The Desolations of Devil's Acre

by Ransom Riggs

  And then the ice shifted and Noor gasped. V’s fingers had curled around Noor’s hand. Somewhere in her chest, a bit of blood from the poet’s heart was still coursing.

  V’s lips parted. A noise like sandpaper on wood escaped them.

  Noor leaned closer. “Mama?”

  V’s mouth moved and her throat rattled. I hoped she might say, I love you, too. Or better still, It wasn’t your fault.

  Instead, she said, “Horatio . . .”

  Noor tensed, then leaned in closer. “What did you say?”

  The ice shifted in the box. V was trying to sit up, but she could not, and sank back again. Her eyes stayed shut. Her words were drawn out and distorted, rough breaths barely recognizable. She said: “Horatio. He was . . . the last of us. And once was . . . Caul’s . . . right hand. Find him . . .”

  V’s mouth went slack. Her hand opened and let go of Noor’s.

  And she was gone again.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  We rushed out into the kitchen to tell the others what had happened, but they’d all gone upstairs except for Horace and Enoch, who were talking together by the sink. Enoch wore a stained apron, meat cleaver in hand, and was in the midst of chopping up a counter full of chickens, presumably for their hearts.

  “Yeah, that happens sometimes” was his shrugging reaction to our news. “When there’s a dollop of residual resurrecto-juice left in some ventricle or other, they’ll wake up for short blips . . . though if she did anything more than grunt at you, that’s very impressive. She must have really wanted to talk to you. It takes a massive effort on the part of the deceased to rise oneself.”

  Noor pursed her lips. “She said something about ‘Horatio.’”

  “Shakespeare again?” said Horace.

  “No,” I said. “I think she must have meant H’s hollowgast. That Horatio. She said he used to be close to Caul, and that we should find him.”

  “Find him and what?” Horace asked.

  “She didn’t get a chance to tell us,” Noor said. “I could try to ask her, if you can wake her up again.”

  “Can’t help you there. I can’t rise her more than once every few days, and each time I do it the quality of the resurrection goes down.”

  “Oh.” Noor rubbed a hand across her tired eyes.

  “Sorry, Noor.” Enoch thwacked the cleaver into a chopping block and wiped his hands on his apron. “I wouldn’t make too much of it, anyway. Most post-resurrection chatter is ninety-nine percent nonsense. Like dreams. No offense, Horace.”

  Horace turned his back on Enoch. “Offense taken!”

  “I think it means something,” I said. “I’ve been wondering about Horatio. He gave us that map scrap and clue, then flung himself out H’s window. Where’d he go?”

  “I don’t really care,” Noor said, and her bitter tone surprised me. “You know, if it weren’t for that stupid map we would have never found V, and she’d still be alive.”

  “That’s not necessarily true. Murnau knew where she was, and probably would’ve led us there himself, eventually. And H and Horatio meant well. They were trying to protect you. They clearly didn’t know that V’s heart was on Murnau’s shopping list.”

  “I guess so,” Noor said reluctantly. “So you think he’s still alive? That H’s old hollowgast is still out there somewhere?”

  “Could be,” I said. “But he’s a wight now, and I kind of figured that after a lifetime of servitude as a tamed hollow he’d go on vacation or something. But you never know.”

  “You know who I’d like to talk to?” Enoch said. He slammed the cleaver down and a chicken head went skidding into the sink. “Myron Bentham.”

  At the mention of his name, a strange chill shot through me.

  “As long as we’re dreaming, I’d like to talk to Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi,” said Horace.

  “I met him once,” Enoch said.

  “Who? Jesus?”

  “Gandhi, you twit. He visited the East End once in the thirties. Nice chap. But I’m quite serious about Bentham. If you could find his body, maybe I could wake him up for a chat. He must have some useful dirt on Caul.”

