Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - BOOCarz

e because of this.”
And then she rushed at me and threw her arms
around my neck, the flame in her hand snuffing out just
before she touched me, her skin hot where she’d held
it. We stood like that in the darkness for a while, me
and this teenaged old woman, this rather beautiful girl
who had loved my grandfather when he was the age I
am now. There was nothing I could do but put my
arms around her, too, so I did, and after a while I
guess we were both crying.
I heard her take a deep breath in the dark, and then
she broke away. The fire flared back to life in her
hand.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “I’m not usually so …”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“We should be getting on.”
“Lead the way,” I said.
We walked through the woods in a comfortable
silence. When we came to the bog she said, “Step
only where I step,” and I did, planting my feet in her
prints. Bog gases flared up in green pyres in the
distance, as if in sympathy with Emma’s light.
We reached the cairn and ducked inside, shuffling
in single-file to the rear chamber and then out again to
a world shrouded in mist. She guided me back to the
path, and when we reached it she laced her fingers
through mine and squeezed. We were quiet for a
moment. Then she turned and went back, the fog
swallowing her so quickly that for a moment I
wondered if she’d been there at all.
* * *
Returning to town, I half-expected to find horse-drawn
wagons roaming the streets. Instead I was welcomed
by the hum of generators and the glow of TV screens
behind cottage windows. I was home, such as it was.