Anna Peregrine--The Conference of the Birds

Chapter Two

    After a while, Mum announced that it was time for dinner, and we hadn't done a good job of hosting Noor so far, and here was our chance to make up for it.
    Whilst the others scrambled off to help with dinner, Mum caught me by the hand, keeping me back.
    "I think we need to talk," she said.
    "I think so, too," I said, closing the door. "First, I want to thank you. I have a feeling you're the reason why I'm still a Ymbryne."
    "My opinion was a major factor in your status, and you're welcome," she took a puff of smoke for a moment. "I was worried about you Anna, extremely worried. I was worried for the others, but especially you. Being a Ymbryne, you're hated right away in America."
    "I'm sorry. I–Well, I was worried about what you and the other Ymbrynes might say, but I'm an adult."
    "We know that, but, whenever you move from one location to another, or when you go on a mission, you need permission, or at least alert the council since you're a Ymbryne."
    "I didn't know that, and you wouldn't have allowed us to go anyway."
    She nodded, "I don't want to fight. Am I still pissed off with you? Yes, you almost cost me my council spot and status as a Ymbryne as well. But, I'm happy that you're home and safe."
    "Me too."
    Mum smiled before holding her pipe out to me. I chuckled, placing my finger over the top, denying it of oxygen to keep burning. It was a thing when I was young. I always want to extinguish her pipe.
    Mum placed the pipe in her pocket before hugging me, "I love you, Anna. Never scare me like that again."
    "I love you, too, Mummy," I said quietly, resting my chin on her shoulder.
    We stood like that for a few minutes. I surprisingly didn't want to pull away, like every new adult would want to. I think I was just happy that she didn't disown me or anything like that."
    "Alright, go prepare dinner you Ymbryne," Mum said with a smile.
     I chuckled as we walked over to the door, joining the others.
    When dinner was ready, I sat at the makeshift long table made out of rough wooden blanks. I was sitting next to my mother on my left, who was at the head of the table like she was in Cairnholm usually, and Emma across from me.
Emma started to light the candles as Horace started to distribute stew to us.
    "I hope you like stew," he said, setting a bowl in front of Noor. "The food's great in Devil's Acre, so long as you like stew for every meal."
    "I'll eat anything right now. I'm starving," she replied.
    "That's the spirit!"
    We all started going into our own conversations.  Emma and I have a staring contest with each other, like we did every now and then whilst eating, Mum laughing at the sight of it. Em and I did it all the time when we were younger.
    "What did you used to do in your normal life?" Olive asked Noor.
    "Go to school, mostly. By the way, your use of the past tense there is interesting . . ."
    "Everything's going to change for you," Mum said.
    "It already has. My life is unrecognizable from what it was last week. Not that I'd really want to go back."
    "That's precisely it," Millard said. "It's very difficult to tolerate a normal life once you've lived a peculiar one for a while."
    "Trust me, I've tried," Jacob said.
    "Do you ever miss your normal life?" Noor asked.
    "Not even a little."
    "Do you have a mother and father who will miss you?" Olive asked Noor
    "I've got foster parents. I never met my real ones. But I'm sure Fartface and Teena won't cry too much if I don't come back," Noor said, censoring what she calls her foster father.
    "How do you like being peculiar?" Bronwyn asked.
    "It was scary before I knew what was happening to me, But I'm starting to adjust."
    "Already? Back in the Untouchables' loop–"
    "I have a thing for certain types of confined spaces," Noor cut off Hugh. "That, uh, door–Kind of threw me for a loop."
    "Threw you for a loop," I chuckled. "That's a good one."
    "No loop puns, please, intentional or otherwise," Enoch groaned.
    "Sorry," Noor mumbled. "Unintentional."
    Horace stood up and announced it was time for dessert. He ran off to the kitchen before coming out with a chocolate cake.
    "Where did that come from?" Bronwyn asked. "You've been holding out on us!"
    "I was saving it for something special. I think this more than qualifies," Horace said before serving Noor the first slice. "When did you realise you were different?"
