Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - BOOCarz

secret?”
Emma gasped. “Seduce? Oh, please, don’t think
that of me, Jacob. I couldn’t bear it.”
“I fear you’ve badly misjudged us,” said Miss
Peregrine. “As for seducing you, what you’ve seen is
how we live. There has been no deception, only the
withholding of a few facts.”
“Well here’s a fact for you,” I said. “One of those
creatures killed my grandfather.”
Miss Peregrine stared at the fire for a moment. “I
am very sorry to hear that.”
“I saw one with my own eyes. When I told people
about it, they tried to convince me I was crazy. But I
wasn’t, and neither was my grandfather. His whole life
he’d been telling me the truth, and I didn’t believe
him.” Shame flooded over me. “If I had, maybe he’d
still be alive.”
Miss Peregrine saw that I was wobbling and
offered me the chair across from Miss Avocet.
I sate, and Emma knelt down beside me. “Abe
must’ve known you were peculiar,” she said. “And he
must’ve had a good reason for not telling you.”
“He did indeed know,” replied Miss Peregrine. “He
said as much in a letter.”
“I don’t understand, then. If it was all true—all his
stories—and if he knew I was like him, why did he
keep it a secret until the last minute of his life?”
Miss Peregrine spoon-fed more brandy to Miss
Avocet, who groaned and sat up a little before settling
back into the chair. “I can only imagine that he wanted
to protect you,” she said. “Ours can be a life of trials
and deprivations. Abe’s life was doubly so because
he was born a Jew in the worst of times. He faced a
double genocide, of Jews by the Nazis and of
peculiars by the hollowgast. He was tormented by the
idea that he was hiding here while his people, both
Jews and peculiars, were being slaughtered.”