That brought me solidly back to reality. Right now we were hunting the wights, but if they ever realized it, they’d start hunting us right back. The idea jogged loose a question that had been burning in my mind earlier, but which I hadn’t been able to ask in front of the Americans:

  “Miss P, how did you find the place where the hollow residue started?”

  Emma’s head snapped toward me. “What’s that?”

  “There wasn’t any residue in the tent,” I said. “I made that up. The real trail started a thousand feet away—and somehow Miss P led me right to it.” I looked at her expectantly.

  She returned a sphinxlike smile. “As we inspected the scene, I realized the wights themselves never entered the Marrowbone loop. They sent their hollowgast instead—along with someone else. Someone who wouldn’t attract much attention. That was the person who snuck into the girl’s tent and kidnapped her, dragging her to the spot where the hollowgast had apparently been waiting—where you discovered its residue trail.”

  “But how did you track that person?”

  “Ymbrynely intuition,” she said.

  Enoch groaned. “Oh, come on.”

  “All right, then. I noticed light-but-unusual boot prints leading in and out of the torn tent-back—a tread pattern made by a high-traction sole, not the smooth-soled cowboy boots favored by the Californios or the moccasins most Northerners wear. It led out along the tree line.”

  “You never cease to amaze, miss,” Emma said.

  “So who’s this other person?” asked Enoch.

  “Based on the shoe size and, well, ymbrynely intuition, I suspect it’s a girl of about the same physical age and build as Ellery. Just follow the hollowgast’s scent and sense trail. These wights don’t travel anywhere without hollows, and I doubt they’ll suspect they’re being tracked that way. You have the advantage—for now, at least.”

  “It’s only an advantage if they always travel on foot,” I said. “If they got into a car . . .”

  I’d been expecting the trail to dry up at any moment—to dead-end at a parking lot and an empty parking space.

  “Stuffed into a car with a hollowgast,” Enoch said. “What a disgusting scenario.”

  “Disgusting or not, there’s no way I could track that. There wouldn’t be any residue droplets to follow, and the scent trail would be way too faint.” I sighed. “My tracking ability just isn’t that developed.”

  Miss Peregrine raised an eyebrow at me. “I think you might surprise yourself, Mr. Portman. Look where you’ve led us.”

  I looked up. The trail was headed straight for a bus station.

  “Are you kidding?” Emma said. “They took a hollowgast on a bus?”

  “No way,” I said.

  We went inside. The waiting area was depressing and gray, and probably hadn’t been cleaned since the 1970s. Bums occupied the corners; everyone else looked haggard and pissed off as they waited. I followed a light trail of hollow residue to the bus boarding area, where it suddenly disappeared.

  Unbelievable—they had caught a bus.

  I ran back to find my friends, and there was Emma, running toward me, eyes wide. “Somebody recognized one of them!” she said, waving the wights’ mugshots at me, then grabbing my arm to pull me over to the ticket window.

  “Yeah, I saw them,” said the man behind the counter, bored. “Couple hours ago. They left on the five o’clock to Cleveland.”

  He returned his attention to a basketball game he was watching on his phone.

  Miss Peregrine rapped on the window. “How many stops does that bus make between here and Cleveland?”

  He sighed. Fished a paper out of a drawer and slapped it on the counter. “Here’s the schedule.”

  She looked at it. “Five stops,” she said. “In a journey of about one thousand miles.” She rapped on the window again. “When does the next bus to Cleveland leave?”

  “Forty-five minutes,” he said without looking up.

  She turned to me with a self-satisfied smile. “See, Mr. Portman? Just when you were about to lose hope.”

  “We’ll stop at all the same stops they did,” Emma said, “and you can check for hollow goo . . .” She was rubbing her hands together, getting excited just like she did whenever a plan came together, or an impossible problem began to seem solvable. It was one of the things I loved about her, and always would.

  Enoch groaned again. “And here I was hoping we might spend tonight in our own beds.”

  “You still can,” I said. “No one’s making you come.”

  “He’s coming,” Emma said. “He just can’t pass up a chance to complain.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  We found a deserted section of the waiting area and sat on a bench, a broken coin-operated TV bolted to the arm. My head felt like it weighed a million pounds, it was so full. I was vibrating with stress, but I also could’ve fallen asleep on the metal bench if I just lay down. Everything in our world was unsettled and breaking apart, and yet Emma and Enoch were joking about something they’d seen the normals in town wearing, and Miss Peregrine’s expression was completely placid as she looked around, thinking whatever she was thinking. Maybe they were so used to living under the looming threat of multiple catastrophes that it didn’t affect them much anymore—but I couldn’t take it.

  “Why are you guys so sure I can do this?” I said, struggling to hide my frustration.

  “Because you’re Jacob.” Emma shrugged.

  “I never said you could do it,” Enoch said. “But it sounded more interesting than bookmarking atlases with Millard all day.”

  I turned to Miss Peregrine, our rock of sanity and wisdom. “What happens if I lose the trail and can’t find them? What happens if we can’t get the girl back?”

  Tell me it won’t be so bad. Tell me the world won’t end if I fail at this.

