But the celebration was brief. Miss Avocet’s absence was quickly noted, as was Millard’s alarming condition. His tourniquet was tight, but he’d lost a lot of blood and was weakening. Enoch gave him his coat, Fiona offered her woolen hat.
“We’ll take you to see the doctor in town,” Emma said to him.
“Nonsense,” Millard replied. “The man’s never laid eyes on an invisible boy, and he wouldn’t know what to do with one if he did. He’d either treat the wrong limb or run away screaming.”
“It doesn’t matter if he runs away screaming,” Emma said. “Once the loop resets he won’t remember a thing.”
“Look around you. The loop should’ve reset an hour ago.”
Millard was right—the skies were quiet, the battle had ended, but rolling drifts of bomb smoke still mixed with the clouds.
“That’s not good,” Enoch said, and everyone got quiet.
“In any case,” Millard continued, “all the supplies I need are in the house. Just give me a bolt of Laudanum and swab the wound with alcohol. It’s only the fleshy part anyway. In three days I’ll be right as rain.”
“But it’s still bleeding,” Bronwyn said, pointing out red droplets that dotted the sand beneath him.
“Then tie the damn tourniquet tighter!”
She did, and Millard gasped in a way that made everyone cringe, then fainted into her arms.
“Is he all right?” Claire asked.
“Just blacked out is all,” said Enoch. “He ain’t as fit as he pretends to be.”
“What do we do now?”
“Ask Miss Peregrine!” Olive said.
“Right. Put her down so she can change back,” said Enoch. “She can’t very well tell us what to do while she’s still a bird.”
So Bronwyn set her on a dry patch of sand, and we all stood back and waited. Miss Peregrine hopped a few times and flapped her good wing and then swiveled her feathered head around and blinked at us—but that was it. She remained a bird.
“Maybe she wants a little privacy,” Emma suggested. “Let’s turn our backs.”
So we did, forming a ring around her. “It’s safe now, Miss P,” said Olive. “No one’s looking!”
After a minute, Hugh snuck a peek and said, “Nope, still a bird.”
“Maybe she’s too tired and cold,” Claire said, and enough of the others agreed this was plausible that it was decided we would go back to the house, treat Millard with what supplies we had, and hope that with some time to rest, both the headmistress and her loop would return to normal.
Chapter Eleven
We marched up the steep trail and across the ridge like a company of war-weary veterans, single file, heads down, Bronwyn carrying Millard in her arms and Miss Peregrine riding the nestlike crown of Fiona’s hair. The landscape was gouged with smoking craters, fresh-turned earth thrown everywhere as if some giant dog had been digging at it. We all wondered what awaited us back at the house, but no one dared to ask.
We had our answer even before clearing the forest. Enoch’s foot kicked something, and he bent down to look. It was half a charred brick.
Panic broke out. The children began to sprint down the path. When they reached the lawn, the younger ones broke out in tears. There was smoke everywhere. The bomb had not come to rest atop Adam’s finger, as it usually did, but had split him straight down the middle and exploded. The back corner of the house had been reduced to a slumped and smoking ruin. Small fires burned in the charred shell of two rooms. Where Adam had been was a raw crater deep enough to bury a person upright. It was easy now to picture what this place would one day become: that sad and desecrated wreck I had first discovered weeks ago. The nightmare house.
Miss Peregrine leapt from Fiona’s hair and began to race around on the scorched grass, squawking in alarm.
“Headmistress, what happened?” Olive said. “Why hasn’t the changeover come?”
Miss Peregrine could only screech in reply. She seemed as confused and frightened as the rest of us.
“Please turn back!” begged Claire, kneeling before her.
Miss Peregrine flapped and jumped and seemed to be straining herself, but still couldn’t shift her shape. The children crowded around in concern.
“Something’s wrong,” Emma said. “If she could turn human, she would’ve done it by now.”
“Perhaps that’s why the loop slipped,” Enoch suggested. “Remember that old story about Miss Kestrel, when she was thrown from her bicycle in a road accident? She knocked her head and stayed a kestrel for a whole entire week. That’s when her loop slipped.”
“What’s that got to do with Miss Peregrine?”
Enoch sighed. “Maybe she’s only injured her head and we just need to wait a week for her to come to her senses.”
“A speeding lorry’s one thing,” Emma said. “Being abused by wights is quite another. There’s no knowing what that bastard did to Miss Peregrine before we got to her.”
“Wights? As in plural?”
“It was wights who took Miss Avocet,” I said.
“How do you know that?” demanded Enoch.