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As Alma and Mariana walked through the hall, the blonde woman said that she will quickly check on Emma and join Alma in kitchen in few minutes. 

Mariana sofly knocked on Emma's door. She could hear sniffling from behind. ''Who's there?'' Emma asked. 

''It's just me, dear. May I come in?'' Mariana questioned. 

''Mhm,'' she faintly heard. Mariana entered Emma's room. 

She saw Emma sitting on the floor with photographs and letters in her hand and all around her. The photographs she took while Abraham was still in the loop and all letters they used to send to each other when he left. The Ymbryne closed the door behind her and quietly walked to the poor girl. Both of them didn't say anything. Miss Gyrfalcon sat next to Emma and embraced the girl while she mourned. 

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The dinner had a peculiar atmosphere even for peculiars. Probably because of the secret a few members of the house shared. 

When Jacob came into the dining room, the kids, who'd been clamoring noisily for seats around the long table, froze and stared at him. Miss Peregrine, already seated at the head of the table, stood up and used the sudden quiet as an opportunity to introduce him. Miss Gyrfalcon, who sat on the other head of the table, send him an encouraging smile

''For those of you who haven't already had the pleasure of meeting him," she announced, "this is Abraham's grandson, Jacob. He is our honored guest and has come a very long way to be here. I hope you will treat him accordingly.'' Then she pointed to each person in the room and recited their names. The introductions were followed by a barrage of questions, which Miss Peregrine with Miss Gyrfalcon batted away with rapid-fire efficiency.

''Is Jacob going to stay with us?'' 

"Not to my knowledge." 

"Where's Abe?"

 "Abe is busy in America." 

"Why does Jacob got Victor's trousers on?"

 "Victor doesn't need them anymore, and Mr. Portman's are being washed." 

"What's Abe doing in America?"

At this question Emma, who had been glowering in a corner, rise from her chair and stalk out of the room. As she walked she look at Miss Gyrfalcon and shook her head in gesture that she doesn't have to worry. The others, used to her volatile moods, paid no attention.

"Never mind what Abe's doing," Miss Peregrine snapped.

"When's he coming back?"

"Never mind that, too. Now let's eat!" Everyone stampeded to their seats. Jacob went to sit on an occupainted chair. 

"Excuse me!" cried Millard. But Miss Peregrine made him give it up anyway, sending him out to put on clothes. "How many times must I tell you," she called after him, "polite persons do not take their supper in the nude!"

Kids with kitchen duty appeared bearing trays of food, all covered with gleaming silver tops so that you couldn't see what was inside, sparking wild speculation about what might be for dinner. 

"Otters Wellington!" one boy cried. 

"Salted kitten and shrew's liver!" another said, to which the younger children responded with gagging sounds. But when the covers were finally lifted, a feast of kingly proportions was revealed: a roasted goose, its flesh a perfect golden brown; a whole salmon and a whole cod, each outfitted with lemons and fresh dill and pats of melting butter; a bowl of steamed mussels; platters of roasted vegetables; loaves of bread still cooling from the oven; and all manner of jellies and sauces. It all glowed invitingly in the flicker of gaslight lamps

Jacob looked around the table and observed the children. Olive the levitating girl had to be belted into a chair screwed to the floor so that she wouldn't float up to the ceiling. So the rest of them wouldn't be plagued by insects, Hugh, the boy who had bees living in his stomach, ate under a large mosquito net at a table for one in the corner. Claire, a doll-like girl with immaculate golden curls, sat next to Miss Peregrine but ate not a morsel.

"Aren't you hungry?" Jacob asked her. "Claire don't eat with the rest of us," Hugh volunteered, a bee escaping from his mouth. 

"She's embarrassed."

 "I am not!" she said, glaring at him. 

"Yeah? Then eat something!" 

"No one here is embarrassed of their gift," Miss Gyrfalcon said. "Claire simply prefers to dine alone. Isn't that right, Claire?" The girl stared at the empty place before her, clearly wishing that all the attention would vanish.

 "Claire has a backmouth," explained Millard, who sat beside Jacob now in a smoking jacket (and nothing else). "A what?"

 "Go on, show him!" someone said. Soon everyone at the table was pressuring Claire to eat something. And finally, just to shut them up, she did.

A leg of goose was set before her. She turned around in her chair, and gripping its arms she bent over backward, dipping the back of her head to the plate. A distinct smacking sound could be hear, and when she lifted her head again a giant bite had disappeared from the goose leg. Beneath her golden hair was a set of sharp-toothed jaws. Claire turned forward and crossed her arms, annoyed that she'd let herself be talked into such a humiliating demonstration. She sat in silence while the others peppered Jacob with questions. After Miss Peregrine had dismissed a few more about Abe, the children turned to other subjects. 

They seemed especially interested in what life in the twenty-first century was like. "What sort of flying motorcars do you have?" asked a pubescent boy named Horace, who wore a dark suit that made him look like an apprentice undertaker. "None," Jacob said. "Not yet, anyway." 

"Have they built cities on the moon?" another boy asked hopefully."We left some garbage and a flag there in the sixties, but that's about it."

 "Does Britain still rule the world?"

