The four peculiars stepped out into the world. It looked the same, as the garden was in the midst of a thick forest. The trees were a little taller, probably.
"It looks the same." said Lily, looking about. I suppose she thought it'd look all futuristic-like, whatever that meant to a girl born in 1885.
"Good. I'm not very sure what time it is, but we should be thankful for that. If we stepped out into a town people would look at us awfully strange, don't you think? I think it's best that we don't let ourselves be seen until we can find some proper clothes, whatever they may be." Elizabeth said calmly. She wasn't very calm on the inside. Actually she was very scared. She had no idea what they'd encounter and what they would do if trouble came their way.
"Whit noo?" asked Douglas, also looking around. He was ambivalent about his surroundings. He wasn't really sure what to think. Alice, on the other hand, was excited. She had no idea what she'd experience and was happy for it. Everything was an adventure to her.
"What now?" said Alice.
"Well, I'm not quite sure. I suppose we could go into the forest and see what we find? Pidgeon will send word to us once he sees us." answered Elizabeth. Lily rolled her eyes.
"A've git a few wurds tae say tae him! That damn gal-sneaker!" Douglas said angrily. Gal-sneaker was 1800s slang for womanizer.
Elizabeth didn't catch much of that but she did catch the last sentence.
"Pidgeon is not a gal-sneaker! And I'd prefer for you to not use slang. It's beneath us." she said in a disgusted tone. Douglas mumbled something under his breath and they continued into the forest.
They walked for hours and hours. They walked until their legs grew tired and they collapsed beneath the stars.
They woke up to the sun on their face and their stomachs rumbling. They'd managed to bring whatever food they could fit in their luggage, which wasn't much. They'd have to ration. They each ate a little for breakfast and sat, staring at each other.
"Come on, up we go. We need to continue walking." said Elizabeth.
"You're surely joking. I'm not going anywhere." Lily said, staring up at her from the ground. She stared at her with crossed arms and firm green eyes. All of their clothes were stained with mud, which Elizabeth did not like.
"I don't care what you think, we need to get up and moving. We'll leave you behind." said Elizabeth and she gestured for Alice to follow her. Lily reluctantly got to her feet and they walked on for a few more hours until Douglas stopped them. Elizabeth was about to scold him or make a rude comment, but he said something before she would.
"Wait. Did ye hear that?" Douglas threw his hand out. The four of them stopped and concentrated on listening. Not too far ahead, there were sounds of horse hooves and wheels along a road. The sound of faint voices and laughter made Alice smile and Lily almost jump for joy. Elizabeth was only nervous and skeptical. She didn't know who these people were, and they could be dangerous. She didn't have the time to really think about it before Lily took off running towards the sound.
"Lily! Come back here this instant!" Elizabeth called out, chasing after her. The three girls and one boy ran through the forest, jumping over fallen logs and wincing as their wooden luggage banged against their legs. Thank god Elizabeth told them to only bring one suitcase or they'd be screwed.
When they came to the road, they saw a large caravan passing through. It looked like something from a circus, with colorful wood and ornately carved windows and doors. Two horses pulled it along with women and men bearing beaded necklaces and bright scarves. They had never seen anything like it. Their eyes widened in awe at the sight. They were so frozen with curiosity that they failed to notice the children hanging off the back end. They looked cramped and tired. Also very wet, like they'd just come out of the sea.
"Whit ur they? Orphans?" Douglas remarked.
"I don't know but I'm not sure if we should find out. Let's keep moving." Elizabeth said anxiously.
"Are you joking? This is the break we've been waiting for! I'm not walking another mile in these worn out shoes and raggedy dress! I'm getting on, with or without you." Lily said sternly and took a step forward.
Elizabeth grabbed her arm firmly with a gloved hand.
"Lily. Listen to me. We are not getting on that caravan with those people we don't know." Elizabeth said with a glare cold as ice. Lily remembered what she said back in the garden and was about to obey her but she noticed the caravan stop to reshoe the horses and for the people to stretch their legs. The kids didn't move and looked rather frightened. Douglas figured that they probably weren't supposed to be on there.
