The Peregrines

Chapter 15

She clenched her jaw. "Thank you," she said flatly. "How did you know him?"

Myron's smile wilted. "Down to business, then," said Myron. "Now, you asked me before about the Siberia Room, and I know, Miss Bloom, that you were unsatisfied with the answer I gave-"

"Yes, but I'm—we are—more interested in Jake's grandfather, and why you brought us here," she said

"They are related, I promise. That room, and this house generally, is the place to begin," said Myron

"Okay," Jake said. "Tell us about the house."

Myron paused, inhaling deeply as he pressed his fingertips together, contemplating the situation at hand. Then he said, "This house is filled with priceless artifacts I've brought back over a lifetime of expeditions, but none are more valuable than the house itself. It is a machine, a device of my own invention. I call it the Panloopticon." he said.

"Mr Bentham's a genius," Nim said, laying a plate of sandwiches before us. "Sandwich, Mr Bentham?"

Myron waved him away. "But even that is not quite bedrock," he continued. "My story begins long before this house was built when I was a lad about your age, Jake. My brother and I fancied ourselves as explorers. We pored over the maps of Perplexus Anomalous and dreamed of visiting all the loops he'd discovered. Of finding new ones, and visiting them not just once, but again and again. In this way, we hoped to make peculiardom great again." He leaned forward. "Do you understand what I mean?"

Jake frowned. "Make it great . . . with maps?" he said.

"No, not just with maps. Ask yourself: what makes us weak, as a people?" said Myron.

"Wights?" Emma guessed.

"Hollows?" Jake said.

"Maths?" I said.

"Before either of them three existed," Myron prodded.

"Persecution by normals?" said Emma again

"No. That is just a symptom of our weakness." Myron said flatly. "What makes us weak is geography. There are, by my rough estimate, some ten thousand peculiars in the world today. We know there must be, just as we know there must be other planets in the universe that harbour intelligent life. It is mathematically mandatory." He smiled and sipped his tea. 

"Okay?... And?" I said, sitting bored on the floor and sipping my drink. 

Myron paused, inhaling deeply as he pressed his fingertips together, contemplating the situation at hand. "Now just imagine ten thousand peculiars, all with astounding talents, all in one place and united by a common cause. They'd be a power to be reckoned with, no?" he shrugged his shoulders. 

"I suppose so," Emma said.

"Most definitely so, "Myron said. "But we are splintered by geography into hundreds of weak subunits—ten peculiars here, twelve there—because it is extraordinarily difficult to travel from a loop in the Australian outback, for example, to a loop in the horn of Africa. There are not only the inherent dangers of normals and the natural world to consider but the dangers of aging forward during a long journey. The tyranny of geography precludes all but the most cursory visits between distant loops, even in this modern era of air travel."

After a brief pause, he resumed speaking, his gaze sweeping across the room. "Now then. Imagine there was a link between that loop in Australia and the one in Africa. Suddenly those two populations could develop a relationship. Trade with each other. Learn from each other. Band together to defend each other in times of crisis. All sorts of exciting possibilities arise which were previously impossible. And gradually, as more and more such connections are made, the peculiar world is transformed from a collection of far-flung tribes hiding in isolated loops to a mighty nation, united and strong!" 

Myron's excitement grew with each word he spoke. When he reached the final part, he couldn't contain himself and raised his hands, spreading his fingers as if he were reaching for an invisible pull-up bar.

"Hence the machine?" Jake ventured.

"Hence the machine," he said, lowering his hands. "We'd been searching, my brother and I, for an easier way to explore the peculiar world, and instead we hit upon a way to unite it. The Panloopticon was to be the saviour of our people, an invention that would change the nature of peculiar society forever. It works like this: you begin here, in the house, with a small piece of the machine called a shuttle. It fits in your hand," he said, opening his palm.

Myron continues. "You take it with you, out of the house, out of the loop, and then across the present to another loop, which could be on the other side of the world or the next village over. And when you return here, the shuttle will have collected and brought back the DNA-like signature of that other loop, which can be used to grow a second entrance to it—here, inside this house-"

"In that hallway upstairs," Emma guessed. "With all the doors and little plaques," she said.

"Exactly," said Myron. "Every one of those rooms is a loop entrance that my brother and I, over the course of many years, harvested and brought back. With the Panloopticon, the initial, arduous trek of the first contact has to be made only once, and every return trip thereafter is instantaneous," he said.

"Like laying telegraph lines," Emma said.

"Just so," said Myron. "And in that way, theoretically, the house becomes a central repository for all loops everywhere."

It crossed my mind, reflecting on the difficulty I faced when I first tried to reach Miss Peregrine's loop. Imagine if I didn't have to travel all the way to a small island off the coast of Wales. What if I could have accessed Miss Peregrine's loop through the walk-in wardrobe I had in my boarding school? That way, I could have experienced both lives - being at home with my friends and being here with my "family."

Myron stopped and sipped his tea. "Cold," he said and set it down. Emma removed her blanket, stood up, walked over to Myron's couch, and touched the tip of her index finger in his tea. Soon enough, the tea was boiling once more. He grinned at her. "Fantastic," he said.

She removed her finger. "One question," she said.

"I'll bet I know what it is," Myron said.

"Okay. What is it?" Emma raised an eyebrow.