Discovering the Future

Chapter 22- Chapter 9 (Part 1)

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

-----------------------------START OF CHAPTER--------------------------

After supper and clean-up were over, Miss Peregrine and the children all retreated back into the parlour room. They had all taken the same seats that they had before.

"Are you children ready?" Miss Peregrine asked after she settled in her chair.

The majority of them nodded enthusiastically.

Miss Peregrine opened the book to where they left off.

Chapter Nine

He could see the monsters. The moment she said it, all the horrors I thought I'd put behind me came flooding back. They were real. They were real and they killed my grandfather.

"I can see them, too," I told her, whispering it like a secret shame.

Her eyes welled and she embraced me. "I knew there was something peculiar about you," she said. "And I mean that as the highest compliment."

I'd always known I was strange. I never dreamed I was peculiar. But if I could see things almost no one else could, it explained why Ricky hadn't seen anything in the woods the night my grandfather was killed. It explained why everyone thought I was crazy. I wasn't crazy or seeing things or having a stress reaction; the panicky twist in my gut whenever they were close-that and the awful sight of them-that was my gift.

"And you can't see them at all?" I asked her.

"Only their shadows, which is why they mainly hunt at night."

"What's stopping them from coming after you right now?" I asked, then corrected myself. "All of us, I mean."

She turned serious. "They don't know where to find us. That and they can't enter loops. So we're safe on the island-but we can't leave."

"But Victor did."

Both Bronwyn and Enoch tensed.

She nodded sadly. "He said he was going made here. Said he couldn't stand it any longer. Poor Bronwyn. My Abe left, too, but at least he wasn't murdered by hollows."

I forced myself to look at her. "I'm really sorry to have to tell you this..."

"What? Oh no."

"They convinced me it was wild animals. But if what you're saying is true, my grandfather was murdered by them, too. The first and only time I saw one was the night he died."

She hugged her knees to her chest and closed her eyes. I slid my arm around her, and she tilted her head against mine.

"I knew they'd get him eventually," she whispered. "He promised me he'd be safe in America. That he could protect himself. But we're never safe-none of us-not really."

"She speaks the truth," Horace said.

We sat talking on the wrecked ship until the moon got low and the water lapped at our throats and Emma began to shiver. Then we linked hands and waded back to the canoe. Paddling toward the beach, we heard voices calling our names, and then we came around a rock and saw Hugh and Fiona waving at us on the shore. Even from a distance, it was clear something was wrong.