Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children(21)
I looked at the body again, throttled and flayed and drowned and somehow made immortal in the process.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
Martin straightened, then began to speak in a grandiose tone. “Come, you, and gaze upon the tar man! Blackly he reposes, tender face the color of soot, withered limbs like veins of coal, feet lumps of driftwood hung with shriveled grapes!” He threw his arms out like a hammy stage actor and began to strut around the case. “Come, you, and bear witness to the cruel art of his wounds! Purled and meandering lines drawn by knives; brain and bone exposed by stones; the rope still digging at his throat. First fruit slashed and dumped – seeker of Heaven – old man arrested in youth – I almost love you!”
He took a theatrical bow as I applauded. “Wow,” I said, “did you write that?”
“Guilty!” he replied with a sheepish smile. “I twiddle about with lines of verse now and then, but it’s only a hobby. In any case, thank you for indulging me.”
I wondered what this odd, well-spoken man was doing on Cairnholm, with his pleated slacks and half-baked poems, looking more like a bank manager than someone who lived on a windswept island with one phone and no paved roads.
“Now, I’d be happy to show you the rest of my collection,” he said, escorting me toward the door, “but I’m afraid it’s shutting-up time. If you’d like to come back tomorrow, however—”
“Actually, I was hoping you might know something,” I said, stopping him before he could shoo me out. “It’s about the house I mentioned this morning. I went to see it.”
“Well!” he exclaimed. “I thought I’d scared you off it. How’s our haunted mansion faring these days? Still standing?”
I assured him that it was, then got right to the point. “The people that lived there—do you have any idea what happened to them?”
“They’re dead,” he replied. “Happened a long time ago.”
I was surprised—though I probably shouldn’t have been. Miss Peregrine was old. Old people die. But that didn’t mean my search was over. “I’m looking for anyone else who might have lived there, too, not just the headmistress.”
“All dead,” he repeated. “No one’s lived there since the war.”
That took me a moment to process. “What do you mean? What war?”
“When we say ‘the war’ around here, my boy, there’s only one that we mean—the second. It was a German air raid that got ’em, if I’m not mistaken.”
“No, that can’t be right.”
He nodded. “In those days, there was an anti-aircraft gun battery at the far tip of the island, past the wood where the house is. It made Cairnholm a legitimate military target. Not that ‘legitimate’ mattered much to the Germans one way or another, mind you. Anyway, one of the bombs went off track, and, well …” He shook his head. “Nasty luck.”
“That can’t be right,” I said again, though I was starting to wonder.
“Why don’t you sit down and let me fix you some tea?” he said. “You look a bit off the mark.”
“Just feeling a little light-headed …”
He led me to a chair in his office and went to make the tea. I tried to collect my thoughts. Bombed in the war—that would certainly explain those rooms with blown-out walls. But what about the letter from Miss Peregrine—postmarked Cairnholm—sent just fifteen years ago?
Martin returned, handing me a mug. “There’s a nip of Penderyn in it,” he said. “Secret recipe, you know. Should get you sorted in no time.”
I thanked him and took a sip, realizing too late that the secret ingredient was high-test whiskey. It felt like napalm flushing down my esophagus. “It does have a certain kick,” I admitted, my face going red.
He frowned. “Reckon I ought to fetch your father.”
“No, no, I’ll be fine. But if there’s anything else you can tell me about the attack, I’d be grateful.”
Martin settled into a chair opposite me. “About that, I’m curious. You say your grandfather lived here. He never mentioned it?”
“I’m curious about that, too,” I said. “I guess it must’ve been after his time. Did it happen late in the war or early?”
“I’m ashamed to admit I don’t know. But if you’re keen, I can introduce you to someone who does—my Uncle Oggie. He’s eighty-three, lived here his whole life. Still sharp as a tack.” Martin glanced at his watch. “If we catch him before Father Ted comes on the telly, I’m sure he’d be more than happy to tell you anything you like.”
*
Ten minutes later Martin and I were wedged deep in an overstuffed sofa in Oggie’s living room, which was piled high with books and boxes of worn-out shoes and enough lamps to light up Carlsbad Caverns, all but one of them unplugged. Living on a remote island, I was starting to realize, turned people into pack rats. Oggie sat facing us in a threadbare blazer and pajama bottoms, as if he’d been expecting company—just not pants-worthy company—and rocked endlessly in a plastic-covered easy chair as he talked. He seemed happy just to have an audience, and after he’d gone on at length about the weather and Welsh politics and the sorry state of today’s youth, Martin was finally able to steer him around to the attack and the children from the home.