"Look, it's a sign! I'm going." Lily said, excitement in her voice. She wrestled Elizabeth's hand off of her and stepped right to the edge of the trees.
"Lily Jane Gardener. Don't you dare take another step." Elizabeth threatened seriously. She looked more scared for Lily's well being than angry. Lily only stared at her rudely and stepped into the pathway, in direct view of the children.
She was quite a sight, with her disheveled brown hair and green dress torn up and dirtied from tree branches and grass. Despite her messy appearance, she was pretty. All three sisters were beautiful in their own way. Elizabeth had beautiful blue eyes, Lily had a certain tenacity and spark about her, and Alice had pretty soft features and a kind smile.
The kids only stared at her nervously and whispered amongst themselves, debating on what to do.
Alice soon followed and Douglas went with her and he was more of a sight than Lily. The children had no idea what to make of him. He was quite literally, blue.
Elizabeth stood in the trees until she sighed angrily and ran out into the middle of the road. She grabbed Lily and argued sternly with her. The two of them bickered quietly like old women in the middle of the road and Alice stared at the children, who were staring back. After seeing the boy, they looked a bit more relaxed. They didn't look like they were ready to kill them anymore.
"Girls, I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, but they're looking at us." Alice whispered to her sisters. They immediately stopped fighting.
"Oh Christ, we've got to go. Quickly now, back into the wood." Elizabeth said. Her voice sounded strained. They'd never seen Elizabeth like this and frankly, it scared Lily a little bit. Nevertheless, she was not one to listen to her elder sister. She did the exact opposite of what her sister said and sprinted towards the children.
They all squirmed about, trying to get into fighting positions.
"No, please! You've got to let us on! We haven't anywhere else to go!" Lily begged. The rest of her party followed cautiously.
"Let you on? We haven't any room! Bugger off!" a boy said rudely. He looked to be about fifteen with messy blonde hair and tired blue eyes.
"Excuse me? Well that's hardly appropriate." Elizabeth said sternly.
"Ye haven't ony room? Then mak' some!" Douglas said angrily.
"Excuse me, are you lot peculiar too?" asked another girl who appeared to be their leader. She had a fiery kind of beauty about her, with wavy hair the color of sand and green eyes.
"Yes, we are. I'm Alice, that's Douglas, this is Lily and that's my sister Elizabeth." Alice introduced them all. The other children whispered amongst themselves again.
"Please, Miss. If you could make room we'd greatly appreciate it. See, our loop just collapsed after our ymbryne and other peculiars were taken by the wights. We really haven't anywhere to go. It's only us four." Elizabeth said politely. She seemed far more relaxed now that they had introduced themselves as other peculiars. The girl consulted with the other children before answering.
"Since it's only you four and you're peculiars, we can spare a bit of room. I'm Emma and that's Enoch." she introduced them. This prompted a large groan from Enoch, to which Emma jabbed him in the side with her elbow.
"Thank you so much!" Alice smiled, relieved. They climbed onto the porch they were sitting on and they all quietly introduced themselves. The rest of the children were named Jacob, Horace, Bronwyn, Olive, Claire, Hugh, Fiona, and Millard. They also had a bird with them who they introduced as their ymbryne, Miss Alma LeFay Peregrine. Elizabeth explained their story and the bird chirped quietly at the mention of Miss Swan. They explained their stories as well as introduced their peculiarities. Emma could manipulate fire, Horace had prophetic dreams, Bronwyn had extraordinary strength, Enoch could animate and raise the dead, Olive could levitate and she wore lead shoes to hold her down, Claire had a mouth in the back of her head, Fiona could manipulate plants like Lily, and Millard was invisible if not for his clothes. Jacob had the amazing ability to see Hollows.
After familiarizing themselves they rode in silence until the caravan came to its final stop. The dust had hardly settled before a large man met them around the back of the wagon. He wore a flat cap on his head, a caterpillar mustache and a rather stern expression. Elizabeth and the other children all looked absolutely petrified.
