"We're not leaving anyone else behind, ever again. You have our word as peculiars." {Emma Bloom, pg 35 book 3}
Seven Stages of Grief: Stage One – Shock, initial paralysis at hearing bad news.
"More wights will be coming." Addison said, "Will the beast let us pass?" he asked and Aurora noticed Jake still staring at the destroyed phone booth. She knew he must be seeing more than they saw, a nightmarish creature that could only come from people as dark and twisted as the wights.
"Talk to it again." Emma encouraged, her arms still around Aurora in comfort. She didn't feel sad anymore, she just felt. . . empty. Like her reason for living had been ripped away from her. She and Millard had been together for decades, even when they'd been apart she knew he'd always be back for supper, but this time, this time she didn't know if he was even still breathing. Did they shoot him? She wondered, is his body shoved under the seats on the underground train where no one would even see him? Where he'd be forgotten like he'd always feared he'd be because of his peculiarity?
"Tell it to sod off." Emma said to Jake.
"I don't know how." He replied still staring at the hollow.
"You did a minute ago." Addison piped up, "It sounded like there was a demon inside you."
There was a pause while Jacob tried, "Nope, still there."
"Never mind, hollows aren't meant to be reasoned with anyway." Emma told him, "What matters is we find the others before it's too late."
Aurora didn't need the reminder, she saw it every time she blinked. Horace's fine clothes a mess, Bronwyn's strength useless against so many guns, Millard unseen enough to push her away in the chaos but still being watched enough to be pulled back to the train where the others were weeping in terror. When she looked to Jake she could see exactly what he was thinking in his eyes, his thoughts mirroring hers, It's already too late. It had been too late when they'd 'saved' Miss Peregrine in the sea, foolishly taking her evil brother instead, foolishly thinking a bunch of children had been able to outsmart the wights, foolishly thinking they'd had a chance.
MILLARD POV
It was a good thing he was invisible, otherwise the wights might shoot him just for smiling. But he couldn't help it, she'd gotten away, she was safe – well, safer than they were. Hugh was beside him on the floor of the train car and to his other side was a wight, aiming a machine gun at what he assumed was Millard's head. They were keeping an extra close eye on him due to his peculiarity and the wight had his finger on the trigger ready to pull at the first sign of trouble. Miss Wren was the only one they'd allowed to sit in an actual seat and she was fanning herself with her hand, looking like she was trying to keep from passing out. The wights kept cracking insulting jokes loudly in front of her but she just kept fanning herself.
"Aw, have the old bird's wings been clipped?"
"More foolish than a flock of hens, all of them."
But Miss Wren's only reply was, "Can't we open a window?"
This banter went on for quite some time until the leader snapped, "Will someone open a damn window and shut the pigeon woman up!"
It could have been a trick of the light, or perhaps it was because the ymbryne had so many wrinkles, but Millard swore he saw the smallest hint of a smile.
AURORA POV
Jake led them through the underground until they found a set of stairs that led to daylight. He'd said they had to go after them – but how?
"How will we even find them?" Aurora asked in a small voice she was surprised they even heard.
"The same way I found you." Addison answered. "With my nose. Peculiar folk have an aroma all their own, you see – one which only dogs of my persuasion can sniff out. And you happen to be one powerfully odoriferous group of peculiars. Fear enhances it, I think, and skipping baths. . . "
"Then we go after them!" Emma said with enthusiasm, as unrealistic as it was. Then two figures came rushing down the stairs and they were forced back to the tracks. They were dressed as emergency responders but Aurora would bet her life –something she didn't find of value anymore – that they were disguised wights. Then a thunderous horn blew from deep in the dark tunnel and they were trapped. If they moved toward the stairs they'd be shot, if they jumped onto the tracks they'd be hit by the train. Before they could come up with a plan one of the disguised wights caught up with them.
"Stay where you are!" he ordered drawing his gun and aiming at them, ready to pull the trigger. But then Jake spoke in a language only he knew. In the next moment the wight was knocked off his feet and flipped upside down. He screamed as he was hauled thrashing through the air. While the hollow attacked the train pulled up behind them and Jake pulled them inside. Luckily the car was empty.
"Are you okay?" he asked Emma who was breathing hard, her mouth still parted in shock.
"Thanks to you." She said when her senses returned to her, "Did you really make the hollow do all that?"
"I think so."
"Amazing."
"We owe you our lives." Addison said nuzzling his head against Jacob's arm. Then Jake leaned to look at Aurora.
"Aurora?" she barely turned her head in acknowledgement. "I swear to you that we will get Millard back. Whatever it takes."
oOo oOo oOo
MILLARD POV
The train came to a halt at its next destination and they were hauled out at gunpoint just like before. They were led to a set of moving stairs that had a sign above it that read 'escalator'. Horace was in front and looked so shocked he froze and a wight hit him in the back with his gun. When they came to the top they were in for another shock, everywhere around them stood oddly dressed people. They looked peculiar but Millard could see they didn't act peculiar. None of them wore anything like Olive's rubber gloves or Emma's shoes. None of them had bees popping out of their mouth as they talked or held food to the back of their head for their backmouth to devour. They were all in costume. From a yellow creature with red circles on its cheeks to people covered in fake blood wobble-walking through the crowd.
