We walked through the woods in a tight clump following Jacob and Emma; Jacob made the hollows walk around us. Raymond, Riley, George, Janie, and Sebasten clung together so that no one could pull them apart. Jacob was still holding onto Phoebe and Emma walked next to him. Charlie and I brought up the rear.

"Are we almost there?" Raymond whined, looking at his hands. "I can feel myself aging forward already!"

"You're such a hypochondriac!" Sebasten responded. "It ain't been nearly long enough!"

Still, Emma slowed into step with Raymond to check.

"We're almost there." Jacob announced.

"Right up ahead!" Emma pointed through the trees, then frowned and ran forward calling, "Claire! Olive! Bronwyn! What are you doing here? We told you to stay out of this loop!"

Sure enough, just a few dozen feet ahead, there was a smooth room dug out of the cliff face complete with wallpaper, a bed, and a door. Bronwyn, Olive, and Claire stood by the door.

"You're back!" Claire squealed and hugged Emma.

"I'll take her." Bronwyn took Phoebe from Jacob's arms.

"Where's Miss Cardinal?" Olive asked, searching the group of peculiars before her.

Miss Cardinal's children huddled closer together and Emma pursed her lips. "We'll tell you later. C'mon; we need to disconnect Cunningham Valley." She took a step towards the door.

"Wait!" Raymond said.

Everyone turned their attention to him.

"The loop is still open, right? It's not anywhere near reset time." Raymond stated. "I think we'd like to go back and retrieve some things from the house."

His loop-mates nodded in agreement.

"I don't see why not." Emma said. "Wyn, you go with Jacob and Miss Cardinal's children; I'm going to go tell Miss Peregrine." She turned to Charlie and I. "Would you two like to help retrieve things from the house or come with us?"

I considered this as Bronwyn placed Phoebe gently in Emma's arms and followed the others back into the woods. Charlie followed them too, calling "wait up!"

"I'm coming with you." I told Emma.

With that, Olive, Claire, Emma, and I went through the door and we were in a long corridor with hundreds of doors along the walls. I followed the girls down the slightly-slanting hallway. When we came to the end of the corridor, Olive opened the end door and we came into a sunlit sitting room with bookshelves along the walls.

I walked up to a window; on the other side of the glass was a bright city street with many people walking in and out of buildings and greeting friends on the sidewalks. "But... I thought we were underground." I turned to Emma, who was on the other side of the room, knocking on an interior door. She had put Phoebe down on a bulky armchair. It amazed me what a heavy sleeper she was.

"No, silly!" Olive giggled, standing beside me. "We're in London!"

"How? We were just in Virginia!" I said.

"Yes, but the Panloopticon allows peculiars to travel between loops across the world!" Olive explained.

"That's cool." I said. "We just crossed the Atlantic in less than a minute?"

"Yep."

"Hey where are the others? Your loop-mates?"

She pointed to a wall of bookshelves right next to me, blocking whatever area was next to me from sight. I peeked around and, surely enough, Hugh, Horace, Millard, and Enoch were sitting in comfy-looking chairs around a coffee table. They stood up when they noticed me.

"Where are they?" Hugh asked.

"They'll be back in a few minutes." I replied. "They just wanted to go back to the house and get some things."

"What happened?" Millard asked, sounding extremely concerned. "Why do they need to get their things?"

"Because their loop is gone." I told them with a lump of dread in the pit of my stomach. "Those men... They came in and... They killed Miss Cardinal..."

Hugh and Horace exchanged horrified looks and Olive cried out, her tiny hands covering her cheeks.

"Is everyone else alright?" Hugh asked, clearly trying to take something positive from the situation.

"Yeah... Physically, yeah..." I scratched my head.

Then I felt an odd feeling in my gut. I was scared for them. They were going to be scarred for life now. Before that moment, I'd known I cared about the children, but just now did it occur to me how much; they were family to me. They had taken Charlie and I in automatically, they'd been so kind (well, mostly); for the first time in forever, I felt like I belonged somewhere; that I was a part of something; that I was more than just some ratty street kid destined for prison; they made me feel there, if that makes any sense at all; for the first time in my life, I was alive.

"Are you crying?" Enoch snapped me out of my daze and I realized, with a lurch of my stomach, that my cheeks were wet.

"No." I lied, wiping away the wetness. Now they can't go home... I thought.

The four boys began to make their way towards the long hallway. "We're going to go meet them." Hugh told me. "If you'd like to come."

