The Conference of the Birds Page 4

  “Nightmare?”

  “I was going to say dream.”

  She nodded, a small assent, and I felt a shared recognition flicker between us: of a darkness mutually understood, and of a thin, golden thread of wonder and hope that ran through the fabric of this new world. There is more, it said. There is more to the universe than you ever imagined.

  Then, in the corner of my vision, another kind of darkness appeared—and I felt a chill come over my whole body.

  “So, you’re alive.” A slithering whisper in my ear. “I must say, I’m pleased.”

  I turned to see a wall of black robes. It was Sharon, towering behind us. Noor pressed her back against the window, but her face betrayed no fear. Hugh and Bronwyn saw what was happening and slunk over to an informational stand about loop costuming, trying not to be noticed.

  “Are you going to introduce me to the young lady?” Sharon said.

  “Sharon, this is—”

  “I’m Noor,” said Noor, thrusting out her hand. “And you are?”

  “Just a humble boatman. How very nice to meet you.” A gleaming grin appeared within the black tunnel of his hood, and his long white fingers wrapped around Noor’s soft brown ones. I saw her try to suppress a shudder. He retracted his hand and turned to me. “You missed our meeting. I was very disappointed.”

  “I got busy,” I said. “Can we talk about this later?”

  “Of course,” he said with exaggerated subservience. “Please, don’t let me keep you.”

  We slipped away from him. Bronwyn and Hugh were waiting by the stairwell. “What did he want?” asked Hugh.

  “I have no idea,” I lied. And we hurried down the stairs.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  The streets of Devil’s Acre were packed with peculiars, and on that particular afternoon the strange and sometimes alarming contrasts that defined the place were on full display. We passed an ymbryne teaching a group of young peculiars how to repair a ruined building using their peculiar talents. There was a redheaded boy levitating a stack of lumber with his mind, and two girls were reducing a pile of jagged rubble to gravel, very slowly, by grinding down the boulders with their teeth. We passed Sharon’s cousins, too—the singing, hammer-swinging gallows riggers were leading a chain gang of miserable wight prisoners in leg shackles, followed by an ymbryne and a contingent, ten strong, of peculiars assigned to guard duty.

  Noor turned to watch as they passed, singing at full volume.

  “The night before the thief was stretched,

  the hangman came around

  I’ve come, he said, before you’re dead,

  a warning to expound . . .”

  “Are they . . . ?”

  “They are,” I answered.

  “And everyone here is . . .”

  I met her eyes. “Yep. Just like us.”

  She shook her head in awe, and then her eyes widened and her chin rose, and I turned to see an extraordinarily tall man wobbling down the cobblestones toward us. He was fifteen feet high at least, and the top hat he wore added another foot or two. I couldn’t have reached even the pocket of his tent-sized floral trousers if I’d reached my arms up and jumped.

  Hugh hailed him as he passed. “Hullo, Javier, how goes the production?”

  The tall man stopped too quickly and had to pinwheel his arms and steady himself against the roof of a building to keep from toppling over. Then he bent to look at Hugh. “Sorry, didn’t see you down there,” he boomed. “The production’s hit a snag, unfortunately. Some cast members have been called away on loop-rehabilitation assignments, so we’re restaging The Grass Menagerie, instead. They’re over in the Green rehearsing right now . . .”

  He gestured with his comparatively normal-length arm to a pocket of muddy grass across the street (the closest thing the Acre had to a park), where a troupe of Miss Grackle’s student actors were tottering around in grotesque animal costumes, practicing their lines.

  Noor gaped at them as we walked on, engrossed in the strange sight until Hugh kicked the stones and muttered to himself, “Too bad! I was looking forward to coaching the actor who plays me.”

  Noor turned, a half smile forming on her lips. “They’re doing a play about you?”

  I felt the heat of embarrassment start creeping up my neck. “Uh, yeah, one of the ymbrynes has a theater troupe . . . it’s no big deal . . .”

