A/N: Thank you for all your reviews! I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, but, eh, sometimes boring transitions are inevitable. Thank you to m. 287 for the garden idea!
Unlike Miss Peregrine, Miss Avocet loved to chitter-chatter. The distance from the cairn, through the loop, and into the modern timeline, Miss Avocet chattered away about how much Blackpool was much different than Cairnholm. When I had first met Miss Avocet, she had come off as a hard woman who stood for no nonsense, but as I listened to her chatter on, I knew that once she was comfortable in a person's presence, their ears were at the mercy of her ramblings.
The journey from Miss Peregrine's house to the docks in town was a good forty-five minute walk, but the entertainment I got from Miss Avocet's rambling was enough to make the walk somewhat short.
When the docks came into view, my eyes caught a sizeable group of people gathered. One-by-one they presented their tickets to a man in a uniform. The ship, a gigantic, floating tankard standing fifty feet tall, slowly rocked with the motion of the gentle waves.
Not even an hour later, we were sailing smoothly across the vast ocean of blue. Before setting sail Miss Avocet mentioned that it was a six-hour ship ride to Blackpool. At the mention of this time span I had been standing at the bow of the ship, my back to the open sea, gazing over Cairnholm one more time. The thought of being six hours away from my peculiar family daunted me. A few times while we were waiting for the boat to set off, I considered going back. I could tell Miss Avocet that I wasn't ready, and I wished to have another year with Miss Peregrine and the children, but, alas, I was too slow and soon Cairnholm was a blob disappearing on the horizon.
Miss Avocet rearranged a small room for us, where she planned on drinking tea and reading an old novel. I was granted permission to nap, so I went into the bedroom and did just that. Trouble was that as soon as I shut my eyes, Miss Avocet was shaking me and declaring it was time to make port.
She hardly spoke a word since we left Cairnholm, and I felt too awkward to try and make conversation with her.
The docks at Blackpool were adjacent to a large pier which held a noisy carnival. As I pulled my luggage behind me down the ramp of the ship, the smell of corn dogs and popcorn suffocated my nose and I was reminded heavily of America. The majority of the other passengers headed for the carnival as soon as they exited the ship. I may have been interested in some cotton candy in another circumstance, but I knew all-too-well that asking Miss Avocet to make a pit stop was out of the question.
"You will find Blackpool to be rather busy compared to what you are accustomed too," Miss Avocet pointed out as she led me onto a cobblestone street. "Unfortunately the majority of these beings roaming about the city are nothing but bunches of rude tourists who come to Blackpool thinking they can escape reality. Ha! Trust me, Miss Stonington, my loop is among the safest part of Blackpool."
Her statement turned out to be extremely true. The street became crowded with groups of loud, intrusive tourists. A few of them bumped into my luggage dolly and spat derogatory phrases at Miss Avocet and I as we made way. The older ymbryne brushed such phrases off and just kept on with her stiff gait.
Blackpool was a dark, gloomy mess of towering buildings and the further down the main drag Miss Avocet led me, the more claustrophobic I began to feel. The city reeked of wet pavement and sea water.
It wasn't until Miss Avocet stopped me in front of a large iron gate that a sense of excitement uprooted in me. On the other side of the immense gate, were wild, twisting vines of a bright green color. The vines stretched upward to a large pane of glass that resembled a greenhouse roof. Plants of every kind were sprawled about within the enclosure on each side of a small, cobblestone footpath. I could see normals meddling about inside the fence.
"What is this place?" I asked Miss Avocet.
"The Blackpool Botanical Garden," she replied proudly. "It is where I have my loop concealed."
At this point I was so curious as to where exactly her loop entrance was that I forgot about Miss Peregrine and Cairnholm for a few minutes. My eyes danced over the menagerie of plants, vines, flowers and other greens as we slowly made our way down the twisting footpath.
"It's a brilliant place to conceal a loop," I remarked to Miss Avocet.
She giggled. "Indeed. The lot of this greenery is highly poisonous- deadly in large quantities. No one with any sense would even consider going around poking amongst them."