    "I've been different my whole life, but I only realized I could do this a few months ago," Noor waved a hand over a candle and took the light between two fingers before putting it in her mouth. She blew it out like a steam of glowing smoke.
    "How wonderful!" Olive cheered as everyone who hadn't seen this before were amazed.
    "Do you have normal friends?" Horace asked.
    "One. Though I think I like her so much because she isn't very normal," Noor said.
    "How is Lilly?" Millard asked.
    "I haven't seen her since you did."
    "Oh. Of course. I hope she's well."
    "Do you have a boyfriend?" Emma asked.
    "Emma! Don't pry.", Millard said.
    "It's okay. No, I don't," Noor said.
    Me and Jacob stared at each other before Jacob said, "Guys, I think we should give her a chance to take a few bites."
    I blew out some air before taking a bite of my piece of cake. Mum dinged her glass, getting our attention, "I'm due back at the peace talks tomorrow. The Ymbrynes are in the midst of very sensitive negotiations with the leaders of three American clans." She looked at Noor. "And the threat of war between them grows with each passing day. I'm sure H's brazen rescue and your disappearance have only made things more complicated."
    "Oops," the newcomer said.
    "You're not to blame, of course. But there will be damage to contain and bruised egos to mollify. That is, if we can even get them back to the negotiating table."
    "Is this another Conference of the Birds?" I asked.
    Mum nodded, "And the council, despite what happened earlier today, would like you there, Anna. You have a thing for convincing people."
    "Well that makes sense," I said with an annoyed laugh.
    "Why is it called that?" Noor asked.
    "Because the Ymbrynes can turn into birds?"Bronwyn said.
    "They can?"
    "I still don't understand what the big to-do is. Would it really matter that much of the Americans waged war on one another? Why is that any concern of ours?" Enoch asked.
    Mum stiffened, "I hate to repeat myself, but as I've said, war is a–"
    "Virus," Hugh said.
    "It 'respects no borders'," Emma said.
    Mum rose from her chair and went over to the window. We all knew what this meant. A lecture.
"Of course, the Americans are not our priority. We Ymbrynes care most about rebuilding our society–our loops, our way of life. But the chaos of a war could make that impossible. Because war is a virus. I can see you don't understand what that means. It's not your fault; none of you have ever witnessed a war between peculiar factions. But many Ymbrynes have. The oldest amongst us remember the disastrous Italian war of 1325. Two peculiar factions rose up against each other, and the battle raged not only across physical borders, but temporal ones. The peculiars fought in loops, and the fighting spilled–inevitably, fierce as it was–into the present. Scores of peculiars died, and thousands of normals. An entire city was burned to the ground! Razed flat!" she turned to us, sweeping a flat hand through the air to illustrate it for us. "So many normals saw us fighting, there was no containing it. It sparked a pogrom against our kind, a bloody purge that killed many more of us, and drove peculiars out of Northern Italy for a century. It took an enormous effort to recover. We had to memory-wipe entire towns. Rebuild. We even enlisted peculiar scholars–Perplexus Anomalous was one!--to revise normal history books, so that the carnage would be remembered as something other than the War of the Freaks, which is what it was called for generations. Finally, Perplexus and his scholars were able to rewrite it as the War of the Oaken Bucket. To this day, normals believe thousands died battling over a wooden pail."
    "Normals are so stupid," Enoch said.
    "Not at stupid as they used to be. That was seven hundred years ago. Today, if a peculiar war were to break out in earnest, it would be nearly impossible to cover up. It would spill into the present, where it would be filmed, disseminated worldwide, and we would be exposed, ruined, vilified. Imagine the terror of normals witnessing a battle between powerful peculiars. They would think the end-times were upon them."
    "A new and dangerous age," Horace said.
    "But don't the Americans know all this? Don't they understand what could happen?" I asked.
    "They claim to. And they swear up and down that they would adhere to the various conventions of war that dictate a peculiar battlefield must always be in the past, or in a loop. But wars are hard to control, and they don't seem as worried about the consequences as they should be," Mum said.
