“Really? I didn’t think anyone lived over there.”
“Yeah, well, just a few people. Like, sheep-tenders and whatnot. Anyway, they’re cool—they watch my back while I’m at the house.” Friends and safety: two things my dad couldn’t possibly object to.
“I want to meet them,” he said, trying to look stern. He often put on this face, an imitation of the sensible, no-nonsense dad I think he aspired to be.
“Sure thing. We’re meeting up over there, though, so another time.”
He nodded and took another bite of his breakfast.
“Be back by dinner,” he said.
“Roger Wilco, Dad.”
I practically raced to the bog. As I picked my way through its shifting muck, trying to remember the route of semi-invisible grass islands Emma had used to cross it, I worried that all I would find on the other side was more rain and a ruined house. So it was with great relief that I emerged from the cairn to find September third, 1940, just as I’d left it: the day warm and sunny and fogless, the sky a dependable blue, clouds forming shapes that seemed comfortingly familiar. Even better, Emma was there waiting for me, sitting on the edge of the mound casting stones into the bog. “About time!” she cried, jumping to her feet. “Come on, everyone’s waiting for you.”
“They are?”
“Ye-es,” she said with an impatient eye roll, taking my hand and pulling me after her. I sparked with excitement—not only at her touch, but at the thought of the day that lay ahead, full of endless possibility. Though in a million superficial ways it would be identical to the day before—the same breeze would blow and the same tree limbs would fall—my experience of it would be new. So would the peculiar children’s. They were the gods of this strange little heaven, and I was their guest.
We dashed across the bog and through the forest as if late for an appointment. When we reached the house, Emma led me around to the backyard, where a small wooden stage had been erected. Kids were bustling in and out of the house, carrying props, buttoning up suit jackets, and zipping into sequined dresses. Warming up was a little orchestra, made up of just an accordion, a battered trombone, and a musical saw that Horace played with a bow.
“What’s this?” I asked Emma. “Are you guys putting on a play?”
“You’ll see,” she said.
“Who’s in it?”
“You’ll see.”
“What’s it about?”
She pinched me.
A whistle blew and everyone ran to claim seats in a row of folding chairs that faced the stage. Emma and I sat down just as the curtain opened, revealing a straw boater hat floating atop a gaudy red-and-white striped suit. It was only when I heard a voice did I realize that—of course—it was Millard.
“Ladieeees and gentlemen!” he crowed. “It gives me the utmost pleasure to present to you a performance like no other in history! A show of such unrivaled daring, of such accomplished magicianship, that you simply won’t believe your eyes! Good citizens, I give you Miss Peregrine and her Peculiar Children!”
The audience burst into uproarious applause. Millard tipped his hat.
“For our first illusion, I will produce Miss Peregrine herself!” He ducked behind the curtain and emerged a moment later, a folded sheet draped over one arm and a peregrine falcon perched on the other. He nodded to the orchestra, which lurched into a kind of wheezing carnival music.
Emma elbowed me. “Watch this,” she whispered.
Millard set the falcon down and held the sheet in front, screening the bird from the audience. He began counting backward. “Three, two, one!”
On “one” I heard the unmistakable flap of wings and then saw Miss Peregrine’s head—her human head—pop up from behind the sheet to even more uproarious applause. Her hair was mussed and I could only see her from the shoulders up; she seemed to be naked behind the sheet. Apparently, when you change into a bird, your clothes don’t go along for the ride. Taking the edges of the sheet, she wrapped it chastely around herself.
“Mr. Portman!” she said, peering down at me from the stage. “I’m so happy you’ve returned. This is a little exhibition we used to tour around the Continent back in the halcyon days. I thought you might find it instructive.” And then she swept offstage in a flourish, heading into the house to retrieve her clothes.
One after another, the peculiar children came out of the audience and took the stage, each with an act of their own. Millard removed his tuxedo so that he was completely invisible and juggled glass bottles. Olive removed her leaden shoes and performed a gravity-defying gymnastics routine on a set of parallel bars. Emma made fire, swallowed it, then blew it out again without burning herself. I applauded until I thought my hands would blister.
When Emma returned to her seat, I turned to her and said, “I don’t understand. You performed this for people?”
“Of course,” she replied.
“Normal people?”