A/N: I am dearly sorry that I have not updated. I've been busy adulting and I had a hard time thinking of ideas. Sorry this chapter is so short. I have to get back into the swing of things.
That evening, supper was quiet. Normally we all bustled back-and-forth, laughing and talking of whatever subjects brought themselves to the table. But not this night. This night it was silent except for the sound of forks scraping plates. I ate slowly, eyeing Miss Peregrine as she ate. I had always enjoyed the way Miss Peregrine had taken her meals. She was unafraid of using her hands, and she'd use her talon-like finger nails to dig into whatever her heart desired. And the way food got into her mouth was an odd act that was between the bite of a human and a peck of a bird. For example, if she was eating a goose leg, she'd peck a good chunk of meat off the bone and allow the grizzle to fall from her mouth, rather than using a napkin. Funny thing was that the way it happened was not sloppy or rude at all. Miss Peregrine had a way of being her absolute self whilst still keeping her prim-and-proper ways. After all this time, I was finally beginning to notice just how falcon-like some of her everyday maneuvers were. Any other normal person would have probably thought that our Ymbryne's way of eating was ridiculous and sloppy. But not to us. It was an act that was accepted wholly and was rather interesting to watch.
Not a single word came from any of the children's mouths. After I had bathed and scrubbed the blood off me, I had come down for dinner at the usual five-thirty and not one person spoke. Miss Peregrine must have told the children of the on-going.
Once the awkward, silent dinner was up, Miss Peregrine asked me to meet her in the drawing room when she was done washing dishes.
I waited in the drawing room for her. I was curled up on the settee before the hearth, my nose buried in a book about the lifestyle of ravens. I studied ravens often, in case I ever had to act like a regular bird.
Miss Peregrine came in soon after.
"The children know of this morning's ongoing," she explained. "Apparently Mr. Nullings was an innocent bystander."
I raised my eyes from my book. "Such does not surprise me," I replied. "Mr. Nulling's is always eavesdropping."
It was to my understanding that keeping the children safe from harm was a harder job than I suspected. Since Miss Peregrine had killed the pub owner, I couldn't help but wonder just what kind of danger I would find myself in the future, when I was an ymbryne, and had my own house of wards. I knew that once the loop reset the man would once again be alive and not remember a thing, but just the fact that Miss Peregrine had to kill another being irked me deeply.
Miss Peregrine took a seat adjacent from me and pulled out a pipe. She lit it and took a few thoughtful puffs.
"If you are to become a proper ymbryne- and I have no doubt that you will- you must be willing to place yourself in the path of any danger that threatens your children." She puffed the pipe once more. "Miss Avocet will teach you many different ways of protecting yourself."
I folded my book closed and set it on the settee beside me. "I'm not sure if I can be violent though, Miss Peregrine," I explained to her.
"As I said before, my dear Miss Stonington, violence is utterly inevitable in our world."
I sighed. "Well, if it is as inevitable as you say it is, I suppose I will have to prepare myself mentally."
Miss Peregrine's bright green eyes wandered out the nearest window. "Indeed," she said. "This is rather an honorable gift you've been given, Miss Stonington," she said, referring to my ymbrynism. "I hope you find this lifestyle beneficial."
I smiled at her. "I'm sure I will."
Just then, the grandfather clock in the corner of the parlor began to chime. Miss Peregrine whipped out her pocket watch and glanced at it.
"My, my, my, is it that time already?" She slid the watch back into her pocket. "It is time for me to mind the reset. Miss Stonington, would you care to assist me?"
My face lit up. "Why, I'd be honored."
Never once had I gotten the chance to watch Miss Peregrine tend to the loop up close. The children had described to me on many occasions what it was like, but that was as close as I had ever gotten. I probably would have had a greater chance if, when I had first met Miss Peregrine, she had not been shot out of the sky by her own brother. Those few weeks of her recovery left no time for extra activities. Miss Avocet had been present whilst Miss Peregrine had been wounded, and she had minded the loop.
Miss Peregrine went to the kitchen, and returned with a small clock in her hand. She also was carrying a gas mask.
"Would you care for a mask?" she asked, holding it out to me.
"Must I?"
Miss Peregrine chuckled. "If you wish to be without one, I will not force you. I only require the children to wear them for proper safety purposes."
She then strode from the house to the back garden, and I followed her.
"Now, Miss Peregrine," I began as we walked alongside one another, "do tell me if I am wrong, but, the children should not need the masks, right? Unless the loop was to slip?"
