A Map of Days

by Ransom Riggs

  “It’s nobody’s fault,” I said. “We just had some bad luck.”

  “If it weren’t that, something else would’ve gotten us,” said Emma. “I’m amazed we made it as far as we did, considering the vastness of our ignorance. We were fools to think we could do a mission in America with so little preparation and training.” She glanced at me briefly, then looked away. “There was only one Abe Portman.”

  It was a cheap shot, but it stung. With painful effort, I sat up in bed. “His partner thought we were prepared. He gave us the mission.”

  “And I would very much like to know why,” came a voice from the doorway.

  We turned to see Miss Peregrine, leaning against the jamb holding an unlit pipe. How long had she been there?

  Everyone tensed, ready for a dressing-down. Miss Peregrine walked in, surveying the room and all its equipment. “I don’t suppose you children know how much trouble you’ve caused.” She stopped in the middle of the floor.

  “You must have been very worried,” said Millard.

  She turned her head sharply toward him and narrowed her eyes. It was clear we were not yet welcome to speak. “I was, yes, but not only about you people.” She spoke with uncharacteristic coldness. “We have been engaged for some months—even before the hollowgast menace subsided—in an effort to negotiate peace between the American clans. Your actions have thrown those efforts into dire jeopardy.”

  “We didn’t know,” I said quietly. “You and Miss Cuckoo said the ymbrynes were busy with the reconstruction effort.”

  “It was top-secret ymbryne business,” she said. “It would never have occurred to me that I would need to caution my own wards against striking out on their own into dangerous and poorly charted territory—not only without permission, but without even telling me—in order to conduct some ill-conceived rescue mission assigned to you by an unknown and utterly untrustworthy source . . .” Her tone rose shrilly, and then she paused, rubbing a knuckle into her eye. “Excuse me. I haven’t slept in days.”

  She took a match from her dress pocket, lifted her foot and struck it deftly against the sole, and lit her pipe. When she’d taken a few meditative puffs, she continued.

  “The other ymbrynes and I worked around the clock to negotiate your release from Leo Burnham’s Five Boroughs clan. It’s quite a complex thing when the very people who are trying to broker a peace treaty are accused of committing high crimes.” Miss Peregrine let that sink in for a moment before she went on. “America is badly divided. Here’s the gist of it, which I share now only because I want to impress upon you how difficult you’ve made things. There are three major factions: the Five Boroughs clan, whose influence extends through much of the East Coast; the Invisible Hand, with power concentrated in Detroit; and the Californios in the West, with Los Angeles as its capital. Texas and the South are autonomous, semi-lawless zones, which have resisted efforts to centralize control in any one loop, an unfortunate situation that has only worsened societal rifts. But tensions among the big three are the primary concern. They have long-standing boundary disputes, old grudges, and the like, but for a hundred years the threat of hollowgast attacks seriously reduced their mobility and prevented occasional skirmishes from escalating into war. Now that the hollows are mostly gone, however, the skirmishes are worsening.”

  “In other words, we couldn’t have picked a worse time to go blundering in,” said Millard.

  “You could not have,” Miss Peregrine agreed. “Especially given the delicate work we ymbrynes have taken on.”

  I had heard some of this before, but my friends had not. They looked deflated and horrified.

  “I get why the situation is delicate,” I said. “I just don’t understand why trying to help one peculiar in need was such a terrible thing.”

  “It wouldn’t have been, in Europe,” said Miss Peregrine. “But in America it’s a serious offense.”

  “But my grandfather spent his whole career finding and helping uncontacted peculiars.”

  “Years ago!” she said, nearly shouting. “Conventions change, Mr. Portman! Laws are rewritten! And if you had simply asked me, or any ymbryne, we would have told you that the Americans are territorial, and what was an act of heroism twenty-five years ago is now considered a capital offense.”

  “But why?”

