Black Academy

3 weeks later

"Hey, kiddo. Are we keeping you up?" The voice sounded familiar, but somehow muffled and distant. As if it was coming from the bottom of a well. With an effort, Elsa Song forced her eyes open and blinked woozily at the sight before her. The table was set with 13 places. At the centre sat a pasty-looking turkey, clearly only big enough for eight. Cheap supermarket own brand crackers and a paper tablecloth. Fatty chipolatas and overdone sprouts. Christmas, Miss Peregrine's style.

Could it really be only 3 weeks since she was eating exquisite French cuisine from fine china and crystal in the elegant dining room of the Black Academy? It seemed a lifetime away. "What's the matter?" Elsa refocused on the brown-haired figure across the table. Oh, yeah, Jake. Her key worker. The only thing that had made coming back to her old care home bearable. She managed a smile. "Aren't you hungry, Elsa?" piped up Claire Densmore from near the head of the table. "That's not like you. You've been eating us out of house and home for a fortnight." 

Elsa dug her nails into her palms. Claire's bitchy remarks had been increasing ever since she had got back from Paris. Normally, Elsa wouldn't have given the satisfaction, but her fuse seemed to be getting shorted every day. "Yeah, well I just lost my appetite," she snapped, pushing her chair back and getting to her feet. "Excuse me." "Elsa Song, you're not excused -" began Claire but Elsa was already out of the room. Jake caught her at the foot of the stairs, his face full of concern. 

"Elsa, what's up? You've been acting funny ever since you got back from Paris." Elsa paused for a moment. What was there to say? Could she tell him the truth about the Academy? About the Few and their dark secret? About what had happened to her in that black place beneath the Arc de Triomphe? About their interrupted ritual that had left the spirit of Bonnie Bennett stranded, half-lodged in Elsa's mind? About the strange hunger that had been growing inside her ever since, and how she knew that turkey and chipolatas just weren't hitting the spot? Impossible.

"I'm just missing my friends," she mumbled. "Y'know?" An expression of relief washed over Jake's face. "Of course you are. Have you spoken to anyone today?" "I had an email from Rapunzel last night. And one from, um, Jack." "Who's Jack?" "Just a boy in one in one of my classes," replied Elsa, flustered. "Why?" Jake's grin grew wider and his brown eyes glittered. "Because you blushed when you said his name." "Oh, give over!" Elsa gave him a playful shove. "He's not your boyfriend, then?" "No, he's not," she said hurriedly. "Uh-huh." "No. Really." Elsa twisted her fingers into the cashmere sweater that her friend Rapunzel had sent her for Christmas. "It's . . . complicated."

Ha! That was the understatement of the century. Her few snatched moments with Jack at the end of term had hardly given them time to define their relationship. All she knew was that her stomach twisted with longing every time he came into her mind, but that he was back home in America. Thousands of miles away. She'd just have to put with missing him - missing him like she could die of it. Absorbed in her memories, she jumped at the sound of her ringtone. Pulling her phone from her jeans pocket, Elsa almost dropped it when she saw the name on the display. She felt the blood rushing to her face again. "Speak of the devil," chuckled Jake as he went back into the dining room.

Elsa winced inwardly at his choice of words. She still didn't understand what the Few truly were. Gods and monsters, Jack had once joked bitterly. So which was he? Elsa didn't know. She wasn't sure that he knew himself. Pushing her worries out her mind, she clasped the phone to her ear like a lifeline. "Jack!" He must be able to hear the stupid grin she was wearing, even half a world away. "Elizabeth." The soft warmth of his voice made her forget the frost creeping over the floor and even, for a moment, the raging hunger. "Happy Christmas." "Same to you." Breathless, she sat down on the stairs. It was criminal how much she missed him. Criminal, and deeply inconvenient. "Oh, it's good to hear from you."