A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #4)(25)

No one had told me. Of course they hadn’t: I would have thrown a fit, and my parents didn’t want to deal with it. My feelings were too much trouble.

Emma came up behind me. “Are you okay?”

“I should be asking you that,” I said.

“I’m okay,” she said. “It’s just a house. Right?”

“Right,” I said. “So why does it bother me so much that my parents are selling it?”

She hugged me from behind. “You don’t have to explain. I understand.”

“Thanks. And I totally get it if you need to leave, whenever. Just say the word.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. Then, quieter, “But thank you.”

There was a sudden commotion behind us, and we turned to see Bronwyn and Olive standing by the trunk of the car.

“There’s someone in the boot!” Bronwyn cried.

We ran over. I could hear a muffled voice shouting. I pushed a button on the key fob and the trunk opened. Enoch popped up.

“Enoch!” cried Emma.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I said.

“You really thought I was going to let you leave me behind?” He blinked in the sudden sunlight. “Think again!”

“Your brain,” said Millard, shaking his head. “Sometimes it just defies belief.”

“Yes, my brilliance catches a lot of people off guard.” Enoch clambered out onto the driveway, then looked around, confused. “Wait. This isn’t a clothing shop.”

“Goodness, he is brilliant,” said Millard.

“It’s Abe’s house,” said Bronwyn.

Enoch mouth fell open. “What!” He raised an eyebrow at Emma. “Whose idea was this?”

“Mine,” I said, hoping to shut down an awkward conversation before it began.

“We’re here to pay our respects,” said Bronwyn.

“If you say so,” said Enoch.

I hadn’t brought the keys to the house, but it didn’t matter. There was a spare hidden beneath a conch shell in the vegetable garden, one only Grandpa Portman and I knew about. There was something sweet about finding it just where it was supposed to be. Moments later I was unlocking the front door and we were stepping inside.

The air-conditioning had probably been off for most of the summer, and the house was hot and stale. Worse than the stifling temperature was the state of the place. Clothes and papers were stacked in unsteady piles on the floor, household items were littered across countertops, trash spilled from a pyramid of garbage bags in the corner. My father and my aunt had never finished sorting through Grandpa Portman’s things. Dad abandoned the project (and the house, it seemed) when we left for Wales and planted a FOR SALE sign out front in the hope someone else might do the work instead. It looked like a ransacked Salvation Army store, not the home of a respected elder, and I was overcome by a wave of shame. I found myself trying to apologize and explain and tidy up all at the same time, as if I could hide what my friends had already seen.

“Gosh,” said Enoch, clicking his tongue as he looked around, “he must have really been bad off at the end.”

“No—it was—it was never like this,” I stammered, scooping old magazines from the seat of Abe’s armchair. “At least, not while he was alive—”

“Jacob, wait,” said Emma.

“Can you guys go outside for a minute while I do this?”

“Jacob!” Emma caught me by the shoulders. “Stop.”

“I’ll be quick,” I said. “He didn’t live like this. I swear.”

“I know,” said Emma. “Abe wouldn’t even have breakfast without a clean collared shirt on.”

“Exactly,” I said. “So—”

“We want to help.”

Enoch pulled a face. “We do?”

“Yes!” said Olive. “We’ll all pitch in.”

“I agree,” said Bronwyn. “It shouldn’t be left like this.”

“Why not?” said Enoch. “Abe’s dead. Who cares if his house is clean?”

“We do,” said Millard, and Enoch stumbled as if Millard had shoved him. “And if you’re not going to help, go lock yourself in the boot of the car again!”

“Yeah!” cried Olive.

“No need to get violent, mates.” Enoch grabbed a broom from the corner and twirled it around. “See, I’m game. Sweepy-sweep!”

Emma clapped her hands. “Then let’s get this place shipshape.”

We dove in and started working. Emma took charge, giving orders like a drill sergeant, which I think helped keep her mind from wandering into painful territory. “Books on shelves. Clothes in closets. Trash in cans!”

With one hand, Bronwyn lifted Abe’s easy chair over her head. “Where does this go?”

We dusted and swept. We threw open windows to let in fresh air. Bronwyn took room-sized carpets into the yard and beat the dust out of them—by herself. Even Enoch didn’t seem to mind the work once we settled into a rhythm. Everything was coated with dust and grime, and it got onto our hands and clothes and in our hair. But nobody minded.

As we worked, I saw ghostly images of my grandfather everywhere. In his plaid chair, reading one of his spy novels. At the living room window, silhouetted against a bright afternoon, just watching—for the postman, he would say, and chuckle. Stooped over a pot of Polish stew in the kitchen, tending it while telling me stories. At the big drawing table he kept in the garage, pushpins and yarn spread out everywhere, making maps with me on a summer afternoon. “Where should the river go?” he would say, handing me a blue marker. “What about the town?” White hair rising like tendrils of smoke from his scalp. “Here maybe is better?” he’d say, urging my hand a little this way or that.