Bending Light

28~Back to Life

"Yes?" Elise asked, the sense of anticipation clear in her voice. It seemed impossible for her to speak louder than a whisper.

    (Y/N) sat there, equally as nervous, waiting for the author to say something.

    "The book—it lets you write the future. We need you to use it to protect...the...." The receiver made staticky noises as a new hurricane-force wind gust hit the building. Elise turned up the volume, and after a moment, Riggs' voice came back through the speaker.

    "...at all costs. The Nazis are coming. Whatever you do, don't let them have..." The static came back after rain pelted the Priest Hole yet again.

"What? What?! Mr. Riggs, we can't hear you!" Elise shouted desperately into the phone. "What do we need to protect?! The book?"

"Yes," Ransom replied. "But it's only visible to you two anyway. Guard the twins. Your grandfather tried so hard to—"

This time, the lights flickered and the line went completely silent. After a moment, the dial tone beeped and Elise turned her phone off, tossing it to the end of her bed.

"We need a plan," the two sisters exclaimed simultaneously.

<><><><><><>

During dinner, the Priest Hole continued to creak and groan under the force of the storm. The lights flickered every so often, and the entire bar was completely silent, each customer equally influenced by the weather. The (Y/L/N) family sat gloomily stabbing their steaks and greasy French fries.

"Just a few more days of this," (Y/N)'s mom said. "And then we can finish the rest of this trip and go back home."

"I can't wait to visit an actual restaurant," Elise whined. "Like, is this steak even actual meat, or what?"

(Y/N) rolled her eyes and tried to finish her dinner as quickly as she could so she could find the twins and keep her eyes on them. And since Jacob had already gone back into his room with the 'flu', (Y/N) assumed he was in the process of warning Miss Peregrine about the wight on the island.

After finishing, (Y/N) and Elise excused themselves to 'read' and 'watch TV' respectively. They met at the top of the stairs and Elise turned into a cat, teleporting them into the middle of the bog.

"Seriously?" (Y/N) complained as she sank and inch or two into the mud.

"Sorry!" Elise exclaimed with some actual sincerity in her voice. "My peculiarity isn't that easy to control yet. I guess we'll have to walk to the cairn."

They lifted their feet, slowly and carefully trudging through the sludge. After a few moments of pensive silence, Elise remarked: "I saw you typing a bunch before we called Riggs. What were you going to do if we couldn't get the book to him in time? Like, before we realized what the book was actually about."

"Uhh," (Y/N) paused embarrassedly. "Write it all on Wattpad and publish it and hope I would see it one day and remember how things used to be."

"You seriously thought the internet would survive the literal changing of reality?!" Elise scoffed, laughing out loud for a second.

(Y/N) shrugged, blushing. "Well anyway..." She thought for a moment, trying to keep Elise from laughing at her more. "Do you think we should stay?"

Elise turned back to her and raised an eyebrow quizzically.

"In the loop, I mean," (Y/N) elaborated. "Like, if we stay we'll always be watching our backs, and if we leave, we'll still be watching our backs—"