Borrowed Time ⏱ Enoch O'Connor

~ VIII ~

Anastasia has been laid quietly in her bed for a while now and the others have waited by her unmoving side ever since she was carried inside by Enoch. So far the young wards have only exchanged concerned glances and shuffled uneasily on their feet. They all stood silent until Miss Peregrine told the children to go down for dinner. The children finished their dinner hardly conversing with each other, only the occasional 'please' or 'thank you' escaped their lips. Soon it was time for the children to go to bed. Usually the children would go outside to marvel at the reset but tonight they went straight to bed not even stopping other than to mumble a goodnight to those they passed. Each popped their head into Anastasia's room and silently wished her goodnight.

When morning came the children got ready and did their daily chores. All but one of the children was found wandering around the house. Enoch. He stayed shut away in his room all day not coming out other than to get some more jars from the basement. Not that he gets out much anyway but usually, or at least since Anastasia arrived, he can be found sat under the tree moulding his clay into the small dolls that he would animate to amuse himself or on the odd occasion the other children. In the afternoon the children found themselves once again huddled around the seemingly 'sleeping' girls bed.

"Is Anastasia going to be okay, Miss Peregrine?"  Claire asks gripping her teddy tightly between her hands and standing in front of Anastasia's bed tears springing to her eyes.

"Yes dear, I'm sure she'll be fine" Miss Peregrine says comforting her young ward with a soft reassuring smile.

"Why hasn't she woken up yet?" Fiona questions with a sad sigh.

"I'm not entirely sure dear but Millard hasn't removed his nose from that book all day maybe he knows!" Miss Peregrine says nodding towards the invisible boy with a wink.

"Anastasia is an elementress but somehow she can also see the hollowgasts which would suggest she has two peculiar family members. As you know peculiar people do not always have peculiar offspring, it seems that the peculiar gene likes to skip generations. I also found a book that stated that peculiars with more than one peculiarity are extremely rare-meaning that not many cases have been noted. Although, what I can say is that elementresses can control all the elements from wind and earth to fire and water but also have a fifth elemental power which is called spirit." Millard explains or rather rambles.

"That's amazing I hope she wakes up soon" Bronwyn says gently pacing her small hand surprisingly delicately on Anastasia's pale arm- given the young peculiars strong tendencies. 

Suddenly Anastasia jolts quietly gasping just loud enough to hear. Bronwyn removes her hand and Miss Peregrine steps forward to check the girls pulse, only to draw her hand back and furrow her eyebrows in confusion. The young girls pulse had clearly quickened but for once the ymbryne didn't know why. She needn't say anything as Millard stepped forward and inspected the young girls sleeping figure.

"Spirit!" He says as if the answer were obvious. "When an elementress accesses the spirit part of their peculiarity it's said to be usually quite a traumatic experience, more of a nightmare than a dream. What I mean by this is that when the peculiar, in this case Anastasia, comes in contact with someone or something that provokes a spiritual sight they see it - usually a past or present event but occasionally an event from the future. It seems that when Wyn touched Anastasia it provoked her to have a vision if that's what you would call it." Millard elaborates.

Just as Millard finished speaking Anastasia started to scream. The children all covered their ears and looked to Miss Peregrine panic evident upon their faces. Enoch however stepped forward shyly and placed his hand over her surprisingly cold one. He started rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand to reassure her and warm her hand. Her screaming went on for a while only a short pause between the ear-splitting cries filled with pain, fear, sadness. After a while she starts to stir causing the children to remove their hands from their ears and chatter excitedly amongst themselves.