The Desolations of Devil's Acre

by Ransom Riggs

  “Yes to them,” one of the guards said, nodding at Noor and me. “No to the others.”

  “I’m not going in if they don’t,” I said.

  “None of you, then.”

  “Bollocks to that,” Enoch said, and then he bellowed, “MISS PEREGRINE! IT’S ENOCH! LET US IN!”

  The guards began dragging Enoch down the hall while he thrashed and swore. Then the chamber door flew open and Miss Peregrine appeared. “Good heavens, Mr. Collins, just let them in!”

  The guard looked flustered. “But you said—”

  “Never mind that! Let them in! Mr. O’Connor, too, as long as he promises to behave.”

  Enoch was released and strode quickly back, brushing off his vest and casting obscene gestures at the guards, who, from the looks of it, were imagining cracking him in the head with their batons. Miss Peregrine warned us all to be quiet, and we followed her inside the high-ceilinged chamber room.

  I had never seen the long conference table full before. Twelve ymbrynes were huddled around it in postures of worry and concentration: Miss Cuckoo, Miss Wren, Miss Babax, Miss Blackbird, and others who, being in the presence of senior ymbrynes, were unusually quiet. Miss Avocet sat at the head of the table, presiding from her wheelchair. She raised a hand toward us. “Mr. Portman, Miss Pradesh, please come join us. This concerns you, too—or it will soon enough.”

  Miss Peregrine put her hand on our backs and guided us to the table. We stood; there were no more chairs. I felt something nudge my foot and looked down to see Addison beneath the table. I whispered hi and he mouthed hello. Like us, he was not quite of a rank to be at the table, but as Miss Wren’s trusted aide-de-camp, he was at least allowed under it.

  At the edge of the room, Emma and Enoch had come with only one thing in mind—the story about the American clan leaders—but seeing so many ymbrynes in the midst of serious discussion seemed to have dampened their appetite for confrontation. At least temporarily.

  “If your wards are perfectly comfortable, Alma, I will resume,” Miss Cuckoo huffed. She wore a military-style greatcoat with gold stripes along the cuffs and held in her hand a thin, long-handled stick with a bit of red chalk at the end. Miss Avocet might have been nominally in charge, but Miss Cuckoo seemed to have been elected battle strategist. She and Miss Peregrine gazed intently at the table, where spread upon the polished wood was an oversized loop map of greater London.

  “Caul means to surround us,” Miss Peregrine intoned gravely, “and I have no doubt he will.”

  Miss Cuckoo rapped her chalk-stick on Devil’s Acre. Its boundary was marked by a meandering green line, roughly square, near the center of the map. The Acre had become so central to my life that in my imagination it filled most of London, and it was a shock to see it rendered as a small and insignificant speck. “First he took Miss Plover’s loop in Squatney.” She slid her stick to the edge of the map and tapped a loop there, which was denoted by a white spiral. It had already been struck through with a foreboding chalk-marked X. “Then, as we all witnessed a short time ago, he took Miss Egret’s.” Her stick slid to another loop, some distance across the city, which she crossed out with two swipes of her chalk. “There are only three loops besides our own still functioning in London . . . here, here, and here.” Her stick went tap-tap-tap in a wide circle around the Acre.

  “He’ll take them within a day, I reckon,” said Miss Peregrine. “At most, two.” She looked at Miss Cuckoo, who nodded grimly in reply.

  “He’ll wait for a chink in our armor,” Miss Blackbird said nervously, her third eye roving. “And when one appears—”

  “There will be none!” Miss Cuckoo whacked the map so hard the tip of the chalk flew off, making Miss Blackbird jump. “Our shield will hold. The Panloopticon in its powered-down state is impenetrable. Caul and his friends can surround us if they like, but they will be stalled at our gates. We will not be intimidated.”

  “I don’t know,” I heard Enoch say. “Some people seem rather intimidated.”

  Miss Peregrine stared daggers at him. “I asked you to be quiet. Or shall I tell the guards to drag you off to the dungeon?”

  Enoch glared at the floor.

