Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #1) - Ransom Riggs Page 0,62

sun of the loop. This time, however, there were no pretty girls waiting for me on the other side of the cairn—or anyone, for that matter. I tried not to be too disappointed, but I was, a little.

As soon as I got to the house I started looking for Emma, but Miss Peregrine intercepted me before I’d even made it past the front hall.

“A word, Mr. Portman,” she said, and led me into the privacy of the kitchen, still fragrant from the rich breakfast I’d missed. I felt like I’d been summoned to the principal’s office.

Miss Peregrine propped herself against the giant cooking range. “Are you enjoying your time with us?” she said.

I told her I was, very much.

“That’s good,” she replied, and then her smile vanished. “I understand you had a pleasant afternoon with some of my wards yesterday. And a lively discussion as well.”

“It was great. They’re all really nice.” I was trying to keep things light, but I could tell she was winding me up for something.

“Tell me,” she said, “how would you describe the nature of your discussion?”

I tried to remember. “I don’t know ... we talked about lots of things. How things are here. How they are where I’m from.”

“Where you’re from.”

“Right.”

“And do you think it’s wise to discuss events in the future with children from the past?”

“Children? Is that really how you think of them?” I regretted saying this even as the words were passing my lips.

“It is how they regard themselves as well,” she said testily. “What would you call them?”

Given her mood, it wasn’t a subtlety I was prepared to argue. “Children, I guess.”

“Indeed. Now, as I was saying,” she said, emphasizing her words with little cleaver-chops of her hand on the range, “do you think it’s wise to discuss the future with children from the past?”

I decided to go out on a limb. “No?”

“Ah, but apparently you do! I know this because last night at dinner we were treated by Hugh to a fascinating disquisition on the wonders of twenty-first-century telecommunications technology.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “Did you know that when you send a letter in the twenty-first century, it can be received almost instantaneously?”

“I think you’re talking about e-mail.”

“Well, Hugh knew all about it.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Is that a problem?”

She unleaned herself from the range and took a limping step toward me. Even though she was a full foot shorter than I was, she still managed to be intimidating.

“As an ymbryne, it is my sworn duty to keep those children safe and above all that means keeping them here—in the loop—on this island.”

“Okay.”

“Yours is a world they can never be part of, Mr. Portman. So what’s the use in filling their heads with grand talk about the exotic wonders of the future? Now you’ve got half the children begging for a jet-airplane trip to America and the other half dreaming of the day when they can own a telephone-computer like yours.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“This is their home. I have tried to make it as fine a place as I could. But the plain fact is they cannot leave, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make them want to.”

“But why can’t they?”

She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment and then shook her head. “Forgive me. I continue to underestimate the breadth of your ignorance.” Miss Peregrine, who seemed to be constitutionally incapable of idleness, took a saucepan from the stove top and began scouring it with a steel brush. I wondered if she was ignoring my question or simply weighing how best to dumb down the answer.

When the pan was clean she clapped it back on the stove and said, “They cannot linger in your world, Mr. Portman, because in a short time they would grow old and die.”

“What do you mean, die?”

“I’m not certain how I can be more direct. They’ll die, Jacob.” She spoke tersely, as if wishing to put the topic behind us as quickly as possible. “It may appear to you that we’ve found a way to cheat death, but it’s an illusion. If the children loiter too long on your side of the loop, all the many years from which they have abstained will descend upon them at once, in a matter of hours.”

I pictured a person shriveling up and crumbling to dust like the apple on my nightstand. “That’s awful,” I said with a shudder.

“The few instances of it that I’ve had the misfortune to witness are among