Chapter 9

POV Millard

The three of us walked into the study, to ask her to go to the beach. For the first ten seconds no one spoke until Cindy elbowed me. "What was that- oh." I whispered to her. She nodded in Miss Peregrine's direction and I cleared my throat. " Um... Miss Peregrine, can we go to the beach please?" Miss Peregrine looked at us and shook her head. " I cannot endanger your lives by some storm. It is quite dangerous for you to be near open water on stormy days. The water thrashes around." I sighed and whispered," Lori used to do that. She showed me it when we first met." Miss Peregrine stared at me, pity in her eyes. "Yes,well I cannot let you. Now please do something safe and stay away from the outer rims of the island." We all sort of did a combination of nodding our heads and bowing them as well.

We exited the study and Echo closed the door behind her. Cindy looked at us both and smiled grimly. " We are still to do so, right?" Echo looked at me with a concerned look in her eyes. " We can't defy the bird. She has a point, we do have a few storms on the way. We could get caught in the ocean. I'm not risking that." Cindy rolled her eyes but still continued to smile. Echo shook her head but Cindy ran off and disapeared.

I turned to Echo who turned to me. "Where did she go?" I asked her. "...go." she echoed.

Where do you think she's off to? The beach. She has to go there, it brings back her memories.

What do you mean by that.

I mean that my sister has her secrets. The beach brings things to her you wouldn't understand. I also swore on the tomb of my dead sister that I woul tell no soul. And even if it were not that, it is difficult to understand it.

Then why are you telling me something you shouldn't even mention. And don't worry, I'm smart.

Well, Millard I like your modesty , but if I do tell you, you must swear no to tell a living soul. And before you go on talking to corpses, you can't tell anyone who is dead as well. If you want to know, I cant tell you hear. The others might hear us.

But we aren't speaking, how can ghey hear us?

Not the lot of us, the other mind seekers. If I do kend up telling you it must be where most people not dare to venture to.

How about the bog. No one really likes to go there.

If you say it to be that way, I will tell you.

We walked down the stairs. Heading towards the bkg. We bumped into Olive who wanted to tag along with us. "But why can't I go with you two? I think I'm old enough to play near the bog." I sighed and replyed with," Olive we aren't going to play at the bog. And even if we were it's a little dangerous because you can fall in and we might not be paying attention." Olive looked at me and nodded. "Okay." She said and walked off to play with Claire and Bronwyn.

We reached the bog and Echo turned to me.

Before my sister and I discovered we were peculiar, we had a neighbor who fancied the three of us. He had a stronger liking to Cindy. She fell for him. And our third sister, we were triplets, she had grown attached to him. He just didn't return the same level of love to her. Her name, she was called Pearl. She was broken beyond repair. She had become a mute, like I was at the time.

Pearl wouldn't eat or do anything, just sit still and stare at the boy's house, awaiting for him to give her a chance. It was very sad I tell you. And I guess you're wondering where we used to live. Scotland it was. The name of the city long forgotten, it held too much pain for us. Then one day, the boy came knocking on our door. My sister, Cindy, was all dressed up for him. He shook his head and pointed at Pearl who stared at the boy. She smiled and stood up. He took her hand led her away. Cindy teared up and fled to our room. I was curious of what had come up, the boy was suddenly in love with Pearl.

I decided to follow them. It wasn't like there was better things to do in my spare time. I remember that day vividly, it was the last time I saw Pearl or the boy. The first thing I did that mkrning was tend to Pearl. We all looked the same, although I could tell Pearl apart from Cindy. For one, all she did was sit in that damned chair. Also, she had blue brilliant eyes while Cindy and I owned Emerald ones. Thinking back, it was a coincidence that the boy's sister was named Emerald. Anyhow, sorry for straying off the story. I tended to her and she uttered her first word in a year. It was, I recall, " Muke... kill." I was a little worried but beushed it off.

But I was wrong to ignore it. After following them, the boy, his name was Muke, stopped. Pearl looked jubilant and looked into his eyes. He looked sad and he pulled her into a hug. We were all eight at the time. It happened five years ago, something I had wished to have forgotten. Cindy knew nothing of this. I never told her. And as the two pulled away from the hug, the boy apoligized to her and Pearl fell to the green grass now stained with red. The boy sighed and a flash of purple light beamed from Pearl's body. The boy dropped to the ground, no blood around him at all. His eyes rolled up in his head. I rushed over to Pearl's side, trying to save her life but I failed.