  I waved my hand dismissively and peered ahead, hoping to find a quick way to distract her and change the subject.

  “Oh, don’t be modest,” said Hugh. “It’s a whole play about how Jacob helped save us from the wights and banish Caul to an interdimensional hell.”

  “It’s a big honor!” said Bronwyn, grinning broadly. “Jacob’s really famous around here—”

  “Whoa, check that out!” I shouted, hoping Noor hadn’t heard that last bit. I pivoted and pointed at a small crowd of people in nearby Pye Square, where it looked like two peculiars were competing at something.

  “It’s a doorlifter contest!” Bronwyn said, successfully distracted. “I’ve been meaning to enter, but I need to train a bit first—”

  “Let’s not dawdle,” said Hugh, but Bronwyn slowed to stare as we passed by, as did the rest of us.

  There were a dozen people standing on a door that was laid across a pair of sawhorses, and a strapping young guy was facing off against a distinctly un-muscular older lady with a face mean enough to freeze water.

  “That’s Sandina,” Bronwyn said. “She’s amazing.”

  The small crowd was chanting her name now—“Sandina! Sandina!” The lady knelt below the door, planted her broad shoulders against it, and then rose slowly to her feet, groaning, the dozen people atop her swaying and cheering.

  Bronwyn was cheering, too, and even Noor let out a little whoop, her face all surprise and wonder.

  Wonder. Not horror. Not revulsion. And I started to think she might just fit in here.

  I suddenly realized I didn’t know where we were heading. Bronwyn and Hugh had said something about our “house,” but last I’d checked, our friends were living in the rambling dormitories that occupied the ground level of the Panloopticon. When we started to cross a ramshackle footbridge over Fever Ditch, I finally asked where we were going.

  “Miss P moved us out of Bentham’s house while you were at the bone-mender’s,” Hugh explained, “away from nosy folk and their prying ears. Watch out for this board, it’s loose!”

  He hopped over a plank that fell away and splashed into the black water below. Noor stepped over it easily, but it took me a head-swimming moment to stretch out my leg and force myself over the gap.

  We reached the other side, then walked parallel along the banks of the Ditch until we came to a rickety old house. Its design seemed to defy the laws of gravity and architecture: It was narrower by half at the bottom level than it was at the top, as if the house were standing on its head, and the second and third floors, which had expanded to reach out over empty space, were supported by a forest of spindly wooden stilts and crutches that stretched down to the ground. It was also humbler at the bottom, more or less a shack, while the second floor had big windows and carved columns and the third had a kind of half-built arched dome atop it—all of it hanging at unstraight angles and stained by time and neglect.

  “It ain’t the fanciest habitation,” Bronwyn admitted, “but at least it’s ours!”

  And then I heard a high, familiar voice say my name, and I craned my neck to see Olive float out from behind a cupola on the roof. She was carrying a bucket and a rag and had a taut rope tied around her waist.

  “Jacob!” she cried. “It’s Jacob!”

  She waved excitedly and I waved back, thrilled to see her and relieved for the kind greeting.

  In her excitement Olive dropped the bucket she’d been holding, which landed on a part of the
roof I couldn’t see and elicited a shout of surprise from somebody else, though I couldn’t tell who it was. Then the front door before us burst open so hard one of its hinges flew off with a ping!

  Emma came racing out.

  “Look who we found!” Bronwyn announced.

  Emma stopped a few feet short of where I was standing and looked me up and down. She had on heavy black boots and rough blue work clothes. Her cheeks were apple red beneath a coating of grime, and she was puffing as if she’d just run down several flights of stairs. And she looked wild, her face a complicated blend of emotions: anger and joy and hurt and relief.

  “I don’t know whether to slap you or hug you!”

  I broke into a grin. “Let’s start with a hug?”

  “You complete ass, you scared the life out of us!”

  She ran forward and threw her arms around my neck.

  “I did?” I said, playing innocent.

  “One minute you’re injured in bed and the next you’re gone without a word to any of us? Of course you did!”

  I sighed and told her I was sorry.

