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My heart was nearly pounding out of my chest as I stared down the handful of fire being held to my throat, just close enough for me to feel the uncomfortable heat without truly being burned. My eyes flicked away from the flame for a split second to look at the face of the girl holding the threat, and–
Oh.
Her eyes are Different.
This… it wasn’t the Blankness I saw behind Golan’s eyes, that sense that there was something there, yes, but something else was missing . It wasn’t the dim normalcy of every other person, generic and unremarkable in itself – it was that same fierce presence I only saw once in a blue moon walking down the street. The presence that belonged to people who looked completely ordinary at first glance, but whose bodies always held an air of otherness about them. The very same presence I’d only consistently seen before in my grandfather, diminishing ever so slightly with each passing day… and now, the presence I saw in this mysterious stranger before me.
Her eyes met mine, and she scanned my face, illuminated by firelight. I didn’t move a muscle for fear of spooking her and ending up with a roasted windpipe. She was obviously dangerous in her own right, and I could respect that, but it didn’t mean I wanted to be on the opposing end of that danger.
She’s holding fire in the palm of her hand, my mind registered blankly, trying to catalogue the logic behind an illogical occurrence. Fire in her hands and it’s not burning her at all. How?
And yet, despite how strange it all was, how completely and utterly insane a situation I'd just found myself in… it didn’t feel wrong. I couldn’t say it felt familiar, not really, but something about this seemed to Fit, like putting on a custom-tailored coat for the first time without knowing you were ever measured for it. An odd metaphor, maybe, but that’s how it was; it Fit without having a reason to.
“You’re not Abe,” was the first thing out of her mouth. And to be fair, I wasn’t Abe.
“No,” I responded, for lack of a better reply. “Sorry. I’m Jacob Portman.”
“Portman?” She hissed, and suddenly that waning fire was flaring up again, far too close for comfort. “You’re lying, there’s no way–”
“Emma?”
Oh, that was a new voice. A new person entirely, come to interrupt the impromptu hostage situation I’d been caught in. How lovely.
I looked over to where the voice had come from, and at great risk to my personal safety, I realised halfway through turning my head, because the girl – Emma – was still holding a handful of fire to my face. But when my eyes fell upon the person who had spoken – well, they didn’t fall upon the person who had spoken.
I could see right through him.
And not in the way where you can tell if someone is lying, but literally, right through him. He was completely see-through, his watery form defined mostly by his stiff-looking trousers, a jockey cap over messy curls that were probably a shade of dirty blond, and a brown tweed coat, half-visible face mostly hidden by a woollen navy scarf. A pair of navy gloves to match the scarf were sticking out of his pocket, no doubt to hide his hands… or veritable lack thereof. He was watching me with a slightly confused expression, his face swimming in and out of view.
But what I could see of his face were his eyes, and he had the same light, the same Difference behind his eyes that Emma did. And for some reason, I felt compelled to trust them both, as if my instincts had decided that they were no threat despite the boy’s translucence and Emma’s threat of a faceful of flames.
Not wanting to be rude, I managed to tone down my bafflement and shock to a simple head tilt and furrowed eyebrows. “Um… who are you?”
“Oh, I’m Millard.” He raised his sleeve and I saw the end shift, as if he were giving me a little wave – which he probably was, though the visibility of his hands seemed to fluctuate in a way I couldn’t think of a single logical explanation for. I’ve heard of seeing what’s not there, but what about not seeing what is there? This is something completely new. “Millard Nullings. The girl who’s got you pinned is Emma Bloom. Did… did you say Portman?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Can, um– can I move now? The fire is getting a little uncomfortable…”
“No way!” Demanded Emma. “I’m not letting some filthy old wight roam about our town. I’m not so stupid I can’t recognize an interloper – come on, Millard, give us some rope!”
