Home At Last

Chapter I

Cynthia's POV

Bright morning sunshine filtered in through the room and glinted on the dark blue walls as the blinding light chased away the darkness that once enclosed my room. Tiredly, I batted open my eyes and scanned the room before slowly sitting up and stretching my sore limbs. Outside of my room, I could here the voices of the children opening there creaky, wooden doors and walking along the squeaky floorboards. Another ordinary day ahead of me. I got up out of bed and routinely headed to my wardrobe to decide what too wear for the day as usual. After a while I finally decided on wearing a cute, oversized kawaii hoodie along with a white, grey and black checkered skirt over a pair of tights, and my favourite Doc Martins to finish the outfit off. I then headed into my conjoined bathroom where I swiftly undressed and hopped into the shower where I scrubbed my body clean and made sure to thoroughly wash my dark brown locks. The hot water lightly pricked my skin as steam began clouding the white polished room while I quickly turned off the shower and dried myself off with a towel. I brushed my teeth after drying my damp hair and combing it out, before I headed out of the bathroom and too my bed where I quickly re-dressed.

After I finished getting ready for the day, I walked over to the nearby window and peered out at the sunny day ahead of me. Looking down at the garden and it's exotically sculptured bushes or various animals, I saw Hugh and Millard playing football while Horace was sitting down nearby and quietly observing the mischievous two while holding an open book in his lap. The Twins were playing together on the wooden seesaw with Claire in her cute, frilly pink dress, and Emma was by the large oak tree at the end of the garden doing her daily chore of rescuing the baby squirrel. Realising I must of overslept, I hurriedly made my bed neatly and headed out of my room, walking through the hallway before briskly making my way down the quartz, carpeted stairs. Escorting myself into the kitchen, I noticed Olive busy by the stove boiling the kettle as I grabbed the handle of the fridge and pulled out a carton of 'Cranberry Juice' before lazily sitting upon the kitchen counter while hungrily drinking the contents of the carton. Truth be told it wasn't really cranberry juice- that was something I just nicknamed it so I wouldn't scare the little ones.

Really, it was blood. Disguised in a carton of cranberry juice obviously. It was the only I could live off. Human food gave no effect to my hunger. All I could survive on was blood. I had a terrible craving for the stuff. Now, when I say that, people immediately suspect that my peculiarity is a vampire. I mean, there close. But I'm quite different than that. If anything, I'm truly a little more monstrous than that.
"Morning Olive!" I greeted with a smile as she turned to look at me, her crimson red hair swaying as she did. "Good morning Cynthia. I see your finally awake." She greeted back as I rubbed the back of my head awkwardly.
"Yeah, I kinda overslept again...."
"Did you have another night terror?" She asked with concern.
"No, no I'm fine." I quickly lied after taking a sip of my 'Cranberry Juice'. "I just lost track of time reading last night..."

"I really do think you ought to talk to Miss Peregrine about these nightmares Cynthia, remember what happened last time..." Olive spoke worriedly as she finished boiling the kettle and began pouring the hot water into two china teacups.
"I'm fine Olive, really. Everything's under control." I answered back as confidently as I could. I didn't need her worrying about me when I'd already messed up before. I didn't need her knowing. I know it scares her. I know it terrifies the others when I can't control myself. But it's not there fault. It's not there burden to bear.
"Who are you making tea for?" I asked while trying to change the subject as casually as possible.
"Miss Peregrine and the new arrival. He came just this morning after being retrieved from the Ferry at Cairnholm, and they've been in the Parlour ever since."
"Wait, he? You mean the new arrivals a boy? What does he look like?" I questioned in curiosity and confusion.

"We'll, I didn't exactly see his face, but he was quite tall, and had brown hair. If I had to guess, he was around fifteen, maybe older." Olive explained while pondering on the question. My thoughts quickly drifted towards this new, mystery boy as I found myself wondering who he was and what he was like. Was he kind? Gentle? Caring? Rude? Intimidating? Obnoxious? Sweet? Shy like me? And what was his Peculiarity? Did he control a specific element? Could he fly? Did he obtain Telekinesis? Could he read minds? Does he have healing abilities? I pondered a little while about this mystery boy but eventually told myself I had better things to do than overthink silly things. Olive had finished making the tea and began walking out of the kitchen with the tray in her gloved hands as she was speaking to me. It must of been obvious I was daydreaming to her. "You know Cynth, I bet we'll all be introduced to him at supper. Maybe then you'll have some answers."
"I suppose.." I muttered as she exited the kitchen.

A few seconds later, I hopped down from the counter, placed the 'Cranberry Juice' back into the fridge, and decided to head to the library to peacefully read and pass the time until supper. Hopefully it could prevent myself from overthinking any further. I made my way through the hallway- where I could faintly hear muffled voices coming from inside the Parlour which I thought nothing off- and into the mammoth a Library, where I breathed a sigh of relief when the smell of fresh books and parchment clouded my senses. I walked along the creaky wooden floorboards with my black heavy boots, and wandered down a random isle where I began scanning the tall, looking shelves for a book. The huge, rectangular panelled windows let the midday sunshine pour heavily into the room which, at times, made me squint my hazel orbs from the blinding light. After a few quiet minutes of searching, I found a book titled 'Wildwood' written by an author named John Farris which peaked my interest. The book was annoyingly out of my reach as it was on the highest shelf, so I simply whispered my little incantation which all at once broke the silence around me.

"Ego dimittam te de captivitate animae tuae..."

Immediately, I felt my peculiarity suddenly posses me as my eyes turned blood red- almost pitch black- and then began to blanket my senses, and allow my petit body to slowly float up into the air like weightless dust. My boots slowly lift up from the ground as I floated up into the air. It's as if gravity itself had broken around me as the atmosphere itself was void of anything. Whispers, cackles, giggles and shrill screams echoed loudly in my mind that I simply ignored as I soon enough reached the highest shelf and was able to grab the worn-out, dusty book and safely bring myself back down to the ground.

"Interum te deleo intus animam meam humanam..."

The voices silently began to fade from my mind as I felt myself free once more from the darkness that enclosed me only moments before, like bounded heavy chains that were wrapped tightly around my limbs, now broken and crumbled around me. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves- as the constant screaming to this day has still terrified me just the same- and sat down cross-legged on the floor to read my newly found book and let my mind burst with endless chapters of imagination and design while my eyes scanned the ink stained pages. I'd say about fifteen minutes past as I was fully engrossed in this well-written book, when I head the the sound of the squeaky, dark oak doors of the Library open up, and the voice of Miss Peregrine talking to someone while the continuous ticking of her stopwatch could be heard echoing around the Library.