Anna Peregrine--A Map of Days

Chapter Twelve

    Lilly emerged from the restroom a few minutes later. Millard ran to offer his arm. She took it subtly, so it wouldn't look strange to the people in the cafe. Once they made it back over, she said, "Okay. She's agreed to meet you."
    "That's great. Where?" Jacob asked.
    "I'll have to show you the way. Where she is, I'm the only one who can reach her."
    We followed Lilly out a back door into an alley. Jacob walked around the front to get the car before driving in, all of us piling in. Millard insisted that Lily would ride up front. I was then crammed in the back with Emma. We started to drive, and the character of the neighbourhood changed. The houses got older and uglier before disappearing all together. Jacob took some turns before we finally came to a row of brick warehouses.
    Before we left the car, Jacob grabbed his duffel bag and put some items in it before turning to us, "Ready."
    "How do we get in?" I asked.
    "There's a hidden entrance. Follow me," Lilly said.
    We took off, following Lilly down the street.
    "You really seem to know where you're going,"Millard said.
    "Yeah. We've hung out here a few times, Noor and me. When we need to get away from people?" Lilly said.
    "Like who?" Jacob asked.
    "You know. Parents. Noor's foster parents, especially," Lilly muttered something under her breath, but I couldn't hear it.
    We turned into an alleyway. Half way down, Lilly started to feel the wooden boards before stopping at one, "Here." She pushed the board and tipped it upwards to reveal an entrance. "After you."
    "You guys hang out here?" Bronwyn asked.
    "It's pretty safe. Not even the bums know how to get in."
    We stepped inside, and right away I got a weird feeling about the place. Nothing to do with wights or hollowgasts, but it was just sketchy.
    Lilly got out her phone and pushed a button, "Coming up."
    She texted Noor. A moment later a reply came, and her phone read it aloud, "Stop at the atrium and wait. I want to get a look at them."
    I started feeling a pull, and right away I knew we were close to her. We followed Lilly through the scaffolding of the building. Jacob's phone started buzzing, "Just a minute."
    Oh hell, not my mum calling from somewhere please. He walked away from us and talked for a minute before coming back to us.
    "Who's that?" I asked.
    "Wrong number."
    We walked through the warehouse and climbed six flights of stairs. As soon as we left the stairwell, all light ceased to exist. Not even from the stairwell.
    "Like the auditorium door," Jacob said.
    "Mm–hmm.", Emma said.
    Jacob took out his flashlight and shone it, but there was no beam. Emma lit a flame in her hand, but the glow petered out a few inches.
    "Noor took the light. So no one can find her but me," Lilly said.
    "Brilliant," Enoch said.
    "Link arms and form a human chain behind me. I'll guide us."
    We followed her down the hall, stumbling through the dark. Twice we passed rooms lit by windows, but there was no light outside. We made a few turns, and the sound of her steps changed. We were in a large room now.
    "We're here!" Lilly called out.
    A beam of light shone down from below. We shielded our eyes, blinded by it.
    "Let me see your faces!" a girl called down. "And tell me your names!"
    I moved my hand away, squinting from the light. Being half avian did not help right now.
    "Who are you? What do you want?" the girl asked.
    "May we talk face-to-face?" I asked.
    "Not yet."
    I blew out some air, wondering how many times my mother was in this situation when she found a peculiar. Then I realised, could this girl be my first ward?
    "We travelled a long way to find you," I said. "We came to tell you you're not alone, that there are others like you. We're like you."
    "You don't know the first thing about me."
    "We know you're not like most people," Emma said.
    "And there are people who are after you," Jacob said.
    "And you're scared. I was scared, too, when I first realised how different I was from most people," Bronwyn said.
    "Yeah? Different how?" Noor asked.
    Emma lit a flame, Bronwyn lifted a block of concrete, Millard picked up some objects, and I quickly turned into a bird, flying up to her before swooping back down, changing back. Emma and Bronwyn covering me so I could change back into my clothes.
    "He's the one I was telling you about," Lilly said, referring to Millard
    "So, can we talk?" I asked Noor.
    "Wait there.", she said, and then the light winked out.
