A Peculiar Time in 1944 - A Millard Fanfic (Miss Peregrine's Home) #wattys2020

Chapter 22

"Enough about me. I want to hear about you!"

"Well it's not going to be as exciting as your life has been." Noah replied.

"I don't care. I've been in that loop for twenty-one years wondering what happened to all of you after I left."

"Well, I don't know all of the details, I was only ten months old after all. Like I said Dad would only mumble about some ghost – Millard apparently – and Mother never liked to talk about that night. Over the years I've been able to get some details out of her though. After you ran off and Dad woke up Mother was devastated. She begged Dad to go out and look for you but he was still angry, and pretty disoriented from the beating your friend gave him. Apparently he kept calling you a whore and said if you wanted to run off and die in a gutter somewhere it was fine by him. Then he marched out and spent the night in the local bar. Dad kept drinking a lot after that, Mother never told him to stop, if anything she'd gladly pour him another whiskey, or bourbon, any liquor really Dad wasn't too picky about it."

"I'm sorry you had to grow up around that, if I had been there I could have helped you."

"But I didn't have to grow up like that." Noah continued, "Dad died of alcohol poisoning when I was eight. I think Mother was relieved when he passed, he was pretty foul."

Aurora was stunned into silence, she'd never really liked her father but he was still her father – it was an odd emotion to describe, "Father's dead?" she asked not quite wrapping her mind around it.

"Mm-hm. It was after we'd left Europe and moved to America, I was so young all I really remember was people telling me how sorry they were and asking if we needed anything. For a little while I worried that life would get tough, since Dad wasn't around to make money anymore. But the neighborhood we live in is really nice, lots of people who struggled during the war who all want to help out. Lots of the women would come over and bring a meal for dinner, I think Mother felt bad about needing the charity but at the same time liked how much people cared.

But Dad dying really let Mother out of her shell, I think she was afraid to talk to people before because she was embarrassed by him. But she started making friends with the other wives and mothers, she started watching their children for them when they had to go grocery shopping or wanted to go out to the salon and they'd pay her for her trouble. She runs a small day-care now from our house, that's how I know so much about comic books, all the kids like it when I read to them."

Aurora smiled as she pictured her brother surrounded by small children reading them a story, their eyes wide with fascination as he brought some far away magical place to life just by reading the words on the page.

"Can I tell her I found you?" Noah asked now looking concerned.

"Of course." Aurora said, her mind immediately jumping to the lie Abe had used whenever he spoke to others about his time on the island.

"Tell her I found a children's home for refugees after I left France. Tell her I made lots of friends and I'm happy."

"I will." He said smiling down at her, part of her hating that her younger brother was taller than her – even if it was just by a few inches.

"I think it will really heal her heart hearing that your okay. Like I said, she assumed you were dead, she'll be overjoyed when I tell her."

Aurora felt a pang of sadness shoot through her as she thought about her poor Mother. For years she'd thought her baby girl had run away and died, a young girl alone in a war-torn country with no one to look after her. She should have written, just so her mother could have known she was alright.

"Did you?"

"Did I what?" Noah asked now puzzled.

"Did you think I was dead?"

"No. There was something inside me that never believed it. Mother always told me that the idea of you dead was just such a horrible thought that I couldn't accept it. . . I'm glad I didn't."

"Is that what brought you to Cairnholm? Were you looking for me?" Aurora asked now slightly concerned. If Noah had been looking for her and his search led him to the island, how easy would it be for a wight to find their loop?

"Sort of." He said, now blushing. "I was looking for you. I searched the old town in England where you lived before the war. I heard stories about that old ship, the Augusta? It sank off the coast here and I wanted to check it out." He said embarrassed as he scratched the back of his neck. "I found you by accident. After the detour here I was going to head to France."

"You should still go." She encouraged, "France was lovely even with a war going on, I can only imagine it now." She said somewhat sad, Noah picked up on it.

"You should come with m—oh, right, the aging out thing. You really can't ever leave?"

"No, after enough time the years would catch up."

"But you'd still be alive, you're only supposed to be thirty seven."

Aurora's nose wrinkled and her brow furrowed as she thought about that for a moment, thirty seven and -oh bird – that would make Millard forty! She shook her head focusing again.

"It's more than that, it's not just how old your body is supposed to be, it's your mind as well. Aging that quickly, it. . . does something, messes with your brain somehow, you become. . . not right in the head. It's happened to one peculiar before, the end result wasn't pretty."

There was a long silence between the two siblings before Aurora knocked her shoulder into Noah's arm.

"You should still go. You might find a nice French girl." She said teasingly making Noah laugh.

"Promise you'll write?" he asked.

Aurora took his hand and smiled.

"Promise."