Millard sighed. I deduced that he must have been shaking his head by the way his cap swivelled back and forth, the partially visible dusty curls beneath it shifting to cover his bright eyes. It looked like he hadn’t had a good haircut in a long time. “Emma, he’s not a wight. Even if he is, you can just set him on fire if he tries anything. But you’re not, are you?” He turned to me, and though his eyes were hidden behind a curtain of translucent hair, I could somehow tell that his gaze and the presence behind it were fixed on me.
“I don’t even know what a wight is,” I said honestly, shrugging. Millard seemed fairly calm, and the urge to trust the strange pair came in full-force, so I continued. “I just came through the tunnel because I saw someone over here, which I’m guessing was Emma, and when I went into town it was all weird and… different, so I came back here, and then Emma jumped me.”
“That does sound like Emma,” the translucent boy mused. “Emma, put the fire down. We’ll take him to the Bird and let her decide. It’s going to get back to her anyways, you know everything always does.”
“The Bird does know all,” she muttered, acquiescing. Slowly, the handful of flames at my cheek was lowered and extinguished, though Emma still looked ready to torch my skull if she thought it necessary.
The Bird? Something about that particular phrase seemed… oddly familiar. Like I’d been thinking about it just earlier. But why would I–
Find the bird in the loop, on the other side of the old man’s grave. September third, 1940.
“I have a bit of a strange question,” I said quietly, feeling like I was interrupting their argument over what to do with me. Still, if this was what my grandfather had wanted me to find… “But does the date September third of 1940 mean anything to either of you?”
Emma and Millard exchanged a Look. And not the kind of Look where you’re debating on whether or not to spill a secret, but that Look where you both know something risky and you’re wondering if the other person knows it too… and if so, what they’re going to do with that knowledge. Something was going on here, even bigger than I expected, and now, I was getting myself involved, for better or for worse.
Emma was the one to speak. “That’s… today. Today is September third, 1940.”
…What.
“...What?” I mumbled, staring off for a moment. That couldn’t be right – it had just been the 21st century not even an hour ago. How in the hell–
“It’s September third,” Millard repeated. “And it has been for the past ninety or so years, give or take a few.”
In the loop. Days repeating. The loop… it was a time loop. This… this was what Abraham Portman had wanted me to find. A time loop of the day September third in the year 1940, and judging by the way both children had reacted, the surname Portman was one they knew well.
They knew my grandfather. And he wanted me to know them, too.
“Uh, Jacob?” Emma sounded worried, and I blinked, realising I had been spacing out. “I think we broke him… at least we won’t have to worry about telling the Bird now.”
“Yeah, we’ll just have to tell her there’s a broken teenager in our loop now,” Millard responded dryly. “Hey, are you good? I didn’t mean to freak you out–”
“It’s– don’t worry about it,” I said, shaking my head like I was trying to manually reset my mind. Just like an Etch-a-Sketch. “Today is September third, and it’s decades ago from the day I started. Is… is this a time loop?”
For some reason, the prospect of this all being a joke or a lie just… didn’t occur to me. Well, not that it didn’t occur to me, but more that I simply couldn’t take that as a viable outcome to this situation. It was all too real now, something in my gut telling me that the two strange teenagers were telling the truth. Logically, I might have been trusting them because the amount of effort going into this if it were a prank was just unreal, not to mention nobody would actually do that, but… this was nothing compared to the living nightmare I’d seen on the night my grandfather died. Willful suspension of disbelief was becoming a part of my life at this point, as was following my instincts above all else.
After all, my gut hadn’t led me wrong yet – in fact, it had led me exactly where I wanted to go. Where I needed to be.
“...yeah, it is,” Millard said slowly. “How… did you figure that out?”
“Is this you confessing you’re a wight spy?” Emma’s hand twitched, and I saw a few sparks fly from her outstretched fingertips, so I shook my head quickly, hoping to assuage her wrath before she decided I would look better roasted.
“N-no, it’s not that – it’s something my grandfather said, and something you both said, and I’m explaining this very badly but it does make sense, I promise.”
“Emma, we need to take him to see the Bird,” Millard repeated, and it sounded almost like a warning. “Or at least Horace or Bronwyn, just someone else–”
“Stop telling him everyone’s names!” Emma hissed. “He’s a spy!”
