I'm really surprised that I've kept this story going for ten chapters now. As always, I hope you'll enjoy, and thanks to everyone who's reviewed. This chapter is my entry in the current monthly one-shot contest at Caesar's Palace.

"It's just funny to think that one day you'll grow up, like Abe did... and I'll still be here."

Emma curled up tighter on her window seat, tilting the page toward the sunlight as she reread Abe's most recent letter. He wrote to her often, but still, Emma was stunned by how much time seemed to pass between his letters. It was still hard for her to believe that Abe was actually aging, that was he growing older every single day. He was married now, living in America, and had two young children, a boy and girl. Emma glanced at the postmark stamp on the envelope – Florida, a place she'd never heard of – then returned to the letter.

I don't know how Miss P made taking care of thirteen children look so bloody easy. I've only got two, and it's not easy at all.

Abe's letters were usually like that. He downplayed his life, found things to complain about, because he didn't want to make Emma jealous. But she got jealous, anyway. As bad as Abe might try to make it sound, he was growing and changing and doing things, out there in the real world, while here in Miss Peregrine's loop, Emma stayed the same age, never went anywhere, never did anything.

Emma started to reread the letter a third time, but found she couldn't bear it again, so she got up and went outside to clear her head. The younger children were all out in the garden, playing with ice, and Emma tucked her skirt under her legs and sat down on the back steps to watch. They had frozen a pan of water in the kitchen freezer and slid the ice out in one big chunk. Now it was a game to see who could hold the smooth pane of ice in their hands the longest, before they dropped it or had to let go from the cold. The ice was growing slippery as it slowly melted in the September day, making their game harder. They giggled as they passed it between each other and licked the cold water off their fingers.

Emma leaned her chin in her hand and sighed a small, careful sigh, jealously pricking at her again. The little kids were always doing things like that. They could make up a game out of anything at all and keep themselves amused. Life was so simple for them – so easy. Of course, they grew bored sometimes, tired of having the same playmates and the same toys day after day after day, but for the most part, they were happy. They loved Miss Peregrine, loved each other, loved living in their loop. They never yearned for more, like Emma did. But then, they would always be little kids, while Emma would always be stuck at this confusing, in-between age of sixteen. It felt almost like a punishment.

Emma sighed again, and this time, she forgot to do it carefully. Her peculiarity made her sighs very strong, and this one was a gust of wind that ruffled the younger children's hair. They turned to look at her, and Bronwyn left their game to skip over to the steps.

"Do you want to play with us, Emma?" she asked brightly. The sun had brought out some new freckles on her nose. "Playing with ice is jolly fun, and it cools you off, too."

Emma smiled but shook her head. "No thanks, Bronwyn." She got up from the steps and began to move away, but Bronwyn skipped right along behind her, waving her arms back and forth.

"Well, after this, we're playing hide-and-seek," she went on. "No peculiarities allowed. Why don't you play that with us? Do you want to hide or seek?"

Emma pursed her lips, annoyed. She loved the little kids like her own brothers and sisters – which they were, she supposed – but they could get on her nerves, too. She had snapped at Claire a few weeks ago for doing exactly this, tagging along and pestering her, and later she'd overheard Claire ask Miss Peregrine what was wrong with her. Just remembering it made Emma feel horrible all over again. What was wrong with her?

"I said no thanks, Bronwyn," Emma answered, trying to be patient, and Bronwyn shrugged and went back to join the other kids. Emma couldn't understand how Miss Peregrine never lost her patience with all of them, but she never did.

Emma's thoughts settled on Miss Peregrine as she wandered into the orchard behind the garden, weaving in and out between the sweet-smelling apple trees. There in the dappled light, it occurred to her – she couldn't be the only one who got so sick of this loop that she wanted to scream, who felt so lonely that she wanted to cry. Miss Peregrine must feel that way too, sometimes. She must. For bird's sake, she was the only adult stuck in a house with eleven peculiar children. Emma decided to ask her, the next time that they were alone.

"Do you ever get lonely, Miss P?"