  “Speaking of Caul’s ‘friends,’” Emma said from the back of the room, “what were those monstrous creatures he sent into Miss Egret’s loop?”

  Miss Peregrine turned to scowl next at her.

  “It’s all right, Alma,” said Miss Avocet. “You children may as well come up to the table with the rest of us.”

  “Really?” said Olive, her eyes going wide.

  “This is most irregular,” said one of the ymbrynes who’d recently flown in from elsewhere, who I later learned was Miss Waxwing.

  “We owe a great deal not just to Mr. Portman, but to all of Alma’s wards,” said Miss Avocet. “They’ve earned the right to speak.”

  Our friends came forward, beaming with pride, and stood beside us.

  “In answer to your question,” Miss Avocet said, “we believe those creatures were high-ranking wights. Or some monstrous corruption of their former selves, at any rate.”

  “One of them, I swear it, was certainly Percival Murnau,” said Miss Blackbird with a shiver. “The slime creature. I saw his face appear briefly in the muck.”

  Miss Wren said, “Caul’s giving the wights, the small number that remain, powers like his own. Not quite at the same level, but close. Channeling the Library of Souls’ energy into them somehow.”

  “Creating for himself an army of lesser gods,” said Miss Cuckoo.

  “My brother’s no god,” Miss Peregrine said acidly.

  “There will be more of them,” said Miss Avocet. “They’ll be his advance guard, his shock troops, along with this new breed of hollowgast, if he’s got any more hidden away. Even with all his power, he’s too much of a coward to charge first across the line in battle.”

  “Has anyone seen Caul in person yet?” I asked. “Because I don’t think he’s showing us his real form.” He had looked too normal in his projections, nothing like the way he’d appeared in my dreams or in the whirlwind in V’s loop.

  Miss Merganser, the freelance ymbryne from Mozambique who had been sitting quietly at the far end of the table, pushed back her chair and stood up. She had rusty red hair pulled tight against her head, shining dark skin, and looked younger than the rest of the ymbrynes, hardly older than me or my friends. “One person has seen him,” she said in a light, flat accent. “His name is Emmerick Daltwick. He’s an escapee from the invasion of Miss Plover’s loop early this morning.”

  “Can we speak to him?” I asked.

  “He’s here,” the ymbryne replied. “I asked him to come and tell us what he saw. Shall I bring him in?”

  “By all means,” said Miss Avocet.

  Miss Merganser signaled to the guards at the door. They went out and came back a short time later with a cowering boy. His face was covered with scratches, and his clothes were torn and dirty.

  Miss Peregrine got up from the conference table and went to examine him. “Why hasn’t this young man been to see the bone-mender?”

  “Rafael’s full up with stampede injuries,” said one of the guards.

  “This boy’s been through hell. Make sure Rafael tends to him right away.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “Thank you, miss,” the boy said meekly.

  “Go on, Emmerick, please tell us what you saw this morning.”

  He began stammeringly, perhaps intimidated by the presence of so many powerful ymbrynes.

  “We only need to hear about Caul,” Miss Cuckoo interrupted. “What did he look like, what did he do?”

  “Well, ma’am . . . he was very . . . big.”

  “Yes? And what else?”

  “The, uh . . . the top half of him looked like a person. A man. But his bottom half was like a tree. Like the trunk of
a tree, with roots going down into the ground for legs? But they wasn’t made of wood. They was made of . . . meat.”

  “Of meat,” Miss Avocet repeated.

  “Rotted meat.” He squinched his nose. “And everything he touched”—he paused, went a bit pale—“died.” He shivered. Dropped his head. “After he touched Landers Jaquith, Landers turned green and black and rotted-looking. And then died.”

  “By the elders,” I heard Miss Blackbird whisper.

  “Did he kill any others?” Miss Peregrine asked.

  “Yeah. Him and his . . . people . . . took some of my friends. Stuffed ’em into a net and dragged ’em off.”

  The boy was shaking badly. Miss Avocet stood up from her chair with some difficulty, limped over to him, and draped her shawl around the boy’s shoulders. “Get him to a bone-mender,” she told the guards. “Thank you for coming to see us.”

