A Distant Memory - A MPHFPC Ending

~Chapter 3: Withheld Worries~

The dimly lit room in which Miss Avocet currently resided was quite simple: it housed a set of stiff, plain chairs, a hard table piled high with papers, and, of course, Miss Avocet herself. As she heard the Bentham siblings walk in, she fixed her milky eyes on them, finally looking up from her work.

'Please, take a seat.' She said, her fingers lying tented on a small, visible patch of the table. She waited until they were all settled, before continuing.

'My name is Esmeralda Avocet.'

'It's nice to meet you. I- I'm...' Caul stuttered, his seemingly inexhaustible enthusiasm faltering. His brow furrowed as he attempted to contemplate his own name, searching for information that had been taken from him.

'Ca- Jack!' Miss Peregrine hastily interjected, 'and he's Myron.' She added, gesturing to the respective person as she spoke.

'The pleasure is all mine.' Miss Avocet replied, flashing a tense smile. She seemed to be playing along.

Her slight smile faded, and she leaned forward attentively. 'As we have no time to waste,' she began. 'What do you know about Peculiardom?'

Myron finally looked up. ''Peculiardom'?'

Miss Peregrine and Miss Avocet exchanged a look. Her priorly knowledged brothers- after all, they'd known enough to infiltrate the Library of Souls- now knew just about nothing, not even their own names.

Some types of information are impossible to grasp unless experienced, and this was one such situation. Miss Peregrine- or anyone else except the two brothers, for that matter- couldn't possibly fathom how the pair must've felt. She could only imagine trying to find a piece of information, only to come up with nothing.

The Bentham brothers were most likely the most erudite peculiars in Peculiardom itself. Even Peculiardom's most experienced scholars could only see the shadows on the cave wall. Her brothers had come extremely close to seeing what was behind it all, but they'd been vanquished back to the start. She wondered if it was all for their own good, and if there were some secrets in the world too dangerous for anyone to know.

They were the only ones who'd been through Esoteric Sequestration, and lived to tell the tale- except they can't tell the tale.

Her frustration was building up, weighing down the irrational side of her mind's metaphorical scale. She heard Miss Avocet say something, and looked up, thankful for the distraction.

'Peculiardom,' Miss Avocet was saying, 'is a term that denotes every peculiar in our world. Aren't you peculiar?'

The question seemed to awaken something in the brothers, but they merely stared, saying nothing- for they didn't know what to say.

Miss Avocet's expression steeled slightly, and she nodded slowly in resolve, as if she were coming to a solution for a pressing argument.

'Please make your way to room one-hundred twenty.' She said, her barely functioning eyes wandering between the two brothers. 'It is located at the end of the hallway, and labeled clearly. Alma will be along later.'

Hushed by the authoritative presence of Miss Avocet, Jack and Myron got to their feet and made their way to the door. This time, though the brothers still knew almost nothing about their plight, Miss Peregrine was convinced that they wouldn't stray from their destination.

As soon as they'd left and closed the door behind them, Miss Avocet turned to Miss Peregrine, speaking quietly, as though worried that they were being eavesdropped on.

'What do you propose we do, Alma?'

The question was so straightforward, so point-blank, that Miss Peregrine couldn't answer it straight away, as she usually did.

'Miss Avocet, I'm not quite sure I follow.'

'They're your brothers, Alma. The only proper way to handle this would be to derive your opinion into the proceedings. Do you see fit to tell them the truth, or keep them in the dark?'

Miss Peregrine was quiet for a moment, puzzling over the question.

'If we tell them who they really are, and everything that they've ever done to their own kind, they wouldn't be able to handle it. They'll want to exile themselves, get as far away from us as possible, and I don't...' She hesitated briefly, her voice cracking. 'I don't think I'll be able to handle losing them, again.'

Miss Avocet didn't reply. She merely sat silently, waiting for something, until Miss Peregrine realized that she hadn't given her an answer, yet.

'I think we should let them know the basics of our history,' she said, choosing her words carefully, 'but withhold the fact that they were the ones who'd, in fact, caused the majority of our strife.'

She wasn't happy with her supposed solution, not really. She merely saw it as the best possible approach. She did find herself feeling slightly guilty, however, knowing that she was trying to hold back her brothers from themselves for her own selfish reasons.

Miss Avocet inclined her head slightly, assessing her verdict, then nodded.

'You'd better run along, then. They are waiting.'

She didn't need to ask what she had meant by 'they'.

Miss Peregrine bid her former mentor a good day, then made her way out the door. She walked in silence to the end of the hallway, where her brothers- and their near futures- were waiting for her. She longed to see her brave, chivalrous wards, but more pressing matters were near at hand.

As if fate had heard her unspoken thoughts and decided to intervene, she spotted Jacob Portman and Noor Pradesh emerging hand-in-hand from a corridor that perpendicularly intersected with the one she was walking through.

She stopped, and they did, too.

'Miss P!' Jacob called, relieved to see a familiar face. 'What's going on? There have been rumors...'

They had heard about her brothers, after all, but didn't know if the 'rumors' were true. Word did get around at incredible speeds, here.

'There's nothing wrong.' She informed, regretting the fact that she'd had to lie to them. 'You have all fought bravely, I suggest you get some rest.'

Jacob and Noor nodded reluctantly. They wanted to know what was going on, but they were tired and worn out, and deserved to savor a moment of peace. They turned and left the way they'd come, leaning on each other for support.

Miss Peregrine sighed, walking the last few feet to the room. She raised a hand to the doorknob, her heart sinking at the prospect of having to withhold information, or even lie to her brothers, yet again.