Chapter Text
After the children had gone, Miss Peregrine remained sitting on the couch, her eyes nervously observing Miss Wren. She met the older Ymbryne before, but could not claim she knew her well, and there was something about her quick connecting of the tale and the loop that made her uncomfortable.
"Is there something on your mind dear?" Miss Wren finally asks, slowly petting the chicken in her lap. Addisson is regarding it with jealousy, and she lifts it, allowing Addisson to sleep in her knee while she held the bird in her arms.
"You knew what V meant when she told the tale. You knew who that tale was referring to ." Miss Peregrine said seriously, deciding there was no use in lying. There needed to be trust between Ymbrynes, now more than ever, and she wasn’t sure there was any yet.
"I didn't." Miss Wren replied calmly, seemingly not sensing where Alma was going or at least pretending not to. "I merely recognized the circumstances." She explained.
This statement however, only served to make Miss Peregrine further suspicious. "You must have, dear." She insisted, making clear what she believed was the facts. "Your menagerie loop was also in the ."
Miss Wren froze at that notion, seemingly shocked to hear her bring it up. Then, she nodded slowly. "Cuthbert the friendly giant. Yes, yes it was...but It does not mean I know every secret the hide." She rebutted, stroking the hens feathers again. "Are you trying to imply something Alma?"
Miss Peregrine bit her lip. "You knew what we were looking for before I got them to fetch the extended version of the Tales . You knew that Gretchen Tern." She said flatly. "It's the only explanation."
Miss Wren carefully lifted an eyebrow. "My dear, are you accusing me of willingly withholding information?" She asked, and there was something trembling in her voice, a feeling buried deep inside slowly making its way to the surface.
"Yes" Miss Peregrine doesn't even have time to consider her answer before she stated it, and the look of hurt and regret on Miss Wren's face informs her of her mistake. "Bird, Balenciaga, I..."
"No it's okay!" She stood up quickly, Addisson jumping down to the floor beside her, and walked towards a window that overlooks the acres. "It's good to know what you think of me." Her voice is like ice and she was not even looking at her sister.
"Balenciaga..." Miss Peregrine tried to fix it, tried to reassure her that she never doubted her in the first place, but the older woman wouldn’t hear it.
"Don’t!" The older Ymbryne snapped angrily. "I know things are as dire as dire can be, Alma. The loop is risking collapse, there's been assassination attempts among our own...and Esmeralda is getting worse by the day." Putting a hand up to her mouth, she tried to hide it as a sob suddenly broke out of her throat, starting to cry.
As her legs buckled, Addison supporting her as best she could, Miss Peregrine felt her heart clench. Clearly, the pain of all that had happened and was happening weighed heavier on her shoulders than she had known. "Esmeralda will be fine...we will survive" She insisted, holding her sister tight.
Miss Wren didn't reply, only crying harder with more sobs shaking her thin frame as she leaned against Miss Peregrine. "You're right" She admitted as she cried. "I knew...but I didn't want to believe it...didn't want to think of my poor friend..."
Miss Peregrine swallowed now. Attacked by artillery shells. Swarmed by foreign soldiers. That's how she claimed the other Ymbryne had died, her loop destroyed in the crossfire of the Great war. She shuddered.
"I'm sorry Balenciaga. I guess I didn't consider the pain of it..." She said seriously, holding the woman tighter as she continued to cry. “I didn’t know you were so close.”
"I am sorry. I shouldn't act like this. I shouldn't have held back...but I remember the news like it was yesterday." She said seriously. "She was my first and last attempt to find another Ymbryne who felt for animals like I did. She was the only one to ever care for my class at the academy, I’m sad to say.." She stated despairingly. “Now all the menageries are gone.”
"But it can be rebuilt" The despair the old Ymbryne showed was disconcerting. Miss Peregrine couldn't help but fret about how many of her sisters might feel the same, but had not yet broken down enough to show it.
Certainly, until that moment, Miss Wren had shown a generally cheery attitude.
"My animals are dead! Like my sisters lost their children, I lost my animals. They can not be replaced just because they are animals, not humans. They were still peculiar.." Miss Wren warned sharply, anger cutting through her sorrow as she believed her loss was being minimized.
"I am still here" Addisson came trotting up to the two of them, rubbing himself against Balenciaga's legs as a small means of comfort for his Ymbryne. “I will go nowhere, I promise.”
"I know dear" She dug something out of her pocket, feeding it to Addisson, who happily gobbled it up. Then, she sighed deeply. "It's harder to grieve when no one sees the loss." She stated quietly.
Miss Peregrine knew this was not just about the animals she had lost to the Wights and the collapse of the menagerie loop. Nor, she suspected, was it about Althea - her only ever charge, a recent death that almost weighed her heavier than the animals.
The sound she had made when she saw her body amongst the many dead peculiars stored in the cellar of the panopticon had been indescribable. She had not shown her face outside her quickly assigned quarters for two weeks afterwards, only letting Addisson and Mother Dust in to see her, and both had assured the other Ymbrynes they were better off not trying to get in.
But this, this was about something else entirely. It was about Miss Tern. About a Ymbryne, a rare and gifted peculiar, tragically lost and then quickly forgotten. Only remembered in fairy-tales and by the precious few who bothered to notice her when she was there. Somehow, in the bloodshed that had followed as the Wights gathered power and menace, the memory of that one woman had drowned. Somehow, Miss Peregrine suspected she was not the only one.
Loved ones - friends, family, enemy and allies. They all died, their bodies falling in such large numbers no one could quiet keep up with grieving and remembering them all.
“Things will be okay” She drew Miss Wren close again, comforting the woman as she finished her tears of grief and longing.