Strange Beginnings// j.p.

Chapter 12- Another Door Opens

We marched up the steep trail to the ridge like a company of weary soldiers returning from war, single-file and staring at our feet. Bronwyn was cradling Millard in his arms, and Miss Peregrine was settled in the nestlike crown of Fiona's hair. The landscape was gouged with smoking craters, freshly-turned dirt thrown everywhere from the impact of the bombs.

The state of the house became apparent to us before we even cleared the forest. Enoch's foot kicked something, and he bent down to pick it up. It turned out to be a half-charred brick.

Panic broke out among the group. We all began sprinting down the path, the children breaking ahead. When we reached the lawn, the younger ones broke down into tears right away. There was smoke everywhere, choking us as we panted for air. The bomb had not come to rest atop Adam's finger, as it always did, but had split him straight down the middle and exploded. The back corner of the house was nothing but smoking rubble. Small fires were still burning away in the charred shells of two bedrooms. Where Adam had stood was now a raw crater, deep enough to bury a person standing up. It was easy to see what this place would one day become. That sad, desecrated ruin Jake and I had first discovered weeks ago. The nightmare it was on our side of the loop had just come true in front of these children's eyes.

Miss Peregrine leaped from Fiona's hair and began to race around on the charred grass, squawking in desperate alarm.

"Headmistress, what happened?" Olive asked, her little face wet with tears. "Why hasn't the changeover come?"

Miss Peregrine could only screech in reply. She seemed as confused and frightened as the rest of us.

"Please turn back, Headmistress, please!" begged Claire, kneeling before the Bird.

Miss Peregrine flapped her wings, hopping and straining, but her form never changed. The children crowded around in concern.

"Something's wrong," Emma said, "If she could turn human, she'd have done it by now."

"Something is wrong, Emma," I confirmed, kneeling by Miss Peregrine. "And the loop can't reset until she's not a bird anymore. Ymbrynes are the ones who manage the changeover, it's their power of time manipulation that causes it. It's a power they can only use as humans, never when they're birds."

"Remember that old story about Miss Kestrel?" Enoch said, and I nodded. "She fell off a bicycle and hit her head, was stuck as a kestrel for a week," I continued the story, shrugging when they looked at me in surprise. "What? Abe was kept up to date with all the happenings of the ymbrynes, from Miss Peregrine. He told me about it."

"Maybe Miss Peregrine has only injured her head and we just need to wait a week for her to come to her senses," Enoch said.

"A road accident is one thing," Emma said, "being abused by wights is quite another. There's no knowing what that bastard did to Miss Peregrine before we got there."

"Wights? As in plural?"

"It was wights who took Miss Avocet," Jake confirmed.

"How do you know that?" Enoch demanded.

"They were working with Golan, who was a wight. And I saw the eyes of the one who shot at us on the U-boat. There's no question what he was."

"Then Miss Avocet is as good as dead," Hugh said. "They'll kill her for sure."

"They won't," I said. "At least not right away. They're collecting ymbrynes, for some sort of plan. I don't know exactly how they're planning to use them, but before he died, Golan bragged about it. They're going to force them to recreate the reaction that made the hollows to begin with. Only bigger, much, much bigger. The fallout could be global."