I sat down on the floor, then leaned back into the wall of coats and let them swallow me up. For a few long seconds I pretended none of this was happening, that I wasn’t here, that my entire world was woolen and black and smelled of mothballs. When I surfaced again to breathe, Emma was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside me.
“I don’t want this either,” she said. “But I think I understand why it has to be. You have your world to rebuild, and I have mine.”
“But it’s mine too, now,” I said.
“That’s true.” She thought for a moment, kneading her chin. “That’s true, and I very much hope you do come back, because you’ve become a part of us, and our family won’t feel whole without you. But when you do, I think you and I should just be friends.”
I thought about that for a moment. Friends. It sounded so pale and lifeless.
“I guess it’s better than never talking again.”
“I agree,” she said. “I don’t think I could bear that.”
I scooted next to her and put my arm around her waist. I thought she might pull away, but she didn’t. After a while, her head tipped onto my shoulder.
We sat like that for a long time.
* * *
When Emma and I finally emerged from the cloakroom, most everyone was asleep. The hearth in the library was burned down to embers, the platters overflowing with food reduced to scraps, the room’s high ceilings echoing with contented snores and murmurs. Kids and ymbrynes lay draped across couches and curled upon the rug, even though there were plenty of comfortable bedrooms upstairs. Having nearly lost one another, they weren’t about to let go again so soon, even if just for the night.
I would leave in the morning. Now that I knew what had to happen between Emma and me, a longer delay would only torment us. Right now, though, we needed sleep. How long had it been since we’d closed our eyes for more than a minute or two? I couldn’t remember feeling more exhausted.
We piled some cushions in a corner and fell asleep holding each other. It was our last night together, and I clung tight, my arms locked around her, as if by squeezing hard enough I could lock her into my sense memory. How she felt, how she smelled. The sound of her breathing as it slowed and evened. But sleep pulled me down hard, and it seemed I’d only just closed my eyes when suddenly I was squinting against glaring yellow daylight pouring in from a bank of high windows.
Everyone was awake and milling around the room, talking in whispers so as not to disturb us. We untangled ourselves in a hurry, self-conscious without the privacy of the dark. Before we’d had a chance to compose ourselves, in breezed Miss Peregrine with a pot of coffee and Nim with a tray of mugs. “Good morning, all! I trust you’re well-rested, because we’ve got lots of—”
Miss Peregrine saw us and stopped midsentence, her eyebrows rising.
Emma hid her face. “Oh, no.”
In the exhaustion and emotion of last night, it hadn’t occurred to me that sleeping in the same bed as Emma (even if sleeping is all we did) might offend Miss Peregrine’s Victorian sensibilities.
“Mr. Portman, a word.” Miss Peregrine set down the coffeepot and crooked a finger at me.
Guess I was taking the rap for this one. I stood up and smoothed my rumpled clothes, color rising in my cheeks. I wasn’t ashamed in the least, but it was hard not to feel a little embarrassed.
“Wish me luck,” I whispered to Emma.
“Admit nothing!” she whispered back.
I heard giggles as I crossed the room, and someone chanting, “Jacob and Emma, sittin’ in a tree … y-m-b-r-y-n-e!”
“Oh, grow up, Enoch,” said Bronwyn. “You’re just jealous.”
I followed Miss Peregrine into the hall.
“Nothing happened,” I said, “just so you know.”
“I’m sure I’m not interested,” she said. “You’re leaving us today, correct?”
“How did you know?”
“I may, strictly speaking, be an elderly woman, but I’ve still got my wits about me. I know you feel torn between your parents and us, your old home and your new one … or what’s left of it. You want to strike a balance without choosing sides, and without hurting any of the people you love. But it isn’t easy. Or even, necessarily, possible. Is that about the size of it?”
“It’s … yeah. That’s pretty much it.”
“And where have you left things with Miss Bloom?”
“We’re friends,” I said, testing the word uneasily.
“And you’re unhappy about it.”
“Well, yeah. But I understand … I think.”
She cocked her head. “Do you?”
“She’s protecting herself.”
“And you,” Miss Peregrine added.
“That I don’t get.”
“You’re very young, Jacob. There are many things you’re not likely to ‘get.’ ”
“I don’t see what my age has to do with it.”
“Everything!” She laughed, quick and sharp. And then she saw that I really didn’t understand, and she softened a bit. “Miss Bloom was born near the turn of the last century,” she said. “Her heart is old and steady. Perhaps you worry she’ll soon replace you—that some peculiar Romeo will turn her head. I wouldn’t count it likely. She’s fixed on you. I’ve never seen her as happy with anyone. Even Abe.”
“Really?” I said, a surge of warmth building in my chest.
“Really. But as we’ve established, you’re young. Only sixteen—sixteen for the first time. Your heart is just waking up, and Miss Bloom is your first love. Is she not?”