Library of Souls (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children #3)(14)

“Why not?” Emma said. “Too nice and pleasant?”

“Actually, it’s rather a rough spot. Certainly no place for children …”

Emma stamped her foot and shook the whole rotting dock. “That’s where our friends were taken, isn’t it?” she shouted. “Isn’t it!”

“Don’t lose your temper, miss. Your safety is my highest concern.”

“Quit winding us up and tell us what’s there!”

“Well, if you insist …” Sharon made a sound like he was slipping into a warm bath and began rubbing his leathery hands together, as if just thinking about it brought him pleasure. “Nasty things,” he said. “Dreadful things. Vile things. Anything you like, so long as what you like is nasty, dreadful, and vile. I’ve often dreamed of hanging up my oar pole and retiring there one day, perhaps to run the little abattoir on Oozing Street …”

“What name did you call it again?” said Addison.

“Devil’s Acre,” the boatman said wistfully.

Addison shuddered from tip to tail. “I know it,” he said gravely. “It’s a terrible place—the most depraved and dangerous slum in the whole long history of London. I’ve heard stories of peculiar animals brought there in cages and made to fight in blood-sport games. Grimbears pitted against emu-raffes, chimpnoceri against flaming-goats … parents against their own children! Forced to maim and kill one another for the entertainment of a few sick peculiars.”

“Disgusting,” Emma said. “What peculiar would participate in such a thing?”

Addison shook his head ruefully. “Outlaws … mercenaries … exiles …”

“But there are no outlaws in peculiardom!” said Emma. “Any peculiar convicted of a crime is brought by the home guard to a punishment loop!”

“How little you know of your own world,” the boatman said.

“Criminals can’t be jailed if they’re never caught,” Addison explained. “Not if they escape to a loop like that first—lawless, ungovernable.”

“It sounds like Hell,” I said. “Why would anyone go there voluntarily?”

“What’s Hell for some,” said the boatman, “is paradise for others. It’s the last truly free place. Somewhere you can buy anything, sell anything …” He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “Or hide anything.”

“Like kidnapped ymbrynes and peculiar children?” I said. “Is that what you’re getting at?”

“I said nothing of the sort,” shrugged the boatman, busying himself with a rat plucked from the hem of his cloak. “Shoo there, Percy, Daddy’s working.”

While he placed the rat gently aside, I gathered Emma and Addison in a tight huddle. “What do you think?” I whispered. “Could this … devil place … really be where our friends were taken?”

“Well, they have to be keeping their prisoners inside a loop, and a pretty old one,” said Emma. “Otherwise most of us would age forward and die after a day or two …”

“But what do the wights care if we die?” I said. “They just want to steal our souls.”

“Maybe, but they can’t let the ymbrynes die. They need them to re-create the 1908 event. Remember the wights’ crazy plan?”

“All that stuff Golan was raving about. Immortality and ruling the world …”

“Yeah. So they’ve been kidnapping ymbrynes for months and need a place to hold them where they won’t turn into dried fruit leather, right? Which means a pretty old loop. Eighty, a hundred years at least. And if Devil’s Acre is really a lawless jungle of depravity …”

“It is,” said Addison.

“… then it sounds like a perfect spot for wights to secret away their captives.”

“Right in the heart of peculiar London, too,” said Addison. “Right under everyone’s noses. Clever little blighters …”

“Guess that settles it,” I said.

Emma stepped smartly toward Sharon. “We’ll take three tickets to that disgusting, horrible place you described, please.”

“Be very, very certain that’s what you want,” said the boatman. “Innocent lambs like yourselves don’t always return from Devil’s Acre.”

“We’re sure,” I said.

“Very good, then. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Only thing is, we don’t have three gold pieces,” said Emma.

“Is that right?” Sharon tented his long fingers and let out a sigh that smelled like an opened tomb. “Normally I insist on payment up front, but I’m feeling generous this morning. I find your plucky optimism charming. You can owe me.” And then he laughed, as if he knew we’d never live to repay him, and stepping aside he raised a cloaked arm toward his boat.

“Welcome aboard, children.”





CHAPTER II





Sharon made a big show of plucking six wriggling rats from his boat before we boarded—as if a pestilence-free journey were a luxury afforded only to Very Important Peculiars—and then he offered Emma his arm and helped her step from the dock. We were seated three abreast on a simple wooden bench. While Sharon was busy untying the mooring rope, I wondered whether trusting him was merely unwise or if it crossed the line into recklessness, like lying down for a nap in the middle of a road.