Library of Souls (49 page)

“Nothing happened,” I said, “just so you know.”

“I'm sure I'm not interested,” she said. “You're leaving us today, correct?”

“How did you know?”

“I may, strictly speaking, be an elderly woman, but I've still got my wits about me. I know you feel torn between your parents and us, your old home and your new one … or what's left of it. You want to strike a balance without choosing sides, and without hurting any of the people you love. But it isn't easy. Or even, necessarily, possible. Is that about the size of it?”

“It's … yeah. That's pretty much it.”

“And where have you left things with Miss Bloom?”

“We're friends,” I said, testing the word uneasily.

“And you're unhappy about it.”

“Well, yeah. But I understand … I think.”

She cocked her head. “Do you?”

“She's protecting herself.”

“And you,” Miss Peregrine added.

“That I don't get.”

“You're very young, Jacob. There are many things you're not
likely to ‘get.' ”

“I don't see what my age has to do with it.”

“Everything!” She laughed, quick and sharp. And then she saw that I really didn't understand, and she softened a bit. “Miss Bloom was born near the turn of the last century,” she said. “Her heart is old and steady. Perhaps you worry she'll soon replace you—that some peculiar Romeo will turn her head. I wouldn't count it likely. She's fixed on you. I've never seen her as happy with anyone. Even Abe.”

“Really?” I said, a surge of warmth building in my chest.

“Really. But as we've established, you're young. Only sixteen—sixteen for the first time. Your heart is just waking up, and Miss Bloom is your first love. Is she not?”

I nodded sheepishly. But yes, undoubtedly. Anyone could see it.

“You may have other loves,” Miss Peregrine said. “Young hearts, like young brains, can have short attention spans.”

“I don't,” I said. “I'm not like that.”

I knew it sounded like something an impulsive teenager would say, but at that moment, I was as sure about Emma as I'd ever been about anything.

Miss Peregrine nodded slowly. “I'm glad to hear that,” she said. “Miss Bloom may have given you permission to break her heart, but I have not. She's very important to me, and not half as tough as she lets on. I can't have her mooning about and setting things on fire should you find yourself distracted by the feeble charms of some normal girl. I've been through that already, and we simply haven't the furniture to spare. Do you understand?”

“Um,” I said, caught off guard, “I think so …”

She stepped closer and said it again, her voice dropping low and stony. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, Miss Peregrine.”

She nodded sharply, then smiled and patted my shoulder. “Okay, then. Good talk.” And before I could respond she was
marching back into the library and calling out, “Breakfast!”

* * *

I left an hour later, accompanied to the dock by Emma and Miss Peregrine and a full complement of our friends and ymbrynes. Sharon was waiting with a new boat left behind by fleeing Ditch pirates. There was a long exchange of hugs and tearful goodbyes, which ended with me promising I would come and see everyone again—even though I didn't know how I'd manage that anytime soon, what with international flights to pay for and parents to convince.

“We'll never forget you, Jacob!” Olive said, sniffling.

“I shall record your story for posterity,” Millard promised. “That will be my new project. And I'll see that it's included in a new edition of the
Tales of the Peculiar
. You'll be famous!”

Addison approached with the two grimbear cubs trailing him. I couldn't tell if he had adopted them or they him. “You're the fourth-bravest human I've ever known,” he said. “I hope we'll meet again.”

“I hope so, too,” I said, and meant it.

“Oh, Jacob, may we come and visit you?” begged Claire. “I've always wanted to see America.”

I didn't have the heart to explain why it wasn't possible. “Of course you can,” I said. “I'd love that.”

Sharon rapped his staff on the side of the boat. “All aboard!”

Reluctantly I climbed in, and then Emma and Miss Peregrine boarded, too. They had insisted on staying with me until I met my parents, and I hadn't put up a fight. It would be easier to say goodbye in stages.

Sharon unmoored the boat and we pushed off. Our friends waved and called to us as we floated away. I waved back, but it hurt too much to watch them recede, so I half closed my eyes until
the current had taken us around a bend in the Ditch, and they were gone.

None of us felt like talking. In silence we watched the sagging buildings and rickety bridges pass. After a while we came to the crossover, were sucked rudely through the same underpass by which we'd entered, and spat out the other side into a muggy, modern afternoon. The crumbling tenements of Devil's Acre were gone, glass-fronted condos and shining office towers risen up in their place. A motorboat buzzed past.

The sounds of a busy, preoccupied present-day filtered in. A car alarm. A cell phone ringing. Jangly pop music. We passed a fancy canal-side restaurant, but thanks to Sharon's enchantment, the diners on the patio didn't see us as we floated by. If they had, I wondered what they would've thought of us: two teenagers in black, a woman in Victorian formalwear, and Sharon in his Grim Reaper cloak, poling us out of the underworld. Who knows—maybe the modern world was so jaded that no one would have batted an eye.

My parents were another story, though—and now that we were back in the present, just what that story would be was starting to concern me. They already thought I'd lost my mind, or gotten into hard drugs. I'd be lucky if they didn't ship me off to a mental hospital. Even if they didn't, I'd be doing damage control for years. They would never trust me again.

But it was my struggle, and I would find a way to deal with it. The easiest thing for
me
would be to tell them the truth—but again, I couldn't. My parents would never understand this part of my life, and to try and force them to could land
them
in a mental hospital.

