“What if you need me?” I said. “What if the hollows come back?”
Tears shimmered in her eyes. “We’ll manage somehow,” she said. “Look, I can’t talk about this anymore. I honestly don’t think my heart can take it. Shall we go upstairs and tell the others your decision?”
I clenched my jaw, suddenly irritated by how hard she was pushing me. “I haven’t decided anything,” I said. “You have.”
“Jacob, I just told you—”
“Right, you told me. But I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
She crossed her arms. “Then I can wait.”
“No,” I said, and stood up. “I need to be by myself for a while.”
And I went up the stairs without her.
I moved quietly through the halls. I stood outside the ymbryne meeting room for a while, listening to muffled voices through the door, but I didn’t go in. I peeked into the nurse’s room and saw her dozing on a stool between the single-souled peculiars. I cracked the door to Miss Wren’s room and saw her rocking Miss Peregrine in her lap, gently kneading her fingers into the bird’s feathers. I said nothing to anyone.
Wandering through empty halls and ransacked offices, I tried to imagine what home would feel like, if after all this I chose to go back. What I would tell my parents. I’d tell them nothing, most likely. They’d never believe me, anyway. I would say I’d gotten mad, written a letter to my father filled with crazy stories, then caught a boat to the mainland and run away. They’d call it a stress reaction. Chalk it up to some invented disorder and adjust my meds accordingly. Blame Dr. Golan for suggesting I go to Wales. Dr. Golan, whom of course they’d never hear from again. He’d skipped town, they’d say, because he was a fraud, a quack whom we never should’ve trusted. And I’d go back to being Jacob the poor, traumatized, mentally disturbed rich kid.
It sounded like a prison sentence. And yet, if my best reason for staying in peculiardom didn’t want me anymore, I wouldn’t debase myself by clinging to her. I had my pride.
How long could I stand Florida, now that I’d had a taste of this peculiar life? I was not nearly as ordinary as I used to be—or if it was true that I’d never been ordinary, now I knew it. I had changed. And that, at least, gave me some hope: that even under ordinary circumstances, I still might find a way to live an extraordinary life.
Yes, it was best to go. It really was best. If this world was dying and there was nothing to be done for it, then what was left for me here? To run and hide until there was no safe place left to go, no loop to sustain my friends’ artificial youth. To watch them die. To hold Emma as she crumbled and broke apart in my arms.
That would kill me faster than any hollow could.
So yes, I would go. Salvage what was left of my old life. Goodbye, peculiars. Goodbye, peculiardom.
It was for the best.
I wandered until I came to a place where the rooms were only half frozen, and the ice had risen halfway to the ceiling like water in a sinking ship and then stopped, leaving the tops of desks and the heads of lamps sticking out like faltering swimmers. Beyond the iced windows the sun was sinking. Shadows bloomed across the walls and multiplied in the stairwells, and as the light died it got bluer, painting everything around me a deep-sea cobalt.
It occurred to me that this was probably my last night in peculiardom. My last night with the best friends I’d ever had. My last night with Emma.
Why was I spending it alone? Because I was sad, and Emma had hurt my pride, and I needed to sulk.
Enough of this.
Just as I turned to leave the room, though, I felt it: that old familiar twinge in my gut.
A hollow.
I stopped, waiting for another hit of pain. I needed more information. The intensity of the pain corresponded to the nearness of the hollow and the frequency of the hits with its strength. When two strong hollows had been chasing us, the Feeling had been one long, unbroken spasm, but now it was a long time before I felt another—nearly a minute—and when it came, it was so faint I wasn’t even sure I’d felt it.
I crept slowly out of the room and down the hall. As I passed the next doorway, I felt a third twinge: a little stronger now, but still only a whisper.
I tried to open the door carefully and quietly, but it was frozen shut. I had to yank on it, then rattle the door, then kick it, until finally it flew open to reveal a doorway and a room filled with ice that rose to mid-chest height. I approached the ice cautiously and peered across it, and even in the weak light, I saw the hollow right away. It was crouched on the floor, encased in ice up to its ink-black eyeballs. Only the top half of its head was exposed above the ice; the rest of it, the dangerous parts, its open jaws and all its teeth and tongues, were all caught below the surface.
The thing was just barely alive, its heart slowed almost to nothing, beating maybe once per minute. With each feeble pulse I felt a corresponding stitch of pain.
I stood at the mouth of the room and stared at it, fascinated and repulsed. It was unconscious, immobilized, totally vulnerable. It would’ve been easy to climb onto the ice and drive the point of an icicle into the hollow’s skull—and if anyone else had known it was here, I’m sure they would’ve done just that. But something stopped me. It was no threat to anyone now, this creature. Every hollow I’d come into contact with had left a mark on me. I saw their decaying faces in my dreams. Soon I’d be going home, where I’d no longer be Jacob the hollow-slayer. I didn’t want to take this one with me, too. It wasn’t my business anymore.
I backed out of the room and closed the door.
* * *
When I returned to the meeting hall, it was nearly dark outside and the room was black as night. Because Miss Wren wouldn’t allow the gaslamps to be lit for fear they’d be seen from the street, everyone had gathered around a few candles at the big oval table, some in chairs and others perched cross-legged on the table itself, talking in low voices and peering down at something.
At the creak of the heavy doors, everyone turned to look at me.
“Miss Wren?” Bronwyn said hopefully, straightening in her chair and squinting.
“It’s only Jacob,” said another shadowy form.
After a chorus of disappointed sighs, Bronwyn said, “Oh, hullo Jacob,” and returned her attention to the table.
As I walked toward them, I locked eyes with Emma. Holding her gaze, I saw something raw and unguarded there—a fear, I imagined, that I had in fact decided to do what she’d urged me to. Then her eyes dulled and she looked down again.
I’d been half hoping Emma had taken pity on me and told the others I was leaving already. But of course she hadn’t—I hadn’t told her yet. She seemed to know, though, just from reading my face as I crossed the room.
It was clear the others had no idea. They were so accustomed to my presence, they’d forgotten it was even under consideration. I steeled myself and asked for everyone’s attention.
“Wait a moment,” said a heavily accented voice, and in the candlelight I saw the snake girl and her python looking at me. “This boy here was just spewing a lot of rubbish about the place I hail from.” She turned to the only chair at the table which was empty and said, “My people call it Simhaladvipa—dwelling place of lions.”
From the chair Millard replied, “I’m sorry, but it says right here in plain calligraphy: The Land of Serendip. The peculiar cartographers who made this were not in the business of making things up!”
Then I got a little closer and saw what it was they were arguing over. It was a Map of Days, though a much larger edition than the one we’d lost at sea. This one stretched practically across the table, and was as thick as a brick stood on end. “I know my own home, and it’s called Simhaladvipa!” the snake girl insisted, and her python uncoiled from her neck and shot across the table to bang its nose against the Map, indicating a teardrop-shaped island off India’s coast. On this map, however, India was called Malabar, and the island, which I knew to be Sri Lanka, was overlaid with slinky script that read Land of Serendip.