  The boy nodded and started to leave with the guards, but at the door he turned back, eyes lit with fear. “Caul can’t get in here, can he?”

  “No, he can’t,” said Miss Cuckoo. “We won’t let him in.”

  After he’d gone and the door had closed, Bronwyn cried, “We’ve got to stage a rescue! Get those children back from him before he kills them all!”

  “No, we can’t, we mustn’t,” said Miss Blackbird. “It’s just what Caul wants. He’ll be lying in wait—”

  “I’m sure you’re right, but it’s our duty to try,” said Miss Peregrine.

  “We’ll assemble a rescue team,” said Miss Cuckoo, nodding at Miss Avocet, who had been helped into her chair again by Francesca, and was looking spent.

  Bronwyn’s hand shot up. “I volunteer!”

  Miss Peregrine pushed her arm down gently. “That’s very noble of you, dear, but we may need you for even more pressing things.”

  “We’ve already sent orders to evacuate those three loops.” Miss Cuckoo tapped the map again with her stick, tap-tap-tap. “But they can’t come here—if we let down our shield to allow them inside, Caul could follow. So we’ve arranged for them to be secreted away in the night down the Thames. They’ll overnight on Foulness Island, then proceed overland to our hideaway in Ballard’s Gore.”

  “Why weren’t they evacuated days ago?” asked Miss Merganser.

  “We suggested it yesterday, but all refused to leave,” said Miss Peregrine. “They were worried their loops would collapse in their absence. And of course, Caul’s sudden resurrection was a surprise to everyone.”

  I saw Noor’s shoulders slump.

  “These are the go-down-with-the-ship types who would rather die than flee their loops,” said Miss Peregrine.

  “And will they?” Olive asked timidly. “Die?”

  “No,” said Miss Cuckoo. “If he kills them, he will only have dead children. Now he has hostages, which are much more useful.”

  “I agree,” said Miss Peregrine. “So long as Caul believes he can foment an insurrection in our ranks and undermine us from within, they’ll be safe. So long as he’s trying to win hearts and minds here in the Acre, he won’t kill those children. It would injure his case.”

  “And if he succeeds?” asked Horace.

  “Someone already tried to kill Jacob and Noor,” Emma pointed out.

  “That was mind control,” said Miss Wren, reaching down to scratch Addison’s head. “We’ve since developed a backstop against that—two peculiars who can detect controlled minds, and are constantly on watch.”

  Addison’s face popped up from under the table. “Mistresses, if I may. Caul’s poisonous rhetoric alone could never persuade anyone to betray you. Even the most disagreeable loop-freedom agitator understands how much we owe you. Only a mad dog would prefer Caul’s rule to yours.”

  Miss Wren dug a morsel from her pocket and fed it to him. “Thank you, Addison.”

  “Many have seen firsthand what wight rule would mean,” Miss Blackbird added, “in the degradation and depravity Devil’s Acre endured. Slavery, drug addiction, violence. Not to mention the wanton cruelty inflicted upon our loops during the raids a few months ago.”

  “Still, we shouldn’t take people’s loyalty for granted,” said Miss Cuckoo. “Especially with Caul littering propaganda all across the Acre.”

  Then Emma finally said what we’d all been wondering. “There’s no truth to it, is there?”

  “What? That we offered a secret deal to the American leaders?”

  “It’s ridiculous,” Olive said. “Emma, how could you even—”

  “It’s partly true, yes,” said Miss Peregrine, and Olive stopped midsentence, her jaw hanging open. “It was the only way we could get the Americans to sign the accord and avoid war. Loop freedom was the only incentive all three of them wanted.”

  “But, miss,” said Olive, grasping for words, “you . . . you told everyone it wasn’t possible . . . that the loop reset reaction isn’t safe yet—”

  Miss Peregrine held up a hand to stop her. “It isn’t. Though we may be close to a solution.”

  “That’s why the Americans have been such a constant presence in the Acre lately,” said Miss Wren. “They’re waiting for their reset.”

  “They’re in my office every other day, breathing down my bonnet about when it’s going to be ready,” Miss Avocet grumbled.

