Anna Peregrine--Hollow City

Chapter Two

We ran through the forest for what seemed like forever. The sound of men and dogs made us run on for as long as we could. We had gone through an ice cold stream to get the dogs to lose our scent. We began to fail drastically. The two little girls were falling behind, and Bronwyn had to carry them in her arms, but that caused her to fall behind. Horace tripped over a root and fell on the ground, completely out of breath.

"Up, you lazy sod!" Enoch said, but he was completely out of breath too, and ended up leaning against a tree.

"It's alright, the both of you. They lost our scent," I said.

"It's no use running circles in the dark like this, anyway. We could just as easily end up right back where we started," Emma said.

"We'll be able to make better sense of this forest in the light of day," Millard added.

"Provided we live that long," Enoch said.

I glared at him as it started to lightly rain. Fiona used her peculiarity to make us a shelter, making a ring of trees lower their branches, and making a watertight roof of leaves. We all got in under the shelter, quiet. I held my mum tight to my stomach, wishing she would just turn back into a human and comfort all of us. Being a Ymbryne was tough, especially when you had to protect children from men with guns and dogs. What would happen if we were caught?

Claire started to cry softly at first, but then got louder, not being able to catch a breath between her sobs.

"Get a hold of yourself! They'll hear you--and then we'll all have something to cry about!" Enoch said.

I put my mum on top of one of our trunks as Claire began to cry more, "They're going to feed us to their dogs! They're going to shoot holes in us and take Miss Peregrine away!"

I scooted over to the girl, wrapping her in my arms, "Please, Claire! You've got to think about something else!"

"I'm truh--trying."

"Try harder," I said soothingly, running my long nails through her curls, being cautious about her back mouth.

She closed her eyes, and took in a deep breath, holding it, then burst into a coughing fit of sobs louder than before. Enoch put his hands on both of her mouths, "Shhhhhh!"

"I'm suh-suh-sorry!" she cried. "Muh-maybe if I could hear a story . . . one of the tuh--Tales . . ."

"Not this again, I'm beginning to wish we'd lost those damned books at sea with the rest of our things!" Millard said.

Mum spoke up, well the best she could anyways, and tapped the trunk I placed her on. The Tales of the Peculiar were in there.

"I'm with Miss P, it's worth a try--anything to stop her bawling!"

"Alright then, Claire-Bear, but just one tale, but you've got to promise to stop crying," I said.

"I pruh--promise," she sniffled.

I took my mother off the trunk and placed her on the ground before opening the trunk up, finding the Tales. Emma scooted closer to us, lighting a flame on her fingertip. Mum hopped onto my thigh, and opened the book to a random chapter.

I began to read, "Once upon a peculiar time, in a forest deep and ancient, there roamed a great many animals. There were rabbits and deer and foxes, just as there are in every forest, but there were animals of a less common sort, too, like stilt-legged grimbears and two-headed lynxes and talking emu-raffes. These peculiar animals were a favorite target of hunters, who love to shoot them and mount them on walls and show them off to their hunter friends, but loved even more to sell them to zookeepers, who would lock them in cages and charge money to view them. Now, you might think it would be far better to be locked in a cage than to be shot and mounted upon a wall, but peculiar creatures must roam free to be happy, and after a while the spirits of caged ones wither, and they begin to envy their wall-mounted friends."