, Alene.”

  “Late!” She took off the hat and swatted him with it. “You’ve been gone two years!”

  “I got hung up.”

  “I’m ’bout to hang you up,” she said, and he leapt off the sidewalk as she swatted at him again. She huffed, then turned to us and nodded. “Alene Norcross. Pleased to meet you.”

  Before any of us could reply, two other girls who looked about Alene’s age ran up. Paul introduced them as June and Fern, his sisters. They wrapped Paul in fierce embraces, berated him for being gone so long, then turned to us.

  “Thank you for bringing him back,” said Fern. “I hope he didn’t cause you too much trouble.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “He did us a huge favor.”

  “Yeah!” said Bronwyn. “We needed to find this place, but we thought we were looking for an actual portal, not a town called Portal, because we have this—oww!”

  Emma had pinched her on the arm, and now she walked on tiptoes to whisper something in Bronwyn’s ear. Even Paul didn’t know about H, or about the package we were here to deliver. We had agreed to follow H’s advice and keep that information to ourselves until we knew where to deliver it. Bronwyn scowled at Emma, and Emma scowled back at her.

  “We have an important meeting here,” I said.

  Fern perked up. “Oh yes? With who?”

  “With whom,” said June.

  “With whoooooom,” said Fern, sounding like an owl.

  “With whomever is in charge,” said Emma. “I guess you don’t have an ymbryne, but is there someone close to that?”

  “Miss Annie,” said June.

  Fern and Alene
nodded in agreement. “Miss Annie’s been here longer than anyone. You got a question, you need advice, you go to her.”

  “Can we meet her now?” said Emma.

  The girls looked at one another, and something passed silently between them. “I think she’s sleeping,” Alene said.

  “But stay for supper,” said Fern. “Elmer’s serving up his famous seventy-two-hour lamb, and Miss Annie hates to miss it.”

  “Spit-roasted,” said June. “Falls right off the bone.”

  I looked at Emma. She shrugged. It looked like we were staying for supper.

  We followed Paul through town. He slowed as we approached a young man kneeling by a seriously cute puppy.

  “Brother Reggie!” Paul called out. “You teach him to roll over yet?”

  “Hey, look who’s back!” the boy said, looking up and giving Paul a salute. “Not yet. He’s a good pup, but I think his brain’s too small.”

  “Aww, that’s cruel,” said Bronwyn.

  “I don’t mean to be,” said Reggie. “I just have to let him out of this loop for a while so he can get bigger. He won’t grow here.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” said Bronwyn.

  “That’s why you almost never see babies in loops,” Emma explained. “It’s considered immoral to keep them that young for an unnaturally long time.”

  A minute later we passed a little white boy standing at an open window in a clapboard house. He wore antiquated headphones and seemed deep in concentration. Paul raised a hand and the boy leaned out the window and waved.

  “What are they saying today, Hawley?” Paul called out.

  The boy slipped his headphones off. “Nothing interesting,” he replied glumly. “Talking about money again.”

  “Better luck tomorrow, then. You coming to supper?”

  He nodded forcefully. “Yep!”

  As we walked away, Paul explained. “That’s my brother Hawley. His peculiarity lets him eavesdrop on the dead over the radio.”

  “I’m confused,” said Emma, turning to look back at Hawley. “He’s your brother?”

  “Oh, we’re none of us blood family,” Paul said. “Most of us are diviners, though, and that’s close enough.”

  “And diviners can all do the same thing?”

  “Well, there’s differences. No two diviners are gifted in exactly the same way. Alene can find water in a desert. Fern and June specialize in finding lost people. Hawley dials into spiritual frequencies. There are even those of us who can read hearts—tell if someone loves you or not.”

  Paul nodded to an old woman sitting in a rocking chair in the alley between two close-set houses. She wore glasses over an eyepatch, but she seemed to see us well enough despite it, and raised her hand in a silent hello. Something kept my gaze locked on her, and I turned to keep her in my sights as we passed.

  “What about you?” Millard said to Paul.

  “I divine doors. That’s why I can always find my way home. Ah, speaking of which!” We had arrived at a house with flowers in its postage-stamp yard and curtains in the windows.

  “We kept it nice for you,” said June. “Like the curtains?”

  “They’re lovely.”

  “Figured you’d come back eventually,” said Fern.

  “I wasn’t so sure,” Alene muttered.

  Paul stepped onto his porch, then turned back to face us. He looked delighted. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come on in and get washed up for supper!”

  We washed the dust and dirt off ourselves, grateful to be in a comfortable home after so many hours on the road, and then Paul led us out to a long table that had been set up in a big backyard that was common to several houses. It was a fine day to eat outside, and the smell coming from that table was divine. For seven hundred miles we had had only Al Potts’s stale crullers and some immortal snacks to eat, and I think none of us realized how hungry we were until plates of steaming lamb and potatoes were set before us. We tore hunks from loaves of homemade bread and gulped down mint iced tea, and it was maybe the best food I’d ever tasted. It seemed like half the town had come by for supper, and we were surrounded by all the people we’d met since we’d arrived: June and Fern and Alene; Reggie and his puppy, who scampered around under the table; Hawley, who kept his headphones over one ear the whole meal; and some new faces, as well. Directly across from me was Elmer, a man whose black suit and tie clashed with the apron he wore over it, which was decorated with puckered lips and read KISS THE COOK! Beside him sat a younger man who introduced himself as Joseph.