  “What will happen?” She sighed. “The Americans could lose faith in us, pull out of the conference, and go back to fighting one another. Or they may go to war right away, no matter what we do.”

  She said it so casually, my jaw almost dropped.

  “Miss P, pardon me for saying so, but you don’t sound like you care all that much,” said Emma.

  “I care a great deal,” she replied, “and the other ymbrynes and I will do our level best to keep the negotiations afloat no matter what happens. But there’s only so much we can control. The Americans have to want peace. We can’t force that. And even if we forge an airtight peace accord, it’s always possible that it could fall apart one day.”

  “Then why send us to do this?” said Enoch. “If it might not matter anyway, why bother rescuing this girl?”

  Her placid expression vanished, and her eyes narrowed. “Because it’s not the girl I care about,” she said. “It’s the wights.”

  Now Emma looked shocked. Miss Peregrine didn’t usually speak so bluntly. But it seemed she had decided to treat us like adults. “This kidnapping wasn’t a random act. I don’t buy Miss Wren’s theory—I think this abduction was about more than causing chaos and sabotaging the peace.”

  “Then what was it about?” I said.

  “Follow the wights,” she said. “Observe them. And we may yet find out.”

  “And the girl?” Enoch said.

  “Get her back if you can. But don’t take unnecessary risks. I could abide any number of personal failures, but I could not abide losing any of you.”

  “And what will you be doing while we’re on this dangerous mission?” Enoch asked.

  “I’ll be watching.”

  Emma looked surprised. “You’re not coming with us?”

  “Not exactly,” Miss Peregrine replied. “But I’ll never be far away. Oh—and I want you to bring Hugh along.”

  Enoch cocked his head. “That’s a bit random.”

  “Can he be here in half an hour?” I said, glancing at a wall clock.

  “Should be here any minute,” said Miss Peregrine. “I sent for him some time ago.”

  And just then Hugh walked into the building, escorted by Ulysses Critchley, and waved to us, grinning, from across the ticket hall.

  “Why Hugh?” Enoch said under his breath. “If you thought we needed backup, why not—I dunno—Bronwyn?”

  “Because he is capable and selfless,” said Miss Peregrine. “And frankly, he needs a bit of adventure to take his mind off Fiona.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. The poor guy spent every unoccupied moment worrying himself to death.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  The bus company’s name and logo had been borrowed from a character in children’s literature (he could fly, befriended fairies, and lived on an island where no one aged), and the cartoon image of him that was emblazoned on the bus, smiling in a jaunty feathered cap, clashed hilariously with the desperately gritty station.

  Before I could follow my friends aboard, Miss Peregrine pulled me aside to speak to me alone.

  “You’ve had dreams about him, haven’t you. My brother.”

  I forgot, for a moment, to breathe.

  “Yes.”

  “But they seemed like more than just dreams,” she said. “Like he was inside your head.”

  I was nodding like a robot. “Yes. Yes.”

  “I’ve had them, too.”

  “Really?”

  “He may be trying to reach out to us via our dreams. To torment us. The two people he hates the most in the world—who he blames for his downfall. But believe me, Jacob. Taunting us with visions is all he can do.”

  “Are you sure?” I said. “What if they’re trying to bring him back?”

  She shook her head firmly. “It’s impossible. He’s stuck down a very deep hole, and he’s stuck there forever. That I promise you.”

  “But that won’t necessarily stop them from trying,” I said. “Do you think that’s what they’re doing? Trying to bring back Caul?”

  “Please keep your voice down,” she said, glancing around. “And don’t let your imagination run away with you. Remember, Bob the Revelator also predicted many things that never came to pass. So let us just focus on the task before us, and don’t make too much of this. And please, don’t tell the others.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “But the next time he appears to you in a dream—tell me.”

  The bus started its engine. My friends were waving to me from the windows.

  And then I ran onto the bus.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “I brought some gifties,” said Hugh, digging into a small bag in his lap. We’d only been riding the bus for a few minutes and Enoch was already asleep, but now he roused himself. Emma and I leaned over our seats to look across the aisle. “When everyone found out I was coming, they gave me things to bring to you. Claire packed us stew-meat sandwiches.” He pulled out several, wrapped in brown paper, and distributed them. “Spare underwear and socks, courtesy of Bronwyn. Oh, this is good—two peculiar sheep’s wool sweaters from Horace.”

  “Yes!” said Enoch. “I was wondering what became of those.”

  “They got a bit moth-eaten, but Horace has been repairing them in his spare time.”

  “They can stop bullets, but not moths?” Emma said.

  “Devil’s Acre moths can eat through metal,” Hugh explained.

  “And flesh, I hear,” said Enoch. “Wonderful species.”

  Hugh held up a dog-eared book. “Olive’s copy of Peculiar Planet: North America.” He shook it and a map fell out from between the pages. “And Millard tucked in a recent map of American loops.”

  “And this one’s for you,” he said, and handed me a small box.

  “Who from?” I asked.

  He winked. “Guess.”

  There was a note on the top of it written in a neat, looping hand. It read:

  The sunset you missed.

