Content Warnings - Death and Near Death Experience. This is set after Abe left and Victor died, but before Jake's arrival.
***
"Miss Peregrine, Miss Peregrine" Claire called "Can we go to the beach today?"
"Oh please Miss Peregrine" Fiona begged "Please can we?"
Miss Peregrine looked at the two girls and sighed.
"Well I suppose-"
She was cut off by Claire slamming into her stomach and wrapping her arms around her. Alma stroked the blonde's hair for a moment before the girl pulled away and ran upstairs.
15 minutes later the children and their headmistress were walking down to the beach. The warm afternoon breeze tickled their cheeks and ruffled their hair. The soft crashing of waves could be heard in the distance. On the horizon a small sail ship was getting closer and closer to the shore, one of seven that would arrive that day.
Once they reached the beach the bird called her children to order.
"Now children, a few rules. No rough play in the water, stay in my sight at all times, regularly re-apply your sun lotion and don't swim out past the first shipwreck, understood?"
A chorus of "yes miss peregrine" rang out and the children were dismissed.
Claire, Bronwyn, the twins, Millard and Hugh all immediately splashed into the water, soon followed by Emma. Olive and Enoch sat in the sand while Miss Peregrine perched herself on a rock.
Several minutes passed before anything eventful happened.
"Miss Peregrine, there's someone out at sea" Emma called.
"Yes Emma, the next boat arrives at the dock in 12 minutes and 7 seconds, so they are bound to be visible by now" The bird replied.
"No, someone is in the water, the deep water"
The entire group fell quiet. Miss Peregrine rose to her feet and stared out into the horizon. The silhouette of a human head and torso could be spied in the distance, facing out away from shore.
Suddenly, something pierced the silence like a knife. A mystical, terrifying and yet strangely enchanting tune. The sound echoed across the water, a devastatingly alluring melody.
In the distance, tragedy occurred. The fishing boat capsized, no trace of the sailors could be found. The boat sank lower and lower into the depth of the ocean, joining the graveyard of wrecks.
"Enoch! What are you doing!"
Enoch was over 20 meters out to sea, desperately splashing through the seemingly more vicious waves, desperately trying to get closer to the sound.
Miss Peregrine reacted instinctively, shifting to bird form and snatching Enoch by the collar and dragging him back to shore. Once he had been returned to the sand, he appeared to come out of a trance. The sound ceased, as did the unheard screams of sailor men.
"What the bird do you think you are doing?" Miss Peregrine snapped "I explicitly said not to swim past the first wreck"
"I- I don't know. One minute I was on the sand, the next I was 60 foot out to sea trying to get to whatever that sound was" Enoch spluttered.
"And why on earth would you do that, it's a mile off shore" Olive said.
"Because it was Siren song"
Everyone spun round to face Horace, who was stood just off from the group, book open in hand.
"It makes sense" he continued.
"Listen to this" he started to quote his book "The song of a siren is deadly, an alluring melody of great power. Merely hearing it will cause any man, or post pubescent male, to throw himself into the ocean in desperate need of getting closer to the source. Once eye contact with the siren is made, the mans fate is sealed. He is to drown. The siren will lead him further and further in to the deepest depths of the ocean, purely for the entertainment for witnessing his last breath."
The children all looked at each other. The first person to speak was Hugh.
"That would make sense Horace, if sirens were real, which they aren't"
"They might be" Emma stated quietly "People believed shapeshifters and future tellers to be figures of fiction and yet they're real, in the form of peculiars"
A low muttering passed through the children. Could it be true? Could this be the work of someone like them?
"Impossible" Miss Peregrine snapped "I would know if their was another peculiar residing in my loop"
"Not if they lived out at sea"
A/N -
AHHH first chapter of a new book!!!!!