  “He was collapsed in the Library of Souls along with Caul, remember?” Horace said. “There’s no body to retrieve. Or not one we’d recognize, anyway. The last time I saw him, he’d turned into a giant mosquito creature.”

  Enoch brought down his cleaver again. Blood squirted onto the ceiling. “Sounds like he’d fit right in.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  I was on my way upstairs when I heard shouting coming through a window. I stuck my head out to see Millard and Bronwyn arguing with Klaus in the alley. I shimmied through the window as fast as I could, then down the scaffolding to the ground like Millard had showed me.

  “What’s going on?” I said, running up to them.

  Klaus was red-faced from shouting, and had a large burlap sack slung over one shoulder. I couldn’t see Millard’s face but he was breathing hard, and Bronwyn looked like she had no idea what was happening, but was ready to defend Millard regardless, if necessary.

  “What’s going on,” Millard hissed in a half-yelled undertone, “is that I got this blackguard the bone and the vial and everything he asked for—”

  “You did?” I said. “When?”

  “Through some back channels I’ve cultivated, and let’s keep it at that. And now he’s refusing to give us the you-know-what!”

  I started to say, “You mean the—”

  “Shh!” Millard cut me off. “Don’t say it out loud.”

  “I can’t give it to ya because the damn thing exploded!” Klaus said, making no effort to lower his voice. “Nearly took my pinky off!” He held up a bandaged right hand as evidence. “I told you it might not work, and it didn’t!”

  “Then prove it, and give us back the blown-apart pieces,” Millard said.

  “I can’t, they burned to little piles of blue ash.”

  Millard made a sound of disgust. “Codswallop! I don’t believe you. You got it working and are keeping it for yourself.”

  “I should whip you for saying that!” Klaus’s eyes cut to Bronwyn, who raised her fists. “But instead, I brought you a peace offering. It ain’t as a good as the you-know-what, but it could save your skin in the right circumstance.”

  “I won’t accept some booby prize.”

  “Just look at it, for God’s sake.” He lowered the sack to the ground and untied the rope that held it closed. The sack fell away to reveal a boxy wooden clock about two feet high.

  “Is that . . . ?”

  “That’s right. The bone clock.”

  I looked closer. The face looked like stretched and tanned skin, and the hands were made of long, delicate-looking bones.

  “Why would you give this away? I thought it was made from pieces of your ancestor.”

  “Well, that’s just how bad I feel about this whole deal,” he said. “You’ll bring it back to me, of course, this is just for loansies, while you’re away on your trip.”

  “And how’d you hear about that?” said Bronwyn.

  Klaus grinned. “Secrets have short half-lives in the Acre.”

  “What’s it do?” I asked, bringing our discussion back to the clock.

  “It helps you hear the whispers.”

  “What whispers?” said Bronwyn.

  “Don’t fall for his tricks,” said Millard, but Bronwyn shushed him.

  “Of someone who’s just passing on,” Klaus said. “After the heart and brain have given up the ghost but the ghost itself is still clinging to the body. They whisper, see, but faster than the mind can grasp and quieter than the ear can hear, so you can’t understand it unless you slow down the world and listen real close—”

  “And what good will that do us?”
Millard said impatiently.

  “The bone clock is what does the slowing, and that slowing is what allows you to hear the whispers. Everything comes to a snail’s crawl. That can serve a lot of uses, even beyond listening to ghosts. You unlock the case with the ring finger key, wind the clock with the thumb key, then crank the mainspring with the index finger.” He dug a key ring from his pocket and held it out. The ring was iron and the jingling keys were bone.

  Millard snatched it. “This doesn’t make up for the you-know-what,” he said reluctantly. “If I catch wind of you using it, you’ll be caught and thrown in jail before you can say I’m a traitor to my people.” Millard knelt beside the bone clock, ran his hand over its carved top, and sighed. “And, um, thank you,” he said quietly.