    We waited in the dark until we heard her footsteps approaching. Then we saw her. She was literally glowing. Light surrounded her, it was insane. She was a teenager though, and I could tell she was Indian, and tall, with jet black hair and wide eyes. Every pore of her skin was emanating light. The windbreaker and jeans she wore shone light as well.
    Noor hugged Lilly hard. The top of Lilly's head only touched her cheek, and soon it looked like Lilly was glowing.
    "Are you okay?" Lilly asked.
    "Bored, mostly.", Noor said, making Lilly laugh.
    Lilly turned to us, "This is Noor."
    "Hi.", Noor said, assessing us.
    "Noor, this is . . . uh, what do you call yourselves?" Lilly was looking at Emma.
    "I'm Emma."
    "I mean, what are you, again?"
    "Emma's good enough for now, I think."
    "I'm Jacob."
    "I'm Anna," I stepped towards Noor. "Is there somewhere we can talk?"
    "Sure. Let me show you to the grand salon," she said.
    She led us to a different room with concrete walls. We sat and talked. I really wanted to do the talking, to introduce her to our world, but Jacob decided it would be easier if he did it, since he's only known about us for a few months now. He told her about how he grow up thinking he was an average teenager and how Abe's death sparked his quest for the truth, finding our loop and all of us peculiar children.
    Noor put up her hand to stop him, "I was with you until time loop."
    "Oh, right. I'm so used to this stuff now, I forget how bizarre it must sound."
    "It's a day that repeats over and over again, every twenty-four hours," I explained. "They have sheltered our kind from danger for centuries."
    "Normal people can't enter them. Nor could the monsters who used to hunt us," Millard said.
    "What monsters?" Noor asked.
    We tried to explain what a hollowgast looked like, smelled like, and sounded like. When we finished, she looked completely puzzled.
    "What's wrong?" Jacob asked. "Have you been attacked by one?"
    "I'm trying to figure you out. You talk like crazy people. Time loops. Monsters nobody can see. Shape-shifting," Noor went to a couch and grabbed a comic book. "You talk like you've read too many of these . And I would one hundred percent have kicked your asses out of here already if not for Lilly, who really seems to like you, and that–well–"
    "This," Emma lit a ball of fire in her hand.
    "Yeah," Noor dropped the comic book. "That. And it's not monsters who've been chasing me. At least, I don't think they are."
    "Why don't you tell them about it? They want to help," Lilly said.
    "You know how many times I've heard that in my life? 'They only want to help. Trust them. What could it hurt?' Always the same lines," Noor drew in a sharp breath and let it out sharply. "But I guess in this case, I'm out of options."
    "You're hiding in an abandoned building. Relying on a blind girl to bring you food," Enoch said.
    "So what makes you peculiar, little man?"
    "Oh, nothing too interesting," Emma said.
    "Excuse me? What, are you embarrassed?" Enoch asked.
    "Of course not. I just thought it might be a little . . . soon."
    "If anything, it's late. It's cards-on-the-table time. No secrets," Noor said.
    Enoch shoved Emma aside, "You heard the lady. No secrets."
    "Fine. Just don't go overboard," she said
    Enoch fished a plastic bag from his pocket that swung with weight, "Luckily, I saved a cat heart from the school. Has anyone got a doll or a stuffed animal? Or . . . a dead animal?"
    Noor recoiled slightly, "There's a room full of mummified pigeons down the hall."
    Why is it always something with pigeons in our adventures?
    Noor went and showed him where they were at. A minute later she came running into the room laughing and swatting at the air. A pigeon missing a wing and both of its eyes came flying into the room, flying madly. The rest of us covered our heads as it dove away. The bird flung itself against the wall before dropping to ground, back to land of the dead.
    Enoch ran in, "I've never controlled a bird before! Wicked!"
    "That was nuts," Noor said, catching her breath. "What the hell?!"
    "What can I say? I'm extremely talented."
    "You're a freak!" Noor laughed again. "But I think it's cool. Really."
    Enoch beamed.
    "Now you know everything," Emma said to Noor.
    "Your turn," Jacob said.
    "Okay, okay," she went to the couch and sat. "It'll be a relief to tell you, actually. The only person who knows any of this is Lilly. The first time I noticed something weird was last spring. It's so strange to be saying any of this out loud."