“Emma!”
“Fine! We’ll take him to the Bird.” She narrowed her eyes at me, and I did my best to look non-threatening. “But if he tries anything funny, I’m roasting him. Got that?” Emma levelled a glare at me, and I nodded solemnly.
“I figured as much.”
oOoOo
Emma and Millard led me out of the abandoned house we had been holed up in, taking a shortcut through the back alleys so we could avoid the townsfolk. The whole village looked different, though now I knew it was because I was apparently decades in the past. No wonder I hadn’t recognized anyone – there was no one here that I would know, much less who would know me.
Honestly, though, I was mostly glad that no one had noticed my futuristic appearance or behaviour. I was eternally grateful for my decision to wear an army jacket and jeans – while a bit out of place, they wouldn’t have been so unheard of in this time period that I’d be lynched as a German spy or something.
“This way,” Millard said, nodding his head towards a back alley. He had covered his translucent face and hair with the knit scarf, leaving only a small gap for his eyes.
For some reason, though, that part of him never seemed to become quite as difficult to see as the rest. No matter how long I looked, where the rest of him faded in and out of view, his eyes stayed the same. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was about eyes that made them so central – everything after my grandfather’s death had seemed to take a weird focus around the eyes. Millard’s were the only totally visible part of him, and I could practically sense if someone was ill-intentioned by just scrutinising their eyes. It was unsettling, to be sure, but… not entirely unwelcome.
I nodded, following Millard through the sparsely populated streets and around the outer edge of town. We didn’t get more than a few odd looks, but most of them seemed to be chalking up our strangeness to something inconsequential – they likely thought we were just another gaggle of teenagers off to cause mischief, by the looks on some of their faces.
It was only a few moments in town before we were ducking into a nearby alley, Emma practically stepping on my heels as she followed closely behind, intermittently sending me momentary shrewd looks to convey her ongoing skepticism. I couldn’t really blame her for being wary – this whole situation was kind of a mess, to be honest, and it made sense to me that a person such as myself would be a cause for concern. I had apparently just waltzed right into their time loop, claimed I wasn’t a ‘wight’ (I still wasn’t sure what that was, but I feared that trying to ask for clarification would only earn me some singed hair), and somehow deduced that it was, in fact, a time loop with minimal prompting and even less explanation.
Not to mention, I’d told them my name, and from Emma’s reaction… I had some theories. She had called me Abraham back at the abandoned children’s home, and then reacted as though she recognized my last name – the same surname I shared with my grandfather. Emma knew Abraham Portman; that much was certain. What I didn’t understand was how.
“Three and a quarter more minutes,” Millard said quietly, glancing back at us. He had pulled out a small brassy pocketwatch from inside of his woollen overcoat and flipped it open, though he was now tucking it away in his coat again after checking the time with a pleased hum. “Then we’ll run ‘cross the street and make for the home.”
“What happens in three minutes?” I wondered, keeping my voice low. Millard obviously didn’t want us to be overheard.”
Emma scoffed under her breath. “Let Millard do his thing. He knows when it all happens.”
When what all happens? I wanted to ask, but refrained. And about two and a half minutes later of hiding in the alley, the relative silence was interrupted by the distant whir of engines.
“Where is that coming from?” I mumbled, and Millard tapped on my shoulder, gently nudging my chin upwards with gloved hands. “Oh.”
Up in the sky was a small line of bomber planes, flying in a diagonal formation. Peeking out from behind the bakery we were all using as temporary cover, I could see the townsfolk stopping their daily tasks and looking up, watching the planes fly by. From down here, they looked so small… but I shivered as I recalled the planes of WWII that I had read about, and exactly what destructive capabilities they possessed. Flying Fortress, they had called some of the most dangerous American planes – the B-17 if I remembered correctly. But these weren’t American planes flying by; these were German aircraft. And to the small English island of Cairnholm, those planes were the enemy.