  “But—but—” Olive stammered, bottom lip trembling, “how could you! When you wouldn’t give it to anyone else—even Fiona?” She was so upset she started floating despite her lead boots, and Bronwyn had to reach for Olive’s ankle and pull her down again before she drifted out of reach.

  Miss Peregrine looked wounded. “Really, Olive, do you think so little of us? As soon as it’s viable, which could be quite soon, we’ll reset the leaders’ clocks. But they want it only for themselves; their expectation was that we would keep it a secret, even from their own American rank and file.”

  “Especially from them,” said Miss Cuckoo.

  “But that was never our intention,” said Miss Peregrine. “And now that Caul has let the secret slip . . .” She spread her hands and smiled slyly.

  “Everyone will get reset?” Emma asked.

  “Everyone,” Miss Peregrine said. “Including Fiona, naturally.”

  “As soon as it’s ready,” added Miss Avocet.

  Olive nearly collapsed with relief. “Oh, thank goodness.”

  “I still worry,” Miss Blackbird said timidly, “that universal loop freedom would cause chaos. So many of our wards know nothing of the present—”

  “A few days ago I was inclined to share your concerns,” said Miss Peregrine, “but the situation has changed rather dramatically since then, wouldn’t you agree? Should we have to suddenly evacuate Devil’s Acre—”

  Miss Cuckoo whacked her stick on the table. “Which we won’t.”

  “Yes, but if we do,” Miss Peregrine said patiently, “our wards must be able to scatter into the great vast world and hide there for perhaps a long time. If they can only escape into loops for fear of aging, Caul will find them. And I would much rather see them lost in the present—even a present they are unprepared for—than killed or enslaved by my pitiless brother.”

  No one, it seemed, could argue with that.

  “Well, I think one of you’d better tell the crowd outside,” said Horace. “They’re quite miffed.”

  There were shouts from the hall, the sounds of a scuffle, and before anyone in the room could react, the doors burst open. LaMothe came charging through with Parkins and several of their followers in tow. Leo’s four goons pinned the home guards to the floor. I spun around, ready for a fight, and so did my friends, but the Americans stopped well short of us.

  “You spilled the beans, you lyin’ harpies!” Parkins shouted from his wheelchair, then threw one of the crumpled papers on the floor.

  Miss Peregrine stepped toward them and crossed her
arms. “It wasn’t us. We’ve no idea how Caul found out about our agreement. For all we know it was one of your people who ‘spilled the beans’—”

  “They didn’t know a thing about it!” LaMothe shouted.

  “If you think this changes anything, you’re dead wrong,” said Parkins. “You’re gonna stick to the terms of our deal.”

  “Gentlemen,” Miss Avocet said with tone of warning, “you are free to have your clocks reset along with everybody else, or not at all.”

  “Then the deal’s off,” LaMothe shouted. “It was never gonna be ready. You’ve been stringin’ us along this whole time.”

  “Actually, we’re quite close to a breakthrough,” said Miss Wren, echoing what Miss Peregrine had said earlier.

  “More lies,” Parkins growled.

  “Good luck fighting Caul without us,” said LaMothe. “We’re taking our people and going home.”

  “I’m not sure how you’re going to get there,” said Miss Peregrine. “The Panloopticon is closed until further notice.”

  The raccoons rose hissing from LaMothe’s coat as his face deepened to purple. “You’re gonna open it for us. Right. Now.”

  “I suppose they could fly commercial,” Miss Cuckoo said to Miss Peregrine, her tone conversational. “How far is Heathrow Airport from here? Ninety minutes by cab?”

  LaMothe and Parkins were apoplectic, but they had nothing left to threaten the ymbrynes with. “You’ve made a powerful enemy!” Parkins said, spit flying from his lips.

  But their underlings looked confused and increasingly alarmed. A skinny cowboy in head-to-toe denim held up the crumpled paper and said, “Boss, is it true you was gonna reset without us?”

  “Who told you to pick that up?” Parkins snapped.

  “Can I see that?” a man in bearskins asked the man in denim.

  “Quit reading things and break something!” shouted LaMothe.