  “This is absolutely delectable,” said Millard, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. No one thought him strange or even stared at his floating napkin; either they were polite, or Millard was not the first invisible person they had shared their table with. “One question, though. How do you cook a seventy-two-hour lamb in a twenty-four-hour loop?”

  “They made the loop after the lamb had already been roasting two days,” said Elmer. “That way we can have three-day lamb every day.”

  “What a brilliant use of loop-time,” said Millard.

  “That was way before I arrived,” he said. “Wish I could take credit for it, but all I do is take it off the spit and carve it up!”

  “So, tell us about yourselves,” said Alene. “Who are you people?”

  “Don’t be rude,” said June. “They’re Paul’s guests.”

  “What? We have a right to know.”

  “It’s okay,” said Emma, “I would want to know, too.”

  “We’re Miss Peregrine’s wards,” Enoch said through a mouthful of potatoes. “From Wales. You’ve heard of us?”

  He said it as if they had, naturally.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell,” said Joseph.

  “Really?” said Enoch. He looked around the table. “Anybody?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “Hm. Well, we’re kind of a big deal.”

  “Don’t be conceited, Enoch,” Millard said. “What he means is that we enjoy some small prominence in our own peculiar community, thanks to the role we played in the victory over the wights at the Battle of Devil’s Acre. Especially crucial to our success was Jacob here—”

  “Cut it out,” I hissed at him.

  “—but you Americans may be more familiar with his grandfather, Abraham Portman?”

  More head shakes.

  “Sorry,” said Reggie, leaning down to feed his puppy under the table. “Don’t know him.”

  “That’s odd,” said Millard. “I thought for certain . . .”

  “He probably traveled under a false name,” said Emma. “He could see hollowgast? And . . . influence them?”

  “Oh!” Alene said. “Could they mean Mr. Gandy?”

  That name rang a bell, but I couldn’t place it immediately.

  “Did your grandfather have an unusual accent?” asked a younger man sitting beside Elmer.

  “Polish,” I said.

  “Mm.” He nodded. “And did he sometimes travel with another man or a young lady?”

  “A young lady?” said Enoch, raising his eyebrows at Emma.

  “That couldn’t have been him,” Emma said, suddenly tense.

  June sped away from the table and returned a minute later with a photo album. “I believe we have a picture of him in here.” She flipped through the album’s pages. “We keep this to remember the folks who come and go, and so we know who to trust when someone comes back after a long time gone. We’ve had enemies come posing as friends.”

  “The wights are masters of disguise, you know,” said Elmer.

  “Oh, we know,” I said.

  “Then you should double-check Paul’s photo,” said Alene. “Make sure he is who he says he is.”

  Paul looked hurt. “I don’t look the same as I used to?”

  “I think he looks better,”
said Fern.

  “Here.” June wedged between my seat and Emma’s and leaned over the table with the album. “This is Gandy.” She tapped a small black-and-white photo of a man relaxing under a tree. He was speaking to someone out of frame, and I wondered who it was, and what he’d been saying. His face was unlined, his hair black, and he had a sweet-looking dog with him. The dog was wearing a cap. It was my grandfather as I had rarely seen him: approaching middle age but still young, still in his prime. I wished I could have known him then.

  Our friends got up from their seats and crowded around to look. Emma’s face was paper-white, haunted. “That’s him,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “That’s Abe.”

  “You’re Gandy’s grandson?” Paul said, surprised. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

  Partly it was because I hadn’t known Abe used a false identity while working, not just on his car registration (which I now realized was where I’d seen the name Gandy before). But mostly it was H’s rule. “Someone I trust told me not to talk about the hollow-hunters,” I said.

  “Not even with other peculiars?” said June.

  “Nobody.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” said Elmer. “They’re heroes to all of us.”

  Now that I saw how people reacted to his name, I thought maybe I’d loosen up on that rule a bit.

  “How can we be sure they’re telling the truth about who they are?” said Alene. “I don’t mean offense, but we don’t know these people.”

  “I can vouch for them,” said Paul.

  “And you’ve known them for, what, a day?”

  “They killed two highwaymen and ran another one off!” said Paul. “Helped out the Flamingo Manor peculiars down in Starke.”

  Elmer pointed again at my grandfather’s photo. “Can’t you see the resemblance?” he said. “This boy’s the spitting image of Gandy.”

  Alene’s eyes darted from me to the photo and back, and by the look on her face, I could tell she agreed. “You say his real name was Abraham?”