A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #4)(3)

We had only two neighbors: ancient Mrs. Melloroos, a wheelchair-bound octogenarian who only left her house with the help of a live-in nurse, and a German couple who spent most of the year elsewhere, leaving their Cape Cod–style McMansion empty except during the winter.

“Mrs. Melloroos can be kind of nosy,” I said. “But as long as no one’s being flagrantly peculiar in her front yard, I don’t think she’ll give us any trouble.”

“Noted,” said Miss Peregrine. “Item two: Have you felt the presence of any hollowgast since you returned home?”

I felt my blood pressure spike at her mention of the word, which had crossed neither my mind nor my lips in several weeks. “No,” I said quickly. “Why? Have there been more attacks?”

“No more attacks. No sign of them whatsoever. But that’s what worries me. Now, about your family—”

“Didn’t we kill or capture them all in Devil’s Acre?” I said, not ready to change the subject away from hollowgast so quickly.

“Not quite all. A small cadre escaped with some wights after our victory, and we believe they absconded to America. And while I doubt they’ll come anywhere near you—I daresay they’ve learned their lesson—I can only assume they’re planning something. An abundance of caution couldn’t hurt.”

“They’re terrified of you, Jacob,” Emma said proudly.

“They are?” I said.

“After the thrashing you gave them, they’d be stupid not to be,” said Millard, his voice ringing out from the edge of the kitchen.

“Polite persons do not spy on private conversations,” Miss Peregrine huffed.

“I wasn’t spying, I was hungry. Also, I’ve been sent to ask you not to hog Jacob. We came an awfully long way to see him, you know.”

“They missed Jacob a lot,” Emma said to Miss Peregrine. “Nearly as much as I did.”

“Perhaps it’s time you addressed everyone,” Miss Peregrine said to me. “Make a welcome speech. Lay out some ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” I said. “Like what?”

“They’re my wards, Mr. Portman, but this is your town and your time. I’ll need your help keeping everyone out of trouble.”

“Just be sure to feed them,” said Emma.

I turned to Miss Peregrine. “What were you saying before, about my family?”

They couldn’t stay prisoners in the garage forever, and I was getting anxious about how we were going to deal with them.

“You needn’t worry,” Miss Peregrine said. “Bronwyn has the situation well in hand.”

The words had hardly left her lips when a percussive, wall-rattling crash sounded from the direction of the garage. The vibrations sent glasses toppling from a nearby shelf to the floor, where they shattered.

“That sounds like a distinctly out-of-hand situation,” said Millard.

We were already running.



* * *



? ? ?

“Stay where you are!” Miss Peregrine shouted toward the living room.

I dashed out of the kitchen and down the back hall, Emma just behind, adrenaline sharpening me. I wasn’t sure what to expect when we burst into the garage. Smoke? Blood? It had sounded like an explosion, but I definitely did not anticipate finding my parents and uncles passed out in our car, peaceful as babes. The car’s rear end was wedged into a major dent in the rolled-down garage door, and the concrete around it sparkled with bits of broken taillight. The engine was on and idling.

Bronwyn stood at the front end of the car with the bumper dangling from her hands. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened,” she said, and dropped the bumper with an echoing clang.

Realizing I had to kill the engine before we all suffocated, I peeled away from the others and ran to the driver’s-side door. The handle was locked. Of course it was: My family had been trying to keep Bronwyn out. I’m sure they’d been terrified.

“I can open it,” Bronwyn said. “Stand back!”

She planted her feet and grabbed the door handle with both hands.

“What are you—” I started to say, and then with a mighty heave, she pulled the door open and straight off its hinges. Weight and momentum being what they were, the door kept going, flying out of her hands and across the room before burying itself in the back wall. The noise was like a physical force pushing me backward.

“Oh, fiddlywinks,” Bronwyn said into the ringing silence that followed.

The garage was beginning to resemble some of the bombed houses I’d seen in wartime London.

“Bronwyn!” Emma shouted, uncovering her head. “You might have decapitated someone!”

I ducked into the hole where the driver’s-side door had been, reached across my sleeping father, and snatched the keys from the ignition. My mother was slumped against my father, who was snoring. In the back, my uncles slept in each other’s arms. Despite all the noise, none of them had stirred. I knew of only one substance that could put people into such a deep sleep: a powdered piece of Mother Dust. When I stood up out of the car again, I saw Bronwyn holding a little pouch of the stuff as she attempted to explain what had happened.

“The man in the back,” she was saying, pointing at my uncle Bobby, “I seen him using his, his little—” She pulled Bobby’s phone from her pocket.