"Yeah. I'd like that." I followed them.

When we got to the door that led to Cunningham Valley, we opened the door and looked out at the empty woods. After a couple minutes, we saw our friends coming into view, mostly weighed down by overstuffed suitcases and trunks, except for Sebasten and Bronwyn, who were each carrying what looked like the bulk of what the children had decided to bring.

Along with Claire and Olive, we boys went and helped them carry some things; I relieved Janie of helping Charlie carry three stuffed suitcases.

"There was a lot of crying..." Charlie eyed Miss Cardinal's children, who were huddled together in a mass of pale, greenish-tinted faces. "We brought her body; they want to have a "proper funeral" for her."

"Cool..." I said as we stepped back into the hallway.

We found more peculiars in the hallway; ones I didn't know. They helped carry the children's things. Janie and George held Riley's hands as they walked behind the rest of us, huddled close. Their faces were red and splotchy and streaked with tears still pouring down her face. Sebasten and Raymond refused to cry; their faces were grim and their eyes empty. Emma and Bronwyn were having a quiet conversation, their words lost to the shuffling of feet and shifting of luggage.

Fifteen minutes later, we were all sitting in an enclosure of the library, flames reached from the hearth like hands of the damned. Charlie and I sat on a plump armchair, watching the others; Miss Cardinal's peculiars were huddled together silently, their eyes fixed on the fire, holding Phoebe as she slept soundly, blissfully unaware of the horrors that had unfolded that day. Miss Peregrine's peculiars were also huddled together, though they were whispering among themselves, no doubt discussing what they were going to do.

"Good morning, children." A woman's voice sounded grimly from behind me; Charlie and I turned around and the others looked up. Standing in the doorway, a cup of tea in her hand, stood a woman dressed in a black Victorian gown. She looked relatively old, but most of her apparent age came from the sad distress etched into her warm features.

Miss Peregrine's children looked up at her grimly and expectantly. Miss Cardinal's simply glanced her way, then went back to comforting each other.

Emma stood and walked over to the woman, followed by Jacob and Millard. "Miss Peregrine..."

"It's been closed..." The woman- Miss Peregrine- turned to Miss Cardinal's children. "I'm deeply sorry for your loss, as are my children; I do hope-"

"Shut up!" Sebasten stood up, shouting, looking more angry than I'd ever seen him. "I don't care how sorry you are! You don't know who she was to us!" He punched a hole in the wall.

Riley walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Sebasten..." She said in a soft, soothing voice.

Sebasten pushed her away, knocking her down. "Miss Cardinal is dead! She ain't coming back. How are you so calm? Our ymbryne is gone and so's our loop!" He yelled.

The others- myself and Charlie included- simply watched in fear. Miss Peregrine took a step closer to the boy. "Mister Evergreen, I understand you must be angry-"

"Don't talk to me!" Sebasten screamed, snapping a nearby lamp clean in half.

"Don't mind him." Raymond said, eying Sebasten as if he were a big ugly bug. "Go on."

"Yes, well, as I was saying," Miss Peregrine once again addressed Miss Cardinal's children, "accommodations will be made for you to stay here for the time being... I hope you find them satisfactory."

"Thank you for your hospitality." Riley smiled sheepishly as she picked Janie up and cradled her in her arms like a baby.

George made a few gestures I guessed were sign language. Raymond translated, "are those men coming for us?"

"They were," Emma took the liberty of explaining, "but they won't be able to find you; they probably spent months trying to find the Cunningham Valley loop." She stopped herself abruptly as if she had more to say, but decided against saying it.

"And now it's gone." Sebasten said. "Why are you so afraid to say it? It's true!"

"Is it almost time for lunch?" Bronwyn attempted feebly to change the subject, but she was ignored.

Emma glared daggers at Sebasten. "You are the most thick headed person I've ever met! Don't you know we know exactly how you're feeling right now? Don't you understand that-"

"Your ymbryne is still alive!" Sebasten cut her off. "Even if it wasn't her you had, you still had hope! Miss Cardinal died right in front of us!"

Emma opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

"Surely I'm not the only one who's getting a bit peckish..." Bronwyn said.

"I could eat as well." Hugh said.

"Perhaps a bit of food will help us relax." Olive suggested.

"Yes it is noon." Miss Peregrine said. "Let us go eat."

______________________

I'm sorry that took so long

Was it worth the wait?

Love ya!

CC