A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #4)(36)

We strode through a gloomy entrance hall buzzing with bureaucrats and office workers, most wearing formal waistcoats and loaded down with papers and books. Built into the walls were an array of windows, each manned by a receptionist and marked with a department name: Temporal Affairs, Anachronisms, Normal Relations, Phono-and Photographic Records, Micro-management and Pedantry, Reconstruction Dept. Miss Peregrine marched us to the last window and announced herself.

“What-ho, Bartleby,” she said, rapping on the desk. “Alma Peregrine to see Isabel Cuckoo.”

A man looked up and blinked at her. Squeezed between his temples were five eyes, and pinched in the central one was a monocle. “She’s been expecting you,” he said.

Miss Peregrine thanked him and started back.

“What are you staring at?” he said to me, blinking with four of his eyes.

I hurried after the others.

There were several doorways leading off the entrance hall, and we passed through one into a smaller room. Inside were several rows of chairs and half a dozen peculiars sitting in them, filling out forms.

“Aptitude tests,” Emma said to me. “To see what sort of work you’re best suited for.”

A woman came striding toward Miss Peregrine, arms outstretched.

“Alma, you’re back!”

They traded kisses on the cheek.

“Children, this is Miss Isabel Cuckoo. She’s an old, dear friend of mine, and she also happens to be the ymbryne in charge of high-level reconstruction assignments.”

The woman had shining dark skin and a smooth French accent. She wore a dazzling suit of blue velvet with wide, winglike shoulders that narrowed to a fitted waist and was trimmed with bright gold buttons. Her hair was short, parted, and metallic silver. She looked like a rock star from the future, not a Victorian lady from the past.

“I’ve so looked forward to meeting you all,” she said warmly. “Alma has been telling me about you for so long, I feel like I already know you. You must be Emma, the spark. And Hugh, the auto-apiarist?”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Hugh.

She knew most everyone, and went around shaking their hands. Then she came to me.

“And you’re Jacob Portman. Your reputation precedes you!”

“So I’ve heard,” I said.

“He does not sound thrilled?” Miss Cuckoo said, turning to Miss Peregrine.

“He was caught off guard by all the attention,” Miss Peregrine replied. “He’s just come off a rather quiet time in the present.”

Miss Cuckoo laughed. “Well, his days of quiet are over now! If you’re willing to do a bit of work for a good cause, that is.”

“I want to help however I can,” I said. “What have you got for me?”

“Ah-ah!” She wagged her finger. “All good things in time.”

“I’d like to request something more than just day labor,” said Millard. “I think my voluminous talents are better suited elsewhere.”

“You’re all in luck. There are no unimportant assignments here, and there is no peculiar talent, however unusual, that cannot be made useful to the cause. Just last week I assigned a boy with adhesive saliva to a job fashioning unbreakable leg restraints. Whatever your talent, I’ve got the task for you. Yes?”

Enoch had his hand raised. “My talent is hypnotizing ladies with my good looks. What have you got for me?”

Miss Cuckoo flashed him a sharp smile. “Enoch O’Connor, dead-riser, born to a family of undertakers.” She smiled. “And has a cheeky sense of humor. I’ll remember that.”

Enoch grinned at the floor, his cheeks going red. “She does know me,” I heard him say.

Miss Peregrine looked like she was going to murder him. “I’m so sorry, Isabel—”

She waved it off. “He’s silly, but he’s brave. That could be useful.” She looked around at the rest of us. “Anyone else got a joke for me?”

No one said a word.

“Then let’s put you to work.”

She linked arms with Miss Peregrine and they strode together toward the exit, looking like sisters from different centuries. We followed them up a flight of stairs.

“Enoch, what’s gotten into you?” I heard Millard say. “She’s a hundred years your senior, and an ymbryne!”

“She said I was brave,” Enoch said, a dopey look on his face.

Suddenly he didn’t seem to mind having a job in the Acre.

“I thought I’d never understand boys,” said Bronwyn, shaking her head. “But now I think I’ve got it. They’re all idiots!”



* * *



? ? ?

We followed the ymbrynes down a gloomy corridor flickering with gaslights. “This is where the sausage gets made,” Miss Cuckoo was saying, walking backward to face us as she spoke. “The ministry offices.”

Every few yards there was a door, and each was labeled two ways: Signs original to the asylum were carved into the wood in bold block letters, and above those the ministries had tacked signs of their own, stenciled on paper. Through an open door that read both MISCREANTS and MINISTRY OF TEMPORAL AFFAIRS, I saw a man clacking away at a typewriter with one hand while holding an umbrella in the other, the ceiling dripping so badly I thought for a moment it was raining inside the room. Through the next door (PERVERTS/DEPT. OF INHUMAN AFFAIRS) a woman was using a broom to defend her lunch from a small horde of rats. Emma, who was unterrified of most things but despised rodents, grabbed my arm.