  “Because the most valuable resource in peculiardom is us. Peculiars. If two loops are in conflict with each other, they need as many peculiars in their ranks as they can find—to be fighters, bone-menders, runners, invisible spies, and so on. An army. But we peculiars have a very limited population from which to recruit. And thanks to the evil hunger of the hollows, new peculiars were hard to find for a very long time. They got snapped up—quite literally. Starved of new blood, peculiar populations grew older and became loop-bound. An army that can’t stray far from its loop for fear of aging forward isn’t very effective. So there is really nothing more valuable in peculiardom than a never-contacted peculiar. Especially a powerfully talented one.”

  “Why didn’t H tell us that?” I said. “He must’ve known helping Noor would make the local clans angry.”

  “I’d like to ask him that same question,” Miss Peregrine said angrily. “And several more, as well.”

  “I’m sure his motives were virtuous,” said Millard. “She was being hunted by some very nasty people.”

  “Helping her might’ve been virtuous,” said Miss Peregrine. “Involving my wards in the matter was not.”

  “We’re so sorry,” said Emma. “I hope you can believe that.”

  Miss Peregrine ignored her, as she had ignored all our attempts to apologize. She went to the window and blew a cloud of pipe-smoke out toward the humming street. “We were making progress in our peace talks, but this episode has seriously damaged the clans’ trust in us. The neutral party cannot be suspected of having any agenda other than peace. It’s a bad setback.”

  “Do you think they’ll go to war?” asked Millard. “Because of us?”

  “We may yet have an opportunity to mend things. But the clans are quite far apart on a number of key issues. They must agree on territorial boundaries, elect a peacekeeping council . . . these are no small matters, and the stakes are considerable. If war should break out between them, it would be a disaster not only for American peculiars, but for all of us. War is a germ that can rarely be contained. It would surely spread.”

  Judging from our slumped shoulders and downcast expressions, all of us were feeling intense shame. I was starting to regret everything—even reaching out to H in the first place.

  After what felt like a long time, Miss Peregrine turned to look at us. “Worse than any of that,” she said, sighing, “worse than the clans not trusting us, is that I feel I can no longer trust you.”

  “Don’t say that, miss, don’t say that,” pleaded Bronwyn.

  “I think I’m perhaps most disappointed in you, Miss Bruntley. This sort of behavior isn’t so surprising from Miss Bloom or Mr. O’Connor. But you have always been so loyal and kind.”

  “I’ll make it up to you,” Bronwyn said. “I promise.”

  “You’ll start by working on the kitchen cleanup crew here in the Acre for one month.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Bronwyn, nodding eagerly. She seemed relieved to have a punishment, which meant forgiveness was possible.

  “Miss Bloom, I’m reassigning you to the Smoking Street garbage incinerator.” I saw Emma wince, but she said nothing. “Mr. O’Connor, you’ll be sweeping chimneys. Mr. Nullings—”

  “Miss Peregrine?” I interrupted her.

  She stopped mid-sentence. My friends looked at me with various shades of disbelief.

  “What is it?” said Miss Peregrine.

  I knew that what I was about to ask would be met with a barrage of resistance. But I had to say it anyway.

  “What about Noor?”


  “What about her?” said Miss Peregrine. I knew her patience was wearing thin. But I couldn’t let this go.

  “We just . . . left her there,” I said.

  “I’m aware of what happened,” Miss Peregrine said. “And if it had been possible to bring her back to the Acre with us, I would have done it. But it took all the leverage I had to secure your release. To then insist upon taking her, too, would have made it seem as if it were her we’d wanted all along. That we really were after their uncontacted peculiars. And that would have derailed the peace talks.”

  Miss Peregrine had a point, but she was talking about politics, and I was talking about a person. Couldn’t we avoid war and save Noor? And so I persisted.

  “Leo’s crazy and dangerous,” I said. “I know it would look bad, so maybe there’s a way we can sneak her out, so they wouldn’t know it was us . . .”

  Emma was shooting me daggers with her eyes. Stop, she mouthed.

  Miss Peregrine was about to lose it, I could tell.

