I'm so sorry about the long wait between chapters. I'll try to update more regularly!

Raid the Village

Raid the Village was one of the most controversial things we did as peculiars. As I experienced in Miss Thrush's loop, there was nothing quite like it. I never thought of it as a bad thing. You couldn't hurt anyone. Besides, if it was an accident they would be fine by the next day. They would never know what hit them. Was I thinking correctly?

Emma never participated, she said it was cruel and barbaric. When Abe was there, he'd stay with her. But it wasn't like we did it all the time. She was the only one who ever said something. Miss Peregrine just locked herself up in her room on raiding day, I think she knew it was objectionable, but didn't make means to stop us, because it was one of only a couple barriers that kept us from going crazy and running off cliffs.

So, this particular day we started out early as usual. About 10:00 on the morning of September 3rd. This gave us time to put together a plan of action. Gathering in the kitchen, Emma and Miss Peregrine were already in there rooms. After the plan was made, we were all set to head outside and on the march down to the village when I got an overwhelming feeling of doing anything but raiding the village.

"Oh." I said, sitting abruptly.

"You okay?" Bronwyn asked.

"I'm fine." Maybe I had eaten something bad?

We all left to get to town. Like a small army in a straight line we marched down into the town square. People already looked the other way, so the few who were mulling about quickly ran the other direction. Fiona set down her planting pots and started the first few vines, while Hugh started to send out droves of bees. Enoch stomped up the steps of the pub to get a better vantage point.

I would've started to smash some stuff around a bit, but I took a trip around the town to see our progress. Olive had her semi-regular shoes on, which allowed her to float but not fly up into the sky. She climbed up a lamppost to kick off and grab onto another one. Bronwyn twisted some pipes to make streams of water arch from one side of the road to the other.

The first time I saw this I thought it was cool. An epic display of peculiar powers.

Millard tended to play the role of a 'ghost' where he would sneak into large crowds and walk around. People wouldn't know what hit them. Claire couldn't do much but she thought it was fun to stick around and watch a certain person and see their reactions. Sometimes she would show off her backmouth.

Maybe my heart just wasn't in it that day.

Rather than do a job of lookout and rioter alike, I felt lost. Lost in the swep of a group that just wasn't working for me.

The one thing that stuck in my heart, and probably would for my whole life was the girl.

There wasn't ever a lot of children on Cairnholm, because the life of a fisherman isn't very exciting. So that meant only a few kids were there September 3rd.

One of which was a girl who wasn't any older than Claire. I hadn't even run into her before then. I was walking down a street, when I happened to glance into an alley where a little girl was sitting on the ground crying. When I came closer I realized she had scraped her knee.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes." She said, before she looked up. Then she screamed and backed away.

"I've never seen you. You must be one of them. Are you going to roast me?" She asked.

"I can't do that. Please, come here." I started to walk to where she was, but she screamed and barreled right past me.

"You're a freak!" She called.

Yes, it definitely wasn't my day. I didn't even have good reaction time. So I walked back into the woods up to the house. I was done. Everyone screaming and running for their lives was starting to hurt me physically. Why did they have to be so high-pitched?

I wanted human interaction. So when I got back to the house I went to talk to Emma.

I clumsily stomped up the stairs to knock on Emma's door.

"I tell you every year Enoch, it's the same thing, I can't go." Emma said loudly before opening the door. "Never mind."

"Hi." I said, feeling younger than I was.

"Hello. Why aren't you with the others?" Emma asked.

"I felt like like I shouldn't be going." I said simply.

"I'd love to talk to you, but I'm just doing some rearranging right now." Emma said. I nodded, so she closed the door behind me.

I went across and down the hall where my room was. I was paranoid that I could hear the screams of the villagers, so I stayed in there for a good seven hours. Then I had to go downstairs to eat, because I was starving. As I was sitting on a fainting couch in the study, feeling oddly calm, I noticed how silent it was. With normally nine other children living with you, it got loud.

I only had a little while to enjoy it, before one of the windows in the front room shattered. I set down my toast, holding in a scream, and went to investigate. I crawled on all fours to avoid being seen. I reminisced about the wight invasion. But when I got up the courage to look in the window I didn't see anyone.

