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

Chapter 56

"You were with him a long time." She prodded carefully, "Surely, it all wasn't nothing."

"It's nothing you have to concern yourself with darling." He said being rudely brief. She shrugged trying to seem nonchalant.

"I know, I just –"

"Leave it alone Aurora!" his tone was now suddenly so sharp she stopped dead in her tracks. Millard stopped walking too but he kept his back to her, with clothes on Aurora could see how tense his frame was, how stiff his muscles were. It was so drastically different for Millard it took her a moment to form a response.

"Al-alright. I'll. . . just leave you to your thoughts then." She said with a shaky voice as she turned and walked away. After a moment she heard Millard call her name but she pretended not to have heard him and kept walking, trying not to show her shaking.

Millard had never shouted at her before, even when they'd broken up he'd been polite and civil. She knew he prided himself on being a gentleman so she couldn't understand what could have happened that made Millard act so unlike himself. When she returned to the others she saw Bronwyn was still awake, tossing and turning trying to get comfortable. Aurora sat down beside her and the small peculiar immediately moved closer and snuggled into her.

"Would you like me to read you a Tale?" Aurora asked while rubbing her back. She nodded, her brown curls bouncing.

"Yes please."

Aurora smiled, a Tale would be good for the both of them she thought as she pulled out a book from the trunk beside Bronwyn's sleeping mat.

"The first ymbryne wasn't a woman who could turn herself into a bird but a bird who could turn herself into a woman. She was born into a family of goshawks and her father gave her the name Ymeene, which in the shrill language of goshawks meant 'strange one'." Aurora began the Tale and almost immediately Bronwyn's eyes began to droop, having heard the story many times before and finding comfort in the soothing words. However, as Bronwyn was falling asleep a small gypsy girl, no more than five, had overheard Aurora reading and wandered over to listen. Aurora looked up from her Tale and smiled at the girl patting the ground beside her, the little girl smiled, showing many missing baby teeth and took a seat next to Aurora as she continued.

"Ymeene wandered for a long time, she lingered around human settlements studying them from the safety of the treetops. She learned some human language so that she could talk to them and discovered she enjoyed their company. A kindly old man let her stay in his barn and his wife taught Ymeene to sew so she would have a trade. Everything was going swimmingly until, a few days after she'd arrived, the village baker saw her turn into a bird. The shocked villagers accused her of witchcraft and chased her away with torches." By this point many other gypsy children had gathered around Aurora listening to her, their eyes shining with wonder at the strange story.

"One morning, on the verge of despair, she lay watching the sun rise. It had such a transcendent beauty that when it was over she wished she could see it once more. In an instant the sky darkened and the dawn broke all over again and she suddenly realized she had a talent other than her ability to change form: she could make small moments repeat themselves.

'Excuse me." A voice said, 'but are you making that happen?' she spun around to see a young man holding his head in the crook of his arm disconnected entirely from his neck.

'Excuse me, but what's happened to your head?' she replied.

'Frightfully sorry! How rude of me.' He said reacting as if he'd just realized his pants were unbuttoned. And with great embarrassment popped his head back onto his neck. He said his name was Englebert and as she had nowhere to go he invited her back to his camp. A few dozen people lived there and they were every bit as strange as Englebert, most of them had been chased out of their villages – just like Ymeene and they welcomed her even after she showed them how she could turn herself into a hawk. Their village leader was a pecul - a syndrigast" Aurora amended realizing the gypsies used the old tongue more and might not understand that a peculiar was the same thing, "named Tombs who was cursed with the squeaky voice of a sparrow but still made sure the villagers took him seriously."

By this point a gypsy woman had wandered over looking for where her son had gone, when the boy saw his mother approach he raised a finger to his lips not wanting her to interrupt the story. Before the woman could gather him for bed she too became entranced by the Tale Aurora was reading. She pulled over an old crate and sat as she too listened to Aurora reading.

"One day a syndrigast friend of Tombs came to the village with grave news, the normal people had assembled an army that was headed straight for their camp, the question now was whether to fight or flee.

'I'm tired of running. I say we stand and fight!" Tombs said, his friend nodding beside him.

'But we aren't soldiers. We don't know the first thing about fighting." Englebert said.

'They're a small force and lightly armed.' Tombs said and in no time he and his friend had convinced the whole camp to fight – all except Ymeene. The thought of war made her stomach flip so at dawn she turned into a bird and flew away. Though she didn't fly long before she saw the army approaching and it was no loose brigade of a few dozen men as Tombs had told everyone, it was an army of hundreds! Everyone she knew would be slaughtered! She turned around and flew back to warn them. But when she flew into Tombs tent and told him he didn't seem surprised, he had known."

Now several gypsies, men and woman, adults and children were now listening to Aurora's story. The adults had just as much wonder in their eyes as the children and they all waited with bated breath to her what Ymeene would do next.

"'Why didn't you tell them so many soldiers were coming?' Ymeene asked 'You lied!'

'They would have been terrified.'

'They should be terrified. They should have fled by now!'

'It's a matter of honor. I suppose a bird wouldn't understand.'

After Ymeene had told them all the truth they were terrified. It was too late to flee and they knew they couldn't fight. They huddled together and whispered their goodbyes. Then the sun came out from behind a cloud and bathed the land in a bright light, Ymeene thought it was so beautiful she repeated it, then repeated it again. While they were watching the sun they didn't notice that the army kept fading and reappearing farther and farther away. It was then that Ymeene realized her time-looping ability had a use she never fully understood. She'd made a safe place for them, a bubble of stalled time. So she continued, she looped the loop and looped again, turning the three minute repeat into six minutes, then twelve, then twenty-four minutes and she continued until the repeat was twenty-four hours long. The others were so impressed and so grateful that they tried to call her Queen and Your Majesty but she wouldn't let them. She was just Ymeene, and it was the greatest joy she'd known to have made a safe place – a nest – for her friends."

Although the Tale continued Aurora decided to end it there, even though the gypsies had been kind to them they still shouldn't know so much about peculiardom. If the wights came back she didn't want to say anything that could get them in trouble, so she closed the book as parents ushered their tired children to their wagons for bed.