Anna Peregrine--A Map of Days

Chapter Six

    I barely slept that night. I was anxious for the journey ahead, and what my mother will do when she finds out I'm gone.
    Jacob and I drove to Abe's house the next morning. Jacob led me to his office before opening a trap door. We climbed down, and I could see that Abe had made a bunker in case of any hollowgast attacks. If only he was in it the night he died.
    We kept looking around for these cars that H spoke of until I found a handle in the wall between two shelves. I twisted it before a door opened in the wall. Jacob and I started to enter it, the ceiling dropping even lower. My boyfriend propped the door behind us as we kept going.
    We came to a concrete staircase that led to a metal door. We slid it aside to find a closet. Jacob opened it.
    We walked into a bedroom above ground.
    "What is this place?" I asked, looking around.
    "It could be a safe house," he answered, peeking into a bathroom.
    "Think anyone's here?" I whispered.
    "Probably not. But keep your guard up anyway."
    We walked down the hall, looking into other rooms as we passed. Out one of the windows, I could see Abe's house.
    We came into the garage, and now I saw the only reason why Abe had this house.
    "I'll be damned.", Jacob said. "He did have cars."
    There was a white Caprice Classic that was so ugly, but yet so Abe. There was also a black one that was like a Mustang, but bigger.
    "The Caprice," Jacob said, walking over to it. "It'll be better for incognito traveling."
    "You really didn't know he had these?" I asked.
    "None. I knew he used to drive, but my dad made him give it up when he failed a vision test at the DMV. He used to go on these solo trips. Days at time, sometimes weeks. Just like when my dad was a kid, only less frequent. To go from that to needing em and my parents drive him to the grocery store and the doctor-that must have been hard."
    "And yet he kept his cars."
    "And maintained them. He must've snuck out here every so often to work on them. Shine them, change the oil. So they'd be easily accessible but hidden from my family," Jacob opened the car, fiddling around with something before pulling out a card, handing it to me. "Ever heard of Andrew Gandy?"
    "Must have been a false name he used," I turned the card around.
    "It's almost nine. Let's pick a car and go."
    "You're driving. You choose."
    He chose the coupe. We got in and Jacob opened the garage door and started the car. The engine roared to life, being so incredibly loud.
    As Jacob backed it out of the driveway, I chuckled, "Just like Abe!"
    "What is?"
    "To have a car like this for secret missions."

