Hollow City (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, #2)(68)

“Are they nice? I want to meet them!”

“They were just leaving.”

“There are lots of us and two of you,” Emma said matter-of-factly. “We’re staying here for a bit, and that’s that. You’re not going to scream, either, and we’re not going to steal anything.”

The girl’s eyes flashed with anger, then dulled. She knew she’d lost. “All right,” she said, “but try anything and I’ll scream and bury this in your belly.” She brandished the letter opener weakly, then lowered it to her waist.

“Fair enough,” I said.

“Sam?” said the little voice. “What’s happening now?”

The girl—Sam—stepped reluctantly aside, revealing a bathroom that danced with the flickering light of candles. There was a sink and a toilet and a bathtub, and in the bathtub a little girl of perhaps five. She peeped curiously at us over the rim. “This is my sister, Esme,” Sam said.

“Hullo!” said Esme, waggling a rubber duck at us. “Bombs can’t get you when you’re in the bath, did you know that?”

“I didn’t,” Emma replied.

“It’s her safe place,” Sam whispered. “We spend every raid in here.”

“Wouldn’t you be safer in a shelter?” I said.

“Those are awful places,” Sam said.

The others had tired of waiting and began coming down the hall. Bronwyn leaned through the doorway and waved hello.

“Come in!” Esme said, delighted.

“You’re too trusting,” Sam scolded her. “One day you’re going to meet a bad person and then you’ll be sorry.”

“They aren’t bad,” said Esme.

“You can’t tell just by looking.”

Then Hugh and Horace pressed their faces through the doorway, curious to see whom we’d met, and Olive scooted between their legs and sat in the middle of the floor, and pretty soon all of us were squeezed into the bathroom together, even Melina and the blind brothers, who stood creepily facing the corner. Seeing so many people, Sam’s legs shook and she sat down heavily on the toilet, overwhelmed—but her sister was thrilled, asking everyone’s name as they came in.

“Where are your parents?” Bronwyn asked.

“Father’s shooting bad people in the war,” Esme said proudly. She mimed holding a rifle and shouted, “Bang!”

Emma looked at Sam. “You said your father was upstairs,” she said flatly.

“You broke into our house,” Sam replied.

“True.”

“And your mother?” said Bronwyn. “Where is she?”

“A long time dead,” Sam said with no apparent feeling. “So when Father went to war they tried shipping us off to family elsewhere—and because Father’s sister in Devon is terribly mean and would only take one of us, they tried shipping Esme and me off to different places. But we jumped off the train and came back.”

“We won’t be split up,” Esme declared. “We’re sisters.”

“And you’re afraid if you go to a shelter they’ll find you?” Emma said. “Send you away?”

Sam nodded. “I won’t let that happen.”

“It’s safe in the tub,” said Esme. “Maybe you should get in, too. That way we’d all be safe.”

Bronwyn touched her hand to her heart. “Thank you, love, but we’d never fit!”





While the others talked, I turned my focus inward, trying to sense the hollows. They weren’t running anymore. The Feeling had stabilized, which meant they weren’t getting closer or farther away, but were probably sniffing around nearby. I took this as a good sign; if they knew where we were, they’d be coming straight for us. Our trail had gone cold. All we had to do was keep our heads down for a while, and then we could follow the pigeon to Miss Wren.

We huddled on the bathroom floor listening to bombs fall in other parts of the city. Emma found some rubbing alcohol in the medicine cabinet and insisted on cleaning and bandaging the cut on my head. Then Sam began to hum some tune I knew but couldn’t quite name, and Esme played with her duck in the tub, and ever so slowly, the Feeling began to diminish. For a scant few minutes, that twinkling bathroom became a world unto itself; a cocoon far away from trouble and war.

But the war outside refused to be ignored for long. Antiaircraft guns rattled. Shrapnel skittered like claws across the roof. The bombs drew closer until their reports were followed by lower, more ominous sounds—the dull thud of walls collapsing. Olive hugged herself. Horace put his fingers in his ears. The blind boys moaned and rocked on their feet. Miss Peregrine wriggled deep into the folds of Bronwyn’s coat and the pigeon trembled in Melina’s lap.

“What sort of madness have you led us into?” Melina said.

“I warned you,” Emma replied.

The water in Esme’s tub rippled with each blast. The little girl clutched her rubber duck and began to cry. Her sobs filled the little room. Sam hummed louder, pausing to whisper, “You’re safe, Esme, you’re safe in here,” between melody lines, but Esme only cried harder. Horace took his fingers out of his ears and tried to distract Esme by making shadow animals on the wall—a crocodile snapping its jaws, a bird flying—but she hardly noticed. Then, the last person I’d expect to care about making a little girl feel better scooted over to the tub.