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

Chapter 51

While Addison showed the others the graveyard, Millard stayed by Aurora's side. Mira had curled up in her lap and purred as Aurora petted her snow-white fur. Her eyes were closed again as she drifted in and out of sleep. After a while Deirdre the emu-raffe came up to them with a handkerchief hanging from her mouth. She placed it by Millard's side and the corners unfolded revealing some of the leftovers from the feast he and the others had enjoyed earlier.

"A few scraps for your missus." She said nodding to Aurora.

"Oh, she's not my –" Millard began but then took another look at Aurora who seemed to have fallen asleep again, "Well. . . not officially anyway."

"Miss Wren meant this menagerie to be an ark, but gradually, it's become a tomb." Addison's voice carried as he and the others returned.

"Like all our loops." Enoch said, "Like peculiardom itself. A failed experiment."

"'This place is dying,' Miss Wren often said, 'And I am nothing but the overseer of its long funeral!'" Addison said, "She was very theatrical."

"Please don't refer to our ymbryne in the past tense." Deirdre said.

"Sorry. Is." Addison corrected himself.

"They hunted you." Emma said.

"Like in Cuthbert's story." Bronwyn added sadly, "Only there was no giant. Just a bird."

"A very special bird." Said Deirdre.

"You're worried about her." Jake said.

"Of course we are." Addison replied, "To my knowledge, Miss Wren is the only remaining uncaptured ymbryne. When she heard that her kidnapped sisters had been spirited away to London, she flew off to render assistance without a moment's thought for her own safety."

"London?" Emma asked, "Are you sure that's where the kidnapped ymbrynes were taken?"

"Absolutely certain. Miss Wren has spies in the city – a certain flock of peculiar pigeons who watch everything and report back to her. Recently, several came to us in a state of terrible distress. They had it on good information that the ymbrynes were- and still are – being held in the punishment loops."

"What's a punishment loop?" Jake asked as several of the other's gasped in horror. Aurora looked as confused as Jake, and rightfully so, Millard had made sure that she never knew about the terror that the punishment loops were, he had hoped to never darken her view of the world with such vile information.

"They were designed to hold captured wights, hardened criminals, and the dangerously insane." Millard explained answering Jacob's question. "They're nothing like the loops we know. Nasty, nasty, places."

"And now it is the wights, and undoubtedly their hollows, who are guarding them." Addison continued. "Whatever nefarious end the wights are seeking it's clear that they need all the ymbrynes to accomplish it."

"When we were in Blackpool Barron was collecting the ymbrynes for his experiment. But with him and his comrades dead, is it possible another wight is following his footsteps?" Jake asked aloud.

"We know there are more, they were manning that U-boat, waiting for us. Either Barron had more help than he originally led on or he was a pawn in a bigger web." Emma said.

"Now only Miss Wren is left. . . brave, foolhardy Miss Wren. . . and who knows for how long!" Addison whimpered like a dog would do in a thunderstorm with his ears tucked back and his head lowered.

"You know Mister MacHenry, everything's not quite as dire as you say." Olive spoke up.

"Is that so?"

"Yes, it is. In fact, I have something right here that may just cheer you up."

"I rather doubt that." Addison muttered as Olive reached into her overcoat and pulled out Miss Peregrine.

"I'd like you to meet the second-to-last uncaptured ymbryne, Miss Alma Peregrine."

"But we heard your loop was raided!" Addison said in shock, "Your ymbryne stolen!"

"She was, but we stole her back." Fiona said proudly.

"It is a most extraordinary pleasure madam." Addison bowed, "Should you require a place to change, I'll happily show you to Miss Wren's private quarters."

"She can't change." Bronwyn said. "She's stuck."

The pipe dropped from Addison's mouth, "Oh no. Are you certain?"

"She's been like this for two days now. I think if she could change back she would have done it by now." Emma said.

"May I examine her?"

"Just be careful of her hurt wing." Olive warned placing Miss Peregrine on the ground in front of the peculiar dog. He circled and sniffed as Jake explained everything that had happened to her.

"Madam, did the wight that took you spray you with anything? A liquid or a gas?" Miss Peregrine bobbed her head in the air in a nod.

"She's been poisoned, I'm sure of it." Addison diagnosed.

"She'll get better though won't she? She'll turn back?" Aurora asked, stroking Mira a bit faster, her worry showing.

"Her wing will mend, but without help she won't turn human again."

"What kind of help does she need?" Emma asked taking charge yet again.

"Only another ymbryne can assist her. And she's running very short on time."

"What do you mean?" Hugh asked, his bees strangely silent as they crawled along his face and neck.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news," Addison said, " but two days is a very long time for an ymbryne to be arrested like this. The more time she spends as a bird, the more her human self will be lost. Her memory, her words – everything that made her who she was – until eventually, she won't be an ymbryne at all anymore. She'll just be a bird, for good and ever." There was a long pause where no one spoke, even the armageddon chickens seemed to stop clucking.

"How long?" Millard asked, his arm tightening around Aurora as if he was trying to hold on to something in his life that was still good, "How much longer does she have?"

"Two days if she's strong."

"Are you sure?" Emma asked, "Are you absolutely, positively certain?"

"I've seen it happen before." Addison said padding over to a little owl sitting on a branch, "Olivia here was a young ymbryne who had a bad accident during her training. They brought her to us five days later. Miss Wren and I did everything we could to try to change her back, but she was beyond help. That was ten years ago, she's been this way ever since."

The owl stared at them with a dullness in her eyes. Emma choked back a sob and marched away, Jacob following and calling after her. The rest of them were too stunned to speak. Aurora rested her head on Millard's shoulder as he rubbed up and down her arm. His free hand held hers and Mira uncurled herself from Aurora's lap and rested her paws on their joined hands giving another small meow.