Emma leapt off the wagon as Elizabeth held her two sisters close.
"Sir, we throw ourselves at your mercy! Our house was hit by a bomb, you see, and our parents are dead, and we're terribly lost..." Emma said dramatically.
"Shut your gob!" the man bellowed. Alice flinched. "Get down from there, all of you!" the man commanded. Douglas noticed the knife in his hand and wondered if he could take him. Douglas was quite strong, after years of swimming and helping out around the garden. Everyone slowly climbed down from where they were sitting, The children looked at each other nervously. Elizabeth almost took off her gloves before she saw the dozens of other men appear, all wielding weapons and surrounding them in a circle.
The men were all grizzled and they wore dark, heavy knit clothes. The women were dressed in bright, flowing dresses and scarves held their long hair back. Children were huddled between them. They were the gypsies of the caravan. The girls looked to Elizabeth for any sort of reaction, any sort of indication on what they should do. Elizabeth only kept her gloves on and stood properly. The man with the cap began firing questions at them.
"Who are you? Where do you come from? Where are your elders?" he asked. It was then that Elizabeth realized how different they looked from the other children. They were dressed in clothes from a completely different time. The loop was made right at the end of the Victorian era and they were in 1940's England.
"We come from the west. An island off the coast. We're orphans, as I already explained. Our houses were smashed by the bombs in an air raid, and we were forced to flee. We rowed all the way to the mainland and nearly drowned. We have nothing. We've been lost in the woods for days with no food to eat and no clothes but the ones we have on. We saw your wagons passing but were frightened to show ourselves..." Emma said, sniffling. She fake cried, hoping to stir some sympathy. The man studied them and frowned. Elizabeth didn't breathe.
"Why were you forced to flee your island if your houses were bombed? And why did you run into the woods instead of up the coast?" he asked. The man was smart.
"No choice. We were being chased." answered Enoch. Douglas noticed Emma give him a rather stern look.
"Chased by who?" he asked.
"Bad men." said Emma.
"Men with guns." added Horace. "Dressed like soldiers, although they aren't, really."
A woman wearing a bright yellow scarf looked at the main man.
"If soldiers are after them, they're trouble we don't need. Send them away, Bekhir." she said.
"Or tie them to trees and leave them!" said a tall man to which Lily glared at.
"No! We have to get to London before it's too late!" said Olive.
"Please, sir!" said Alice, her blue eyes filled with tears. She was very sensitive. Lily stepped on her foot for drawing the man's attention.
"And you three? Where are you from? You don't look like the other children." the main man, Behkir said. He stared at the three sisters in their torn, dirty Victorian dresses. In all the confusion, Douglas managed to slip away. If they saw him, they'd know they were peculiars.
"We come from a town outside Bristol, sir. Like these children here, our houses were bombed and we have no parents. We need to get to London." Elizabeth said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
"And why are you dressed like that?" he gestured to their dresses. Elizabeth stood there for a second, trying to formulate a response.
"Well...Our parents were rather old-fashioned, you could say?" she meant to answer with a statement, but it sounded more like a question. "Please, let us reach London." she said softly, looking down.
"You said it's too late, too late for what? We'll do nothing until we find out who you are and what you're worth." said Bekhir. He didn't sound angry, more curious if anything.
The men marched the group to a flatbed wagon with a large cage mounted on the top. Elizabeth noticed that it was most definitely meant for animals, made of thick iron bars.
"You're not going to lock us in there, are you?" said Olive.
"Just until we sort out what to do with you." replied Bekhir.
"No, you cant! We have to get to London, and quick!" Olive cried out.
"And why's that?" asked Bekhir.
"One of us is ill." Emma answered. She shot Hugh a look. "We need to get him a doctor!"
"You don't need to go all the way to London for no doctor. Jebbiah's a doctor. Ain't you, Jebbiah?" said one of the men.
An old, weathered looking man stepped forward. "Which one of ye's ill?"
