A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #4) - Ransom Riggs Page 0,90

much.”

June clapped the album shut. “Good,” she said, and started back to her seat. “My food’s about to get cold.”

Reggie leaned across the table toward me. “So, Jacob. Did Gandy teach you everything he knew? About hunting hollows and such? You must have stories!”

“Not exactly,” I said. “I grew up thinking I was normal.”

“He didn’t realize he was peculiar until earlier this year,” Millard explained.

“Good gravy,” said Elmer. “You’re getting a real crash course, then.”

“That’s for sure.”

“It’s definitely more crash than course,” said Enoch.

“Did you know your grandfather was one of the first two peculiars I ever met?” said Joseph. He had cleaned his plate and was leaned back in his chair, rocking slightly on its rear legs. “I was uncontacted at the time, living in Clarksville, Mississippi, 1930. Thirteen years old, my parents dead from Spanish flu. I didn’t know the first thing about peculiarness. But I knew something was changing inside me—that was my divining coming in—and soon after that I could feel something hunting me. But before it could get to me, your grandfather and H did. And they brought me here.”

“Gandy and H brought more than one child here, over the years,” said Elmer.

“But why come so far?” Millard asked. “Weren’t there loops closer to where you grew up?”

“Not for diviners,” said Joseph.

I scanned my friends’ faces, and they all seemed to have the same question in mind.

“So, only diviners can live here?” I asked.

“Oh no, no, no, we’re not like that,” said Fern. “We allow any type of peculiar in our loop.” She pointed at a house across the yard. “Smith over there is a wind-shaper. Moss Parker next door to him is a telekinetic, but only for foodstuffs. Which does help when it comes to setting a table.”

“For quite a few years we had a boy who could turn gold into aluminum,” said June, “though it wasn’t a skill much called for.”

“There are some loops that don’t allow outsiders, though,” said Elmer. “They’ll chase you right out.”

“They don’t trust anybody but peculiars like themselves,” said Alene.

“But we’re all peculiar,” said Bronwyn. “Isn’t that alike enough?”

“Seems not,” Reggie said. He tossed a scrap of gristle into the grass, and his puppy went bounding after it.

“Isn’t it against the ymbrynic codes for only one type of peculiar to live together?” said Bronwyn.

“Of course not,” said Enoch. “Remember the sheep-speakers in that Mongolian loop and the town of floaters in North Africa?”

“There are lots of reasons peculiars of one ability might band together,” said Millard. “I know of several invisible communities, for instance.”

“Oh,” said Bronwyn. “I thought it was illegal.”

“Partitionment according to ability is discouraged under the ymbrynic codes, because it can promote clannish thinking and unnecessary conflict,” said Millard. “What’s expressly forbidden are closed loops, in which only one type of peculiar is allowed to live and all others are banned.”

“All due respect,” said Elmer, “but there aren’t many ymbrynes around anymore. Their codes don’t hold much water.”

“But why aren’t there ymbrynes around?” asked Bronwyn. “No one’s been able to explain what happened to them, and it’s really starting to wind me up.”

“It’s just how it’s always been, for as long as any of us can remember,” Reggie said.

“Some of us remember,” said a voice from behind us.

I turned to see the old lady with the eyepatch hobbling toward the table. “You all started without me, I see.”

“Sorry, Miss Annie,” said Fern.

“No respect for your elders,” Miss Annie muttered, but it was clear, as the diviners all stood up from the table to greet her, that she commanded a great deal of respect. We followed their example and stood up, too. Fern darted out and helped Miss Annie to the table, where a seat right at the head had been reserved, and when she reached it she gripped the edge and lowered herself slowly into the chair. Only then did the rest of us sit down again.

“You want to know how things got the way they are.” Her voice had such grit and gravitas, it sounded like it was bubbling up from the depths of a muddy river. “What happened to our ymbrynes.” Miss Annie folded her hands on the table. A hush fell over the group. “They used to be the heart of our society, just like they are yours. The seeds of their downfall were planted a long time back. Back when the British and French and Spanish and native peoples were still fighting over who owned this country. Before it had occurred to