  Klaus nodded. “Hope you never need to use it.” He took a flask from his pocket. “Good luck to you all,” he said, and drank.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  We were halfway up the scaffolding when a shout came from below: “The hell do you think you’re doing? Get away from there!”

  We looked down to see Wreck Donovan and Dogface goggling at us from the alley. When Wreck saw me, he squinted and said, “Is that you, Portman?”

  “What are you doing there?” said Dogface.

  “Keep your voices down!” Millard hissed.

  “We live here,” I said.

  “Then why you breakin’ in?” Dogface said with a sneer.

  “We’re sneaking in,” said Bronwyn. “And never mind why.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked them. “I thought you’d all have left with Parkins and LaMothe.”

  Dogface spit on the ground. “To hell with those gutless traitors.”

  “We decided to stay and cast our lot with the only peculiars that got any honor at all, and that’s you,” said Wreck. “You’re welcome and God help us.”

  They continued on their way, and we resumed our clambering.

  “I guess we misjudged them,” I said.

  “We shall see about that,” Millard replied.

  We went back in through the window we’d snuck out of. No one inside had heard the shouts, and we decided not to tell them. Bronwyn wedged the bone clock into the same trunk that contained Millard’s books and maps, which she had outfitted with ropes that would allow her to carry it like a big, bulky backpack. She’d only just fastened it shut when we heard a commotion downstairs, and rushed down to the kitchen to find all twelve ymbrynes talking with our friends amid the hay and chicken feathers.

  It was nearly time to leave, and they’d come to see us off. Some gave us their feathers as talismans, which we tucked into our pockets or poked through the metal grommets of our period-accurate backpacks. Horace distributed the bulletproof sweaters he’d made from peculiar sheep’s wool. These had become indispensable; at this point I would’ve felt naked going on a dangerous outing without one, itchy as they were.

  And then the moment came, and we followed Miss Peregrine out of the house and around to the alley again. Klaus was gone; instead there were six large crates waiting for us. Mine was big enough to fit two people, and since Noor had already been closed into a smaller crate by herself, Emma squeezed in beside me. We sat shoulder to shoulder, knees hugged to chests, our backs against the crate walls. Horace was describing to the ymbrynes his new theory about how to stop Caul’s transmissions—something about playing a specific frequency through the loudspeakers, a note that tended to disrupt hypnosis—but then the crate lid closed over our heads and his voice muffled.

  Emma and I jostled against each other as our crate was loaded onto a wagon.

  “Did you ever think it would get this bad?” I said, my teeth clacking as the wagon began to roll along the Acre’s pitted streets.

  “You mean with Caul getting resurrected and coming after us? And all the power of the Library of Souls at his disposal?”

  “Yeah. That.”

  I felt her shoulders rise, then fall. “Truthfully? I never thought it would get this good.”

  I thought I’d misheard her.

  “It doesn’t feel much different than having the hollows hunting us at every turn,” she went on, “which was our reality for years and years. Before you came along, we had no way to defend against them. We were trapped and helpless. So, in a way, that piece of things doesn’t feel like it’s changed much. At least now we’re all together, instead of split apart in dozens of different loops. At least now we can fight as one. And we’re not helpless anymore. We have you, and we have Noor. We have a chance.”

  I felt a surge of pride expanding in me, immediately followed by a deflating prick of fear.

  “But it might not work,” I said. “We could fail.”

  “As with any great endeavor,” she said. “Better to die trying. Better to burn out than fade away.”

  “‘Hey hey, my my,’” I said.

  “Your what?”

  “Neil Young,” I said. “‘Better to burn out’ . . . I played his record for you once, in my room.”

  “I remember. We danced.”

  She leaned into me, and I felt her hair fall onto my shoulder. I leaned into her, just a little, just briefly. Just friends. Though I loved her still, in a dimmed and dusty way.

  Out on the streets, people were laughing. Distantly, someone sawed away at a violin. People were trying to forget the sword hanging over them, the wolf at their gates, if only for an evening.