The first thing you hear when somebody is trying to be quiet is their breathing. They let out a breath when they think they've escaped capture. I knew this from all those times of hide-and-seek.

Then, as I continued to stare out the window, the first figure came into my view. It was Bronwyn, and she ran through the grass and saw me.

"Open up!" She pounded on the door. Just as I unlocked it, four more people raced up the hill from the path in the woods. It was Horace, Claire, Fiona, and Millard, his coat flying in the breeze. As they dashed into the house, taking the porch steps two at a time, they panted, like they spent an extra long time running. Claire was the first to recover, young people endurance and all that.

"The normals formed a mob." She exhaled.

"We were the first to escape from the town bomb shelter." Bronwyn said.

"They locked you in their shelter?" I asked in disbelief.

"Indeed. They rebelled and got out their pitchforks and all that siege weaponry. It felt like my own trial and jail time." Horace shook his head.

"I picked the lock and all of us left. Before we made it out of town we got separated, stumbled and fell, or got rounded back up. But I think we should keep a look out in case they try and burn the house down." Millard said as he went through the front of the house and closed the curtains. "Do we still have those guns and ammunition?"

"No, those were one time use, and Miss P. threw them out." The wight invasion left us a lot of weapons to arm ourselves, well, it would have but Miss Peregrine took them. She thought there would be accidents.

"We don't have that long until the changeover starts, then they will run back to the village and release our friends so they can use the shelter." I said.

"That's a good backup." Millard said. "There's only a few hours. If we can last until then we can get through this."

Then the mob appeared. They looked terrifying, and probably brought back painful memories to the peculiars. Because it was getting darker, they showed up with torches.

"Witches!" Some screamed.

"Demons!" Shouted others.

Emma and Miss Peregrine must have heard or seen something so they ran down the stairs.

"What is going on here?" Miss Peregrine said in a panic.

"Raid the Village got really out of hand." I said.

"We must try to calm them down." Said Miss Peregrine. She stepped onto the porch. We gathered behind her like frightened ducklings. "Please! May we talk in a civilized manner?"

"Why should we listen to you?" Asked a large fat man. His stained shirt complimented the pitchfork and manic grin on his face.

"I'm a woman of God, just like all of you. I assure you we mean no harm." Miss Peregrine said, addressing the churning crowd.

"You've hurt us." Said one woman.

"No we didn't!" Said Horace, looking around Miss Peregrine at her. "That's against the rules."

"What?"

There was nothing stopping the crowd from storming the house, but maybe they thought it was too good for us to be killed normally. Needless to say, we needed more minutes we didn't have.

Miss Peregrine made the decision to just bar the door. So we sat on the floor in the hall to guard it. Emma leaned up against the door with her hands ready to sear any marauder that crossed the doorway.

"Does this remind you of anything?" Millard asked in the silence.

"Yes." Said Fiona, who didn't choose to elaborate. I knew what she suffered through. She told me once, then she cried into Hugh's shoulder. I didn't have to do any of that, because my parents were more confused than anything.

"No." Horace said. "Mine was nothing like that! I had to spend a week in a London prison. They thought I was conspiring with criminals because I tried to tip off police. Miss Peregrine paid my bail and I was out. Thank God for that, because it wasn't very classy. Even though my hair does go with everything, even their baggy grey shirts and pants."

"Nobody ever came for me. I wish they had, because at least I could've slept somewhere that wasn't the streets. My parents carried my nine-year-old sleeping self right out of the house and into a dumpster. That's where I stayed." Millard said.

"Children, I expect you to keep up appearances. It's hard times for all of us." Miss Peregrine said.

Isn't it weird how situations trigger certain memories?

We must have fallen asleep in the hallway, and Miss Peregrine left us there. She was back with Olive, Hugh, and Enoch before we got up. The loop crossed over, so the mob disappeared.

"You are never ever ever playing Raid the Village again." Miss Peregrine said as she paced in front of where we were gathered in the living room. "You're irresponsible. And your terrible actions almost cost the house. Where would you be if they killed one of you? I don't want you lying in your bedroom, never able to speak to us again! Now, go to your rooms. No dinner tonight!"

We glumly walked upstairs to our rooms and fell asleep. And we were frightened out of Raid the Village for a while after that.