"Yes?" Elise asked, the sense of anticipation clear in her voice. It seemed impossible for her to speak louder than a whisper.

    (Y/N) sat there, equally as nervous, waiting for the author to say something.

    "The book—it lets you write the future. We need you to use it to protect...the...." The receiver made staticky noises as a new hurricane-force wind gust hit the building. Elise turned up the volume, and after a moment, Riggs' voice came back through the speaker.

    "...at all costs. The Nazis are coming. Whatever you do, don't let them have..." The static came back after rain pelted the Priest Hole yet again.

"What? What?! Mr. Riggs, we can't hear you!" Elise shouted desperately into the phone. "What do we need to protect?! The book?"

"Yes," Ransom replied. "But it's only visible to you two anyway. Guard the twins. Your grandfather tried so hard to—"

This time, the lights flickered and the line went completely silent. After a moment, the dial tone beeped and Elise turned her phone off, tossing it to the end of her bed.

"We need a plan," the two sisters exclaimed simultaneously.

<><><><><><>

During dinner, the Priest Hole continued to creak and groan under the force of the storm. The lights flickered every so often, and the entire bar was completely silent, each customer equally influenced by the weather. The (Y/L/N) family sat gloomily stabbing their steaks and greasy French fries.

"Just a few more days of this," (Y/N)'s mom said. "And then we can finish the rest of this trip and go back home."

"I can't wait to visit an actual restaurant," Elise whined. "Like, is this steak even actual meat, or what?"

(Y/N) rolled her eyes and tried to finish her dinner as quickly as she could so she could find the twins and keep her eyes on them. And since Jacob had already gone back into his room with the 'flu', (Y/N) assumed he was in the process of warning Miss Peregrine about the wight on the island.

After finishing, (Y/N) and Elise excused themselves to 'read' and 'watch TV' respectively. They met at the top of the stairs and Elise turned into a cat, teleporting them into the middle of the bog.

"Seriously?" (Y/N) complained as she sank and inch or two into the mud.

"Sorry!" Elise exclaimed with some actual sincerity in her voice. "My peculiarity isn't that easy to control yet. I guess we'll have to walk to the cairn."

They lifted their feet, slowly and carefully trudging through the sludge. After a few moments of pensive silence, Elise remarked: "I saw you typing a bunch before we called Riggs. What were you going to do if we couldn't get the book to him in time? Like, before we realized what the book was actually about."

"Uhh," (Y/N) paused embarrassedly. "Write it all on Wattpad and publish it and hope I would see it one day and remember how things used to be."

"You seriously thought the internet would survive the literal changing of reality?!" Elise scoffed, laughing out loud for a second.

(Y/N) shrugged, blushing. "Well anyway..." She thought for a moment, trying to keep Elise from laughing at her more. "Do you think we should stay?"

Elise turned back to her and raised an eyebrow quizzically.

"In the loop, I mean," (Y/N) elaborated. "Like, if we stay we'll always be watching our backs, and if we leave, we'll still be watching our backs—"

"—and the twins would be in even more danger," Elise finished.

"Yes," (Y/N) agreed.

"Well," Elise said, speed-walking through the cairn. "I think that—Jake?"

As they hurried out of the loop entrance, the sisters were semi-surprised to see Jacob waiting for them on the other side. He motioned to them and they quietly hurried to tell Miss Peregrine the news before it was too late.

    None of them spoke because they all had the same question repeating  in their heads: Who would the ornithologist come after next?

<><><><><><>

The children arrived at the front doorstep out of breath and anxious to tell Miss Peregrine the urgent news.

    "What's happened?" Miss Peregrine asked as soon as they made it into the house. She looked like she'd been zombified by the constant fear and late night surveilling.

    Jacob, (Y/N), and Elise explained every last clue, hint, rumor, and fact that they had heard and seen throughout the week. Everything pointed to the birdwatcher being a wight. Worse, it seemed he had a famished hollowgast tagging along with him.

    After Miss P. heard all the news, she paled, now looking even more like a corpse. She rushed the three into the sitting room and called her wards in to join them. When the twins, Enoch, and Horace didn't immediately appear in the doorway, Miss Peregrine set off to find them and bring them down.

After Jacob explained the recent events to the others, Emma began to give him the gruesome details of the eating patterns of hollows and wights while Millard pulled (Y/N) aside. Elise sat back and enjoyed the advantages of being able to listen to both conversations. The other children chattered and gossiped nervously, slowly working themselves up despite their attempts to calm each other.

"I've been researching your book," Millard began quietly. His eyes darted around as he made sure they weren't being watched. "It's been enchanted by one of the most ancient spells, which ymbrynes used to make history texts and other such things. According to some of the more ancient works, by adding a title and description, the user can narrow the story and keep only certain people involved—hence the invisibility and intangibility. However, I don't know why this Riggs is involved if he hasn't shown up in the story."

