Discovering the Future

Chapter 3- Chapter 2 (Part 1)

Disclaimer: I don't own Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

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I spent the months following my grandfather's death cycling through a purgatory of beige waiting rooms and anonymous offices, analysed and interviewed, repeating myself, the object of a thousand pitying stares and knitted brows. My parents treated my like a breakable heirloom, afraid to fight or fret in front of me lest I shatter.

"That must have been annoying," Enoch said, grimacing as he thought of himself in that situation.

I was plagued by wake-up-screaming nightmares,

"I feel your pain," Horace said, sympathetically.

so bad that I had to wear a mouth guard to keep from grinding my teeth into nubs as I slept. I couldn't close my eyes without seeing it-that tenticale-mouth horror in the woods.

"This is making me glad that we can't see it," Hugh whispered to Fiona. She nodded in agreement.

I was convinced it had killed my grandfather and that it would soon return for me.

"I wouldn't put it past the Hollows," Victor said.

Sometimes that sick panicky feeling would flood over me like it did that night and I'd be sure that nearby, lurking in a stand of dark trees, beyond the next car in a parking lot, behind the garage where I kept my bike, it was waiting.

"And that's paranoia," Millard said.

My solution was to stop leaving the house. For weeks I refused even to venture into the driveway to collect the morning paper. I slept in a tangle of blankets on the laundry room floor, the only part of the house with no windows and also a door that locked from the inside. That's where I spent the day of my grandfather's funeral, sitting on the dryer with my laptop, trying to lose myself in online games.

"That can't be healthy," Bronwyn said, frowning.

I blamed myself for what happened.

"You shouldn't," Emma said, wiping her eyes.

If only I'd believed him was my endless refrain. But I hadn't believed him, and neither had anyone else and now I knew how he must've felt because no one believed me, either.

"Karma," Enoch muttered.

My version of events sounded perfectly rational until I was forced aloud, and then it sounded insane,

"I hate it when that happens," Victor said. Everyone gave him an odd look and he shrugged.

particularly on the day I had to say them to the police officer who came to our house.

"Police Officers," Enoch said, narrowing his eyes. "Who needs them?"

I told them everything that had happened, even about the creature,

"Bad idea," Enoch said. "They'll think you've lost it,"

as he sat nodding across the kitchen table, writing nothing in his spiral notebook.

"Useless," Horace scoffed.

When I finished all he said was, "Great, thanks," and then turned to my parents and asked if I'd "been to see anyone."

"Really?" Emma asked, raising an eyebrow.

As if I wouldn't know what that meant.

"Well, he doesn't seem like an idiot," Victor said.