*   *   *    *    *

    We got back to the house to find out that my mother had returned from the Acre, but collapsed upstairs in her bed. Funny, she was actually sleeping on her own without anyone telling her to.
    We got everyone else downstairs so we didn't wake her up. Jacob asked people to raise their hands for who would want to come. Me, Emma, Olive, Enoch, and Millard did. The others did not.
    "Missions make me nervous," Horace said.
    "Claire, why isn't your hand up?" Emma asked, surprised.
    "We already have missions. I'm head of lunch and dessert distribution to all the loop reconstruction teams in Belgium."
    "That's not a mission, Claire, that's a job."
    "You're delivering packages!" the little girl sneered. "How is that a mission?"
    "The mission is helping a peculiar in danger.", Millard said. "After the packages are delivered."
    "Bronwyn, what about you?" I asked. "In or out?"
    "Lying to Miss P makes me uncomfortable. Shouldn't we tell her about this?" she asked.
    "NO!" the rest of us but Claire said.
    "Why not?"
    "It makes me uncomfortable, too, but she'll stop us from going, so we can't," Jacob said.
    "If we really want to help peculiarkind, this is how," Emma said. "By becoming the next generation of fighters, not posing for photo opportunities in the Acre."
    "Or asking permission every time we want to do anything," Enoch said.
    "Exactly! The headmistress still treats us like children. We're all nearly a century old, for bird's sake, and it's about time we start acting our age. Or half our age, anyway. We've got to start making decisions for ourselves," Millard said.
    "Just what I've been saying for years."
    I looked over at Hugh who was pretty quiet, "What about you?"
    "I would come, but I've got my own mission to do."
    Fiona.
    "We understand. We'll keep a lookout for her on our travels," Jacob said.
    Hugh nodded, "Thanks, Jacob."
    "Okay, I'll come.", Bronwyn said. "I don't like lying, but if we're really out to help a peculiar child whose life is in danger, and lying is the only way to do that, then it would be immoral not to lie, wouldn't it?"
    "That idea went past smart and back to dumb," Claire said.
    "Welcome aboard," I said to Bronwyn.
    Now it was time to pick our crew. Jacob and I decided that we could take three for space, and decided with Emma, Millard, and Bronwyn. The others were disappointed, but we promised to take them in the future.
    "If there are future missions," Enoch said. "Provided you don't muck this one up."
    "And what shall the rest of us do while you're gone?" Horace asked.
    "Just do your assignments in the Acre and act like nothing's wrong. You don't know anything about us or what we're up to," I answered.
    "Yes, we do. And if Miss Peregrine asks, I'm telling her," Claire said.
    Bronwyn picked her up, "Now, that is a dumb idea."
    Claire backmouth growled as she shouted, "Put me down!"
    "When Mum wakes up, she'll start asking where we are," I said. "She really just . . . went to sleep?"
    "I may have blown just a pinch of dust into the room," Millard said.
    "Millard! You scoundrel!" Horace said.
    "Well, that will certainly buy us some time," Emma said. "With any luck, she won't notice we're gone until tonight."

*    *     *    *    *

    "Now this," Millard said, slapping the hood of the coupe. "Is a proper road journey car."
    "It isn't," Bronwyn said. "It's too flash and too British."
    "What's wrong with it being British?" Emma asked.
    "It'll break down a lot. That's what they say about British cars, anyway."
    "Would Abe really have used this for  rescue missions if it was mechanically unsound?" Millard asked.
    "Abe knew lots about cars, including how to fix them," Enoch said.
    We turned our heads to see him leaning against the trunk with a bag over his shoulder. He had a smug smile.
    "You're not coming with us. There's no room," Jacob said.
    "Did I say I wanted to come?"
    "You look like you want to come. Now move," I said.
    Jacob went to the boot and tried to open it, but he couldn't. We kept watching him struggle, confused as to what was going on.
    "Allow me," Enoch said, twisting a knob between the taillights before popping it. "Aston Martin. Abe always did have style."
    "I thought it was some kind of Mustang.", Jacob said.
    "How dare you. This is a 1979 Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Three hundred ninety horsepower, zero to sixty in five seconds, top speed a hundred seventy miles per hour. A real beast--Britain's first muscle car."
    "Since when do you know so much about cars? Especially ones made after 1940?"
    "Magazines and manuals via mail order. Delivered to his post office box in present-day Cairnholm," Millard said.
    "Oh, he loves cars," I said. "Never actually drove one, mind you, but don't get him started on what's under the bonnet--"
    "I'm fascinated by the mechanical as well as the biomedical," Enoch said. "Organs. Engines. Swap oil for blood and they aren't so different. And I can resurrect a dead engine without needing a jar of hearts. Which is a good thing because this car, being British and nearly forty years old, is notoriously unreliable unless religiously maintained. And with Abe being dead and all, I'm fairly certain that I'm the only person within a thousand miles of here qualified to work on this car. Which is why, even though I don't want to--" He put his bag in the boot. "--you need me to come with you."
    "Oh, just get in so we can go already," Emma said.
    "Shotgun!" Enoch said, getting in the back.
    Everyone but my mother and Claire gathered to tell us goodbye. Claire sulked in the doorway, eyeing us.
   "When will you be back?" Hugh asked.
   "Give us a week before you start worrying," Jacob answered.
   "Way ahead of you," Horace said. "I'm worrying already."