My dad already knew more about the peculiar children than was good for him. He'd met them all on Cairnholm, though he'd thought he was dreaming. Then Emma had left him that letter and a photo of herself with my grandfather. As if that weren't bad enough, over the phone I'd actually
told
my dad I was peculiar. That had been a mistake, I realized, and selfish. And now here I was heading
to meet them with Emma and Miss Peregrine at my side.

“On second thought,” I said, turning to them in the boat, “Maybe you shouldn't come with me.”

“Why not?” Emma said. “We won't age forward
that
quickly …”

“I don't think my parents should see me with you. This is all going to be hard enough to explain as it is.”

“I've given some thought to this,” said Miss Peregrine.

“To what? My parents?”

“Yes. I can help you with them, if you like.”

“How?”

“One of an ymbryne's myriad duties is dealing with normals who become problematically curious about us, or otherwise troublesome. We have ways of making them uncurious, of making them forget they've seen certain things.”

“Did you know about this?” I asked Emma.

“Sure. If it wasn't for the wipe, peculiars would be in the news every other day.”

“So it … wipes people's memories?”

“It's more a selective cherry-picking of certain inconvenient recollections,” said Miss Peregrine. “It's quite painless and has no side effects. Still, it may strike you as extreme. I leave it to your discretion.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay what?” said Emma.

“Okay, please do the memory wipe thing to my parents. That sounds amazing. And while you're at it, there was this time when I was twelve that I crashed my mom's car into the garage door …”

“Let's not get carried away, Mr. Portman.”

“Just kidding,” I said, though I'd only sort of been. Either way, I was hugely relieved. Now I wouldn't have to spend the rest of my adolescence apologizing for the time I ran away, made my parents think I was dead, and nearly ruined their lives forever. Which was nice.

S
haron dropped us off at the same dark, rat-infested under-jetty where we'd first met him. Stepping off his boat there gave me a twinge of bittersweet nostalgia. I may have been terrified and filthy and in various exotic forms of pain every second of the last several days, but I would probably never have an adventure like this again. I would miss it—not so much the trials I'd endured as the person I'd been while I endured them. There was an iron will inside me, I knew that now, and I hoped I could hang on to it even as my life grew softer.

“So long,” Sharon said. “I'm glad I met you, despite all the endless trouble you caused me.”

“Yeah, me too.” We shook hands. “It's been interesting.”

“Wait here for us,” Miss Peregrine said to him. “Miss Bloom and I will be back within an hour or two.”

Finding my parents turned out to be easy. It would've been even easier if I'd still had my phone, but as it was, all we had to do was report to a police station. I was a known missing person, and within half an hour of giving an officer my name and sitting down on a bench to wait, my mother and father arrived. They were wearing rumpled clothes that had clearly been slept in, my mother's normally perfect makeup was a mess, my dad had a three-day beard, and they were both holding stacks of
MISSING
posters with my face on them. I felt instantly and comprehensively awful for what I'd put them through. But as I tried to apologize, they dropped the posters and wrapped me in a two-way hug, and my words were lost in the folds of my dad's sweater.

“Jake, Jake, ohmygod, my little Jake,” my mother cried.

“It's him, it's really him,” my father said. “We were so worried, we were
so
worried …”

How long had I been gone? A week? Something like that, though it seemed like an eternity.

“Where
were
you?” my mother said. “What were you
doing
?”

The hug broke but still I couldn't get a word in.

“Why did you run away like that?” my father demanded. “What were you thinking, Jacob?”

“You gave me gray hairs!” my mother said, then threw her arms around me a second time.

My dad looked me over. “Where are your clothes? What's this you're wearing?”

I was still in my black adventure clothes. Oops. They'd be easier to explain than nineteenth-century clothes, though, and thankfully Mother Dust had healed all the cuts on my face …

“Jacob, say something!” my father demanded.

“I'm really, really sorry,” I said. “I would never have put you through this if I could've helped it, but everything's okay now. Things are going to be fine. You won't understand, and that's okay, too. I love you guys.”

“You're right about one thing,” my dad said. “We don't understand. At all.”

“But it's not okay,” said my mom. “You
will
give us an explanation.”

“We'll need one, too,” said a police officer who'd been standing by. “And a drug test.”

Things were slipping beyond my control. It was time to pull the rip cord.

“I'll tell you everything,” I said, “but first I'd like you to meet a friend of mine. Mom, Dad, this is Miss Peregrine.”

I saw my dad's eyes go to Miss P, then to Emma. He must've recognized her, because he looked like he'd seen a ghost. But it was
okay—he would forget soon enough.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” said Miss Peregrine, shaking both my parents' hands. “You have a terrific son, just a topnotch boy. Not only is Jacob a perfect gentleman, he's even more talented than his grandfather.”

“His grandfather?” said my dad. “How do you …”

“Who is this bizarre woman?” my mother said. “How do you know our son?”

Miss Peregrine gripped their hands and stared deeply into their eyes. “Alma Peregrine, Alma LeFay Peregrine. Now, I understand you've had a dreadful time here in the British Isles. Just an awful trip. I think it would be best for everyone involved if you just forgot it ever happened. Don't you agree?”

“Yes,” my mother said, a faraway look in her eyes.

“I agree,” said my father, sounding slightly hypnotized.

Miss Peregrine had paused their brains.

“Fantastic, wonderful,” she said. “Now cast your eyes upon this, please.” She let go of their hands and drew a long, blue-spotted falcon feather from her pocket. And then a hot wave of guilt flashed through me, and I stopped her.