    "Like the Russians and Americans during the so-called Cold War. Blinded by mutual distrust. Desensitised to the dangers by constant exposure," Millard said.
    "I promise our dinner conversations aren't always this depressing," Olive whispered across the table to Noor.
    "What if that's the 'dangerous age' the prophecy mentions? Could it be predicting a war between peculiars?" Jacob asked.
    "It's certainly possible," Horace said.
    "Then maybe war is inevitable," Hugh said.
    "No. I refuse to accept that," Mum said.
    "Prophecies are not necessarily fate. Sometimes they're just warnings about events that could happen–or will probably happen–if you don't take action to change the course of things."
    "Hopefully there's nothing to the prophecy at all. The whole thing sounds scary," Olive said.
    "Yes, I'd rather not need emancipating, thank you very much," Claire said.
    "I'd rather not have to do any emancipating. Though it says I'm one of seven, so I guess I don't have to do it by myself . . . but who are the other six?" Noor asked.
    "Another mystery. Pass the salt, please," Horace said.
    "Can we please talk about something nice for a while?" Olive asked.
    Emma reached over to ruffle the girl's hair, "Sorry, dear. One more thing is bugging me. This supposed secret society that's trying to get their hands on Noor. Who are they?"
    "Wouldn't I love to know," Noor said.
    "Doesn't the answer seem obvious?" Millard asked.
    "No. Should it?" Jacob asked.
    "They're wights."
    "But H told me specifically they were normals."
    "And Miss Annie from the diviners' loop said something about a secret society for American normal left over from the slave-trade days," Bronwyn said.
    "Yes, I was there," Millard said. "I don't doubt there was such a society in the past. But I seriously doubt any normals would have the wherewithal to pose such a danger to us now. We've been hidden in loops far too long."
    "I very much agree," Mum said.
    "Last time we talked about it, you told me it sounded like the work of another clan. Not wights," Jacob said.
    "Things have changed. There's been a dramatic uptick in wight activity latel. Just in the last few days, there have been multiple sightings."
    "Attacks?" Horace asked.
    "None yet, but reports of movement. All in America."
    "But I thought only a small group of them managed to escape after the Library of Souls collapsed," I said.
    Mum was slowly circling the table, "That's true. But a small number of wights are capable of causing a great deal of trouble. And they may have had a few sleeper agents embedded in America, waiting to be called up. We won't know for certain."
    "How many are we talking about? Between the people at my school and the ones from the helicopter attack, there were a lot . . . ," Noor said.
    "Maybe they weren't all wights. They might have hired mercenary normals to help them. Or mind controlled them somehow," Bronwyn said.
    "It would be just like wights to attempt such a brazen kidnapping then make it seem as if someone else was responsible–normals or another American clan," Millard said.
    "They're masters of trickery and disguise, after all, it was Percival Murnau himself who founded the Department of Obfuscation," Mum said.
    "Who's that?" Jacob asked.
    Mum stopped at his chair and looked down at him, "Murnau is–well, was–Caul's top lieutenant. He was the main architect of the raids that destroyed so many of our loops and killed so many of our people. We caught him the day the Library of Souls collapsed, luckily, and he's cooling his heels in our jail, awaiting trial."
    "He's a nasty man. One of my jobs is guarding his cell block. He'll eat anything that crawls into his cell–rats, bugs. Even the other wights don't go near him," Bronwyn said.
    Horace dropped his fork, "Well, my appetite is killed."
    "So if it was these wights, then what do they want with me?" Noor asked.
    "They must know about the prophecy, too. And believe it, or they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of finding you," Horace said.
    "They found her months ago. They could've taken her anytime. They were waiting," Millard said.
    "For what?" Jacob asked.
    "Obviously, for someone else to come after her."
    "You think they were using me as bait?" Noor asked.
    "Not just bait. They wanted you. But they wanted someone else, too, and were willing to be patient in order to get them."
    "Who? H?" Jacob asked.
    "Maybe. Or V."
    "Or you, Mr. Portman, and quite possibly, Anna, as well. I think the two of you and Miss Pradesh need to be very careful. I think someone may be trying to get their hands on the three of you."