  Emma said quietly, “Do you regret it?”

  “What?” My breath stalled.

  “Your decision. Choosing this, our world, over your family. If you could be a regular kid again, fretting about grades and schoolgirls—”

  “I wouldn’t. I don’t regret any of it. Not for a second.”

  Then I really thought about it. Tried to imagine what I’d be doing now if none of this had happened. If I’d never gone to the island, never met Emma or the other children. But I couldn’t. I’d come too far and changed too much. I had evolved into a different kind of person.

  But there was one thing I regretted.

  “Maybe it would’ve been better for everyone if we’d never met,” I said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, hurt. “Why?”

  “Then none of this would’ve happened. I wouldn’t have been at the Battle of Devil’s Acre, which means Caul would never have dragged me into the Library of Souls, and I wouldn’t have been able to give him one of the soul jars.”

  “Stop being ridiculous.”

  “It’s true. He wanted the Library’s power, and he never would’ve gotten it if it wasn’t for me.”

  “You can’t think that way. You’ll drive yourself mad.”

  “Way too late for that,” I said.

  “And anyway, Caul never would have needed all these terrible powers to get what he wanted if not for you. He had just developed hollows who could break into loops, remember? He would’ve invaded them one by one until all of us were dead or captured. I’m sure he would have preferred not to have died and come back as half a hell-beast, all things being equal. But you forced him to with all your derring-do and badassery. To borrow a slang term from you modern people.”

  We hit a pothole so deep I felt my brain slap the inside of my skull, and the incisive argument I was going to make turned into “Yeah, I guess so . . .”

  “And if not for you, we’d all still be loop-trapped and in constant danger of aging forward. I can’t tell you what a relief it is not to worry about going gray overnight or turning into a bag of dust while doing some out-of-loop grocery shopping.”

  “I didn’t do that. It was the ymbrynes. And Bentham—”

  “But it was because of you. If not for that, we wouldn’t have known it was even possible to do. So thanks to you, someday soon everyone in the Acre will be free of loops, too. Hopefully.”

&nb
sp; The wagon jolted to a stop.

  “You ready?” I said, grateful for a change of subject.

  “I’m serious, Jacob. Please take this to heart. You only ever helped us. You were the best thing to happen to us in a long time.”

  I was feeling a hundred different things but didn’t know how to say any of them. Three weeks ago I would have kissed her. Instead, I found her hand in the dark and squeezed it. “Thank you,” I said. “Regret retracted. Compliment accepted.”

  “Good,” she whispered, and squeezed back.

  And then the lid creaked open. I pulled my hand free just as Miss Peregrine’s face appeared, peering down at us.

  “Why, Jacob. You’re bright red.”

  I jumped up and got out of the crate as fast as I could.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  We were snuck into Bentham’s house through a back alley carriage entrance. The arrivals were staggered so as not to spark too much curiosity along the way. Bronwyn used a crowbar to pry open each crate as it came into the little stone-walled basement room. It reminded me of the way vampires transported themselves from place to place in stories, packed away from the sun inside their cushy, crated coffins.

  Only Miss Peregrine, Miss Wren, and Miss Cuckoo had come to see us off. There were eight of us altogether including Addison. He had flatly refused to be sealed into a crate and was strutting around like a general. Once we’d all emerged and stretched our cramped limbs, we were given tan coats made from heavy wool, which, combined with Horace’s sweaters, I worried would quickly became suffocating. It was the middle of November in Miss Hawksbill’s loop, Millard said, and we would need the extra warmth.

  We were handed our backpacks. I shrugged into the straps of mine and felt the weight, which was considerable. The ymbrynes had repeatedly assured us we’d find Miss Tern’s loop with no problem, but the things they’d stuffed our packs with told a different story: thermal blankets, canned food, ice picks, binoculars, first aid.

  “Just in case you run into a delay,” Miss Wren said.