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Part One

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We rowed out through the harbor, past bobbing boats weeping rust fro atop the barnacled remains of sunken docks, past fishermen who lowered their nets to stare frozenly as we slipped by, uncertain whether ere real or ihosts soon to be We were ten children and one bird in three sht out to sea, the only safe harbor for ical in the blue-gold light of dawn Our goal, the rutted coast of mainland Wales, was soe squatting along the far horizon

We rowed past the old lighthouse, tranquil in the distance, which only last night had been the scene of soaround us, we had nearly drowned, nearly been torn apart by bullets; that I had taken a gun and pulled its trigger and killed a man, an act still incoot her back again--snatched frorine as returned to us was daive She perched now on the stern of our boat, watching the sanctuary she’d created slip away, more lost with every oar stroke

Finally ed past the breakwater and into the great blank open, and the glassy surface of the harbor gave way to little waves that chopped at the sides of our boats I heard a plane threading the clouds high above us and letup, arrested by a vision of our little arht: this world I had chosen, and everything I had in it, and all our precious, peculiar lives, contained in three splinters of wood adrift upon the vast, unblinking eye of the sea

Mercy

Our boats slid easily through the waves, three abreast, a friendly current bearing us coastward We rowed in shifts, taking turns at the oars to stave off exhaustion, though I felt so strong that for nearly an hour I refused to give them up I lostellipses in the air as if pulling soh manned the oars opposite me, and behind him, at the bow, sat Emma, her eyes hidden beneath the brim of a sun hat, head bent toward a map spread across her knees Every so often she’d look up froht of her face in the sun gave y I didn’t know I had

I felt like I could row forever--until Horace shouted from one of the other boats to ask how much ocean was left between us and the mainland, and Emma squinted back toward the island and then down at her ers, and said, somewhat doubtfully, "Seven kilometers?" But then Millard, as also in our boat,in her ear and she frowned and turned the ht and a half" As the words left her mouth, I felt ht and a half kilometers: a journey that would’ve taken an hour in the stoo A distance easily covered by an engine-powered boat of any size One and a half kilometers less than my out-of-shape uncles ran on odd weekends for charity, and only a few -ym But the ferry between the island and thefor another thirty years, and rowing e, nor did they require constant course corrections just to stay pointed in the right direction Worse still, the ditch of water ere crossing was treacherous, a notorious ship-ser: eight and a half kiloreening wrecks and sailors’ bones and, lurking somewhere in the fathoms-deep darkness, our enes assuhts were nearby, so If they didn’t already knoe’d fled the island, they’d find out soon enough They hadn’t gone to such lengths to kidnap Miss Peregrine only to give up after one failed atte like centipedes in the distance and the British planes that kept watch overhead erous for the subhtfall, we’d be easy prey They would corine, and sink the rest So ed, our only hope that we could reach the htfall reached us

We rowed until our ar breeze stilled and the sun blazed down as through a lass and sweat pooled around our collars, and I realized no one had thought to bring fresh water, and that sunblock in 1940in the shade We rowed until the skin wore away froes of our palms and ere certain we absolutely couldn’t row another stroke, but then did, and then another, and another

"You’re sweating buckets," Eo at the oars before you ratefully and let her switch into the oar seat, but twenty ain I didn’t like the thoughts that crept into ined scenes of one fro letter in my place; the panic that would ensue Mes I’d witnessed recently: ato his death; a man buried in a coffin of ice, torn momentarily from the next world to croak into my ear with half a throat So I rowed despite ht never bend straight again and hands rubbed raw fro, those leaden oars both a life sentence and a life raft

Bronwyn, seely inexhaustible, rowed one of the boats all by herself Olive sat opposite but was no help; the tiny girl couldn’t pull the oars without pushing herself up into the air, where a stray gust of windaway like a kite So Olive shouted encouragement while Bronwyn did the work of two--or three or four, if you took into account all the suitcases and boxes weighing down their boat, stuffed with clothes and food and s, too, like several jars of pickled reptile hearts sloshing in Enoch’s duffel bag; or the blown-off front doorknob to Miss Peregrine’s house, a rass on our way to the boats and decided he couldn’t live without; or the bulky pillow Horace had rescued fro shell--it was his lucky pillow, he said, and the only thing that kept his paralyzing nightmares at bay