Timeless (Enoch O Connor x OC)

19: The Calm Before The Storm

I woke up in a cold sweat. 

It was bad enough I had to fall out of that clocktower but now it had to be my choice too. I felt so conflicted, if I died I would save everyone but I knew that they would never let me sacrifice myself. It was best I didn't tell anyone about my plan yet.

Maybe things would change and I wouldn't have to.

I hoped it would be so. 

I hopped out of bed and got dressed, it was much too early for breakfast so I decided to walk around the garden. Dew hung on every green leaf and it was too cold for my morning sun to warm me up. I walked all the way around the house and spotted something I hadn't seen before.

A greenhouse. 

Strangely, I realized, I had never been to the back of the house. I pulled open the little glass door and stepped into the humid room. Branches, leaves, and flowers hung from every corner and brushed my shoulders and arms as I passed. It was so peaceful here, I thought. As I came to the end of the greenhouse I heard someone else. Their breathing was calm and every once in a while I heard them take a sip. 

I stepped out from behind a large plant to spot Miss Peregrine perched on a garden chair with a cup of what I presumed was tea. 

"Good morning Miss," I announced myself as to not frighten her.

"Oh hello June," she said warmly and patted a chair beside her for me to sit on. 

"Isn't the morning silence so calming to a worried soul?" she asked mostly to herself.

"It makes all your problems melt away and replaces them with a feeling of tranquility," I agreed and she smiled at my understanding. 

"What worries have brought you out here?" she asked me. I hesitated to answer but decided Miss Peregrine deserved to know. And I had questions to ask her too, like who this brother of hers was.

"I had a dream," I began, "it was actually a repetition of an old one except it wasn't really just a dream at all."

"Do go on," she encouraged me.

"Well you see, I don't know whether Horace told you about his dream of all of us at a clocktower in some town somewhere..." 

"He did indeed," she confirmed.

"I had the same dream as him except it wasn't prophetic like his but more of a message, like someone intercepted my dream. Now I don't know who that person was exactly but I suspect it was the wight that was in my dream. He was there with a hollow and we were at the top of a clocktower, I had time to look outside and I saw a sign that read Carmarthenshire. Then he started speaking to me, he told me they needed me to revive his boss or something, that I was on the list. And then Miss Peregrine, he told me his boss was your brother."

"Oh my birds," she said her shoulders slumped, "I knew they were planning something but I didn't realize it went all the way to him."

"So you know what they're talking about?" I asked her, surprised.

"I suppose it's my turn to talk now," she began, "hollows were created because of a plan my foolish brother had. His plan was to eliminate aging without the use of loops. Everyone told him it was a terrible and dangerous plan but he went on with it anyway. They found an unused loop in Siberia and performed the Experiment of 1908. Just as everyone had said the experiment went wrong and everyone there became these horrid monsters, hollowgast. Miles of land were blown away from the experiment and several villages were left in ruins."

"That sounds absolutely horrible," I told her in dismay, "what is he planning now?"

"I don't know," she said solemly, "but I have received news that the loops of ymbryne's across the country are being ransacked."