  “Me too,” she whispered, burying her forehead in my neck, then yanking it suddenly away again a moment later, as if she’d remembered she couldn’t do that anymore.

  Before I could ask what she was sorry for, I felt a jolt as another body collided with us. I looked down to see the arms of a purple-velvet smoking jacket wrapped around me.

  “Wonderful, wonderful that you’ve returned to us alive and well,” Millard was saying, “but may we have our reunion somewhere other than a public street?”

  And he began shoving us toward the house. Tumbling through the tilting door, I glanced over my shoulder to find Noor, but saw only Bronwyn’s and Hugh’s beaming smiles. And then I was being led into a cozy, low-ceilinged living room-kitchen-stable (judging by the chickens clucking in one corner and the hay scattered around), and my friends were rushing into the room, one after another. Suddenly, I was being attacked by hugs and there was a loud, happy hubbub, everyone all talking at once.

  “Jacob, Jacob, you’re back!” cried Olive, stomping down a creaking staircase as fast as her lead shoes would allow.

  “And you’re alive!” shouted Horace, jumping and waving a tall silk hat.

  “Of course I am!” I said. “It’s not like I was going to get myself killed.”

  “You couldn’t know that!” said Horace. “And neither could I, distressingly—I’ve had no dreams at all lately.”

  “America is a dreadful, dangerous place,” said Millard, still glued to my side. “What were you thinking, going off like that without a word?”

  “He didn’t think we’d care!” said Bronwyn with incredulous flair.

  Emma tossed her hands up. “Oh, for bird’s sake, Jacob, do you even know us at all?”

  “I’d already gotten you in so much trouble with the ymbrynes,” I tried to explain, “and then there were all the things we said . . .”

  “I honestly can’t even remember.”

  Neither could I, come to think of it. Only how I’d felt afterward: hurt and angry that they had sided with Miss Peregrine over me.

  “People say things when they’re upset,” Hugh snapped. “It doesn’t mean they don’t care if you live or die.”

  “We’re family,” Olive said, looking up at me sternly, hands on her hips. “Don’t you know that?”

  Something about her little face screwed up into a frown made my insides melt a little.

  “Wah-wah-wahhh, my friends were mean to me!” whined Enoch, plodding down the stairs with a sloshing pail of water. “I’ll play hero by myself and get into so much trouble I need rescuing! That’ll show them!”

  “Nice to see you, too.”

  “That goes for one of us. Thanks to you, we’ve been shoveling flaming manure and unclogging sewer drains for two days.” He shouldered past me and flung the wet and chunky contents of the pail out into the street, then wiped his dirty brow with the back of his even dirtier hand. “They might be in a forgiving mood, but you owe me, Portman.”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  He put out his hand. It dripped.

  “Welcome back.”

  I pretended not to notice the filth and shook it. “Thanks.”

  “How’d the girl-saving go, anyhow? Complete failure, I assume, judging by the fact that she’s nowhere to be seen—”

  I turned around to look, alarmed. “Noor?”

  “She was just here!” said Bronwyn.

  I started to panic, then heard her voice—“Over here!”—and I turned to see Noor emerge from a patch of darkness that hadn’t been there when we came in, a faint glow rolling slowly down her throat.

  I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

  “Impressive,” said Millard.

  “You don’t have to hide,” said Olive. “We don’t bite.”

  “I wasn’t,” said Noor. “You guys seemed like you needed a moment to yourselves, that’s all.”

  I went over to her, feeling guilty that I hadn’t introduced her yet.

  “Some of you have already met her, but for those who haven’t—everybody, this is Noor Pradesh. Noor, this is everybody.”

  Noor gave a general wave to the room. “Hey, everybody.”

  As my friends gathered around to greet her, she seemed remarkably calm. A totally different person from the one who had nearly refused to go in the Untouchables’ morgue drawer.

  “Welcome to Devil’s Acre,” Horace said, offering a prim handshake. “Hopefully you don’t find it too disgusting.”

