by Ransom Riggs
This will all be over soon, Miss Peregrine had said. She wasn’t in the habit of lying to us, but I knew that wasn’t true. We were giving up. Fleeing the field of battle. We had been beaten. And Caul would never stop coming for us.
I found myself climbing the stairs. I’d been so lost in thought, I hadn’t even realized what my legs were doing until they’d taken me to the landing of the lower Panloopticon hallway. The itch in my brain had become a pull, and it was pulling me upward.
I want to tell you something.
The voice was so familiar, and yet I couldn’t place it.
I climbed another floor, and another. The air grew colder. By the time I reached the top and came out among Bentham’s museum displays, my breath was crystallizing in ghostly plumes.
The pull was getting stronger, leading me down shadowy aisles of peculiar curiosities.
And then a figure stepped into my path, and I startled so badly I nearly attacked it.
The figure cowered and cried “It’s only Nim!” He stepped into a shaft of green window light. It was Bentham’s old manservant, his hair like a feather duster, eyes wide and haunted. “The master would like to speak to you.”
I cocked my head suspiciously. Was he dreaming, too?
“Your master is dead.”
“No, sir,” he said, shaking his head vigorously. “He’s in the washroom.”
He led me in the very direction I’d been pulled toward—to the washroom. And there, pressed against the outside of a small window, was Bentham himself in ghostly blue outline. His neck was long and wriggling, like another of Caul’s fingers. He seemed to be attached parasitically to his brother.
“You see?” said Nim.
Bentham’s mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear what he’d said.
“Ear to the glass,” Nim instructed.
The glass was frosted with ice. I pressed my ear to it, and it was so cold it felt like it was burning.
“Leave us, Nim,” Bentham rasped, and a bolt shot through me when I heard his voice. It was the voice I’d heard in my dream.
Nim slipped away, and Bentham continued. “I haven’t long; my brother has fallen asleep.” His face distorted as he spoke, lengthening and shortening grotesquely, and he sounded like a drowning man gasping for breath. “The door is behind a painting in the corridor. There’s a lock in my ear and the key is in the farting-case.”
“The what?”
“Sir John Soane’s final flatulations. Which is simply a pretext to stop people from reaching inside and finding the invisible key.”
“The key to what?”
“To the Library of Souls,” he said, his voice nearly slipping away. The blue outline of his face faded for a moment before returning. His connection to our reality seemed tenuous. “Haven’t you been looking for it?”
“I thought the only door got destroyed.”
“Every loop door in the wights’ fallen tower”—he paused to gasp for air—“had a copy in this house. Except that one?” He wagged his finger. “Of course not; that was the most important door of all. It’s here, but not for anyone to find. No one, I should say, but you, my lad.”
I pulled my face away from the freezing glass and looked at him. “Why me?”
“Because you are the librarian. And your power is even greater than you know.”
Now my mind was reeling. “I can manipulate the soul jars. But what good does that do me?”
“Not just manipulate,” he said. “To bring forth the totality of your power, you must drink.”
I nearly choked. “Drink souls?” A cold shudder went through me. “Never—that would make me like them.”
Horace’s outburst replayed in my memory. Monster. Beast from hell.
“Not like them. Like yourself.” His voice was almost inaudible. He seemed to be struggling to remain here, on this plane. I smashed my ear to the freezing glass and heard him say, “Did you never wonder why you could control the hollowgast? Why your mind could inhabit theirs?”
“Yes. I’ve wondered.”
“Because, Jacob. There’s a part of them inside you. An ancient remnant. The hollowgast of our era are soulless corruptions, but in the age of our elderfolk there were tri-tongued peculiars who were anything but soulless; feared and bloodthirsty, yes, but brilliant, even respected by some. You descend from them. You and your grandfather. Their remnant was inside him, too, but in you it’s much stronger. Drink, and you’ll become the most fearsome hollowgast the world has ever known.”
A shard of ice seemed to pierce my heart. The idea was terrifying—but strangely exhilarating, too.
“Strong enough to kill your brother?”
“Strong enough to protect the ones who can.”
“There’s only Noor left,” I said. “Julius can’t even stand, and no one’s been able to tell Noor what she’s supposed to do!”
Bentham groaned. He was clinging to the window casement while some unseen force pulled him away.
“His light must be drained,” he managed to say. “Drained to its lees!”
“But how? The others tried, and they all—”
And suddenly he was torn away. I pounded the window with my fist. “Come back!” I was babbling, desperate. “You have to tell me. I need to know.”
Then, as suddenly as he’d disappeared, he came flying back, his face smacking the glass. His eyes bulged as he spoke, each word a painful struggle. “The one . . . meant to kill him,” he said, grimacing, “is the one . . . who will know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I shouted.
Before he could answer, he was torn away again, and then his body, or the image of his body, disintegrated in a shower of blue sparks. And he was gone.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
I stumbled out of the washroom and searched the hallway for Nim, afraid he had heard everything—but he was gone. There was no time to worry about him, anyway.
