Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - BOOCarz

“Stay where you are!” the man shouted. His voice
was flat, accentless. I couldn’t see his face through the
beam of light, but the layered jackets he wore were an
instant giveaway. It was the ornithologist.
“Mister, we ain’t had nothing to eat all day,” Enoch
whined, for once sounding like a twelve-year-old. “All
we come for was a fish or two, swear!”
“Is that so?” said the man. “Looks like you’ve
picked one out. Let’s see what kind.” He waved his
flashlight back and forth as if to part us with the beam.
“Step aside!”
We did, and he swept the light over Martin’s body,
a landscape of garish ruin. “Goodness, that’s an oddlooking
fish, isn’t it?” he said, entirely unfazed. “Must
be a fresh one. He’s still moving!” The beam came to
rest on Martin’s face. His eye rolled back and his lips
moved soundlessly, just a reflex as the life Enoch had
given him drained away.
“Who are you?” Bronwyn demanded.
“That depends on whom you ask,” the man replied,
“and it isn’t nearly as important as the fact that I know
who you are.” He pointed the flashlight at each of us
and spoke as if quoting some secret dossier. “Emma
Bloom, a spark, abandoned at a circus when her
parents couldn’t sell her to one. Bronwyn Bruntley,
berserker, taster of blood, didn’t know her own
strength until the night she snapped her rotten
stepfather’s neck. Enoch O’Connor, dead-riser, born
to a family of undertakers who couldn’t understand
why their clients kept walking away.” I saw each of
them shrink away from him. Then he shone the light at
me. “And Jacob. Such peculiar company you’re
keeping these days.”
“How do you know my name?”
He cleared his throat, and when he spoke again his
voice had changed radically. “Did you forget me so
quick?” he said in a New England accent. “But then