Discovering the Future

Chapter 20- Chapter 8 (Part 2)

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

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Then something terrible occurred to me. To test a theory, I held my hand in front of his mouth. I couldn't feel his breath. My finger brushed his lips, which were cold as ice. Shocked, I pulled my had away.

Bronwyn was profusely blinking, looking as if she was trying not to cry.

Then I heard footsteps and spun around to see Bronwyn in the doorway. "You ain't supposed to be in here!" she hissed.

"He's dead," I said.

Bronwyn's eyes went to the boy and her face puckered. "That's Victor."

Bronwyn's head went down. She was shaking and breathing deeply.

Victor was slightly pale and he reached out to take his sister's hand.

Emma, Claire, Fiona, and Olive all had sad looks at their face as they looked at the siblings.

Enoch looked away from them.

Hugh and Millard just stared, not saying anything.

Horace had a pitying look on his face.

Suddenly it came to me, where I'd seen his face. He was the boy lifting the boulder in my grandfather's pictures. Victor was Bronwyn's brother. There was no telling how long he might've been dead; as long as the loop kept looping, it could be fifty years and only look like a day.

"What happened to him?" I asked.

"Maybe I'll wake old Victor up," came a voice from behind us, "and you can ask him yourself." It was Enoch. He came in and shut the door.

Bronwyn beamed at him through welling tears. "Would you wake him? Oh please, Enoch."

"I shouldn't," he said. "I'm running low on hearts as it is, and it takes a right lot of 'em to rise up a human being, even for just a minute."

"Really Enoch?" Emma questioned. "When she's crying over her brother?"

He just looked away, pretending not to hear her.

Bronwyn crossed to the dead boy and began to smooth his hair with her fingers. "Please," she begged. "it's been ages since we talked to Victor."

"Well, I do have some cow hearts pickling in the basement," he said, pretending to consider it. "But I hate to use inferior ingredients. Fresh is always better!"

Bronwyn began to cry in earnest. One of her tears fell onto the boy's jacket, and she hurried to wipe it away with her sleeve.

"Don't get so choked," Enoch said, "you know I can't stand it. Anyway, it's cruel, waking Victor. He likes it where he is."

"But playing with Bronwyn's feelings is not cruel," Horace remarked casually, raising an eyebrow. "I can see the logic in that."

"And where's that?" I said.

"Who knows? But whenever we rouse him for a chat he seems in a dreadful hurry to get back."

"What's cruel is you toying with Bronwyn like that, and tricking me," I said. "And if Victor's dead, why don't you just bury him?"