  I opened it. A stream of amber light floated up and out of it, glistening and sparkling like dust motes caught in a sunbeam. They circled around me so that it was all I could see for a moment, before fading away. I was left with a pleasant tingling in my face.

  “Wow,” said Hugh. “That was beautiful.”

  “It actually was,” said Enoch.

  “Someone might have seen that,” Emma said grumpily. But the other dozen or so passengers on the bus were staring at their phones or looking out the windows, and no one had.

  “Don’t be jealous,” Enoch teased her. “It doesn’t suit you.”

  “What? I’m n-not . . . ,” she stuttered, frowning. “Oh, shut up.”

  She got up and went to sit in a different seat.

  “Don’t mind her,” Enoch said. “She takes a long time to get over things. She moaned about Abe for half a century.”

  “Let me see that loop map,” I said, anxious to change the subject.

  I squeezed into Enoch and Hugh’s seat and we opened it across our laps, and pretty soon we were absorbed in the strangeness of it.

  I’d seen loop maps written in gold calligraphy, in leather-bound atlases that weighed a ton. I’d seen them scrawled on restaurant placemats, traced over other maps, routes drawn with pushpins and yarn. But I had never seen anything like this one. It was a real map, and a modern one, like something you’d buy at a gas station on a road trip. Strangest of all, there were ads running down the sides. Ads for loops. They sounded like truck stops: gas, food, lodging . . . with a few peculiar perks.

  Hot meals at all hours, read one. Hotel-style accommodations.

  Another boasted: Disaster-free loop day! Perfect weather, peaceful normals. Experience our hospitality!

  And another: Armed peacekeepers ensure a relaxing stay.

  One even had a coupon: Clip for a 10% discount!

  “What kind of bizarre country is this?” asked Hugh.

  “One without ymbrynes,” said Enoch.

  Peculiardom was many things, but it had never struck me as particularly capitalistic. American peculiardom was a different animal from what I’d come to know in Europe. That had already been made obvious to me in a hundred ways since I’d first met H a few weeks earlier, but the realization kept hitting me.

  “A hotel-style loop,” Enoch said sleepily. “Sounds like heaven.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” I said. “I don’t think these wights are interested in creature comforts.”

  “Well, they’ll have to stop somewhere,” Enoch said. “The kidnapped girl is loop-trapped. She’ll age forward if they don’t.”

  “You’re assuming they need to keep her alive,” Hugh said.

  “They went to a lot of trouble to snatch her,” said Enoch. “I’m sure their intention wasn’t just to let her wither into a pile of dusty bones.”

  We rolled on. The sun began to sink. Enoch and Hugh joked around, messing with the other passengers using one of Hugh’s bees. I could tell Enoch was doing his best to keep Hugh’s spirits up, and it made me like Enoch a little more. He was sweet-natured despite his best efforts to be a jerk all the time.

  I went back to my seat and fell asleep with one of Horace’s sweaters balled between my head and the window. It was an uneasy sleep full of uneasy dreams I couldn’t remember.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  I woke with a start. Someone had sat down next to me.

  It was Emma.

  Her hands were knotted in her lap and she looked tense. She checked over her shoulder to make sure Enoch and Hugh weren’t listening to us. When she saw they were sleeping, she spoke.

  “We need to talk about it,” she said. “What happened between us.”

  That woke me up quick.

  “Oh,” I said, rubbing my face. “Okay. But I thought we had sort of . . .”

  Agreed not to talk about it.

  “I’ve been trying not to think about it,” she said. “Tried ignoring it, pretending it isn’t there. Pretending that we were only ever just friends. But it’s not working.”

  “That’s pretty obvious,” I said.

  Every time someone mentions Noor, you go dark.

  “I just need to say I’m sorry one more time. I’m sorry for what I did. I shouldn’t have called him.”

  A surge of complicated emotions rose in my chest. It sounded so small when she said it. I had ended things with her because of a phone call. Part of me still wondered if I had overreacted. If I had broken her heart over something petty.

  “Had you been doing that a lot?” I asked her. “Calling Abe?”

  “No. Only that one time, from the road. And that was just to say goodbye.”

  I didn’t know if I believed her. Or if I cared. Suddenly, the way I’d felt that day flooded back; the sad certainty that she’d never really been mine, and never would be. That I had fooled myself because I loved the idea that someone like Emma could love me.

  “In a way, I’m glad you did it,” I said. “It made me face something I hadn’t wanted to look at head-on.”

  “What’s that?” she asked timidly.

  “You said it yourself a few days ago. I’m not Abe, and I’m never going to be.”

  “Oh, Jacob. I’m sorry I said that. I was angry.”

  “I know. And that’s why you let yourself be so honest. Because the truth is, you still love him.”

  She was quiet. And that was her answer.

  It was simple.

  She had been unable to stop herself from falling for me because I reminded her so much of him. And I hadn’t broken her heart, because she had never really given it to me in the first place.

  “I don’t want you to hate me,” she said.

  She lowered her head. She looked so young in that moment, in that light. I felt sorry for her.