Miss Peregrine leapt from Fiona’s hair and began to race around on the scorched grass, squawking in alarm.
“Headmistress, what happened?” Olive said. “Why hasn’t the changeover come?”
Miss Peregrine could only screech in reply. She seemed as confused and frightened as the rest of us.
“Please turn back!” begged Claire, kneeling before her.
Miss Peregrine flapped and jumped and seemed to be straining herself, but still couldn’t shift her shape. The children crowded around in concern.
“Something’s wrong,” Emma said. “If she could turn human, she would’ve done it by now.”
“Perhaps that’s why the loop slipped,” Enoch suggested. “Remember that old story about Miss Kestrel, when she was thrown from her bicycle in a road accident? She knocked her head and stayed a kestrel for a whole entire week. That’s when her loop slipped.”
“What’s that got to do with Miss Peregrine?”
Enoch sighed. “Maybe she’s only injured her head and we just need to wait a week for her to come to her senses.”
“A speeding lorry’s one thing,” Emma said. “Being abused by wights is quite another. There’s no knowing what that bastard did to Miss Peregrine before we got to her.”
“Wights? As in plural?”
“It was wights who took Miss Avocet,” I said.
“How do you know that?” demanded Enoch.
“They were working with Golan, weren’t they? And I saw the eyes of the one who shot at us. There’s no question.”
“Then Miss Avocet’s as good as dead,” said Hugh. “They’ll kill her for sure.”
“Maybe not,” I replied. “At least not right away.”
“If there’s one thing I know about wights,” said Enoch, “it’s that they kill peculiars. It’s their nature. It’s what they do.”
“No, Jacob’s right,” said Emma. “Before that wight died, he told us why they’ve been abducting so many ymbrynes. They’re going to force them to re-create the reaction that made the hollows in the first place—only bigger. Much bigger.”
I heard someone gasp. Everyone else fell silent. I looked around for Miss Peregrine and saw her perched forlornly on the edge of Adam’s crater.
“We’ve got to stop them,” Hugh said. “We’ve got to find out where they’re taking the ymbrynes.”
“How?” said Enoch. “Follow a submarine?”
Behind me a throat cleared loudly, and we turned to see Horace sitting cross-legged on the ground. “I know where they’re going,” he said quietly.
“What do you mean, you know?”
“Never mind how he knows, he knows,” said Emma. “Where are they taking her, Horace?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know the name,” he said, “but I’ve seen it.”
“Then draw it,” I said.
He thought for a moment and then rose stiffly. Looking like a beggar evangelist in his torn black suit, he shuffled to an ash pile that had spilled from the cracked-open house and bent to gather a palm full of soot. Then, in the soft light of the moon, he began to paint on a broken wall with broad strokes.
We gathered around to watch. He made a row of bold vertical stripes topped with thin loops, like bars and razor wire. To one side was a dark forest. There was snow on the ground, rendered in black. And that was all.
When it was done, he staggered back and sat down hard in the grass, a dull distant look in his eyes. Emma took him gently by the shoulder and said, “Horace, what more do you know about this place?”
“It’s somewhere cold.”
Bronwyn stepped forward to study the marks Horace had made. She held Olive in the crook of her arm, the little girl’s head resting sweetly on her shoulder. “Looks like a jail to me,” said Bronwyn.
Olive raised her head. “Well?” came her small voice. “When do we go?”
“Go where?” Enoch said, tossing up his hands. “That’s just a lot of squiggles!”
“It’s somewhere,” Emma said, turning to face him.
“We can’t simply go someplace snowy and look for a prison.”
“And we can’t very well stay here.”
“Why not?”
“Look at the state of this place. Look at the headmistress. We had a damn good run here, but it’s over.”
Enoch and Emma went back and forth for a while. People took sides. Enoch’s argued that they’d been too long out of the world, that they’d get snared in the war or caught by hollows if they left, that it was better to take their chances here, where at least they knew the territory. The others insisted that the war and the hollows had come to them now, and they had no choice. The hollows and wights would return for Miss Peregrine, and in ever-greater numbers. And there was Miss Peregrine herself to consider.
“We’ll find another ymbryne,” Emma suggested. “If anyone will know how to help the headmistress, it’ll be one of her friends.”
“But what if all the other loops have slipped too?” said Hugh. “What if all the ymbrynes have already been kidnapped?”
“We can’t think that way. There must be some left.”
“Emma’s right,” Millard said, lying on the ground with a chunk of broken masonry under his head for a pillow. “If the alternative is to wait and just hope—that no more hollows come, that the headmistress gets better—I say that’s no alternative at all.”
The dissenters were finally shamed into agreement. The house would be abandoned. Belongings would be packed. A few boats would be requisitioned from the harbor and pressed into service, and in the morning everyone would go.
I asked Emma how they were going to navigate. After all, none the children had been off the island in nearly eighty years, and Miss Peregrine couldn’t speak or fly.
“There’s a map,” she told me, turning her head slowly to look at the smoking house. “If it hasn’t burned, that is.”
I volunteered to help her find it. Wrapping wet cloths over our faces, we ventured into the house, entering through the collapsed wall. The windows were shattered, the air hung with smoke, but by the bright light of Emma’s hand-flame we found our way to the study. All the shelves had fallen like dominoes, but we shoved them aside and searched through the books spilled across the floor, crouching low. As luck would have it, the book was easy to find: it was the largest one in the library. Emma yelped with joy and held it up.