  “Mr. Portman,” she said, “if that girl’s in danger, it’s your fault. I cannot believe, after all I just told you, that you’re still insisting we attempt to remove her from that loop. I simply can’t believe it.”

  “I know it’s my fault, and I admit that.” I was talking fast, trying to make my point without pushing Miss Peregrine too far. “But you should’ve seen the people who were after her; they had helicopters and, like, special-ops tactical gear.”

  “Obviously, that was one of the other clans.”

  “It wasn’t, though,” I said, talking over her now, “Leo’s guys didn’t know who they were—”

  “Mr. Portman.”

  “There’s something special about her, something important, I have this feeling—

  “Mr. Portman!”

  “Jacob, desist,” Millard hissed at me.

  “I just don’t think H would’ve sent us after her if she weren’t important, you know? He’s not an idiot.”

  “Mr. Portman, she is none of your concern!” Miss Peregrine yelled.

  I had never heard her shout like that. The room went quiet. Even the street noise coming through the window seemed to hush.

  She was trembling with anger.

  “Sometimes imperfect situations must be tolerated in order to achieve a greater good,” she said, struggling to control her tone. “The safety of one cannot outweigh the safety of thousands.”

  I was angry, too. Which is why I couldn’t come up with anything more articulate to say than “Well, that sucks.”

  Bronwyn gasped. No one spoke to Miss Peregrine that way.

  Miss Peregrine took a step forward. Leaned over me in my bed. “Yes, Mr. Portman, it sucks. But deciding between choices that suck is precisely why being a leader can suck. Which is precisely the reason we don’t, and will never, involve children in high-level leadership decisions.” She said the word children so pointedly, it felt like she was throwing it in our faces.

  I saw Emma’s brow furrow. “Miss Peregrine?” she said.

  Miss Peregrine turned sharply to face her, as if daring her to speak. “What is it, Miss Bloom?”

  “We aren’t children anymore.”

  “Yes,” she said, “you are. You have proven that today.” And she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.

  Miss Peregrine left a stunned silence in her wake. When the sound of her footfalls leaving the house had faded, my friends found their voices.

  “You’re such an ass, Portman,” said Enoch. “You made her even madder. Rambling on about that girl!”

  “If one of you were still in that loop, we’d all be worried,” I said. “Why shouldn’t we worry about her?”

  “It’s none of our concern,” Bronwyn mumbled. “Like Miss P said.”

  “They’re not going to kill her or anything,” said Enoch. “She’s got to be safer with Leo’s people than she was hiding from helicopters in some abandoned building.”

  “We don’t know that!” I said. “The mission was to get her to a safe loop, not just drop her off wherever—”

  “Forget the bloody mission!” Emma exploded. “There is no mission anymore! Mission over! Mission stupid to begin with!”

  “Agreed, agreed, agreed,” said Bronwyn. “We should just forget it ever happened and hope the ymbyrnes forgive us.”

  “It was partly their fault!” I said. “None of this would have happened if they had just told us what was going on. I didn’t know they were forging some peace accord . . .”

  “Don’t try and pin this on the ymbrynes,” Bronwyn said.

  “They treat us like idiots!” I said. “You all said it yourselves!”

  “I don’t know about you,” said Bronwyn, “but after seeing how the Americans live, I’m glad we have ymbrynes, and I’m never going to complain about them again. So if that’s what we’re doing right now, please count me out.”

  “I’m not complaining, I’m just saying—”

  “We’re not their equals, Jacob. And you aren’t, either. I mean, it’s really great what you did for everybody in the Library of Souls, but just because you’re a famous hero and people want your autograph doesn’t mean you’re as important as an ymbryne.”

  “I never said I was.”

  “Well, you’re acting like you are. So if Miss Peregrine wants to keep a secret from you, I’m sure there’s a good reason, and that’s the end of it.”

  Bronwyn turned and went out, leaving another silence behind her.

  “What about the rest of you?”I said.

  “What about us, what?” Emma said sourly.

  “What happened to being independent? Making our own decisions? Is that all out the window now that Miss P is pissed at us?”