Miss Avocet scanned the garden, assuring herself that there were no normals around. Much to my surprise, she led me to a towering stone wall that was absolutely covered in vines that bore red thorns. An uneasy feeling settled in my core and I gripped my dolly handle tightly. This was the same feeling I had felt when I watched Miss Peregrine hurl toward the ground after Caul had shot her. Perhaps it was the fumes of the botanicals?
Miss Avocet reached into her pocket and revealed a pair of leather gloves. She slid her hands into them. Bravely, she took hold of the vines and spread them apart, revealing a narrow passage through the wall. I found myself staring into a black pit. It was like one of those pitch-black hallways you went through in your local haunted house for Halloween spooks.
"Well?" she asked me. "Are you going to go in?"
Gulping, I pulled my dolly tight to my side.
"It's all right," Miss Avocet cooed. "It appears more unnerving than it actually is. Just hold your breath and trudge on through."
I gulped again, then, took my first step into the narrow passage.
The walls were so narrow I had to turn sideways just to fit. Luckily my luggage was just compact enough to fit behind me. I stopped a few feet in and looked behind me. Miss Avocet entered the tight space and allowed the vines to swing shut behind her. She came up behind me and gently nudged me.
"Just keep going- we're almost there."
Not willing to cross the orders of my new ymbryne, I swallowed and just kept trucking forward. The walls seemed to close around me and I began to feel like I was going to be suffocated when the sound of my feet on stone ground, turned into a light crunching. My eyes were closed and I peeled one open.
We had stepped into a bright daylight. The crunching beneath my feet was a gravel driveway, that led to two immense oak doors of a house so grand I thought I was standing before Versailles. My jaw dropped. The house itself looked to be about four stories high. Lush green yard surrounded it on three sides. In a way it was very similar to Miss Peregrine's house, only much much bigger.
"Home sweet home," Miss Avocet chirped. She patted me on the back then headed toward the front doors.
There were no peculiar begins anywhere on the exterior of the house. In fact, there were no live beings anywhere. I heard birds chirping all around. The aroma of flowers and freshly mowed grass.
I followed Miss Avocet to the front doors and she whipped them open.
"Toddy!" she called aloud inside the doors. "Toddy, I'm home!"
I stepped into a room of wooden furnishings and glossy, tiled floors. A set of Victorian drawing room furniture sat before a fireplace that was carved of cherry oak. Interesting thing about it was that the top of the mantle was carved to look like a great bird- I couldn't make out an exact species. The energy of the room was calm.
"Toddy!" called Miss Avocet in a ridiculous tone.
"Yes! Coming, Mistress!" came an answer somewhere on the first floor.
I went to Miss Avocet's side to take notice of without a doubt the strangest thing I had ever seen up to that point.
A beast that resembled a grizzly bear walking on two legs came trotting into the room. It was extremely bear-like from the shape of its head and face, down to it's big, furry paws. The bear stood, I'd say, a whopping ten feet tall. The whole image of the bear was thrown off-whack y the fact that it was wearing a tuxedo and had a monocle over its right eye.
"Ah, Toddy, there you are!" Miss Avocet exclaimed happily. She then gestured to me. "Toddy, this is Miss Stonington- she's the newest."
When the bear-beast advanced on me I wanted to run and hide somewhere. I was plenty used to children who could throw fireballs at people, and a woman who could turn into a falcon, but talking animals was something I had never been introduced to. Although the bear seemed domesticated enough, the idea of it's existence struck me as beyond peculiar.
Toddy approached me, and offered me a paw. He was so tall that his paw was just above my head. Recalling the manners Miss Peregrine was so proud of me for, I gently reached up and shook the bear's paw.
"How do you do?" Toddy asked in a thick, posh accent.
"I'm rather well, thank you," I replied as stably as I could manage.
"Toddy, dear, it has been a long journey for us and we are both drained. Would you mind showing Miss Stonington her quarters while I go and see to the status of supper?"
The bear nodded. The massive animal then bent forward, scooped up my luggage off the dolly, and flung it up onto his shoulder.
"Welcome to my home, Miss Stonington," Miss Avocet practically cheered at me. "Please, I bid you, make yourself comfortable. Toddy will show you to your room. Dinner is in exactly one hour." With that she paraded off through a door to the right of me.
Toddy the bear just looked down at me.
"Right this way, Miss," he said, heading down a hallway to my left.