I tried to focus. My thoughts were a mess. First, I needed to get the key to the Library, if only to keep it from falling into anyone else’s hands. Then I would find Noor and tell her what Bentham had said—about her, not me. I had no intention of drinking any soul jars, or of turning myself into . . . anything.
Unless I had no other choice, that is. But I couldn’t think about that now.
I ran to the aisle where I’d last seen the glass box Bentham had mentioned. It was right where I remembered it. I kicked the flimsy lock open. A slight brown haze escaped the box with a hiss. I held my breath and felt around inside it until my hand nudged against something I could feel but not see. I knew what it was by touch: a large key.
I pocketed it, ran to the stairwell door, and started down the stairs. To my surprise it was filled with people. They were all going to the upper Panloopticon hallway.
Bronwyn grabbed me. She was out of breath. “Jacob—I was looking for you! The ymbrynes and Sharon got the Panloopticon working sooner than expected. We’re leaving in ten minutes!”
I was about to ask what the hurry was when I saw the ymbrynes-in-training carrying Miss Avocet up the stairs. Her eyes were glassy and she was struggling to keep her head up. If she passed out, fell asleep, or God forbid, died, the Quilt would evaporate.
“Wait, what?” I looked back at Bronwyn. She’d said something and I’d missed it.
“I said we’re still looking for Noor. Was she upstairs with you?”
“No,” I said, a tight knot forming in my chest.
“Anybody seen Noor?” called Emma, running up the steps behind her.
“Has anyone checked the kitchens?” said Enoch, limping up the stairs with Francesca’s help. “Maybe she went scavenging for a midnight snack.”
“I’ll go check,” I said quickly.
I raced downstairs, passing a quizzical Miss Peregrine in the stairwell. “Pocket loop door
!” she shouted after me. “Nine minutes!”
“Looking for Noor!” I shouted back without slowing.
I raced down the ground floor hall toward the kitchens. There were only a handful of people around now, hurriedly gathering their things. One was Olive, and I skidded to a stop when I saw her. She was making up the sheets of her cot, even though we’d probably never come back.
“Olive, have you seen Noor?”
“You can’t find her? That’s funny.”
“Funny? Why?”
She turned a bit red. “Well . . . I really shouldn’t say—”
“Olive, you have to say. We’re about to leave Devil’s Acre and nobody knows where she is.”
She sighed. “She told me not to give you this till after we’d reached Florida. I promise I didn’t open it!”
She handed me a sealed envelope from her pocket. I tore it open. Inside was a note addressed to me.
Dear Jacob,
I write this as you’ve gone off to think. I’ve been thinking, too.
You’ve probably realized by now that I didn’t go through the pocket loop with everyone else.
I’m still in Devil’s Acre.
If the loop door hasn’t closed yet, please don’t come looking for me. You won’t find me. As you know, I’m good at hiding.
My destiny is here. I can’t run from it anymore.
I’ll find you again, if it’s meant to be.
I really hope it is.
Love,
Noor
A desperate sadness shot through me. I knew exactly what she was planning. She was waiting for us to leave, for the shield to fall, and then she was going face Caul. By herself.
The letter shook in my hands.
Noor knew as well as I what retreat would mean. Caul would build a new army. He would crush more loops, devastate cities, and make all humanity hate us, if they didn’t already. And she was prepared to give her life to stop it.
But that wasn’t a sacrifice I was willing to let her make. At least, not alone.
“What does it say?” Olive asked, her face screwed up with worry.
“Just sweet things,” I lied, faking a smile as I folded the letter into my pocket. “She’s going to meet us at the loop door in a few minutes.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’ll meet you upstairs,” I said—another lie—and turned to go. “Hurry up now, okay?”
“Wait! Where are you going?”
I tried to sound calm as I said something about a last trip to the bathroom, and then I was running full out and didn’t look back.
I couldn’t let anyone know what Noor was planning.
They would try to find her. They wouldn’t leave. And when the shield fell, Caul would kill them.
They couldn’t do much to protect her from Caul, anyway.
Neither could I. Not as I was.
I had no hollows. No power. I was just a weak boy.
My hand closed around the key in my pocket.
But I could become something else.
I rounded the corner into the hall and bounded up the steps.
I heard the echo of Horace’s voice:
Monster.
Everything Bentham had told me was true: The key fit a lock in the ear of his portrait, one of many portraits of Bentham that hung in his house but the only one mounted to the ceiling outside his office, and the only one in which he was, ever so slyly, smiling. To access it I had to roll a ladder on casters into the middle of the floor, climb it, and reach up with my key like Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling. When I turned the key, the painting swung downward on a hinge to reveal a passage. Above me was a duct, handholds built into the sides.
