On the way out, we found alcohol and Laudanum and proper bandages for Millard. Once we’d helped clean and dress his wound, we sat down to examine the book. It was more atlas than map, bound in quilted leather dyed a deep burgundy, each page drawn carefully on what looked like parchment. It was very fine and very old, and big enough to fill Emma’s lap.
“It’s called the Map of Days,” she said. “It’s got every loop ever known to exist.” The page she’d opened to appeared to be a map of Turkey, though no roads were marked and no borders indicated. Instead, the map was scattered with tiny spirals, which I took to be the location of loops. At the center of each was a unique symbol that corresponded to a legend at the bottom of the page, where the symbols reappeared next to a list of numbers separated by dashes. I pointed to one that read 29-3-316 / ?-?-399 and said, “What is this, some kind of code?”
Emma traced it with her finger. “This loop was the twenty-ninth of March, 316 A.D. It existed until sometime in the year 399, though the day and month are unknown.”
“What happened in 399?”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t say.”
I reached across her and turned to a map of Greece, even more clustered with spirals and numbers. “But what’s the point of listing all these?” I said. “How would you even get to these ancient loops?”
“By leapfrogging,” said Millard. “It’s a highly complex and dangerous undertaking, but by leapfrogging from one loop to another—a day fifty years in the past, for instance—then you’ll find you have access to a whole range of loops that have ceased to exist in the last fifty years. Should you have the wherewithal to travel to them, within those you’ll find still other loops, and so on exponentially.”
“That’s time travel,” I said, astonished. “Real time travel.”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“So this place,” I said, pointing to Horace’s ash painting on the wall. “We wouldn’t just have to figure out where it is, but when, too?”
“I’m afraid so. And if Miss Avocet is indeed being held by wights, who are notoriously adept at leapfrogging, then it’s extremely likely that the place she and the other ymbrynes are being taken is somewhere in the past. That will make them all the more difficult to find, and getting there all the more dangerous. The locations of historical loops are well known to our enemies, who tend to lurk near the entrances.”
“Well then,” I said, “it’s a good thing I’m coming with you.”
Emma spun to look at me. “Oh, that’s wonderful!” she cried, and hugged me. “Are you certain?”
I told her I was. Tired as they were, the children whistled and clapped. Some embraced me. Even Enoch shook my hand. But when I looked at Emma again, her smile had faded.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
She shifted uncomfortably. “There’s something you should know,” she said, “and I’m afraid it’ll make you not want to come with us.”
“It won’t,” I assured her.
“When we leave here, this loop will close behind us. It’s possible you may never be able to return to the time you came from. At least, not easily.”
“There’s nothing for me there,” I said quickly. “Even if I could go back, I’m not sure I’d want to.”
“You say that now. I need you to be sure.”
I nodded, then stood.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“For a walk.”
I didn’t go far, just around the perimeter of the neat yard in a slow shuffle, watching the sky, clear now, a billion stars spread across it. Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize that we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries—but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was.
I came to the place where the path emerged from the woods. In one direction lay home and everything I knew, unmysterious and ordinary and safe.
Except it wasn’t. Not really. Not any more. The monsters had murdered Grandpa Portman, and they had come after me. Sooner or later, they would again. Would I come home one day to find my dad bleeding to death on the floor? My mom? In the other direction, the children were gathering in excited little knots, plotting and planning, for the first time any of them could remember, for the future.
I walked back to Emma, still poring over her massive book. Miss Peregrine was perched next to her, tapping with her beak here and there on the map. Emma looked up as I approached.
“I’m sure,” I said.
She smiled. “I’m glad.”
“There’s just one thing I have to do before I go.”
* * *
I made it back to town just before dawn. The rain had finally eased, and the beginning of a blue day was percolating on the horizon. The main path looked like an arm with the veins stripped out, long slashes where flooding had washed the gravel away.
I walked into the pub and through the empty bar and up to our rooms. The shades were drawn and my father’s door was closed, which was a relief because I hadn’t yet figured out how to say what I needed to tell him. Instead I sat down with pen and paper and wrote him a letter.
I tried to explain everything. I wrote about the peculiar children and the hollows and how all of Grandpa Portman’s stories had turned out to be true. I told him what had happened to Miss Peregrine and Miss Avocet and tried to make him understand why I had to go. I begged him not to worry.
Then I stopped and read over what I’d written. It was no good. He would never believe it. He’d think I’d lost my mind the way Grandpa had, or that I’d run away or been abducted or taken a nosedive off the cliffs. Either way, I was about to ruin his life. I wadded up the paper and threw it in the trash.
“Jacob?”
I turned to see my father leaning in the doorjamb, bleary-eyed, hair tangled, dressed in a mud-splashed shirt and jeans.
“Hi, Dad.”
“I’m going to ask you a simple, straightforward question,” he said, “and I’d like a simple, straightforward answer. Where were you last night?” I could tell he was struggling to maintain his composure.
I decided I was done lying. “I’m fine, Dad. I was with my friends.”