I stared up at the planes for a moment more, brow furrowing, until I felt a gloved hand pulling on my own. Emma gave me a nudge from behind, her expression looking much less murderous than it had earlier.
“C’mon, we don’t have all day,” she muttered. She seems less angry… I wonder why. “Get a move on.”
I followed Millard through the street, impressed with his apparent plan. He had used the planes flying by as a distraction so that no one would notice us making our way through town – I realised that if he had lived here for all those decades, he had probably seen that exact same thing happening every single day. No wonder he had been able to calculate it down to the exact minute – still, I couldn't help but be in awe of how precise he had been.
“We’ll be there soon,” Millard said, turning back towards me as he led our miniature entourage into the woods and out of the town, away from the citizens who were still distracted by the planes passing overhead. “The Bird will sort all this out.”
“Can I ask a question?” I wondered tentatively, not wanting to overstep my boundaries.
Millard looked like he was about to nod, head already halfway to bobbing upwards, but he stopped himself and turned to Emma, the motion evident only in the way his hat moved. He’d pulled down his scarf now that we were out of town, and the dappled lighting through the trees wasn’t making it any easier to see his already mirage-like face.
Emma sighed, giving me a begrudging nod. “I suppose you can ask one. Be quick about it.” She sounded rather disgruntled, but she didn’t actually seem all that angry anymore. It was like a flash-flare – now that she’d lit jup, she’d burnt herself out. Though, she’d probably flare up again if I said anything along those lines out loud. Something told me Emma wouldn’t receive a pun well right now.
“I just wanted to know – who is the Bird?” I asked hesitantly. “My grandfather told me to ‘find the bird’, but I didn’t really get a name or an explanation with that advice.”
“Typical Abe, then,” millard sighed. “The Bird is what we call our headmistress, Miss Peregrine. Uh – maybe don’t call her that to her face. She doesn’t get mad at us, per se, but it’s not her favourite nickname.”
Emma waved an uncaring hand. “Eh, she just puts on airs. She doesn't really mind as much as she pretends to.”
“If you say so,” I mumbled. I would probably take Millard’s advice over Emma’s on this matter, though. He seemed more likely to have my best interests at heart – for as long as Emma still suspected me of being a spy, at least.
Millard nodded. “Was there anything else you wanted to ask before we reach Fiona? She’ll tell Miss P and everyone else that we’re coming back.”
“Actually, there was one other thing – about something Emma said. What… what exactly is a wight?”
What little I could see of Millard’s face darkened. “That’s… something better explained by someone else. They’re not good, is all I can really tell you.”
“They’re monsters in human form,” Emma muttered. “I still think you could be one – you know too much.”
Oddly flattering, if a little threatening. “...I’ll keep that in mind.”
“There’s her now,” Millard said, suddenly speeding up as he started towards someone I couldn’t quite see. “Hey, Fiona! Fiona, we’re back!”
“And we brought someone with us,” Emma said, though at a much more normal volume than Millard’s excited call.
I stayed quiet, unsure of where this Fiona was, until I felt an odd sensation, like someone was standing right behind me – but instead of being menacing, they were just waiting patiently for me to turn around and notice them. So, never one to be rude and leave someone hanging, I turned around.
And just as I’d thought, there was a whole other person behind me, with thick, wild brown hair and moss-green eyes hidden behind frizzy bangs. Her boxy canvas pinafore and green long-sleeved undershirt looked somewhat grimy, like she’d just been gardening, but they were obviously well cared for, though she had apparently decided to forgo shoes entirely. I could see a few vines sticking out of one of her dress pockets, as well as some fresh flowers in another, and a leafy green sapling twig in a third. As I watched, the vines almost seemed to sway on their own, like they were waving to me in greeting.
“Hello,” I said, for lack of anything better to say. It was always a good starter. “Are… you Fiona?”