    "Take your time. We're not in a rush," I said.
    The girl nodded appreciatively, "June second, a Tuesday, early afternoon. I had just gotten home from school, and Fartface–that's my not-father–had been waiting around for me all day. We had a super-long talk about how I was wasting my time with clubs after school and instead I should get a crappy minimum-wage job at Ices Queen down the street. I told him my after-school things were for college applications and I didn't need extra money, and anyway the state was paying him and Teena to take care of me. He didn't like that. He started yelling. And I did what I always do when he yells, which is to run into the kids' room, where my two not-siblings and I live, and which has a door with a lock. Greg and Amber weren't home, so I was the only one in there, and Fartface wouldn't  leave me alone. He kept yelling through the door, and I was getting more and more upset, and I didn't know what to do, and finally I opened my mouth to scream back at him, but instead of my voice coming out? All the lights in the room got brighter for a second–like much brighter–and then broke."
    "And that's when you knew? That you were different?" Emma asked.
    "No, no, I thought there was a ghost in the room with me or something. I didn't realize anything until a few days later. At El Taco Junior."
    "Oh my God, right," Lilly said. "That was the day?"
    "Mm-hmm. I had just gotten accepted into this accelerated student arts program at Bard. I never thought I had a chance, but you made me apply."
    "You were always going to get in, come on."
    "It was for college credit and everything, but it cost three thousand dollars, which was exactly two thousand and six hundred dollars more than I had. So I was going to quit the after-school stuff and get that job at Ices Queen to pay for it. Fartface said 'damn right' I was getting that job, but the money I made was going to their household bills, not to pay for some college before I was even out of high school. So I reminded him that I had the legal right to an emancipation bank account, and he started yelling again, and anyway that's when I ran away and met you at El Taco Junior."
    "He followed her," Lilly told us. "And screamed at her right there in the restaurant. And then I started yelling at him, and I guess he couldn't bring himself to scream at a blind girl in public, so he stormed off into the street to wait for us to finish."
    "So we had the longest taco meal in history," Noor said.
    "We actually had time to finish the Macho Meal together, which we'd never done before because it's forty-six hundred calories, but we sat there so long and I was just stress-eating . . ."
    "While he was standing in the street just staring at us. Finally, I got really upset and couldn't take it anymore, and to keep from losing my shit with Fartface watching, I ran into the bathroom. And that's where it happened. I could feel it building up in me, and I was about to scream, but this time I held it in. And the lights in the bathroom started to flicker and get weird, and I–I don't know how to explain it, I just knew what to do. Knew I could. I reached out, reached above me, and scooped the light out of the air. And the whole room went dark, but the little space inside my hands was glowing like I had the world's brightest firefly."
    "That is so wickedly cool," Enoch said.
    "You'd think so, but it was scary as hell. I thought my brain had broken. It started happening all the time, and at first I didn't know how to control it. Whenever I'd get really upset–sad or pissed off about something–it would start to happen. And because school is so awful, it happened a lot at school. I could feel it coming, though, and I always managed to run away just in time, into some room where I could be alone and no one would see. I think a few people did notice something, though they couldn't exactly connect it to me–they'd just see me looking upset and some lights flickering. But it was about then that they started coming around school. The new people," Noor said.
    "Who were they?" I asked.
    "I still don't know. They looked like faculty, and the faculty seemed to treat them like they belonged on campus, but no one recognized them. At first they seemed to be watching everyone, but after a while I got the feeling they were looking for me. Then that thing in the auditorium happened, and then I knew for sure."
    "What happened exactly?"
    "We read about it in a newspaper, but we'd love to hear your version of events," Millard said.
    "That was the worst day in my life. Well, maybe the second or third worst. I had an episode in the middle of a school assembly. It started out as one of those awful, mandatory things where they drone at you about school spirit, but then it turned into an assembly about me. Except they didn't know it was me. They said someone had been vandalizing school property, breaking light bulbs and burning things, and they said if the person was in the room they should stand up and apologize, and they wouldn't be expelled. Otherwise, they would. And I started feeling sick, like I was sure they knew it was me but they were just messing with my head to see if I would confess. And then this girl in the row behind me–this total witch, Suze Grant–starts whispering that it was probably me since I came from a broken home, la la la, orphan girl from the wrong side of the tracks or whatever, vandalizing the school, and I could feel myself getting angry. Really, really angry," Noor said.