"Hugh needs a specialist. He's got a rare condition. Stinging cough." Emma answered quickly. Hugh wore large goggles and his his dark hair under a newsboy flat cap. From what you could see of his face, he seemed attractive. Nevertheless, Hugh put a hand to his throat as if it hurt him and coughed. A bee shot out of his mouth and the Gypsies gasped.
"It's some sort of trick!" yelled the doctor.
"Enough. Get in the cage, all of you." Bekhir ordered. The Gypsies shoved them all toward the ramp leading up. Lily and Alice gave Elizabeth a pleading look, but she wasn't looking. She bit her lip, as she always did when she was focusing very hard on something, and tried to play out as many possible scenarios as she could. If they tried to fight, there's no way they would make it. There were too many.
"We can't let them do this!" whispered Hugh.
"What are you waiting for? Burn them!" Enoch hissed.
"There are too many." she shook her head. Elizabeth took a deep breath and led the way up the ramp.
"Just because you treat us like animals does not make us so." she said proudly and walked into the cage. She was surprised that the Gypsies hadn't noticed the trunks they were carrying. Her sisters followed and then the rest of the group.
The cage was disgusting, with a low ceiling and nasty smelling hay. Bekhir slammed the door and locked them all inside.
"No one goes near them! They could be witches, or worse!" he shouted to the bystanders.
"Yes we are! Now let us go, or we'll turn your children into warthogs!" shouted Enoch from behind the bars. Alice giggled and Lily smiled, both earning them sharp looks from their sister.
"Now is not the time to be foolishly laughing." she hissed to them. Their solemn faces soon returned.
The Gypsies retreated to a safe distance and began to set up camp, pitching tents and starting cookfires. The children bickered about dirty clothes and Alice leaned against her sister.
"Where's Douglas?" she mumbled.
"I don't know. Hopefully he was smart enough to get out and keep running." replied Elizabeth.
"You must really hate him. I bet you're glad he's gone." Lily said cynically.
"I don't hate him, Lily. Not at all. I just find him annoying and honestly...a bit odd." she sighed.
"He really cares about you, you know. He cares about you most out of all of us, or at least I think so." said Alice, looking up at her sister. Elizabeth said nothing to this and decided to listen back to the others' conversation.
"We were surrounded! Some of us would've gotten hurt in a big fight. Maybe killed. I couldn't risk that." said Emma angrily. Elizabeth agreed silently.
"So you risked Miss Peregrine instead!" said Enoch.
"Enoch, leave her be. It ain't easy, deciding for everyone. We can't take a vote every time there's a choice to be made." said Bronwyn. She was a strong looking girl with short brown hair and brown eyes.
"Then maybe you should let me decide for everyone." he argued. Hugh snorted.
"We would've been killed ages ago if you were in charge." said Hugh.
"It doesn't matter now. We have to get out of this cage and make it to that town. We're a lot closer now than if we hadn't hitched a ride in the first place, so there's no need to cry over milk that hasn't even spilled yet. We just need to think of a way to escape." said Jacob. Jacob was a skinny boy with short brown hair and blue eyes.
They all thought together and tried to come up with solutions. None seemed to stick.
"Maybe Emma can burn through this floor. It's made of wood." said Bronwyn. Emma knocked on the floor to test it.
"It's too thick." Emma said sadly.
"Wyn, can you bend these bars apart?" Jacob offered.
"Maybe, but not with those Gypsies so close by. They'll see and come running with their knives again." replied Bronwyn.
"I don't think breaking out is a good idea. It would attract too much attention." said Elizabeth. They all looked at her. She liked to keep to herself, especially with people she'd just met.
"Exactly. We need to sneak out, not break out." Emma agreed.
"Did you forget about us?" asked a quiet voice behind them.
There stood Millard, the invisible boy. Douglas stood next to him proudly.
"Hullo girls!" smiled Douglas. "Did ye miss me?" he said to Elizabeth.