She nodded, but didn’t speak. Instead, she moved her head in an obvious ‘follow me’ gesture, and started walking up the hill, not looking back to see if I had listened. With a quick look at Millard and Emma to see if they were doing the same, I followed Fiona through the last stretch of the woods and into a marvellous garden that was practically bursting with flowers and topiaries. Blooms of every colour, shape, and size all filled the space, surrounding the back pathway to a tall mansion that looked just like the one I’d visited earlier, but in its glory days. This enormous building surrounded by multicoloured flowers and intricate hedge sculptures was the old children’s home, back when it had still been in use… before it had all been destroyed.
Fiona trod through the grass in a confident line, stepping on small stones embedded in the ground to make a predetermined path. As I watched where she stepped, preparing to mimic so as not to trample any of the vibrant plants around us, I noticed that many of the flowers seemed to turn towards her as she walked past. In fact, the very leaves themselves were curling around her feet when she passed them by. The longer I watched, the more sure I was that it wasn’t a trick of my imagination – the plants really were following her.
Only moments later we had reached the back porch of the house, Fiona waving goodbye and returning to her topiaries without a word spoken. A boy with aviator’s goggles on his brow ran up to her as she came over, grinning as he saw her. Fiona smiled as well, something she hadn’t done until he had walked up to her. Even from afar, I could see the honeybees and flowers around them, and I quickly found another target for my attention.
I was still gaping at the beautiful garden, so I continued to stare at the impressive plants in awe (carefully avoiding watching the pair of teens – that would have been incredibly rude) as Millard and Emma greeted a few other children who had come over to see what all the fuss was about.
“Who’s that?” Asked a sweet-looking little girl with dark curls and a pale porcelain face. “He looks like Abe, but different.”
Another person had come up with her, a teenage boy in a proper waistcoat and monocle, his own dark hair straight and combed neatly to the one side. “He does remind me of our long-left brother. I would guess that they’re related somehow – say, Emma… did he come through the cairn?”
Millard is the one to nod as I look over at the sound of the question. “As far as I can tell, yes. We’re taking him to see Miss Peregrine, d’you know where she’s gone?”
“Parlour, last I saw. Bronwyn and Olive are there with her – I do believe they’re having an afternoon tea.”
“And Enoch?” Emma put in.
“...I think you know where Enoch is.”
Millard sighed. “Fair. We always know where Enoch is.”
Leaving the fancily dressed boy and girl on the back doorstep (though I could feel their curious gazes even as we closed the door behind us), Millard and Emma still flanked me as we made our way inside, going through hallways I had just seen as wrecked shells. The juxtaposition was unnerving, thinking of how ruined the whole building had been, only to look around and see pristine printed wallpaper and shining wood bannisters as we walked past the staircase. There were no holes in the scaffolding, no dust or grime or mildew, no rain-saturated support beams ready to drip on my head. It was all clean and taken care of, pictures of all the children I’d seen and then some decorating the walls over the sage wallpaper with its vertical stripes of lavender flowers.
Turning a corner, we emerged from the hallway into a cozy yet prim sitting room, decorated with warm grey sofas and a mahogany coffee table, laid out with a simple spread of a matched porcelain tea set and a tray of small snacks. Two girls sat on one of the couches together – a bulky brunette in a cream-coloured linen top and a pair of grey pants with rolled-up hems, looking close to my age with a short haircut and a sharp jaw, and a pixieish blonde who couldn’t have been older than eight or nine, wearing a ruffle-hemmed pink and white dress, a silver tiara resting prettily in her golden curls.
But the centre of attention by far was the sharp-nosed, matronly woman sitting in the grey wingback armchair, her silver hair pulled back into a tight bun. She wore a long navy dress with a high collar and a slim skirt that reminded me of something from the 1890s, and in her hands she held a hyacinth patterned teacup with perfect poise. Her gaze fell upon me as we entered the room, and I knew the exact moment she recognised me.
“I see we have a visitor,” the woman noted, her tone serious yet still respectful. “One who quite resembles a former member of our house.”
“I’m, uh, I’m Jacob Portman, ma’am,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t take that news too badly.
