A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #4) - Ransom Riggs Page 0,36
looked around at all of us. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Only by thirty seconds,” said Horace.
“Mr. Portman, you look a bit confused.”
“I’m not super clear on what just happened,” I said. “Or where you were. Or . . . anything?”
“That,” she said, pointing to the shed, “is a loop.”
I looked from her to the shed. “There was a loop in my backyard?”
“There is now. I made it this afternoon.”
“It’s a pocket loop,” said Millard. “Miss P, that’s brilliant! I didn’t think the council had approved any yet.”
“Only this one, and just today,” she said, grinning with pride.
“Why would you want a loop of this afternoon?” I asked.
“The time you loop isn’t the point of a pocket loop. The advantage is their extremely small size, which makes them a snap to maintain. Unlike a normal loop, these only need to be reset once or twice a month, as opposed to daily.”
The others were grinning and trading excited looks, but I was still baffled.
“But what good is a loop the size of a potting shed?”
“None as a place of refuge, but they are extraordinarily useful as a portal.” She reached into her dress pocket and pulled out a slim brass object that looked like an oversized bullet with vents cut into it. “With the shuttle—another of my brother Bentham’s ingenious inventions—I can stitch this loop back into his Panloopticon. And voilà! We have a door to Devil’s Acre.”
“Right here,” I said. “In the backyard.”
“You don’t have to take my word for it,” she said, holding her hand out toward the potting shed. “Go and see for yourself.”
I took a step toward it. “Really?”
“It’s a brave new world, Mr. Portman. And we’ll be right behind you.”
* * *
• • •
Forty seconds: That’s all the time it took for me to travel from my backyard to a nineteenth-century time loop in London. Forty seconds from reaching the back of the potting shed to stepping out of a broom closet in Devil’s Acre. The sensation left me dizzy, my head and stomach no longer accustomed to the sudden lurch of loop travel.
I stepped out of the broom closet and into a familiar hallway: long, lushly carpeted, and lined with identical doors, each bearing a small plaque. The one across the hall read:
DEN HAAG, NETHERLANDS, APRIL 8, 1937
I turned to look at the door behind me. There was a piece of paper fixed to the wall:
JACOB PORTMAN HOME, FLORIDA, PRESENT DAY.
A. PEREGRINE AND WARDS ONLY
I was in the heart of Bentham’s reality-bending Panloopticon machine, to which my house was now connected. I was still trying to wrap my mind around that when the door opened and Emma walked out. “Hello, stranger!” she said, and kissed me on the face. She was followed by Miss Peregrine and the rest of my peculiar friends. They were chattering excitedly, unfazed by their instantaneous journey across an ocean and a century.
“This means we don’t have to sleep in Devil’s Acre ever again, if we don’t want to,” Horace was saying.
“Or make that long drive to the swamp just to reach Jacob’s house,” said Claire. “I get carsick.”
“The best part is the food,” Olive said, shoving her way through the pack. “Just think, we can have a proper English breakfast, pizza at Jacob’s house for lunch, and mutton chops fresh from Smithfield Market for supper!”
“Who knew such a little person could eat so much,” said Horace.
“Eat enough and maybe you won’t need those lead shoes!” said Enoch.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Miss Peregrine said, taking me aside. “Now you see what I meant about a solution. With this pocket loop, you can live in one world without cutting yourself off from the other. With your help, we can continue to expand our knowledge of present-day America without shirking our duties here in Devil’s Acre. There are loops to be rebuilt, traumatized peculiars to be rehabilitated, captured wights to be dealt with . . . and I haven’t forgotten my promise to you. You shall have very engaging work to do here. How does that sound?”
“What kind of work did you have in mind?” I said, my head spinning with the possibilities that had just opened up before me.
“The Ymbryne Council gives out the assignments, so I don’t know just yet. But they’ve told me they have something very interesting for you.”
“What about the rest of us?” said Enoch.
“We want assignments of consequence,” said Millard. “Not just busywork.”
“Or cleaning up,” added Bronwyn.
“You’ll have important work to do, I promise,” said Miss Peregrine.