"Hardly." she scoffed. She turned away, hiding a smile. She was a bit relieved to see his face staring back at her.
"Millard! Where have you been?" Olive exclaimed, clearly excited.
"We've been getting a lay of the land, as it were. And waiting for things to calm down." said Millard.
"Think you can steal the key for us? I saw the head man put it in his pocket." asked Emma, rattling the cage's door.
"Prowling and purloinment are my specialty." he said proudly and slipped away. Douglas remained, looking at them from beyond the bars. He was out of view of the Gypsies.
"Douglas, how did you get away so quickly?" asked Alice.
"Dinnae worry yirsel aboot that. Ah hud a bit o' hulp fae oor invisible friend." he said proudly.
"He said not to worry about it and that Millard helped him." whispered Alice.
"I'm just glad you're back." smiled Lily.
"You were a fool not to run and you still are." Elizabeth said quietly.
"Ah thought aboot it bit ah couldnae lea mah fave girls behind." he smiled. Alice beamed.
An hour passed and Hugh paced around the cage.
"What's taking him so long?" he grumbled.
"If he doesn't come back soon, I'm going to start tossing eggs." said Enoch.
"Eggs?" Elizabeth mumbled to herself.
"Do that and you'll get us all killed. We're sitting ducks in here. Once the smoke clears, they'll flay us alive." warned Emma.
So everyone sat until evening, everyone keeping quiet. Elizabeth's thoughts drifted to Pidgeon. Oh, how she missed that messy brown hair and witty brown eyes. She missed his tan skin and freckles and arrogant yet charming attitude. She missed the talks they had and his stupid sarcastic comments. She missed the books they read, stolen from Miss Swan's personal library. She missed him.
As Lily watched the Gypsies dance and sing, her face turned sour. She hated being confined. She was actually very claustrophobic and she's lucky this cage was large. She watched as one of the boys from the band snuck around the back of their cage, a bottle in hand. Douglas hid in the shrubbery next to the wagon.
"It's for the sick one." he offered nervously.
"Who?" Jacob said bluntly. The boy nodded at Hugh, who immediately wilted to the floor between coughing spasms. Elizabeth hid an eye roll. How dramatic.
The boy slipped the bottle through the bars and handed it to Jacob. He twisted the cap off, gave it a sniff, and made a disgusted face.
"What is it?"he asked.
"Works, that's all I know." said the boy and he threw a glance over his shoulder again. "All right, I done something for you. Now you owes. So tell me - what crime did you do? You're thieves, aincha?" he said excitedly. "Or didja kill someone?" he lowered his voice.
"What's he talking about?" said Bronwyn.
Elizabeth was about to say that they didn't kill anyone but remembered that she had no idea who these people were. She had no idea what they'd done.
"We didn't kill anyone!" said Emma.
"Well you musta done something. Why else would they have a reward out for you?" said the boy.
That was a red flag. These people had a reward out for them? That's no good, no good at all. Elizabeth sighed. She was beginning to regret her decision to follow these people. If there was a reward out for them, they must have done something bad. Now Elizabeth and her sisters were all mixed up in their business, and she didn't really want to be. She shot a furious look at Emma, to which Emma responded with her own rude glare, almost saying that they didn't need to come along.
"There's a reward?" asked Enoch.
"Sure as rain. They're offering a whole pile of money."
"Who is?
The boy shrugged.
"Are you going to turn us in?" asked Olive. Her hair was a pretty color of brown.
"Dunno if we will or won't. The big shots are chewing it over. Though I'll say they don't much trust the sort of people who's offerin' the reward. Then again, money's money, and they don't much like it that you won't answer their questions."
"Where we come from, you don't question people who come to you asking for help!" Emma said snobbishly.
"And you don't put 'em in cages either!" said Olive.
Just then, a tremendous bang went off in the middle of the camp. Elizabeth grabbed her sisters protectively at the sound and the boy fell off the ramp into the ground. The Gypsies panicked and Alice watched as a woman ran, her dress on fire. A moment later, footsteps pounded up the ramp outside the cage.