It was the perfect camouflage for wights abducting a group of peculiar children. Even if they were to cry out for help, who would take them seriously in all this? The people around them would think it was part of some show, an act and that they were merely performing. After all, what normal would believe them if they said they'd been kidnapped by people who wanted to steal their souls? It sounded barking mad.
Their group was shoved through the crowd until they were piled into a car outside. It was like no car Millard had ever seen, sleek and high tech, so unlike everything they'd come to know on Carinholm. One by one they were shoved in, squished so tight that Bronwyn, Hugh, and Joel-Peter were practically sitting on the laps of others. As they sped through the streets Millard noticed even the signs were lit up and their pictures and words kept changing. The side of him that craved knowledge would have loved to stay to examine how these things worked but all too soon they were pulled out of the car and onto a dock.
Sun glinted off the water of a narrow inlet of the murky Thames. Several groups of tourists moved on and off boats with advertising for tours. The wights pushed the children through, the ones disguised as police officers moving the crowd apart and assuring them all was well. There was one boat without any signs or markings for London tours and it was that boat that they were piled into. Once inside and away from the prying eyes of normals they were shoved to the floor once again as the engine roared to life. One wight slapped the back of the captain in a friendly welcome as they laughed.
"All aboard." The wight captain mocked, "For a one way tour to Devil's Acre."
AURORA POV
Addison hopped onto the seat across from the three peculiar children, unlocked the window with his paw and cracked it open.
"Can you smell them?" Aurora asked, her voice a rough whisper from all the crying.
"I can. Their trail is nice and crisp too. Someone must've pushed open a window in their car, otherwise the trail would be much fainter." Then the train slowed to its next stop, the windows flashing from tunnel black to tile white. "I don't think they got off here, but be ready in any case."
There weren't many people waiting on the platform and the one woman who walked into their car took one look at them then left. When she was gone Addison withdrew his nose from the window.
"We're on the right track. Miss Wren and the others definitely passed this way."
"They didn't get off here?" Jake asked.
"I don't think so, but if I don't smell them in the next station we'll know we've gone too far."
The doors smacked closed and the train was off again. Aurora – in hope of a distraction – started pulling off her old nineteenth century clothing. She was grateful she had kept the clothes Radi's mother had given her on underneath and had the option to rid herself of the old moth ball smelling dress. The others would have to make do with whatever they could find when they left the train. Then Emma jolted up as Aurora was pulling apart her braid.
"Addison, what happened to Fiona, Claire and the twins?" she asked and Aurora remembered Caul telling them the wights had raided the menagerie and captured them, but he'd also said Addison was dead so his information clearly couldn't be trusted.
"Ah, it's bad news I'm afraid. Shortly after your party left we were raided by a gang of wights. We threw armageddon eggs at them, then scattered and hid. Then your friend used her facility with plants to hide us in trees and under new grown brush. We were so well camouflaged that it would've taken days for the wights to root us all out, but they gassed us and drove us into the open. When they'd rounded us up we were interrogated as to the whereabouts of Miss Wren. They turned her tower inside out searching for clues and when poor Deirdre tried to stop them they shot her."
"That's awful." Emma said, "And the others?"
"The small three were captured, though the little girl put up quite a fight, took a chunk out of one's arm with her backmouth. The other two didn't stand much chance when the wights put sacks over their heads so they couldn't take their masks off. Mira – poor thing – was stuffed in a sack herself and hauled off. Your other friend, well, there was a scuffle with some of the soldiers and they were near the cliff's edge, and she fell."
"What?" Jake asked as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard. Aurora felt tears sting her eyes again but none fell, she didn't have enough, she'd cried herself dry.
"What do you mean fell?" Emma asked, her body rigid and her face a mask concealing her emotions, "Fell how far?"
"It was a sheer drop, a thousand feet at least. I'm so sorry."
Emma stood and started pacing the car. "No. No. That can't be. Perhaps she grabbed onto something on the way down. A branch or a ledge. . . "
"It's possible." Addison said though his tone held no hope.
"Or the trees below cushioned her fall and caught her like a net. She can speak to them, you know." As she spoke Aurora lifted her legs, resting her feet on the seat so she could bury her head in her lap, her arms wrapped around her knees. How many more friends would they lose? How much longer until they wights came and took Emma and Jake? How long until Aurora was alone? There was a small part of her mind that hoped she'd age out, then she could go to Abaton and be with Millard where no one could hurt them.
"Hide yourselves." She heard Addison say suddenly, "There are enemies near."