Apparently, I was having a particularly lucky day. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Portman. As the children may have told you, my name is Alma LeFay Peregrine, or Miss Peregrine if you are one of my wards. These young girls are Miss Bronwyn Bruntley and Miss Olive Abroholos Elephanta.” She nodded first to the older girl and then to the younger, each one raising a slightly confused hand in greeting as they were introduced.
“Now, then,” Miss Peregrine started, rising from her armchair. She was much taller than I’d anticipated. “I believe we have some things to discuss, Mr. Portman, if you’ll follow me through to the study.”
Ignoring the murmurs of the four children we left in the parlour, Miss Peregrine led me out and into another room filled with books, closing the door behind us with a quiet click.
“Mr. Portman, would you mind telling me how you came to find our home?” Her gaze was sharp, reminiscent of a bird of prey; her name really was fitting in that regard. “I believe we would have received word from Abe if he intended to send a relative of his to us.”
And here was the most risky part of this conversation – the point where it was most likely to all go wrong. “Abraham Portman was my grandfather, but… he’s dead.”
Miss Peregrine stilled. “Abe… is dead?”
A gasp came from the door behind us. Miss Peregrine strode over and opened it in seconds, but all we were able to catch a glimpse of was Emma’s retreating back as she bolted down the hall. In the distance, I heard the back door open and shut again.
The headmistress sighed. “This… is very unfortunate news, Mr. Portman. The children won’t take this well.”
“I kinda figured,” I responded quietly.
“If you are willing to share, would you mind telling me how it happened?” Miss Peregrine closed the door to the study again. She took a seat in one of the comfortable-looking grey chairs by the window, gesturing for me to take the other.
I sat down, facing the headmistress and trying to keep eye contact. It was uncomfortable to hold it for so long, especially when I was already having a stressful time, but I didn’t want to have this woman’s judgement on me if she thought I was acting untrustworthy. My father had always told me to keep eye contact – it was a sign of honesty, he said. Breaking eye contact was a habit of guilt. If I kept looking away all the time, then I was just alluding to my own untrustworthiness.
“He didn’t die of old age or anything like that,” I started quietly. “He was killed by s-something. I couldn’t tell what it was – it was too dark and it ran away before anyone else could see it either.”
Her eyes narrowed, and I shifted slightly in my seat, but her shrewd gaze didn’t seem to be directed towards me. “I see. How did you come to find our island, Mr. Portman? Did Abe tell you about us?”
“Um… not, uh, not directly? When he died, he told me to… to ‘find the bird in the loop, on the other side of the old man’s grave’, and gave me the date September third of 1940. I… he didn’t get the chance to really explain past there.”
“Oddly vague,” she mused, looking thoughtful. “Were you the only one there?”
“Uh, no – there was another person nearby, just some kid from my school.”
“Then it is quite possible that Abe did not wish to be overheard. I am sorry for the circumstances in which you found out about us, Mr. Portman, but I cannot say that I am sorry you have come here. You may not be safe in the world of normals – if Abe sent you here, and if he was attacked, then he may have feared for your safety.”
“N-normals?” This conversation wasn’t making sense. Why would my grandfather have feared for my safety? It wasn’t like my parents would do anything too bad to me, and why would anyone else come after me? What had my grandfather been hiding?
“Yes, normals. As you have managed to pass through our loop entrance, and as your grandfather saw fit to send you to me, I believe it is safe to say that you are like us, Mr. Portman.”
“I–I don’t understand, ma’am.”
“Mr. Portman, you are not normal. You’re like your grandfather, and like every person in this children’s home – like each of my wards who reside in this loop.”
This was explaining everything and nothing all at the same time. Was this why I had been told to find this place? Why Emma held fire without being burned and Millard was as see-through as a pane of glass? Why there was such a disconnect between my father and grandfather, but why my grandfather always chose to spend time with me? Why the monster had come that night, tearing my carefully crafted outlook on life to pieces as it tore open my grandfather’s chest?
Why my grandfather was killed?
“Jacob,” Miss Peregrine said seriously, her piercing, falconlike gaze fixed on me. “You are a peculiar.”