But so much had changed in one night. Now, maybe, I didn’t have to wait. Maybe now I wouldn’t have to choose one or the other: peculiar or normal, this life or that. I wanted, and needed, both—though not in equal measure. I had no interest in a normal career. In settling down with someone who didn’t understand who I was, or in having kids from whom I had to keep half my life a secret, like my grandfather had.
That said, I didn’t want to go through life a high school dropout—you can’t exactly put hollowgast tamer on a résumé—and though my mom and dad were never going to win Parents of the Year, I didn’t want to cut them out of my life, either. I also didn’t want to become so alienated from the normal world that I forgot how to navigate it. The peculiar world was wonderful and I knew I would never be whole without it, but it could also be extraordinarily stressful and overwhelming. For the sake of my long-term sanity, I needed to maintain a connection to my normal life. I needed that balance.
So: Maybe the next year or two didn’t have to feel like a prison sentence as I waited for it all. Maybe I could be with my friends and with Emma and have my home and my family. Emma could even go to school with me. Maybe all my friends could! We could take classes together, eat lunch together, go to stupid school dances. Of course—what more perfect place to learn about the lives and habits of normal teenagers than high school? After a semester of that, they’d be able to impersonate normals with no problem (even I had learned to do it, eventually), and to blend in when we ventured out into the larger world of peculiar America. Whenever time permitted we would travel back to Devil’s Acre to help the cause, rebuild the loops, and hopefully make peculiardom impervious to future threats.
Unfortunately, the key to it all was my parents. They could make this easy or they could make it impossible. If only there was a way for my friends to be here without my mom and dad losing it, so that we wouldn’t have to tiptoe around them, afraid that an accidental display of peculiarness would send them screaming into the streets and bring hell down upon our heads.
There had to be something I could tell my parents that they would believe. Some way to explain my friends. Their presence, their strangeness—maybe even their abilities. I racked my brain for the perfect story. They were exchange students I had met while in London. They had saved my life, taken me in, and I wanted to repay them. (That this wasn’t far from the truth appealed to me.) They also happened to be expert magicians who were always practicing their act. Masters of illusion. Their tricks so refined you can never tell how they achieve them.
Maybe. Maybe there was a way. And then things could be so good.
My brain was a hope-making machine.
I woke the next morning with a sour pit in my stomach, certain it had all been a dream. Steeling myself for disappointment, I ventured downstairs, half expecting to find my bags packed and my uncles once more guarding the doors against escape. Instead, I was greeted by a scene of peculiar domestic bliss.
The whole downstairs was full of cheerful conversation and the warm smells of cooking food. Horace was banging around in the kitchen while Emma and Millard set the table. Miss Peregrine was whistling to herself and opening windows to let in a morning breeze. Outside I could see Olive and Bronwyn and Claire chasing one another around the yard—Bronwyn catching Olive and tossing her twenty feet into the air, Olive laughing like mad as she fluttered down again at half speed, the weight of her shoes just enough to overcome her natural buoyancy. In the living room, Hugh and Enoch were glued to the television, watching a commercial for laundry detergent in rapt wonderment. It was as welcome a sight as I could have imagined, and for a long moment I stood unnoticed at the bottom of the stairs, taking it in. In the space of a single night, my friends had managed to make my house a happier, cozier place than it had been in all years I lived here with my parents.
“Nice of you to join us!” Miss Peregrine sang out, jolting me from my daydream.
Emma rushed over to me. “What’s wrong?” she said. “Feeling dizzy again?”
“Just appreciating the scenery,” I said, and then I drew her close and kissed her. She slid her arms around me and kissed me back, and I was overwhelmed by a tingling warmth that flooded my brain and a sudden sensation of being out of my body, like I had floated up to the ceiling and was looking down on the soft, beautiful face of this amazing girl and my friends and the whole sweet scene, and I wondered how it was that such an exquisite moment had appeared in my life.
The kiss ended too soon—but before anyone else in the room noticed it had happened—and we linked arms and walked toward the kitchen.
“How long has everyone been awake?” I asked.
“Oh, for hours,” Millard said, carrying a pan of biscuits toward the dining room. “We’re loop lagged rather terribly.”
He was wearing a full outfit, I noticed. Plum-colored pants, a light sweater, and a scarf around his neck.
“I dressed him this morning,” Horace said, popping his head out of the kitchen. “He’s quite the blank slate, sartorially speaking.” Horace himself was wearing an apron over a white collared shirt, a tie, and pressed pants—which almost certainly meant he’d gotten up extra early just to iron his clothes.
I excused myself and slipped away to check on my family in the garage. They were still asleep, right where I’d left them. They’d hardly even shifted positions in the night. Then something unpleasant occurred to me, and I ran to the car and held my hand in front of each of their noses. When I was satisfied they were still alive, I went back to join my friends.
Everyone was gathered around what my parents called the “good table,” a long slab of black glass in our rarely used formal dining room. It was a space I associated with stiff manners and unpleasant conversations because it was only used either when family came over on holidays or when my parents had “something important” to discuss with me, which usually meant a lecture about my grades, bad attitude, friendships or lack thereof, etc. So it was sweet to find the room filled with food and friends and laughter.
I wedged myself into the seat next to Emma. Horace made a big show of unveiling the platters of food he’d prepared.
“This morning we’ve got pain perdu, potatoes à la royal, a viennoiserie of French pastries, and porridge with caramelized fruits!”
“Horace, you’ve outdone yourself,” said Bronwyn, her mouth already full.
Plates were filled and thanks were given. I was so eager to eat that it was several minutes before I thought to ask where the groceries had come from.
“They may or may not have floated off the shelves of a market down the road,” said Millard.
I stopped mid-chew. “You stole all this?”
“Millard!” said Miss Peregrine. “What if you had gotten caught?”
“Impossible, I’m a master thief,” he said. “It’s my third-most impressive skill, after my extreme intelligence and near-perfect memory.”