(Y/N) took a moment to absorb all the new information. "Wait," she added in a low voice. "The book can write the future. Do you know where that comes from? And why do we need the book anyway?"

"Well, certain self-writing books were created to change the future, but they were only used in extraordinarily dire circumstances as a result of the adverse affects of using the magic. In fact, the instructions to the enchantment were destroyed along with many of the books as the most common side effect of using such a book too expansively is for one's brain to melt out of their skull and—"

"Okay, I understand," (Y/N) interrupted. "So why might we need the book? To use it? To safeguard it for future use?"

"Well, that's the reason I wanted to talk—I may have a clue that could help us," Millard began. "As I stated, I searched in the library for anything that could help us discern the purpose of having this book. However, along the way, I clumsily ran into our standing globe and knocked it onto the floor. It opened at a hidden seam along the equator and inside I found a safe with a four-figure alphabetical code. Accompanying it was a slip of paper with writing on both sides—"

"Well, did you figure it out?" Elise interjected rudely.

"No," Millard said stiffly. "Miss Peregrine called us down before I could. And besides, I'm only mentioning it because of what the note said: 'Missing you—R.' Isn't that the initial of the author you called?"

"Just a second," Elise said, twisting her head to check that nobody was watching. Almost instantaneously, (Y/N) found a cat at their feet, and immediately thereafter, they were in the library.

"Quickly!" Elise hissed. "Show us."

Millard hurriedly opened the now-upright hidden-cabinet-globe and handed (Y/N) the safe. While (Y/N) stared at the keypad, Millard pulled out the note. He flipped it over to show a sketch of an empty calendar on the back. The month was left off the top, but the space it should've occupied was circled.

"Well, this should be easy," Elise flipped over the note. "It's obviously a code. 'Missing you—R.' And a month. Maybe it's—"

Before she could finish, both (Y/N)'s and Millard's arms shot out to take the safe. "I've got it!" they both yelled. (Y/N) listed out the months without an 'r' in order—May, June, July, August—while Millard typed MJJA into the keypad. (Y/N) smiled as the lock unlatched, allowing them to see the stack of files within.

Elise took the safe from them and dumped all the papers on the ground so they were spread out. Both (Y/N) and Millard winced imagining the old papers getting bent and torn, but didn't have time to admonish Elise. They took a moment to sort through the papers by date, and when they did, they realized that most were newspaper clippings or case files. They came from countries around the world, and a few were in a language that (Y/N) had studied once, but knowing words wasn't necessary to understand most of them; scattered across the pages were pictures of the twins. From the earliest clipping in 1752 to the most recent in 1941, over half contained photographs. The others had long paragraphs and were plastered with all kinds of stories about orphaned children. Even others spoke of tales from the days of Ancient Egypt, the words scribbled down by hand.

Even more obvious than the photos themselves was a single scrap of paper. It read one word: Immortal.

Before (Y/N) could do anything, Elise—who had assumed a post as watchcat—hissed in warning. Two pairs of footsteps approached the library, and (Y/N) panicked, tossing all the papers back into the safe and locking it. Everyone hid underneath the main table after closing the top hemisphere of the globe, and (Y/N) prepared to make herself and her sister invisible. However, the footsteps never reached the library; they descended the stairs quickly, followed closely by the slow, heavy sounds of Ms. P. limping with her cane.

As quickly as before, (Y/N) found herself back in the study, thankfully unnoticed. After only a few seconds, the twins arrived, and Miss Peregrine soon followed, bringing along Enoch and Horace. Miss P. began to address the children, explaining the problem to them. But the only thing (Y/N) could think of was: How in the world could we possibly protect the twins when they have immortality—exactly what the wights have always wanted?

<><><><><><>

After Miss Peregrine explained the situation to everyone, she elected to place the entire mansion on lockdown. However, by locking the monsters out of the loop, she would be locking the townspeople in with a hungry hollow. Naturally, Jacob headed after her to argue this point, and Elise followed.

(Y/N) decided that she was prepared to get her butt off the entire island at any moment's notice, as long as Jacob would too. Whether or not she would stay was up to him, so she decided to take the opportunity to check out Enoch's collection of hearts in the basement since she was the only one in the whole house who had never seen it. She brought Millard and Olive and Claire because giving a tour would probably keep their mind off of things.

    Enoch showed off the variety of animal hearts and explained his favorite preservation process. He also described the functions and advantages of using certain hearts for certain purposes.

"Sheep and pig hearts are the best for bringing big things to life," Claire added. "They're the strongest. But Enoch put mouse hearts in mine and Olive's dolls on account of how small they are. They don't last long though," she finished a bit sadly.