I climbed until I felt the disorienting rush of a changeover. I looked down to see only darkness, the vestibule below me gone. Now the light was coming from above. I climbed toward it, then out of the passage, up through a hole in a floor, and into a bare and primitive room of gray rock walls.
Before me was a door carved from stone, and through it shone the light of a cloudless orange sky.
I ran outside and into Abaton. The lost loop, an ancient city carved from rock whose inhabitants had once protected the Library of Souls from invaders.
Invaders like Caul.
The city had been crushed, reduced to a waste of ruined hills and guttering fires. Its rock spires lay humped across the land like kicked sandcastles. The few that still stood were scarred with the claw marks of giant beasts. Caul had trained them here before loosing them upon the world.
I began to run. The rocky path forked and split and split again, but I never slowed, never hesitated. The route had been burned into my memory.
A watched feeling stole over me. The watchers were many, and they were angry. I understood why. Their resting place had been violated.
At last I came to the entrance, a vine-choked patch of wall, a stone room open to the sky, a door and two windows arranged like a misshapen face.
The Library.
I walked through the door and came into a stone room, its walls honeycombed with empty coves. The air here was clammy, colder. At the back, several doors led away into darkness.
A sudden fear gripped me. What if he’d stolen them all? What if there were no jars left?
I chose a door at random and ran into the dark. This time, I didn’t have Emma and her flame to help me navigate. But after a moment my eyes adjusted to the dark, and I saw, distantly, a beckoning blue glow.
I followed it into the dark. As I ran, my fear began to subside and a strange peace settled over me. I knew this place. I knew what to do.
I rounded a corner and found the source of the glow: a spill of bright blue suul on the floor. There were shards of broken jars all around it, and more jars, unbroken, in coves built into the walls.
Such a waste of good souls.
A voice reverberated in the dark.
No. In my head.
Bentham’s voice.
He got greedy. Tried to take them all. But even in his resurrected state he could only handle one at a time—and even then, he could not tell one from another.
“What do I do?” I asked him. “Which one do I use?”
Not here. In the incubation room . . . gather as many as you can carry and take them to the spirit pool . . .
There was a trail of blue suul droplets leading out of the room and down the corridor. I started to follow them, then froze.
A voice was shouting my name.
“Jacob? Are you here?!”
It was Emma. A new wave of terror crashed over me.
“JACOB!”
Another voice—Bronwyn’s. They’d found the ladder, the open door in the ceiling. I cursed myself for not shutting the painting behind me. For not locking it behind me.
“Jacob!”
That was Hugh. Goddamn it. My stomach knotted in anger. They were putting themselves in danger for no reason. I thought about answering, screaming at them to go back, to run while they could. But I knew they would only follow my voice and come faster.
“Jacob, come back!”
I couldn’t stop now. I had to do this. This was the only way I could protect Noor, and if she was to have any hope of draining Caul’s light, she would need all the help she could get. Even if it meant turning myself into a hollowgast, possibly forever.
I raced ahead, following the trail of luminous droplets past room after room stacked with jars. Enough souls for Caul to create an army to dominate the world, given enough time.
The trail led to a room filled with jars and dozens of deflated whitish sacs, each the size and shape of a sleeping bag.
The incubation room.
They were egg sacs, empty now, the birthplace of Caul’s new hollows.
On the floor by the wall of j
ars was a bag woven from straw, left there as if for me to use.
“These jars?” I shouted into the air.
Yes, Bentham’s voice came back.
I started grabbing jars from their coves in the wall and stuffing them into the bag. They were heavy, sloshing with liquid souls. I could hear the jars whispering to me as I dropped them into the bag.
I’d nearly filled it when my friends arrived. Bronwyn, Hugh, and Emma, lighting the way with her flames.
And Miss Peregrine.
“Jacob, stop,” she cried. “Nim told us what you’re trying to do—and you mustn’t!”
“I have to,” I shouted, slinging the bag over my shoulder and backing away. “It’s the only way!”
“You’ll lose your soul,” Emma said. “You’ll become some monstrous corruption of yourself!”
I looked at her face in the firelight, her features creased with pain. Miss Peregrine, deathly afraid. Bronwyn and Hugh, begging me. It killed me to see them like this. I knew that if I did this it might make the difference that saved us, but what would I become? Would I ever see them again? I remembered how Horatio described the state of being a hollowgast: agony forever.
Go, Bentham echoed in my brain, hurry, lad . . .
My heel knocked against something and I nearly tripped. I looked behind me to see a hollowgast, armless and half-formed, that had failed to emerge from its sac.
My friends were approaching. “Please, Jacob,” Hugh was saying. “You don’t have to do this.”
“We love you,” Bronwyn said. “We’ll fight Caul together.”
Their intentions were clear: They were going to tackle me and drag me out here.
I couldn’t let that happen.
I unshouldered the bag, knelt down, and pressed my fingers into the embryonic hollow’s still-soft skull.