    "And that's when it happened?" Jacob asked.
    "The auditorium had all these theatre lights on the ceiling, and they all lit up at once, and then broke, and a ton of broken glass came down on everything."
    "Damn," Lilly said. "I didn't know it was like that."
    "It was bad," Noor said. "I knew I needed to get out there. So I made it dark, and I ran. And a couple of the fake faculty people started chasing me, and I could tell they were sure it was me, now. They chased me into the bathroom, and I had no choice but to let all the light I had taken out of that big auditorium go, all at once, right in their faces."
    "What did they look like?" I asked.
    "They're so normal-looking they're almost hard to describe."
    "Age? Height? Build? Race?"
    "Middle-aged. Middle height. Middle build. Mostly men, one or two ladies. A couple white, a couple brown."
    "And how were they dressed?"
    "Polo shirts. Button-downs. A coat. Navy-blue or black, always. Like out of a catalog for average people with average jobs and no particular background."
    "After you burned them, what did you do?" Jacob asked.
    "I tried running back to my home, but they were waiting for me there, too. So I came here. Lucky for me, I've got a lot of experience hiding from people."
    "The more I hear about these people, the less they sound like peculiars," Bronwyn said.
    "They don't sound at all like peculiars. They sound like wights to me," Millard said.
    "Like whites? I just told you, some of them were brown," Noor said.
    "No, no, wights. W-i-g-h-t. They used to be peculiar, turned themselves into monsters by accident, and have been our enemies for more than a century," Emma said.
    "Oh. Well, that's confusing."
    "They couldn't be wights. There are too many of them. Wights work in small groups, or alone," Jacob said.
    "And there aren't even that many of them left anymore," I said.
    "That we know of," Enoch said.
    "I might have felt a hollow at the school yesterday," Jacob said.
    "I did too," I said.
    "What? Why didn't you say anything?" Emma asked.
    "The feeling only lasted a few seconds," Jacob said.
    "What he said," I said.
    "I wasn't sure what it was. But if they were wights, they probably would've had at least one hollowgast traveling with them."
    "Fellows, who they are isn't the most important thing," Millard said. "Getting Noor to safety is. Once that's completed, we can argue till we're blue about who the people in the polo shirts are."
    "Safety? Where's that, exactly?" Noor asked.
    "A time loop.", Jacob said.
    Noor looked away and passed a hand across her forehead, the light in the corner flickered, "I guess after everything you've shown me, I should be ready to believe that, too. But–"
    "I know. It's a lot. And it come at your fast."
    "It's not just a lot. It's insane. I'd have to be out of my mind to go with you."
    "You'll just have to trust us," Emma said.
    "If you won't  trust them, then you can trust me,0 I said, taking Noor's hand, the one that wasn't holding the light. "I'm a type of peculiar called a Ymbryne. That's why I was able to turn into a bird earlier. I can also manipulate time, and create one of the time loops. We Ymbrynes are charged with taking care of young peculiars. We're also the leaders in our government. Really, I'm the only authoritative person here. I assure you, you can trust me."
    "But I don't," Noor said, dropping my hand, taking a few steps back. "I'm sorry. You seem nice enough, but I'm done trusting people I barely know. Even if they can resurrect dead birds and make fire in their hands."
    I looked at the others. We came all this way, and for nothing. We couldn't back down though. Jacob went to say something, but the building started to shake. And then there was the sound of a churning engine. There was a helicopter flying directly over this building.
    We all looked at each other anxiously as we waited for the roar from the helicopter to leave, but it only grew louder.
    "They tracked us here," Jacob said.
    Noor's eyes flashed to him, "Or did you lead them here?"
    She grabbed Lilly by the arm and speed-walked them out of the building. We followed them, pleading.
    "We didn't lead them anywhere!" Millard said. "Not purposely, anyway–I'd swear on an Ymbryne's life!"
