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"Miss Avocet...mum..." Miss Peregrine approached her slowly, trying to figure out what she was thinking though she couldn't yet read her face.
"Go away" She turns to face her former student, ashamed and emotional over her failing body.
Miss Peregrine tries not to comment on what she sees. The woman before looks even more pathetic than the half conscious bird that had arrived at her doorstep, grieving her murdered children and in fear for her beloved partner Miss Bunting.
Miss Bunting, who supposedly was no more.
Miss Peregrine sighed. "You must think me stupid if you believe I will let you be," she said kindly. She took the old woman's shriveled hands. "I care about you. You need to get better."
"There is no getting better" She looks away, her face and body bent and broken with grief. "There is no better without Rosie."
Miss Peregrine tried not to be horrified or scared. "Don't say that. You don't need her to get better, you are strong."
"Alma stop," Miss Avocet said firmly. "I can't even walk..."
"You'll get it back!" Miss Peregrine stood up, leaning in over the older woman. "You know you might! Florence said so!"
Miss Avocet starre. Her hollow eyes seem so empty, once full of light but now drained. She doesn’t know what to tell her prodigy anymore. Alice has given her no hope. 'I'm sorry' was all the good doctor had said when she'd been the same, when she'd insisted that there had to be hope for her legs.
She started to cough. Her lungs burn with effort and she grasps blindly for her handkerchief, which she can't seem to find.
"It's over here" Miss Peregrine picked it up and handed it over, watching her cough up her lungs with concern. "Perhaps I should go get Florence..."
"You can, if it'll make you leave me alone!" Miss Avocet snaps, coughing harder. She doesn't know how she manages to stay upright, but she won't show weakness in the face of the people she cared for.
Miss Peregrine swallowed. "No. You need to stop. This...this isn't good for you!" She complained. "You're very sick and you need to let us help you."
Miss Avocet turned away. "There is no point, Alma."
"Stop saying that!" Alma exclaimed. "This was all avoidable, don't you see that?!" She stomped her feet. "Florence told you to stay away! She told you you'd get sick if you didn't watch out!"
She felt such a rage inside. It was such a waste. Esmeralda had been warned not to be near anyone who was sick or showed symptoms, yet when Rosemary succumbed she insisted to stay at her side no matter what. And now, here they were.
"But Rosemary died!"
There is such grief in the old woman's eyes, you'd believed she saw the world sink into the ocean before her. Like there was nothing left to keep her alive at all. "Rosemary died and now I am alone."
Miss Peregrine frowned. It didn't seem to matter how many times she warned her, told her that she wasn’t alone, Miss Avocet seemed to have no care. She had decided that there was nothing left to live for, and that she would simply die instead.
The thought of losing her made Alma's skin crawl and her stomach twist into worrying knots.
"I love you" She said, sinking to her knees next to the wheelchair of her old mentor. "Please don't talk like that. You frighten me Esmeralda." She said honestly, the words stocking in her throat.
Miss Avocet shook her head violently. "No. No…she's dead…stop! Stop lying to me!" She exclaimed loudly, her fists lashing out.
Miss Peregrine ducked, quickly exciting the room. She couldn't stand to stay another minute and she feared it would be dangerous if she did. It wouldn't have been the first time the woman had hit someone since her illness, Florence Treecreeper usually bearing the brunt of it during non-sedated medical procedures and check ups.
They had discussed whether, perhaps, she should be sedated for all medical intervention. Just to be on the safe side.
"How is she?"
When Alma exits, Rosemary Bunting rises from her chair, staring hopefully at the younger Ymbryne and refusing to believe she didn't come bearing good news of some sort.
Alma shakes his head. What was once anger was not shame and grief. "She won't see sense. Usually if I tell her enough times, talk to her about it enough, she comes around…but not now." She paused, taking the woman's hands to comfort her. "I'm sorry. She still thinks you are dead.
Tears fill Rosemary's eyes instantly, and her stomach twists into a knot. It was getting worse, she had known as much, but this was not something she had expected to hear. "I…I don't understand. I'm right here. I'm alive and well, after all. Why doesn't she see that?" She asks the question though she knows she'll get no answer, desperate for some measure of hope that isn't there
"I don't know." Alma moved her arms to embrace the older woman, knowing they could both use the comfort of it. "Remember what Alice said. The illness…it affected her brain. She doesn't see what we do."
