Hollow City (40 page)

“What I’ve got up here might just save those chaps a heap of trouble. And save those other ymbrynes, too.”

“If some fight and some stay behind,” said Bronwyn, “I’ll protect
whoever stays. Protecting’s always been my vocation.”

And then Hugh turned to me and said, “What about you, Jacob?” and my mouth went instantly dry.

“Yeah,” said Enoch. “What
about
you?”

“Well,” I said, “I …”

“Let’s take a walk,” Emma said, hooking her arm around mine. “You and I need to have a chat.”

*   *   *

We walked slowly down the stairs, saying nothing to each other until we’d reached the bottom and the curved wall of ice where Althea had frozen shut the exit tunnel. We sat together and looked into the ice for a long while, at the forms trapped there, blurred and distorted in the darkening light, suspended like ancient eggs in blue amber. We sat, and I could tell from the silence collecting between us that this was going to be a hard conversation—one neither of us wanted to start.

Finally Emma said, “Well?”

I said, “I’m like the others—I want to know what
you
think.”

She laughed in the way people do when something’s not funny but awkward, and said, “I’m not entirely sure you do.”

She was right, but I prodded her to speak anyway. “Come on.”

Emma laid a hand on my knee, then retracted it. She fidgeted. My chest tightened.

“I think it’s time you went home,” she said finally.

I blinked. It took a moment to convince myself she’d really said it. “I don’t understand,” I mumbled.

“You said yourself you were sent here for a reason,” she said quickly, staring into her lap, “and that was to help Miss Peregrine. Now it seems she may be saved. If you owed her any debts, they’re paid. You helped us more than you’ll ever realize. And now it’s time for you to go home.” Her words came all in a rush, like they were a
painful thing she’d been carrying a long time, and it was a relief to finally be rid of them.

“This
is
my home,” I said.

“No, it isn’t,” she insisted, looking at me now. “Peculiardom is dying, Jacob. It’s a lost dream. And even if somehow, by some miracle, we were to take up arms against the corrupted and prevail, we’d be left with a shadow of what we once had; a shattered mess. You
have
a home—one that isn’t ruined—and parents who are alive, and who love you, in some measure.”

“I told you. I don’t want those things. I chose
this
.”

“You made a promise, and you’ve kept it. And now that’s over, and it’s time for you to go home.”

“Quit saying that!” I shouted. “Why are you pushing me away?”

“Because you have a real home and a real family, and if you think any of us would’ve chosen
this
world over those things—wouldn’t have given up our loops and longevity and peculiar powers long ago for even a
taste
of what you have—then you really are living in a fantasy world. It makes me absolutely ill to think you might throw that all away—and for what?”

“For
you
, you idiot! I love you!”

I couldn’t believe I’d said it. Neither could Emma—her mouth had fallen open. “No,” she said, shaking her head like she could erase my words. “No, that’s not going to help anything.”

“But it’s
true
!” I said. “Why do you think I stayed instead of going home? It wasn’t because of my grandfather or some stupid sense of duty—not
really
—or because I hated my parents or didn’t appreciate my home and all the nice things we had. I stayed because of you!”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, just nodded and then looked away and ran her hands through her hair, revealing a streak of white concrete dust I hadn’t noticed before, which made her look suddenly older. “It’s my own fault,” she said finally. “I should never
have kissed you. Perhaps I made you believe something that wasn’t true.”

That stung me, and I recoiled instinctively, as if to protect myself. “Don’t say that to me if you don’t mean it,” I said. “I may not have a lot of dating experience, but don’t treat me like some pathetic loser who’s powerless in the face of a pretty girl. You didn’t
make
me stay. I stayed because I wanted to—and because what I feel for you is as real as anything I’ve ever felt.” I let that hang in the air between us for a moment, feeling the truth of it. “You feel it too,” I said. “I know you do.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, that was cruel, and I shouldn’t have said it.” Her eyes watered a little and she wiped at them with her hand. She had tried to make herself like stone, but now the facade was falling away. “You’re right,” she said. “I care about you very much. That’s why I can’t watch you throw your life away for nothing.”

“I
wouldn’t
be!”

“Dammit, Jacob, yes you would!” She was so incensed that she inadvertently lit a fire in her hand—which, luckily, she’d since removed from my knee. She clapped her hands together, snuffed the flame, and then stood up. Pointing into the ice, she said, “See that potted plant on the desk in there?”

I saw. Nodded.

“It’s green now, preserved by the ice. But inside it’s dead. And the moment that ice melts, it’ll turn brown and wither into mush.” She locked eyes with me. “I’m like that plant.”

“You aren’t,” I said. “You’re … perfect.”

Her face tightened into a expression of forced patience, as if she were explaining something to a thick-headed child. She sat down again, took my hand, and raised it to her smooth cheek. “This?” she said. “Is a lie. It’s not really me. If you could see me for what I really am, you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

“I don’t
care
about that stuff—”

“I’m an old woman!” she said. “You think we’re alike, but we aren’t. This person you say you love? She’s really a hag, an old crone hiding in a body of a girl. You’re a young man—a
boy
—a baby compared to me. You could never understand what it’s like, being this close to death all the time. And you shouldn’t. I never want you to. You’ve still got your whole life to look forward to, Jacob. I’ve already spent mine. And one day—soon, perhaps—I will die and return to dust.”

She said it with such cold finality that I knew she believed it. It hurt her to say these things, just as it hurt me to hear them, but I understood why she was doing it. She was, in her way, trying to save me.

It stung anyway—partly because I knew she was right. If Miss Peregrine recovered, then I would have done what I’d set out to do: solved the mystery of my grandfather; settled my family’s debts to Miss Peregrine; lived the extraordinary life I’d always dreamed of—or part of one, anyway. At which point my only remaining obligation was to my parents. As for Emma, I didn’t care at all that she was older than me, or different from me, but she’d made up her mind that I should and it seemed there was no convincing her otherwise.