"You are most correct," she replied. "Undoubtedly the loop shall not slip." There was pride in her voice. "You will understand, too, one day."
We soon were in the back lawn. Miss Peregrine had a phonograph strategically placed beneath a tree. She set the clock on it, then placed the record in place so it would play.
"I use this song to calculate when I am to begin the reset," she explained as the air began to fill with old fashioned music.
Run rabbit, run rabbit,
run, run, run...
Miss Peregrine assumed a stiff stature and she pulled her pocket watch from her coat. She shot me an excited glance and winked at me.
The familiar racket of the on-coming Nazi bomber planes began to rumble through the silence of the night. As many times as I had heard them approaching, the loud noise of the engines still managed to send a tingle of worry down my spine. I knew that I was perfectly safe, but there always was that very slim possibility that something could happen.
The song progressed on, ringing out about a farmer and a gun.
Two bombers flew overhead, roaring as they neared.
Behind us, a bright flash went off. The bombs that had hit the village.
"Ready?" Miss Peregrine asked me as the particular plane that was meant to destroy us came into sight.
"Ready," I confirmed.
The plane approached, slowing its speed. A small chamber opened from the bottom, and a large bomb appeared. Soon it was plummeting toward our house.
Closer and closer it drew, and the more anxious I began to feel. This was my first time witnessing the reset in-person. It was an event that I was so used to hearing, but never seeing.
The realization that the large metal balloon that was hastily making its way down to us could, by small chance, destroy everything in the loop was a tad unnerving.
I tensed as Miss Peregrine laid a finger to the knob on the pocket watch, and she hastily began to wind it counter-clockwise. The bomb above was so close it had began to whistle, and I stiffened and shut my eyes tightly.
Silence split the night and everything seemed to fall still.
Peeling one eye open, I took notice that as Miss Peregrine's finger winded, the bomb had actually frozen in mid-air. I saw her giggle at my tenseness and I could of sworn that she mumbled something about being a scaredy cat.
I allowed my eyes to open and my body to relax. Amazingly, the bomb began to sail backward through the sky, and it re-entered itself into the plane. Next, all the planes flew tail-first back across our field of view. The brilliant stars in the sky then transformed into the beautiful salmon colored dusk. Clouds began to soar, birds began to chirp, the sky went bright blue, and the song began to twist so the words were unrecognizable.
After just a few moments, it was night again, and Miss Peregrine paused. The phonograph clicked itself off and we stood there in the silence. The clock beside me gave one last tick-tock and it, too, fell idle.
Miss Peregrine's eyes beamed at me from beneath her glasses.
"Spectacular," I commented when I knew it was safe to speak. I scanned the house. "Am I really to do that someday?"
"Indeed," she said with a smile.
The manipulation of time seemed much easier than I had expected.
Miss Peregrine collected her things and made way for the house. I followed close behind her.
"The idea of a loops construction, Miss Stonington," Miss Peregrine said smoothly as we walked into the front hallway side-by-side, "is to aim for what you may call a perfect day."
I followed her into the kitchen where she began to pour two cups of tea.
"A perfect day, Headmistress?"
" It is best if a ymbryne's loop is constructed on a day where nothing terribly unusual- or dangerous- happens amongst the children."
September 3rd, 1940 was no where near perfect, though. Had Miss Peregrine not created a loop, she wouldn't have been before me drinking tea. The Germans would have destroyed everything. I took it that she had been forced to create the loop when she had.
I took the second cup of tea and I sipped it gingerly. "Had you not created the loop on September the third, nineteen forty, you would all be..." I couldn't bring myself to say it.
"Assuredly so," she said flatly. The subject of death was not one you spoke of lightly in her company.
"So, in the case of other loops, they are perfect?" I asked, raising a brow.
She sipped her tea and swallowed softly. "As perfect as a day may be. To this day it has irked me that my loop is not perfect. Whilst the other ymbryne's galumph about in their utopias, I am here, sensibly on-guard at all times."
Miss Peregrine's eyes wandered to the tile pattern of the kitchen floor, and I felt the energy she emitted dull. My inner ymbryne senses were informing me that, no matter how hard she attempted to conceal it, Miss Peregrine was an exhausted woman. I wondered if someday, I, too, would be as tired as she was.
Miss Peregrine's gaze met mine and she half-smiled. "For your sake, I hope your loop is the most perfect of them all." She then slowly drew her pocket watch and looked at it. She yawned softly. "I am dearly sorry, Miss Stonington, but I'm afraid it is time for myself to retire."
She then bade me goodnight and wandered off, leaving me to my tea.