  “It’s pretty astounding, so far,” said Noor.

  “I hope you’ll stay here with us,” said Hugh. “After all you’ve been through, you deserve a rest.”

  “It’s nice to finally meet you in person,” said Olive. “The others have talked so much about you. Well, shouted about you, mostly . . .”

  I patted Olive’s shoulder and moved her along. “Okay, Olive, thank you.”

  Emma swooped in and gave Noor a hug, which looked a bit forced. “Don’t take what we said before to mean we’re not happy to have you. We are.”

  “Hear, hear!” said Millard.

  Enoch wiped his hand on his trousers before extending it to Noor. “Pleasure to see you again. I’m glad Jacob didn’t screw this up—worse than he did, anyway.”

  “He was great,” Noor said. “He and the old man were . . .” She winced, remembering.

  “What happened?” said Emma.

  Noor looked quickly at me, then back at Emma. Her voice went gravelly as she said, “He died.”

  “H broke Noor out of Leo’s loop,” I said. “He was shot, but hung on until he got Noor back to his place. That’s where I found them.”

  I felt callous saying it so quickly and matter-of-factly, but there it was.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Millard. “I never met him, but any compatriot of Abe’s was doubtless a good man.”

  “My God,” Emma said. “Poor H.” She was the only other one of us who had met him, and the mournful look she gave me said we’ll talk later.

  “I owe him my freedom,” Noor said quietly. And it seemed there was nothing more to say.

  There was a brief, awkward moment of quiet, which Millard broke by saying to Noor, “In any case, I’m very glad you’re not in the hands of that awful Leo Burnham anymore.”

  “Me too,” said Noor. “That guy was . . .” She shook her head slowly, unable to find just the right words.

  “They didn’t hurt you, did they?” asked Bronwyn.

  “No. They asked me lots of questions and told me I was going to be in their army and then put me in a locked room for two days, but they didn’t hurt me.”

  “Thank God for that, at least,” I said.

  Then a small voi
ce asked, “Was it worth it, Jacob? Risking so much for her?”

  I turned to see Claire glaring at me from the doorway, her sour expression a sharp contrast to the yellow rubber boots and hat she wore.

  “Claire, that’s rude,” said Olive.

  “No, Jacob was rude when he disobeyed Miss Peregrine even though it might’ve meant a war breaking out that the ymbrynes have been trying very hard to prevent!”

  “Well, did it?” I said.

  “Did it what?”

  “Start a war?”

  Claire clenched her fists and made the angriest face she could. “That’s not the point.”

  “Your and H’s actions did not, as a matter of fact, spark a war.” Miss Peregrine, striking in an angular black dress and upswept hair, had appeared on the landing of the stairs. “Not yet, at any rate—though you may have brought us to the brink of one.”

  The headmistress wafted down the steps and made a beeline for Noor. “So you’re the famous Miss Pradesh,” she said evenly. She dashed out her hand and shook Noor’s once, quickly. “My name is Alma Peregrine, and I’m headmistress to these sometimes intractable children.”

  Noor gave a crooked half smile, as if she found Miss Peregrine vaguely amusing. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “Jacob didn’t mention anything about a war.”

  “No.” Miss Peregrine turned to face me. “I don’t imagine he did.”

  I felt my face go hot. “I know you must be angry, Miss P, but helping Noor was something I had to do.”

  I felt Noor’s eyes on me, and everyone else’s, but I didn’t look away from the ymbryne. Miss Peregrine held my gaze a moment longer, then turned abruptly, walked to a door, and opened it to reveal a small sitting room.

  “Mr. Portman, you and I have a few things to discuss. Miss Pradesh, you’ve had an exhausting few days. I’m sure you’d appreciate a chance to rest and freshen up. Bronwyn, Emma, please help our guest get settled.”

  Noor gave me a questioning look—a kind of what the hell is going on?—and I replied with a quick shake of my head that I hoped said everything’s fine, and then Miss Peregrine shuttled me into the room and closed the door.