"P-peculiar? But no. That can't be real." My head started hurting slightly, so I pinched my nose. "You are telling a lie. All of you! Nothing this good can happen to me." I started running. Running quicker than I ever had before. I wanted to get away. Run away from all this madness. I ran right into an invisible figure.

"Woah, Maya. What's going on?"

"Nothing much. Just found out I really am whacko! You're unreal. You have to be. You're some special effects, made to test me! Everytime something good happens to me, it's never real." I started running all over again, but invisible hands braced me back."Millard, Let me go! Or whatever your real name is!"

"What's going on?" Jacob asked, coming out of the dining room.

"What's going on is I'm out of here! I'm in a cuckoo's nest! Talking to an invisible boy, a girl who can hover, and who knows what the hell else?"

"It's okay. But why run now?" Jacob responded

My headache was driving me crazy. I started hitting and hitting, trying to get free of the restraint I couldn't see. Then, blood spurted out on my hand. Red, nauseating blood. I had broken Millard's nose in my outburst.

"Oh, God, you are real! And I-i hurt you!" I shimmied out of his now loosened clasp and sprant onto the streets of Devil's Acre.

"Wait, Maya! It was only an a-" I shut out his voice and the others.

I bawled as I ran past shops and stalls. I ran past the wretched river, and sat under the bridge. "Why? Why am I so terrible at making friends? Why do I never get anything nice? They must all hate my guts now."

I sobbed for about half an hour, then crawled further under the bridge. For all one knows. my peculiarity could be to disappear forever. I hurt Millard. That was unforgivable. "I don't deserve to even meet them. "

I thought back to all the times things were finally looking up for me, when the walls just came tumbling down.

My dad left when I was 4. He dropped me off at some crappy group home and never turned back. Then, at 6, a family agrees to foster me. When I was 8, They had a child of their own and got rid of me. Like some stray puppy.

When I was 10, I learned the cold truth. No one wants a colored girl. Especially not one past 10. My friend Shayla got it worse, being mixed white and columbian. Nevertheless, Even she went home with her new family. Never came back.

Then I was in another home, with a foster "Brother' and that worked until I was 13, and he began touching me. So that didn't last long. I lived in the group foster home ever since. Now I'll be kicked out of here too.

Suddenly, I heard some rustling. They discovered me. Better get this over with.

The wild hair girl from dinner came under the bridge and sat under it with me. She just sat there. Didn't speak, didn't do anything. Just sat.

"Millard probably hates me, right?" I questioned her, and she gently shook her head.

"You don't talk very much, do you? I like it." She smiled gently and opened her mouth. Where her tongue should have been, there was a fleshy lobe.

"God, what happened? Was it like Mill said, and happened when you guys saved peculiarity?"

She nodded soberly.

"Guess I'll undoubtedly have to face Millard, huh?" I did not look forward to that.

She grinned and gripped my hand. We walked back to the house and saw Miss Peregrine standing there. Suddenly, my head began hurting. I instantly started getting dizzy.

"Miss Frauenfeld, I heartily thank you for coming back with Miss Barista. You may go to eat lunch." Fiona looked at me funny, but went inside."

"Miss Barista, can you sufficiently explain your violent outburst?"

"Miss, it was confusing, and I hurt Millard. Now my head won't stop hurting! I just got rid of a headache, now it wont stop! I need my medicine. Let me go back to the present!"

"No one is preventing you. You may depart from here whenever you wish. I was only just going to identify why you were experiencing those headaches."

My skull aches so bad. I drifted in and out of darkness.

"Miss Barista?" Miss Peregrine looked upon me with a sad, and almost, pitying face. I fell into Bronwyn's sturdy arms, and drifted gently into sweet, calm, black.

"Maya, you up yet?" A little voice said softly.

I groaned in agony, sitting up. "I am right now. What's up?"

"You okay?" The little girl asked. It was obviously that floating girl I saw earlier.

"Yeah. Why would you ask?"

"You ran away from us. Are we scary? I know Claire and Emma are, but they are really nice. All of us are nice. Except Enoch, but he's just Enoch.

I smiled at the younger girl. "I didn't run because of you guys. I ran because I didn't want to be peculiar. I want to be normal."

"But being peculiar is so cool! I can float!" She showed me her shoes. "I need these to keep me from floating away!"

"To be honest, I was afraid I would learn I am different, only for it to be just a wonderful dream that I must wake from."

"Well I'm not your dream!" She said cheerfully, then became suddenly very serious. "At least, I don't think so…"

I laughed at the little girl's sudden seriousness. Enoch walked past the room and stuck his head in.

"Hey Maya, you're up. I'll tell the headmistress." He smirked, "And your boyfriend."

"Don't tell Millard anything." I said "And he's not my.."

"Yeah, right." Enoch went upstairs to get the Mistress.

Millard came with her, sporting a bandage where his face would be.

"Millard, I'm so sorry… I was confused… and my head… and…" I started crying all over again, "I don't want to hurt anyone, especially the people I just met. I'm sorry." I wiped my tears, expecting an angry reaction on Miss Peregrine's face. It wasn't angry. It was… almost sad.

Miss Barista," She began, "You have actually reacted pretty calmly contrasted to some of the other children. Unfortunately, Miss Bruntley found out about her remarkable peculiarity when she forcibly broke her alcoholic stepfather's neck. How do you think a 10-year-old girl would merely react to that?"

I was jaw dropped. "Bronwyn killed someone? No way."

"It's true, the talented children went through so much before, living in different times. Miss Fraunfeld lived through the Irish Potato Famine."

"Wait, she is 16. How the hell did she?" I gasped, "You all are from the past. That's why you all are so old fashioned!." The loops kept you young! This is like a fountain of youth!"

"Not exactly. If a peculiar stays too long, they will 'age forward' or instantly become their biological stage of life."

"So, it comes with a price." I grinned goofily, "All magic comes at a price, dearie."

"Yes, you may put it that way." she sighed dismissively, "Your peculiarity is both a blessing and a curse."

"What exactly is my peculiarity?" I asked slowly.