  “Don’t be purposely thick,” said Enoch. “We could have started a war.”

  “Miss Peregrine has every right to be furious with us,” said Emma.

  “I agree that we are often treated like children,” said Millard. “But we picked a bad time to assert our independence.”

  “We couldn’t have known that,” I said. “But just because we made one mistake doesn’t mean we should give up completely.”

  “Yes, it does,” said Enoch. “In this case, it does. I’m going to put my head down, sweep some chimneys, and hope things go back to normal soon.”

  “What a heroic sentiment,” I said.

  Enoch laughed, but I could tell I’d hurt him. He came up to my bed, pulled some wilted daisies from his pocket, and tossed them onto my blanket. “You’re no hero, either,” he said. “You’re not Abe Portman and you’re never going to be. So why don’t you just stop trying.” And he walked out.

  I felt frozen. I didn’t know what to say.

  “I’d better be going, too,” Millard mumbled. “I don’t want the headmistress to think we’re . . .”

  I couldn’t hear the rest of what he said.

  “What? Conspiring?”

  “Something like that,” he said.

  “What about the others? Are they coming to see me?” I hadn’t seen Horace, Hugh, Olive, or Claire since we’d left on the mission, which felt like a lifetime ago.

  “I don’t think so,” said Millard. “See you later, Jacob.”

  I didn’t like how this was ending. I could feel a line being drawn, with me on one side, and everyone else on the other.

  Millard left, his coat and pants floating out the door. And now I was alone with Emma—and she was moving toward the exit, too.

  “Don’t leave,” I said, a sudden, shameful desperation coming over me.

  “I really should. I’m sorry, Jacob.”

  “It doesn’t have to be over. This is just a setback.”

  “Stop. Please.” Her eyes were brimming with tears, and so, I realized, were mine. “It does. It does have to be over.”

 
“We’ll get H on the phone somehow, talk about what happened, what to do next—”

  “Listen, Jacob. Please listen.” She pressed her palms together and touched the tips of her fingers to her lips—prayerful, pleading. “You’re not Abe,” she said. “You’re not Abe, and I’m afraid if you keep trying to be, it will kill you.” She turned away slowly, the doorway framing her, and walked out.

  * * *

  • • •

  I lay in bed listening to noise from the street, thinking, dreaming, talking with Rafael when he came in to sprinkle me with strange dusts. I drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep. My emotions swung between anger and regret. Yes, I felt abandoned by my friends—could I even call them that anymore?—but part of me understood why they’d refused to take my side. They had risked a lot for me and nearly lost it all. I didn’t know if you could be excommunicated from peculiardom, but I imagine we’d all come close.

  I was angry at Emma, too, for what she’d done, for what she’d said, for walking away. But I also wondered if the breakdown of our relationship had been my fault. Had I pushed her toward old feelings she’d purposely avoided for years? If I had never gone into Abe’s bunker, never called H, never involved Emma in any of this, would we still be together?

  And Miss Peregrine. Miss P could be suffocating and frustrating and condescending, but she did have reason to be angry with me. So did my friends. The whole undertaking had been motivated to an uncomfortable degree by my own frustration with the ymbrynes and anger at my parents. The problem, really, was that I had been trying to navigate a world for which I had not been prepared. The peculiar universe was deeply complex, with rules and traditions and taxonomies and histories that even my friends, who had been studying it for nearly all of their long lives, had not yet wrapped their minds around. Newcomers should be required to train and study as hard as astronauts preparing for space. But when Miss Peregrine’s loop collapsed, I was thrown into it with no choice but to swim for my life. Miraculously, through some combination of dumb luck, peculiar talent, and the bravery of my friends, I had survived—emerged victorious, even.

  But luck isn’t something you can depend upon, and my mistake was thinking I could dive in again and everything would work out somehow. In a fit of pique, and completely of my own accord, I had jumped back into that dark water, and had lashed several of my friends to me in the bargain, which was not only unwise, ultimately, but unkind. And I had very nearly died.