“I’m not a spy,” I said weakly. “Just lost.”
“Got that right,” he said with a laugh. “I say we get the truth out of ’im the old-fashioned way. With a rope!”
Drunken shouts of assent. I couldn’t tell if they were being serious or just “taking a piss,” but I didn’t much care to stick around and find out. One undiluted instinct coursed through the anxious muddle in my brain: Run. It would be a lot easier to figure out what the hell was going on without a roomful of drunks threatening to lynch me. Of course, running away would only convince them of my guilt, but I didn’t care.
I tried to step around the fat man.
He made a grab for me, but slow and drunk is no match for fast and scared shitless. I faked left and then dodged around him to the right. He howled with rage as the rest unglued themselves from barstools to lunge at me, but I slipped through their fingers and ran out the door and into the bright afternoon.
I charged down the street, my feet pounding divots into the gravel, the angry voices gradually fading behind me. At the first corner I made a skidding turn to escape their line of sight, cutting through a muddy yard, where squawking chickens dove out of my way, and then an open lot, where a line of women stood waiting to pump water from an old well, their heads turning as I flew past. A thought I had no time to entertain flitted through my head—Hey, where’d the Waiting Woman go?—but then I came to a low wall and had to concentrate on vaulting it—plant the hand, lift the feet, swing over. I landed in a busy path where I was nearly run down by a speeding cart. The driver yelled something derogatory about my mother as his horse’s flank brushed my chest, leaving hoof prints and a wheel track just inches from my toes.
I had no idea what was happening. I understood only two things: that I was quite possibly in the midst of losing my mind, and that I needed to get away from people until I could figure out whether or not I actually was. To that end, I dashed into an alley behind two rows of cottages, where it seemed there would be lots of hiding places, and made for the edge of town. I slowed to a fast walk, hoping that a muddy and bedraggled American boy who was not running would attract somewhat less attention than one who was.
My attempt to act normal was not helped by the fact that every little noise or fleeting movement made me jump. I nodded and waved to a woman hanging laundry, but like everyone else she just stared at me. I walked faster.
I heard a strange noise behind me and ducked into an outhouse. As I waited there, hunkering behind the half-closed door, my eyes scanned the graffitied walls.
Dooleys a buggerloving arsehumper.
Wot, no sugar?
Finally, a dog slinked by, trailed by a litter of yapping puppies. I let out my breath and began to relax a little. Collecting my nerves, I stepped back into the alley.
Something grabbed me by the hair. Before I’d even had a chance to cry out, a hand whipped around from behind and pressed something sharp to my throat.
“Scream and I’ll cut you,” came a voice.
Keeping the blade to my neck, my assailant pushed me against the outhouse wall and stepped around to face me. To my great surprise, it wasn’t one of the men from the pub. It was the girl. She wore a simple white dress and a hard expression, her face strikingly pretty even though she appeared to be giving serious thought to gouging out my windpipe.
“What are you?” she hissed.
“An—uh—I’m an American,” I stammered, not quite sure what she was asking. “I’m Jacob.”
She pressed the knife harder against my throat, her hand shaking. She was scared—which meant she was dangerous. “What were you doing in the house?” she demanded. “Why are you chasing me?”
“I just wanted to talk to you! Don’t kill me!”
She fixed me with a scowl. “Talk to me about what?”
“About the house—about the people who lived there.”
“Who sent you here?”
“My grandfather. His name was Abraham Portman.”
Her mouth fell open. “That’s a lie!” she cried, her eyes flashing. “You think I don’t know what you are? I wasn’t born yesterday! Open your eyes—let me see your eyes!”
“I am! They are!” I opened my eyes as wide as I could. She stood on tiptoes and stared into them, then stamped her foot and shouted, “No, your real eyes! Those fakes don’t fool me any more than your ridiculous lie about Abe!”
“It’s not a lie—and these are my eyes!” She was pushing so hard against my windpipe that it was difficult to breathe. I was glad the knife was dull or she surely would’ve cut me. “Look, I’m not whatever it is you think I am,” I croaked. “I can prove it!”
Her hand relaxed a little. “Then prove it, or I’ll water the grass with your blood!”
“I have something right here.” I reached into my jacket.
She leapt back and shouted at me to stop, raising her blade so that it hung quivering in the air just between my eyes.
“It’s only a letter! Calm down!”
She lowered the blade back to my throat, and I slowly drew Miss Peregrine’s letter and photo from my jacket, holding it for her to see. “The letter’s part of the reason I came here. My grandfather gave it to me. It’s from the Bird. That’s what you call your headmistress, isn’t it?”
“This doesn’t prove anything!” she said, though she’d hardly glanced at it. “And how do you know so bloody much about us?”
“I told you, my grandfather—”
She slapped the letter out of my hands. “I don’t want to hear another word of that rubbish!” Apparently, I’d touched a nerve. She went quiet for a moment, face pinched with frustration, as if she were deciding how best to dispose of my body once she’d followed through on her threats. Before she could decide, though, shouts erupted from the other end of the alley. We turned to see the men from the pub running toward us, armed with wooden clubs and farm implements.
“What this? What’ve you done?”
“You’re not the only person who wants to kill me!”
She took the knife from my throat and held it at my side instead, then grabbed me by the collar. “You are now my prisoner. Do exactly as I say or you’ll regret it!”
I made no argument. I didn’t know if my chances were any better in the hands of this unbalanced girl than with that slavering mob of club-wielding drunks, but at least with her I figured I had a shot at getting some answers.
She shoved me and we were off and running down a connecting alley. Halfway to the end she darted to one side and pulled me after her, both of us ducking under a line of sheets and hopping a chicken-wire fence into the yard of a little cottage.
“In here,” she whispered and, looking around to make sure we hadn’t been seen, pushed me through a door into a cramped hovel that reeked of peat smoke.
There was no one inside save an old dog asleep on a sofa. He opened one eye to look at us, didn’t think much of what he saw, and went back to sleep. We darted to a window that looked out on the street and flattened ourselves against the wall next to it. We stood there listening, the girl careful to keep a hand on my arm and her knife at my side.
A minute passed. The men’s voices seemed to fade and then return; it was hard to tell where they were. My eyes drifted around the little room. It seemed excessively rustic, even for Cairnholm. Tilting in a corner was a stack of hand-woven baskets. A chair upholstered in burlap stood before a giant coal-fired cooking range cast from iron. Hung on the wall opposite us was a calendar, and though it was too dim to read from where we stood, just looking at it sparked a bizarre thought.