“Maybe when this is all over,” she said, “I’ll send you a letter, and you’ll send one back. And maybe one day you can come see me again.”

A letter. I thought of the dusty box of them I’d found in her room, written by my grandfather. Was that all I’d be to her? An old man across the ocean? A memory? And I realized that I was about to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps in a way I’d never thought possible. In so many ways, I was living his life. And probably, one day, my guard would relax too much, I’d get old and slow and distracted, and I would die his death. And Emma would continue on without me, without either of us, and one day maybe someone would find
my
letters in her closet, in a box beside my grandfather’s, and wonder who we were to her.

“What if you need me?” I said. “What if the hollows come back?”

Tears shimmered in her eyes. “We’ll manage somehow,” she said. “Look, I can’t talk about this anymore. I honestly don’t think my heart can take it. Shall we go upstairs and tell the others your decision?”

I clenched my jaw, suddenly irritated by how hard she was pushing me. “I haven’t decided anything,” I said. “
You
have.”

“Jacob, I just told you—”

“Right, you
told
me. But
I
haven’t made up my mind yet.”

She crossed her arms. “Then I can wait.”

“No,” I said, and stood up. “I need to be by myself for a while.”

And I went up the stairs without her.

I
moved quietly through the halls. I stood outside the ymbryne meeting room for a while, listening to muffled voices through the door, but I didn’t go in. I peeked into the nurse’s room and saw her dozing on a stool between the single-souled peculiars. I cracked the door to Miss Wren’s room and saw her rocking Miss Peregrine in her lap, gently kneading her fingers into the bird’s feathers. I said nothing to anyone.

Wandering through empty halls and ransacked offices, I tried to imagine what home would feel like, if after all this I chose to go back. What I would tell my parents. I’d tell them nothing, most likely. They’d never believe me, anyway. I would say I’d gotten mad, written a letter to my father filled with crazy stories, then caught a boat to the mainland and run away. They’d call it a stress reaction. Chalk it up to some invented disorder and adjust my meds accordingly. Blame Dr. Golan for suggesting I go to Wales. Dr. Golan, whom of course they’d never hear from again. He’d skipped town, they’d say, because he was a fraud, a quack whom we never should’ve trusted. And I’d go back to being Jacob the poor, traumatized, mentally disturbed rich kid.

It sounded like a prison sentence. And yet, if my best reason for staying in peculiardom didn’t want me anymore, I wouldn’t debase myself by clinging to her. I had my pride.

How long could I stand Florida, now that I’d had a taste of this peculiar life? I was not nearly as ordinary as I used to be—or if it was true that I’d never been ordinary, now I knew it. I had changed. And that, at least, gave me some hope: that even under ordinary circumstances,
I still might find a way to live an extraordinary life.

Yes, it was best to go. It really was best. If this world was dying and there was nothing to be done for it, then what was left for me here? To run and hide until there was no safe place left to go, no loop to sustain my friends’ artificial youth. To watch them die. To hold Emma as she crumbled and broke apart in my arms.

That would kill me faster than any hollow could.

So yes, I would go. Salvage what was left of my old life. Goodbye, peculiars. Goodbye, peculiardom.

It was for the best.

I wandered until I came to a place where the rooms were only half frozen, and the ice had risen halfway to the ceiling like water in a sinking ship and then stopped, leaving the tops of desks and the heads of lamps sticking out like faltering swimmers. Beyond the iced windows the sun was sinking. Shadows bloomed across the walls and multiplied in the stairwells, and as the light died it got bluer, painting everything around me a deep-sea cobalt.

It occurred to me that this was probably my last night in peculiardom. My last night with the best friends I’d ever had. My last night with Emma.

Why was I spending it alone? Because I was sad, and Emma had hurt my pride, and I needed to sulk.

Enough of this.

Just as I turned to leave the room, though, I felt it: that old familiar twinge in my gut.

A hollow.

I stopped, waiting for another hit of pain. I needed more information. The intensity of the pain corresponded to the nearness of the hollow and the frequency of the hits with its strength. When two strong hollows had been chasing us, the Feeling had been one long, unbroken spasm, but now it was a long time before I felt another—nearly a minute—and when it came, it was so faint I wasn’t even sure I’d felt it.

I crept slowly out of the room and down the hall. As I passed the next doorway, I felt a third twinge: a little stronger now, but still only a whisper.

I tried to open the door carefully and quietly, but it was frozen shut. I had to yank on it, then rattle the door, then kick it, until finally it flew open to reveal a doorway and a room filled with ice that rose to mid-chest height. I approached the ice cautiously and peered across it, and even in the weak light, I saw the hollow right away. It was crouched on the floor, encased in ice up to its ink-black eyeballs. Only the top half of its head was exposed above the ice; the rest of it, the dangerous parts, its open jaws and all its teeth and tongues, were all caught below the surface.

The thing was just barely alive, its heart slowed almost to nothing, beating maybe once per minute. With each feeble pulse I felt a corresponding stitch of pain.

I stood at the mouth of the room and stared at it, fascinated and repulsed. It was unconscious, immobilized, totally vulnerable. It would’ve been easy to climb onto the ice and drive the point of an icicle into the hollow’s skull—and if anyone else had known it was here, I’m sure they would’ve done just that. But something stopped me. It was no threat to anyone now, this creature. Every hollow I’d come into contact with had left a mark on me. I saw their decaying faces in my dreams. Soon I’d be going home, where I’d no longer be Jacob the hollow-slayer. I didn’t want to take this one with me, too. It wasn’t my business anymore.