    We came into a larger room and stood, looking up through the atrium to see open sky. The helicopter came into view, blocking the sky, filling the room with noise. A spotlight came down. Noor stared straight at it, ready to face whoever was in the helicopter.
    "You've got to come with us!" Jacob shouted.  "There's no other choice!"
    "Sure there is!" she shouted back, before tearing the light out of the air.
    Something then dropped down, and there was a hissing noise. It then began to spray a cloud of white smoke.
    "Hold your breath!" Emma shouted.
    Lilly started to cough, and Bronwyn scooped her up, "This is Bronwyn! I'm going to carry you!"
    Noor nodded to Bronwyn, "This way."
    We all started to run down the blacked out hallways. Behind us, there were two men wielding a bright light. They tried to get us to stop, but we didn't oblige. We heard an echoing pop, and another canister was thrown at us and it sprayed gas everywhere.
    We all started to cough, running in the opposite direction. I figured out that they weren't trying to kill us, they wanted Noor alive, or maybe all of us.
    "We need to get out of this building," Jacob shouted. "The stairs. Where are the stairs?"
    We turned a corner and came to a dead end. Noor spun around and looked behind us, "Past those men."
    "We're screwed. I'll have to use our Happy Meal prize."
    He tried to get the grenade out of his bag but Noor didn't seem to be fazed by our escape options, "In here!"
    She ducked through a small doorway into a smal room. We followed her, and there were no windows, or doors, or exits.
    "We're trapped in here!" I said.
    "You asked me to trust you. First, trust me," Noor said.
    The footsteps were getting louder from the men. Noor pushed us into a corner of the room before she stood in the centre of it. She started to rake her hands through the air, gathering more and more light, until the room was in total darkness.
    And the next thing she did, was the most peculiar thing I have ever seen, and I'm saying that as a Ymbryne who was raised by another Ymbryne all her life.
    Noor took the ball of light she held and put it in her mouth and swallowed it. The ball glowed through her cheeks and travelled down her throat and into her stomach where body absorbed it and dampened it as the footsteps reached the doorway.
    We were in the darkness, and the two men filled the doorway. They aimed their flashlights into the room, but the darkness wrapped itself around the light beams. They walked into the room almost completely blind, one of them talking into a walkie.
    "Subjects are on level six. Repeat, level six," the man said.
    We pressed ourselves into the corner. I thought we were safe until Jacob's phone started to vibrate.
    The men dropped to one knee, and I knew they were in a firing position. Noor made a guttural growl, the light she had been holding in her stomach shot up through her throat, and out her mouth towards the two men. Even with my eyes shut, I could see bright light. There was a wave of heat, and the men screamed. When I opened my eyes, the room was full of light and the men were on the ground, holding their faces.
    We went to run out of the room only for more footsteps to come. Another man rounded in and had a gun, and it appeared he was about to use it. Bronwyn lunged at him and grabbed him by the shoulders just as his gun went off. She flung him against the back wall. He crashed right through it, most likely injuring him fatally if it didn't kill him.
    We all came to our senses before climbing through the hole in the wall. On the other side, besides the man's body, was a room flooded with daylight, and a stairwell. We ran to it and ran outside through a hole in the fence into an alley. We ran through a parking lot of another warehouse and into another alley, listening for the helicopter which had faded in the back. We eventually stopped to catch our breath.
    "I think–I think you might have killed that guy," Noor said to Bronwyn.
    "He had a gun.", Bronwyn said as she set Lilly down. "If you point a gun at my friends, I get to kill you. That's–" She wiped her forehead and let out a breath. "That's the rule."
    "Good rule," Noor turned to Jacob. "Sorry what I said. About you maybe being one of them."
    "It's okay. If I were you, I might not believed us either," he replied.
    Noor went to her friend and took her hand, "You alright, Lil?"
    "Little shaken up. I'll live."
    "We have to get far away from here, and quickly," I said. "What's the fastest way?"
    "The train. Station's a block away," Noor said.
    "What about the car?" Enoch asked.
    "They know the car by now. We'll have to come back for it later," Jacob said.
"If we live that long.", Millard said.

    Before I knew it, we were on a subway car, riding towards Manhattan. I knew I would have a story to tell my mother as soon as she was done being pissed with me.
