You're Always On My Mind

by ABitOfRomance

Jake and Hugh break something resulting in a hopeless romantic, who calls himself Carlisle, flirting with Miss. Peregrine, for Alma, it's been ages since anyone even has. She tries to resist his advances, but can she? Not to mention, as always, she has her children to worry about...(Takes place after LoS)

1. Chapter 1: Prologue

"Now, now…is that what a good little birdie does?" Caul asked though clenched teeth, his smile was always disgusting to Alma. Her black-blue hair no longer in the neat up do that it always was, her black mourning dress lay on the cold, concrete floor of her 'bird cage' along with her petty coat and corset. The lights overhead flickered and burnt bulbs remained unchanged. She'd just transformed back into a human with just enough decency to cover her naked self. Alma was what peculiars, like herself, called an Ymbryne, a woman who was able to change her physical appearance into the shape of a particular bird, ranging from ravens to owls to peregrines.

Every Ymbryne that she'd ever met had been a female as well able to manipulate time, normally, they'd become a headmistress of a home for children with different peculiarities. Alma's charges were of different families and sometimes no family at all from across Europe, except for one boy, Jake, who was from a place in America called Florida.

Miss. Peregrine thought of her children thanking the heavens that they didn't have to see their normally strong, independent mother figure in such a situation. Alma was never one to show her emotions on her sleeve and absolutely not in front of her brother. Sometimes, in moments of pure happiness, only brought out by her charges, she'd let a tear stream down her cheek, "the golden tears", she called them for she would lock this memory in a treasure chest in the back of her mind and come to it when she needed it.

Right now, she needed it.

"Please…" she begged knees to the floor, her dress bunched in her arms covering her chest. Her fallen strands of hair swaying as she rocked herself back and fourth, she wanted it to end, for Miss. Peregrine, it never did. She closed her eyes and let her head hang in defeat. She let the tears stream down her cheeks knowing it was exactly what her brother wanted. Alma was no longer the famous Ymbryne that was known to most all of the other Ymbrynes as the youngest and most successful with her children, as well as the youngest that Miss. Avocet, a well respected teacher and trainer to Ymbrynes, had ever taught. Miss. Alma LeFay Peregrine was no longer any of those.

After all these years, Alma's brother, Caul, had done it.

He had broken her.