Rosemary cried, breaking down. "I miss her so much," she wailed. "How can she be dying because of me when I'm right here!"
Miss Peregrine sighed quietly. "I know dear. I know. I…I wish I could make it even better "
The older woman nodded, trying fruitlessly to dry her tears. "She will die, won't she? After the fall…going on like this. Her body can't bear it much longer." She cried quietly. "She's a walking ghost!"
Alma, as it were, would not have liked to answer that question. It put words to a lot of uncomfortable thoughts swimming in her head which she'd rather avoid, but finally she nodded.
"I think we should go get Florence" She said, trying to marginally distract her. "She had a terrible cough I haven't heard before. It might be a new infection or virus that she has catched."
Rosemary just shook her head quickly, dropping back down on the chair. "You…you go. I'll stay here. If she need something."
Alma looked at her, then, full of worry but not wanting to state the obvious. 'She won't recognize you'. Instead, she walked off, hoping to help the situation by the small act of fetching Florence for her.
Florence looked ragged, running on overtime still to try and stem the positive pandemic raging through the acres. Though many of the first infected had started to recover - largely without complication - second and third gand victims still desperately needed help, and the Ymbrynes was the only place to turn for those no longer aligned with the wights. If the wights' allies had anyone to Turn to, they didn’t know.
They didn’t care, frankly, not while their own allies were violently ill and draining all their remaining resources.
"Where is Rosemary?" Florence snapped as she saw the empty chair, the door into Miss Avocet opened just a sliver. "Don't tell me she went in there!" She exclaimed.
Miss Peregrine didn’t answer, but ran to the door to check. To no surprise, it was exactly so.
Miss Avocet was fast asleep in her chair, resting in the little spot of sun by the dirty window. Rosemary was placed next to her, enjoying a false sense of closeness and love while Miss Avocet was incapacitated and unable to explain her disdain for the woman before her - who she had not remembered for days now, not even from one day to the next.
The picture of Rosemary, it seemed, did not want to save. Like a corrupted file Esmeralda's memories of Rosemary could not be accessed, and it seemed to break the both of them.
Before Alma can try and enter the situation, Florence comes up beside her.
"Rosemary, do you need help?" She asks. "I heard that she was coughing a lot, I thought I'd listen to her lungs."
Rosemary was still and quiet, unmoving. Her back turned towards them, her head laid on the arm rest as she held Esmeralda's hands.
"Rosemary?" Alma approached this time, touching her shoulder, to which the older Ymbryne shrugged it off.
"Don't bother…it's too late" Her voice is full of tears, confirming that she knew what she was saying.
Florence paled, and Alma backed towards the door.
"What? No, Florence…do something"
Florence rushed forward, circling the chair to come face to face with both Ymbrynes. To her horror, it is painfully obvious that Rosemary is right. Her lips are blue and her skin pale, cold and clammy to the touch when she reached out. Half-lidded eyes stare out into nothingness. Florence closes them, and then, she kneels next to Rosemary.
"I know it hurts. But it was her time." She tells her softly, hoping to comfort the grieving widow.
"No" Rosemary's protest is weak but strong in spirit. "It was my time. It was my time and I survived and doomed her instead."
Florence sighed. "It was not your fault. We knew she was weak…if not the illness then something would have grabbed hold. She was coming to her end. She knew that" She tried to explain, hoping it would bring peace to the other woman to hear that.
Rosemary shudders and shakes her head. The tears slip out and she bows her head in defeat.
At the door, a crowd is gathering. As if sensing the unbalance of it all, the birds flock together to see what has happened.
Neither Florence nor Alma has words to explain, but as if by telepathy, it seems to sink into them anyway. Isabelle burst forth, grabbing Alma by the arm to force her away, knowing the toll this would all take on Alma. Shortly after, Millie did the same for Florence, assured that there was nothing more she could do for the elder ymbrynes and not wanting her to suffer unnecessarily.
The rest of the birds swept down upon their mother, surrounding Rosemary in a tight embrace. In their warmth, they wanted to assure her safety and loyalty.
She was never alone, not as long as there was another Ymbryne living and breathing.
Miss Avocet may be gone, but they were still there, and it was exactly what she would've wanted.
Her ymbryne daughters, spreading their wings. Moving on and getting on, helping her love along.
Somehow, they would make it.