"That's what happens when you try to make an omelet from a peculiar chicken egg!" laughed Millard.
"You did that?" asked Horace. He was a tall-looking boy with blonde hair. He was dressed in a dirty suit and looked smart. Elizabeth decided that he was her favorite of the group.
"Everything was too orderly and quiet...bad weather for pickpocketing! So I slipped one of our eggs in with theirs, et voila!" said Millar dramatically as he showed them a key. "People are much less likely to notice my hand in their pockets when dinner's just exploded in their faces."
"Took you long enough. Now let us out of here!" said Enoch.
The Gypsy boy started yelling and hollering. He'd heard everything and was desperately trying to get the people's attention.
"Elizabeth, do something!" Lily yelled at her sister.
"Me? What do you want me to do, I'm in a cage!" she argued.
"Douglas, do something!" Lily shouted at the bushes. Douglass stood up from where he was hiding and looked at Lily incredulously.
"Whit dae ye want me tae dae? He's a wee bairn!" Douglas argued, pointing at the kid who was staring at him in shock. He had obviously never seen anything like him, with his blue skin and gills. He looked a bit like a monster.
"Ahhh! A monster!" he pointed at Douglas.
"Och, weel dain Lily! Noo ye made im cry!" he said sarcastically, raising his hand in an annoyed gesture.
"What?" Lily shouted back, not understanding what he said. Douglas's accent was even harder to decipher when there was screaming and confusion in the background.
"Oh, drat. Perhaps I stole the wrong key?" said Millard from behind them. While the boy was distracted with Douglas, the other children were working on getting the door open.
"Ahhh! A ghost!" the boy pointed at the blank space Millard's voice came from.
"Will someone please shut him up!" shouted Enoch.
"I'll do it." Bronwyn obliged and reached through the cage bars. She grabbed the boy's arms and pulled him up off his feet, toward the cage.
Elizabeth looked around desperately to see what looked like the boy's mother running at him.
"Bronwyn put him down!" Elizabeth warned her.
"Haaalp! They've got mmmfff-" he screamed.
His sentence was interrupted by Bronwyn clapping a hand over his mouth and looking at Elizabeth.
"What do you mean, put him down?" she asked. The woman came running up them and Douglas dove into the bushes. It was too late, she'd already seen him. It didn't matter at the moment, because she had more pressing matters to deal with than a fish boy.
"Galbi! Let him go, you savages!" the woman shouted.
Alice covered her face with her hands as Gypsy men rushed at them. The man captured Douglas and pinned his arms behind his back.
"Let me go ye damned gypsies! Ye'r a' due fur a guid thrashing!" Douglas shouted in his thick accent, struggling to get away.
"Let him go, goddamn you!" Lily yelled through the bars.
"Dinnae worry yirsel Lily! Ah kin handle thaim!" Douglas offered her a brave smile, still struggling against the man. His smile was not very convincing. The strong man behind him grew tired of his squirming and held a curved knife to his neck. Lily cried out. Elizabeth stood there, her face pale. There was so much going on, everything was incredibly chaotic.
"Quit moving or I'll slit your throat." he whispered to him.
"What are you doing? Let that boy go before they murder us!" cried Millard.
"No, don't!" Emma called out to Bronwyn, who was still holding the boy. "Free us or the boy dies!" she screamed.
The Gypsies surrounded the cage, shouting threats.
"If you harm him in any way, I'll kill every last one of you with my bare hands!" the leader yelled.
"Stay back! Just let us go and we won't hurt anyone." said Emma.
One of the men ran at the cage and Emma flicked her hands and sparked a fireball between them.
"Oh, for Christ's sake!" Elizabeth said, exasperated.
The crowd gasped and the man stopped, backing up.
"Now you've done it! They'll hang us for being witches!" hissed Enoch. Alice started to cry softly and Lily held her closer.
"I'll burn the first one that tries!" threatened Emma. She widened the space between her palms and the fireball grew larger.
"Come on, let's show them who they're messing with!"