    After a few more minutes, everyone got bored and went back upstairs. They noticed that everyone seemed to be in Emma's room, so they entered and found everyone angry and arguing. They seemed to be planning to go hollow-hunting, and they had no clue if they were going to find any, which Millard helpfully pointed out. After that, they were extremely divided based on whom they were most afraid of: Miss P. or the monsters.

"We don't know if they're there!" Millard continued to argue.

"Yeah, but if they are, we need to get rid of them. Look, last time I got a sprained ankle and a concussion for getting too close to a wight. If we have a plan and can get this one first, we'll be saving ourselves a lot of trouble. And if we don't find one, we'll just come back and do whatever the Bird says," (Y/N) said back, realizing that she would do whatever it took to make sure the hollows never threatened anyone again.

"How do you propose we find one?" Millard retorted. "Wave our arms around and yell 'come and get us!'?"

"We're practically magnets for the monsters," Bronwyn joined. "They'll be after us soon enough."

"Or," Enoch stepped in. "We could find that bloke who Jake thinks was killed by a hollow and—"

"And do what?" Millard asked at the same time that Elise said "I like your thinking!"

"I'll wake him up and ask him how he died," Enoch replied.

After agreeing to that idea, everyone ate supper and chose a room to wait in. Once it was almost dark, everyone would meet on the roof where they'd make their escape.

Millard looked like he wanted to try changing (Y/N)'s mind—after all, the plan was entirely illogical—but he seemed to sense the impossibility of it. He ended up choosing to keep guard at the fishmonger's, and (Y/N) hugged him and thanked him profusely for not giving them up to Ms. P.

When (Y/N) and Elise got to the roof, they saw Olive and Fiona helping to carry people down to the lawn. In order to speed things up, Elise transformed into a cat, wrapping her tail around (Y/N)'s ankle and placing her paw on Millard's shoe. After doing that a few times, everyone was on the ground, so they headed for the woods.

Once they had snuck out of view of the mansion, they ran as quickly as they could to the bog. Enoch paused and gave Bronwyn, Emma, and Jake a sheep heart to use on Martin. The group resumed walking, quickly making their way to the cairn.

Once they got there, everyone buttoned up their rain jackets, which Emma and Bronwyn had handed out at Jacob's recommendation. (Y/N), who had been beside him most of the time, squeezed Millard's hand as they all walked through the loop entrance.

In modern-day Cairnholm, the wind whipped at everyone's faces, bringing endless sheets of rain towards them. As it was quite dark (besides the occasional lightning flashes), Emma tried to summon a flame to light a small area ahead of them; however, the rain put it out just as quickly as she could start it. So, (Y/N) took a deep breath and concentrated, eventually creating a small ball of light. Elise trotted before them in cat form, using her enhanced senses to search for danger.

Advancing slowly, the peculiars navigated across the island and through the village, noticing many fallen tree limbs and shingles scattered about the streets. A single lost sheep cried out terrifiedly in the rain, an unfortunately welcome sign that there wasn't yet a hollowgast nearby.

When they arrived at the fishmonger's, Jake led the way into a back room icehouse. With Emma's peculiarity finally working, (Y/N) took a break and allowed her to light the way. The rain on the tin roof almost created more noise than when they were outside, but over the wind and growls of thunder, (Y/N) heard Emma and Enoch wondering how to find where old Martin Pagett was.

Thankfully, instead of having to search each one separately, Elise was able to easily sniff out Martin's dead body. Quickly digging the ice off of him, Enoch observed that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to bring him back to life for even a short moment. The way his body was mangled and cut open, (Y/N) wasn't surprised to hear him say that. In fact, it took all four hearts just to get him to awaken, writhing frantically in his frozen coffin. By that time, each peculiar was so enthralled that nobody noticed when the sheep stopped bleating.

    When Martin first sat up, he whispered feebly into Jacob's ear. He cried, whimpering as he recited a poem, the one he'd created about his beloved bog boy—his favorite exhibit. The 2,700-year-old corpse of a 16-year-old boy. With the way Martin chanted about the bog boy killing him, and (Y/N)'s memory of his pale, shrunken body, she knew he had mistaken it for the hollow during the only time it would be visible—feeding time. They'd been right; a wight had used him as hollowgast food.

    "Where did you see it?" Jacob asked.

    "He came to my door," Martin wheezed.

    "The old man did?" Jacob asked frantically as the life faded from Martin's eyes.

    "No," he replied. "He did."

    At that moment, Millard shouted out a warning. He was cut off when a man walked in and shoved him to the ground. The man—the ornithologist—pointed both his flashlight and his pistol at the peculiars.

"It's the end of the line, children!"