^Probably what the loop would be like if Miss Peregrine gave everybody free reign.

I shook my head at the ending of Little Women. Why couldn't Jo see Lorrie was perfect for her?

"And why are you sighing today, sister?" Asked Hugh mockingly as he reached to get out a photo album. We were the only ones in the living room, everyone else was outside probably getting more from life than me.

"Marveling at the unfortunate lives of fictional characters. Why can't they just get married already? They confessed their love and everything." I threw the book onto the table.

Hugh pulled out an album from the stack and everything fell off the cabinet and onto the floor. "Please help." Said Hugh.

I got up off the couch and bent down next to him. "What is it that you're looking for?" I asked him.

"I dunno. I just kind of like to have a look through sometimes." He opened one and started flipping through pages. "I like knowing that we're documenting our peculiar lives." He showed me a picture of him passed out in a chair. His hat was down to cover his eyes. "I don't even know when that was." Hugh shook his head.

"They've captured you quite well." I noted.

"Shut up."

I took an album as well. I had never really looked at them in all the time I'd been there. That day was as good as any to start. "Oh, my god, is that Miss Peregrine?" I asked. The picture showed a young woman in her late teens, dark hair swept up into a bun. She wore a light dress, and had her arms around two boys. One was about her age, smirking rather than smiling, with a jaunty pose. The other was fourteen or fifteen, and looked annoyed, with a book tucked under his arm.

"Who could they possibly be? I asked Hugh. He shrugged.

"I suppose they could've lived with her in another loop of some sort. I didn't know Miss P. was so beautiful when she was younger." He said.

"That sounded very bad." I said. "She's more than half your age now!"

"Don't tell anyone I said that!" Said Hugh.

"What was that, Mr. Apiston?" Asked Miss Peregrine. He whirled around and paled.

"Headmistress! How much did you hear of that?" Hugh said in a high voice.

"Enough, Mr. Apiston. Just enough. What have you been doing?" She stepped over our pile of albums and pictures and lifted the one up we'd been looking at. Her face darkened. "I thought I had gotten rid of them all." She muttered.

"Sit down, children, and I'll tell you. I think you have a right to know. When I found out I was an ymbryne, my brothers accompanied me to the academy. These are my two brothers, Jack and Myron. Right from the start, I knew they were different. At first, we were great friends. We were inseparable. But as my brothers hit adolescence, they changed. Jack had always been rather distant and cold. But when he became a man, that's when he became completely ruthless. He insisted that he had some sort of claim to power, and that ymbrynes were in the wrong."

"I just don't understand why. I gave them a fine life. They were spoiled rotten. Myron was extremely bookish, and enjoyed his studies. Not unlike Mr. Nullings. I remember, we had to drag him outside to take the picture. Nettalyn, you have met him. I do believe you stayed at his house in Devils Acre?"

"He was this boy?" I said. Of course, I knew that Bentham was Miss Peregrine's brother. I didn't recognize him. He was obviously much older.

"The one and only." Miss Peregrine sighed. "Of course, I still love my brothers. Sometimes I just can't help but feel like it's- like it's my fault." She stifled a sob. "Excuse me." She ran out of the living room.

I studied the picture. They looked like just a normal family. Well, a peculiar family. You couldn't really tell that one of them would become an esteemed ymbryne, one would become a recluse, and one would become an evil mass-murderer.

A family of peregrines. I thought.

~*~

"Millard, you do know about Miss Peregrine's brothers, right?" I asked him while reading in the library after dinner.

"Yes, of course I do. It's best not to bring it up in front of her though. She gets rather distant."

"So I've seen." I said. I closed the book I was reading. "What happened to Jack Peregrine?"

"Jack? I think you mean Caul. That is what he's known as throughout most ymbrynic circles. He and his brother disappeared to Siberia to conduct some sort of peculiar experiment. I think it was going to be the secret of immortality. There was a huge explosion  and that's how the first hollowghast were created."

"You don't sound too sure." I said.

"Well, that's because I'm not too sure," Millard's smoking jacket shrugged, "I don't know everything. It's a relatively recent happening anyway. Of course you know hollows and wights weren't always around."

"Yes, thanks for the information Millard." I stood up to go.

"Anytime."