A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #4)(65)

We watched him go, amazed, but unsure of what to do. Our interactions with peculiars in this part of the world had left us wary. Then Emma leaned into me and said, “We should ask him about the—”

And at the very moment she said the words they flashed into view in the distance, beyond the field Paul was crossing, written in neon.


FLAMING MAN

It was a sign. A literal and actual one made of neon. It had once read FLAMINGO MANOR, but a few letters had burned out. The manor itself—or whatever it was—was mostly obscured by a stand of pine trees.

Emma and I looked at each other, thunderstruck and smiling.

“Well,” she said. “You heard the young man.”

“Peculiars have to stick together,” I said.

And we all started after him.

We followed the boy through the field, down a dirt path that was grassed over and hidden from the road. Bronwyn was at the rear, grunting as she pushed the hobbled Aston over uneven terrain. Aside from the occasional car passing along the main road or the hiss of air brakes at the truck wash behind us, the evening was quiet.

We passed the old motel sign and cleared the trees, and there was the motel—or what was left of it. It had probably been the height of cool in about 1955, with its flying-V roof, kidney-shaped pool, and detached bungalows, but now it did a passable impression of an abandoned building. The roof was patched with tarps. The courtyard was a jungle of overgrown trees. Junk cars were rusting in the pitted parking lot. The pool was empty save a few inches of green water and a long, loaf-shaped thing that might have been—though it was hard to tell in the near-dark—an alligator.

“Don’t mind the look of the place,” said Paul. “It’s nicer on the inside.”

“There’s no way I’m going in there,” said Bronwyn.

“It’s got to be a loop, dear,” said Millard. “In which case, I’m certain it’s nicer on the inside.”

Loops were often downright frightening at their entrance points—it helped keep normal people away—and the Peculiar Planet guide had mentioned “looped accommodations” near Mermaid Fantasyland. The Flaming Man must’ve been it. And if that weren’t a good enough reason to follow the boy, we also couldn’t leave until Enoch fixed the car.

“Look,” Bronwyn hissed, and we turned toward the truck wash. The old police car was back, driving slowly past it, its searchlight panning from side to side.

“I’m going in,” said Paul, his voice edged with a new urgency. “I advise that you follow.”

We took no convincing.





Paul led us into a long, covered porte cochere that led through the parking lot to the inner courtyard of the motel. We ventured inside, Bronwyn pushing the car behind us. At the halfway point I felt a quickening, and, in a flash, the dusk before us turned to daylight. We came out into a cool, bright morning and a neat, paved courtyard that was ringed by motel rooms, which were day-glo pink and almost new. Now there were no tarps on the roof, the pool sparkled with blue water, and the junk cars in the parking lot were gone, replaced with cars from the fifties and sixties in terrific shape. That’s when we must’ve been—the late sixties or early seventies.

“A loop entrance built to accommodate cars,” Millard said. “How modern!”

I ran ahead to catch up with Paul. “Okay, we’re here. Now, will you answer our questions?”

“You’d better ask Miss Billie,” he said. “She runs the place.”

He led us across the courtyard toward a bungalow that was set apart from the rest and had a sign next to it that read OFFICE.

“Leave that,” Paul said to Bronwyn. “No one will bother it.”

She stopped pushing the Aston and jogged to catch up with the group. There were other people here, on this side of the loop. A couple of old men sat by the pool doing crossword puzzles and lowered their papers to stare as we passed by. A curtain in another bungalow moved, and a woman’s face peered through the window at us.

“Miss Billie?” Paul said, knocking on the door to the office. He opened it and gestured for us to go inside. “These people broke down.”

We filed into a room with a registration desk and a few chairs. The woman Paul had addressed was sitting in one. She was an older white lady, and she wore a nice dress and lipstick and held three miniature poodles in her lap, her arms encircling them protectively.

“Oh Lord,” the woman said in a thick southern accent. The poodles trembled. She made no move to get up. “Anyone see ’em come in?”

“I don’t think so,” said Paul.

“What about the highwaymen?”

“No sign of them.”

If the highwaymen were those guys in the police car, Paul had just lied for us. I wasn’t sure why, but I was grateful nonetheless.

“I don’t like it,” Miss Billie said, shaking her head firmly. “It’s a risk. Every time, it’s a risk. But so long as you’re here . . .” She lowered her horn-rimmed glasses a bit and looked at us. “Don’t reckon I can just throw you to the wolves, now can I?”

“If you’ll excuse me,” Paul said, “I’ve got some things to tend to.”

Paul went out. Miss Billie kept her eyes locked on us. “You ain’t gonna turn old on me, are you? I got enough old folks here as it is, and if you’re fixin to die you can just go on and do it somewhere else.”