A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #4)(55)

He walked off toward the other car in the lot—a sleek old Cadillac with suicide doors—and whistled for his hollowgast. It came running and dove through an open window into the back seat. The car started with an uproarious noise. H gave us a little salute, then peeled out of the lot with a trail of tire-smoke.



* * *



? ? ?

“So this is totally nuts, right?” I was driving but staring mostly at Emma in the passenger seat, my eyes flicking back to the road ahead every few seconds. “I mean, this is a certifiably terrible idea for all sorts of reasons. Right?”

She was nodding. “We barely know who this man is. We just met him.”

“Right.”

“We don’t even know his real name. And he’s trying to send us on some strange long-distance errand—”

“Right, right . . .”

“Running packages we’re not even allowed to look inside—”

“Right! And this mission could be really dangerous. Whatever it is! We don’t even know.”

“And Miss Peregrine will be so mad at us.”

I pulled into the oncoming lane to pass a car. I drive fast when I’m anxious.

“She’ll be furious,” I said. “She may never speak to us again.”

“And not all of our friends will agree with this.”

“I know, I know.”

“It could split the group,” she said.

“That would be so terrible.”

“It would,” she said.

“It really would.”

I glanced at her. “And yet.”

She sighed. Folded her hands in her lap and looked out the window.

“And yet.”

Red light. I slowed to a stop. It was quiet for a moment, and now I could hear a song playing quietly on the classic rock station, which I had not quite turned all the way down. I took my hands off the wheel and turned my body to face her.

She looked at me. “We’re doing this, aren’t we?”

“Yeah. I think we are.”

It began, gently, to rain. The lights of suburbia blurred around us. I flicked on the windshield wipers.

As we drove to my house, we talked specifics. We would tell our friends but not Miss Peregrine, in the hope she wouldn’t find out what we were up to until we were too far away to be stopped. We would bring two friends with us—whoever seemed most capable and enthusiastic. And from this point on, we would entertain no second thoughts. My gut was telling me very loudly that this mission was something I needed. That this was the life I wanted to make for myself: One not completely of the normal world, not completely of the peculiar one, and not ruled by the whims and dictates of the ymbrynes.

Part of me wanted to go directly to Abe’s house to satisfy my curiosity about what else was down in his bunker (a car? really?) but before we did anything else, we had to talk to the others.

When we walked through the front door of my house, the first thing I heard was Olive’s voice above my head—“Where have you been?”—and I nearly fell over with a heart attack. She was glaring at us from the ceiling, seated upside down, arms crossed.

“How long have you been waiting there?” said Emma.

“Long enough.” Olive pushed off the ceiling toward the floor, where she righted herself and tucked her feet into the leaden shoes that were waiting for her there in one deft move.

The others heard us and crowded into the front hall from various points around the house, eager to interrogate us.

“Where’s Miss Peregrine?” I said, glancing past them toward the living room.

“Still in the Acre,” said Horace. “Lucky for you all the ymbrynes are in a very long council meeting.”

“Something big is going on,” said Millard.

“Where were you two?” said Hugh.

“Bum-touching on the beach?” said Enoch.

“Off in Abe’s secret bunker?” said Bronwyn.

“And what secret bunker would you be referring to?” asked Hugh.

He wasn’t with us when we’d found it. He didn’t know.

“We weren’t sure if you wanted us to tell everyone,” said Bronwyn.

I started to explain but things soon devolved into a chaos of shouted questions, everyone talking over one another, until finally Emma had to flap her arms and shout for quiet. “Everyone, come into the living room. Jacob and I have a story to tell.”

We sat them down and proceeded to lay it all out—the discoveries we’d made the previous day at Abe’s house, the meeting we’d had with H, and the miniature quest he’d given us, along with a promise of a much more important one.

“You’re not actually considering this, are you?” said Horace.

“Damn right, we are,” I said. “And we want a couple of you to come with us.”

“We’re a team,” said Emma. “All of us.”

Their reactions were divided. Claire got angry and Horace got quiet and nervous. Hugh and Bronwyn were cautious, but I thought they could be swayed. Enoch, Millard, and Olive, on the other hand, seemed ready to jump in the car with us right then.

“Miss P’s been so good to us,” Claire said dourly. “We owe her more than this.”

“I agree,” said Bronwyn. “I won’t lie to her. I hate lying.”