But it was always hard to get a moment alone with Miss Peregrine, so Emma had to wait almost a week for a chance to ask her question. It gave her time to imagine what Miss Peregrine's reaction might be. Perhaps her hands would still from whatever they were doing – for Miss Peregrine was always busy doing something for her children – as she considered how to answer. Or perhaps if she were smoking her pipe, she would take a puff from it and tilt her head in that thoughtful way she had. Whatever she was doing, she would, Emma felt sure, be impressed that Emma, out of all her children, was the only one perceptive enough to realize that yes, she did get lonely sometimes, and she would be grateful to finally admit it, and she would be touched that Emma was concerned enough to ask. Perhaps it would change things between them, and Miss Peregrine would finally stop treating her like one of the little kids.

But then, when Emma finally did ask the question, one night after the reset when the younger children were in bed, it didn't go at all like she'd expected.

"Do you ever get lonely, Miss P?"

Miss Peregrine looked at her and smiled, but it was completely the wrong smile. It wasn't impressed or surprised. No, it was that indulgent smile that she gave the little kids whenever they asked her some silly question. Emma burned with embarrassment to have Miss Peregrine now directing it at her.

"Emma," she answered softly, her black eyes shining, "what a question to ask a woman who has eleven children."

Emma wanted to say more, to clarify that Miss Peregrine had to be lonely for another adult, for someone she didn't have to take care of. But she could only stand there with her mouth open a bit, grasping for words that never came. And even if she could find a way to explain her question, she knew now what Miss Peregrine's answer would be. She had always loved Miss Peregrine like her own mother, but in that moment, she hated her.

Emma swallowed hard, and without another word, she turned and hurried upstairs to the library, so quickly that her blonde hair bounced with every step. She wanted to find Florida on a map, to put her finger on the faraway spot where Abe was, but instead, she found Olive, in an armchair near the library fireplace, reading before she went to bed. Emma stood in the doorway for a moment and watched her. She thought that anyone who didn't know their household well would assume that she and Olive were best friends. Not only were they both sixteen, but they were the only two teenage girls in Miss Peregrine's home. Their shared placement on that high, lonely shelf of permanent adolescence should've pushed them together into a close friendship.

But that hadn't happened. Emma liked Olive, of course, but the two girls had never been especially close. Their personalities were more different than their ages were alike. Olive was as relentlessly cheerful as a sunbeam, never passing through stormy moods like Emma and Enoch did. Even as she sat reading now, there was a little smile on her face, as if smiling were her default expression. Emma didn't really want to ask her the question, but asking Miss Peregrine had gone all wrong, and who else did she have to talk to?

Emma took a deep breath. "Olive?" she asked, and the other girl looked up from her book. "Do you... do you think Miss P ever gets lonely?"

But Olive shook her head. "No, Miss P's an ymbryne," she said simply.

"So?"

Olive pursed her lips, thinking. "Well... ymbrynes are different, aren't they? I don't think they're wired that way. All Miss P cares about is us."

Emma nodded vaguely. It did make sense; ymbrynes were mysterious creatures, but Emma knew that they were bred for one purpose – to take care of peculiar children – and Miss Peregrine was no exception. Emma suddenly wished that she could be wired like Miss Peregrine, or cheerful like Olive, or young forever, as young as Bronwyn and the other little kids, finding joy in a block of ice and everything else. She sighed so hard that she almost put the whole fireplace out.

Before she went to bed that night, Emma put Abe's letter away in her underwear drawer. Her underclothes were all neatly folded, and as she slid Abe's letter beneath them, she thought how strange it was, the things that you missed when you lived in a time-loop. Sometimes Emma even missed her period. She'd gotten her period for four years before Miss Peregrine made the loop and froze time in place, and she could only vaguely remember now how it felt – the heaviness in her breasts, the cramps across her lower back. It had always been such an inconvenience to her... so why did she miss it now?

"What's wrong with Emma, Miss P?" Claire had asked weeks ago, after Emma snapped at her, and Miss P had answered, "She's just having a good wallow, Claire, leave her be." Maybe that's all this was, another good wallow, and she hoped that everything would seem better in the morning. A new day in the loop could often have that effect on her, and she would wake up feeling happier, less lonely. But as she fell asleep, she still heard Claire's question echoing in her hears.