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"I can iine," I said

"One day, as far as anyone kneas as co, and the next I felt a curious itch in the palrew red and swollen, then hot--so hot that I ran to the grocer’s and buried thean to thaw and stink, the grocer chased ain, where he demanded thatup by this tiht fire, and I was sure I’d gone stark raving mad"

"What did your parents think?" I asked

"My mother, as a deeply superstitious person, ran out of the house and never caht from Hell via her womb The old man took a different approach He beat h the door he tied me doith asbestos sheets Kepth to untiefor him, ’cause the minute he did I would’ve burned him black"

"I wish you had," I said

"That’s sweet of you But it wouldn’t have done any good My parents were horrible people--but if they hadn’t been, and if I’d stayed with theer, there’s no question the holloould’ve found er sister, Julia, who freed ht so that I could finally run away; and Miss Peregrine, who discoveredcircus" Emma smiled wistfully "The day I met her, that’s what I call my birthday The day I met my trueEmma’s story made me feel closer to her, and less alone in h a period of painful uncertainty Every peculiar had been tried The glaring difference between us was that my parents still loved me--and despite the problems I’d had with theht that I was hurting them noas a constant ache

What did I owe therine, orI felt for Eer every time I looked at her?

The scales tipped always toward the latter But eventually, if I lived through this, I would have to face up to the decision I had made and the pain I had caused

If

If always propelled hts back to the present, because if depended sos if I was distracted If demanded my full presence and participation in now

If, as much as it scaredway to towns giving way to unbroken tracts of suburbia I wondered aiting for us there; what new horrors lay ahead

I glanced at a headline in the newspaper still open in Emma’s lap: AIR RAIDS RATTLE CAPITAL SCORES DEAD

I closedat all

Part Two

If anyone had been watching as the eight-thirty train hissed into the station and ground to a stea out of the ordinary about it: not about the conductors and porters restled open its latches and threw back its doors; not about the mass of men and women, some in military dress, who strea crowd; not even about the eight weary children who filed heavily fro in the hazy light of the platforether in a protective circle, dazed by the cathedral of noise and smoke in which they found theroup of children as lost and forlorn-looking as these would’ve been approached by some kindly adult and asked what the matter was, or whether they needed help, or where their parents were But today the platform teemed with hundreds of children, all of whom looked lost and forlorn So no one paidbrown hair and button shoes, or the fact that her shoes did not quite touch the floor No one noticed the moon-faced boy in the flat cap, or the honeybee that drifted from his mouth, tested the sooty air, then dove back froered on the boy with dark-ringed eyes, or saw the clay ain by the boy’s finger Likewise the boy as dressed to the nines in a muddy but finely tailored suit and stove-in top hat, his face drawn and haggard from lack of sleep, for he hadn’t allowed himself any in days, so afraid was he of his dreairl in the coat and simple dress, as built like a stack of bricks and had lashed to her back a steae as herself None who saw her could have guessed how stupendously heavy the trunk was, or what it held, or why a screen of tiny holes had been punched into one side Overlooked co man next to her, so wrapped in scarves and a hooded coat that not an inch of his bare skin could be seen, though it was early September and the weather still war he hardly merited notice; so apparently normal that people’s eyes skipped over hiaze sweeping across the platforirl by his side stood with her hands clasped together, concealing a tendril of flame that curled stubbornly around the nail of her pinky, which happened soer as oneon it When that didn’t work, she slipped it into her mouth and let a puff of smoke coil from her nose No one saw that, either

In fact, no one looked closely enough at the children froht-thirty train to notice anything peculiar about theed me

"So?"

"I need another minute," I said

Bronwyn had set down her trunk and I was standing on it now, head above the crowd, castingplatform teemed with children They squir into a haze of s black trains loomed up on either side, anxious to s the me as I scanned the crowd I was supposed to knohether, so mass, there were monsters who meant to kill us--and I was supposed to know it siut Usually it was painful and obvious when a holloas nearby, but in a giant space like this--aht only be a whisper, the faintest twinge, easy to miss