We ducked into a lantern-lit cloakroom cramped with coats, hats, and umbrellas. It was not a spacious or comfortable place, but it was at least private; somewhere we wouldn’t be walked in on or overheard. I felt suddenly and irrationally terrified. I had a difficult choice to make, one I had not fully grappled with until now.
We were silent for a moment, facing each other, the room so deadened by fabric that I thought I could hear the beating of our hearts.
“So,” Emma said, because of course she would start first. Emma, always direct, never afraid of an awkward moment. “Will you stay?”
I did not know what I would say until the words left my mouth. I was running on autopilot, no filter. “I have to see my parents.”
That was unquestionably true. They were hurting and frightened and didn’t deserve to be, and I had left them dangling too long.
“Of course,” Emma said. “I understand. Of course you do.”
A question hung in the air, unasked. See my parents had been a half-measure, a non-answer. See them, sure. And then what? What would I say to them?
I tried to imagine telling my parents the truth. In that regard, the phone conversation I’d had with my father in the Underground had been a preview of coming attractions. He’s lost it. Our son is insane. Or on drugs. Or maybe not on enough drugs.
No, the truth wouldn’t work. So, what? I would see them, assure them I was alive and well, make up a story about sightseeing in London, then tell them to go home without me? Ha. They would chase me. They’d have cops hiding in the bushes at our meeting place. Men in white coats with Jacob-sized nets. I’d have to run. Telling them the truth would only make things worse. Seeing them only to run away again would torture them more. But the idea of not seeing my parents at all, of never going home again—I couldn’t get my mind around it. Because, if I was really being honest with myself, as much as it hurt to think about leaving Emma and my friends and this world, part of me wanted to go home. My parents and their world represented a return to sanity and predictability, something I was longing for after all this madness. I needed to be normal for a while. To catch my breath. Just for a while.
I had repaid my debt to the peculiars and Miss Peregrine. I had become one of them. But I wasn’t only one of them. I was also my parents’ son, and as imperfect as they were, I missed them. I missed home. I even sort of missed my dumb, ordinary life. Of course, I would probably miss Emma more than any of those things. The problem was, I wanted too much. I wanted both lives. Dual citizenship. To be peculiar, and learn everything there was to learn about the peculiar world, and to be with Emma, and explore all the loops Bentham had catalogued in his Panloopticon. But also to do the stupid, ordinary things normal teenagers do, while I could still pass for one. Get my driver’s license. Make a friend my own age. Finish high school. Then I’d be eighteen, and I could go anywhere I wanted—or anywhen. I could come back.
Here was the truth, the root and bone of it: I couldn’t live the rest of my life in a time loop. I didn’t want to be a peculiar child forever. But one day, maybe, I could be a peculiar adult.
Maybe, if I was very careful, there was a way to have it all.
“I don’t want to go,” I said, “but I think I might need to, for a while.”
Emma’s expression flattened. “Then go,” she said.
I was stung. She hadn’t even asked what “a while” meant.
“I’ll come visit,” I said quickly. “I can come back anytime.”
Theoretically, this was true: now that the wight menace had been crushed, there would—bird willing—always be something to come back to. But it was hard to imagine my parents signing off on more trips to the U.K. anytime soon. I was lying to myself—to both of us—and Emma knew it.
“No,” she said. “I don’t want that.”
My heart dropped. “What?” I said quietly. “Why not?”
“Because that’s what Abe did. Every few years he’d come back. And every time he was older and I was the same. And then he met someone and got married …”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said. “I love you.”
“I know,” she said, turning away. “So did he.”
“But we’re not … it won’t be like that with us …” I grasped blindly for the right words, but my thoughts were a muddle.
“It would, though. You know I’d go with you if I could, but I can’t—I would age forward. So I’d just be waiting for you. Frozen in amber. I can’t do that again.”
“It wouldn’t be long! Just a couple of years. And then I could do what I wanted. I could go to college somewhere. Maybe here in London!”
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe. But now you’re making promises you might not be able to keep, and that’s how people in love get very badly hurt.”
My heart was racing. I felt desperate and pathetic. Screw it, I’d never see my parents again. Fine. But I couldn’t lose Emma.
“I wasn’t thinking straight,” I said. “I didn’t mean it. I’ll stay.”
“No, I think you were being honest,” she said. “I think if you stay you won’t be happy. And eventually you’ll come to resent me for it. And that would be worse.”
“No. No, I would never …”
But I’d shown my hand, and now it was too late to take it back.
“You should go,” she said. “You have a life and a family. This was never supposed to be forever.”