    The others, with the exception of the one Normal, the new peculiar, and Jacob, were talking about who those men may be. Were they wights? Or were they an evil clan of peculiars?
    I looked at Noor, knowing that this had to be a lot for her. As a Ymbryne, I knew it was my duty to help her ease into it, and to protect her . . . even though protecting her wouldn't exactly be easing her into it.
    I started to think about this loop on this island we had to take her to. But where on the island was it even? Loop entrances are such a pain in the ass to find if you don't know where exactly you were trying to find. Her best option was being with us in Devil's Acre, with many Ymbrynes, than just the ones who were on the Council, and many other older peculiars to protect her.
    "Would you miss New York, if you had to leave?" I asked Noor.
    "Miss New York? Why?" she asked.
    "Because I think you should come home with us, instead."
    Emma looked at me sharply, Jacob was surprised, and Millard quickly objected, "That's not the mission!"
    "Forget the mission," I said. "She'll be safer with us than in any loop in this crazy city. Or on this side of the pond."
    "We live in London, most of the time," Emma explained to Noor. "In Devil's Acre."
    The new peculiar recoiled a little bit.
    "It's not as bad as it sounds," Millard said. "Once you get past the smell, anyway."
    "We're nearly finished with this mission from hell. Let's not muck it up now. Let's just take her where she's supposed to go and be done with it already," Enoch said.
    "Anna's right though. We don't know who's in this loop we're going to, or how capable they are. Or anything."
    "Is that any of our concern?" Enoch asked.
    "There are no Ymbrynes here," I reminded him.
    "I agree with Anna," Millard said. "There are almost no Ymbrynes left in America, and it's an Ymbryne's job to protect and shape uncontacted peculiars. Who's going to teach her how to be peculiar?"
    "Is anyone going to fill me in here?" Noor asked.
    "Ymbrynes–we're like teachers," I said, reminding her a little bit about what I said earlier. "And protectors."
    "And government leaders," Millard said before saying under his breath. "Though unelected . . ."
    I stared daggers at him.
    "And overbearing know-it-alls who are always minding other people's business," Enoch asked.
    "Okay, is everyone pretending like you don't have one sitting right next to you?" I asked.
    "Essentially, the backbone of our whole society," Emma said.
    "We don't need any Ymbryne–"
    "Seriously?!" I asked, gesturing to myself. "I am right here."
    "--We just need someplace safe. Anyway, Miss Peregrine probably wants to kill us right now."
    "Okay, I forgive you now, we're all good." I said.
    "She'll get over it," Enoch said.
    I turned back to Noor, "So, would you come with us?"
    She sighed before chuckling, "What the hell. I could use a vacation."
    "Hey, what about me?" Lilly asked.
    "You'd be more than welcome to come.", Millard said. "Though normal people cannot enter loops, I'm afraid."
    "I can't leave anyway! School just started," Lilly started laughing. "God, listen to me. As if none of this insanity even happened. That's how badly school has messed up my brain."
    "Well, education is important," Millard said.
    "But I have parents. Pretty good ones, actually. And they would worry about me a lot."
    "I'll be back," Noor said. "But getting out of town until this stuff blows over sounds like an excellent idea."
    "So you trust us now?" I asked.
    She shrugged, "Enough."
    "How do you feel about road trips?"
    Out of nowhere, Bronwyn slumped forward and onto the floor.
    "Bronwyn!" Emma cried, leaping down next to her.
    "Is she okay?" Enoch asked.
    "I don't know," Emma said, slapping Bronwyn's cheek and repeated her name until the girl opened her eyes.
    "Fellows, I think–Rats, I should have mentioned this earlier," Bronwyn lifted the hem of her skirt to reveal she was bleeding from her torso.
    "Bronwyn! My god!" I said.
    "The man with the gun . . . I think he shot me. Don't worry, though. Not with a bullet," she opened her palm to show us a dart.
    "Why didn't you say something?" Jacob asked.
    "We needed to get out of there quickly. And I thought I was strong enough to overcome whatever he'd shot me with. But apparently . . ."
    Her head rolled to the side, and she passed out.