I remember the last words she said." He killed me. I'll miss you most. You were the best. And for your eyes and ears only, you must never tell anybody, Echo. Do not, and please swear on my death if you must. Echo swear you won't tell anyone. Swear it." I tried to speak but I couldn't, all I could do was tepeat her last words," ...swear it." I cried and whimpered as Pearl died on the grassy field blooming with spring flowers.

It seemed to much of a beautiful day for two deaths. The thing Pearl never knew was that Cindy had been arranged a marriage with the boy. At such a young age, she was forced to be with him. And it was all okay with the both of them, they loved eachother. We all knew it except Pearl, because we knew that she would eventually die out of her love. I sat there with my sister and Muke, I wanted them to be remembered. I suddenly gained knowledge of both of their minds. It had turned out the Muke had loved Pearl. He had from the start. But when he was told he was to be married with Cindy at fifteen, he had to learn to love her. It explained everything.

Almost everything though. It didn't explain why he had killed her. Then, I looked throught their memories and it made sense. He thought that with Pearl gone, he wouldn't geel guilty about loving and marrying Cindy. I shed a lot of tears and let out a bunch of sobs. I was loosing it because I found some rope at home and came back to where the bodies were. There was an apple tree there and I decided to tie a rope necklace around them both. I hung my sister up first and then Muke. My sister had been dressed in a flowerprint dress and Muke like any other boy would have been dressed for a speacial occasion.

I decorated their ropes with the multiple spring flowers. Blue bells and many other flowers. I also decorated my sister's long blonde hair. I sighed and wondered what I would say to everyone. Then I remembered I couldn't speak. I had become a mute for a reason. I knew I could repeat things. I cried and soon it was sunset. I walked over to the small cove and found Cindy crying. I sat next to her and tried to tell her it was all taken care of but I knew it would be useless. We sat there until Cindy asked for the both of them. I didn't say anything. All I did was throw rocks at the overlapping waves.

I knew she deserved to know the truth, but I couldn't tell her or anything. Then we went home to face even more troubles and punishments. I was the one who was punished more. And then a few more painful stuff happened. But I don't want to speak of it. As for my sister, she became in love with the ocean because Muke loved it. She had to look at it everyday to stay sane. She had to be there once in a while and thats why she wanted to go to the beach. She hasn't seen the waves in weeks. Do you understand now?

I looked at Echo and nodded. These two had come from a hortible past. They had seriously been through a lot. Especialy Echo. Covering up Pearl's death that way. No wonder she couldn't forget. "And you've been holding this is for five years." She nodded her head and whispered in my mind, Tomorrow it will be six. Shocked about this I hadn't relised I had took a step into the bog. "Can you help me please?" I asked Echo. "...please" she said as she tried to pull me from the bog mess. It took minutes, Echo tugging on my arms to pull me out. She finally freed me and I thank her. "...you." she whispered. "You want to go back to the house?" I asked her. She nodded and repeated," ...to the house." I took her hand and led her through the trees, the bog muck still on my leg.

We neared the house and everything was more queit than usual. We passed Emma and asked what was going on. " The bird caught someone sneaking out. We think it's Cindy becasue she isn't here. I looked at Echo and she shook her head. Emma looked at her and asked," What were guys doing anyways?" She looked at us and a smile crept on her face. " I can't say, it's a secret Echo told me." Echo facepalmed her self and turned to me.

I know I told you you weren't allowed to tell the secret, but you aren't allowed to mention it either. It was a secret. I gulped and Emma looked confused and asked what the secret was. We all kept queit, and for about five minutes Echo and Emma were silent as the night. On occasion Emma would ask," What?" or" How come?" she would always ask and I had the feeling Echo was telling her the secret, and I felt pretty guilty for even mentioning it.

After about a few more minutes, Emma looked shocked. "Your peculiarness is amazing. And I'm sorry for your past, I really am. I can't belive you two had another sister, triplets. It's amazing and sad at the same time. And I do think it is your sister in the bird's study. If she did go to the beach. But the bird should understand it was for good reason."

As the conversation spread more we heard the creak of the old stairs. We looked up to see a soaking Cindy walking down the stairs.