 "Uh ... not exactly." They were disappointed. Sensing an opportunity, Miss Peregrine said, "You see, children? The future isn't so grand after all. Nothing wrong with the good old here and now!"

"Do you mind if I ask how old you all are?" Jacob said. "I'm eighty-three," said Horace. Olive raised her hand excitedly. "I'll be seventy-five and a half next week!" 

"I'm either one hundred seventeen or one hundred eighteen," said a heavy-lidded boy named Enoch. He looked no more than thirteen. "I lived in another loop before this one," he explained. 

"I'm nearly eighty-seven," said Millard with his mouth full of goose drippings, and as he spoke a half-chewed mass quavered in his invisible jaw for all to see. There were groans as people covered their eyes and looked away. Then it was Jacob turn.

 ''I'm sixteen.'' he told them. A few kids' eyes widen. Olive laughed in surprise. A sudden boom sounded from outside, the second one this evening, but louder and closer than the first, rattling silverware and plates. 

"Hurry up and finish, everyone!" Miss Gyrfalcon sang out, and no sooner had she said it than another concussion jolted the house, throwing a framed picture off the wall behind Jacob. "What is that?" Jacob said. 

"It's those damned Jerries again!" growled Olive, thumping her little fist on the table, clearly in imitation of some ill-tempered adult.  

"We have to get out of here," Jacob said, panic rising in my throat. "We have to go before the bomb hits!"

 "He doesn't know!" giggled Olive.

 "He thinks we're going to die!" 

"It's only the changeover," said Millard with a shrug of his smoking jacket. "No reason to get your knickers in a twist." 

"This happens every night?" Miss Peregrine nodded. "Every single evening," she said. 

"May we go outside and show Jacob?" said Hugh.

"Yes, may we?" Claire begged, suddenly enthused after twenty minutes of sulking. 

"The changeover is ever so beautiful!" Miss Peregrine demurred, pointing out that they hadn't yet finished their dinners, but the children pleaded with her until she relented. Miss Gyrfalcon smiled at Alma who fought the urge to roll her eyes.  "All right, so long as you all wear your masks," she said.

The children burst out of their seats and ran from the room. The Ymbrynes calmly walked behind them through the house into the wood-paneled foyer, where they each grabbed gas mask from a cabinet before walking out the door. Miss Peregrine gave Jacob one too.

"Go ahead," said Miss Peregrine. "Put it on." He strapped it over his face and followed her out onto the lawn, where the children stood scattered like chess pieces on an unmarked board, anonymous behind their upturned masks, watching billows of black smoke roll across the sky. Treetops burned in the hazy distance. The drone of unseen airplanes seemed to come from everywhere.Jacob ducked at each concussion, but the kids never so much as flinched. Instead they sang, their lyrics timed perfectly to the rhythm of the bombs.

Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, RUN! 

Bang, bang, BANG goes the farmer's gun

He'll get by without his rabbit pie, so. 

Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, RUN!

Bright tracer bullets scored the heavens just as the song ended. The kids applauded like onlookers at a fireworks display, violent slashes of color reflected in their masks. 

It began to drizzle, as if all that flying metal had riven holes in the clouds. The concussions came less frequently. The attack seemed to be ending.The children headed for another part of the yard.

"Where are we going?" Jacob asked two masked kids.

They said nothing, but took him gently by the hands and led him along with the others. They rounded the house to the back corner, where everyone was gathering around a giant topiary. This one wasn't a mythical creature, though, but a man reposing in the grass, one arm supporting him, the other pointing to the sky. 

 The children were all standing silently with their necks craned, pointing at a section of sky. Then a single airplane engine cut through the rest. It was close, and getting closer. 

Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run. 

The headmistresses were too focused on resetting the loop to notice Jacob who went to full panic mode.

Suddenly there were no growling engines, no whistling bombs, no pops of distant guns. It was as if someone had muted the world. The wind-bent boughs of trees were frozen in place. The sky was a photograph of arrested flames licking a cloud bank. Drops of rain hung suspended before everyone's eyes. And in the middle of the circle of children, like the object of some arcane ritual, there hovered a bomb, its downward-facing tip seemingly balanced on Adam's outstretched finger.

Suddenly Jacob collapsed.

Every kid began to laugh at him. ''Oh dear...'' Mariana sighed. Alma and her walked to Jacob, who's eyes began to open. Miss Gyrfalcon held out her hand and Jacob accepted it.

"Please accept our apologies," she said. "We should have better prepared you." She and Miss Peregrine couldn't hide their smiles, though, and neither could the other kids as they stripped off their masks.

 "I should probably head home for the night," Jacob said to headmistresses. "My dad'll worry." Then he added quickly, "I can go home, right?"

"Of course you can," Miss Peregrine replied, and in a loud voice asked for a volunteer to escort him back to the cairn. Emma stepped forward. The Ymbrynes seemed pleased.

"Are you sure about her?" he whispered to black and navy haired headmistress. "A few hours ago she was ready to slit my throat."

"Miss Bloom may be hot-tempered, but she is one of my most trusted wards," she replied. "And I think you and she may have a few things to discuss away from curious ears."

Five minutes later they were on their way out of the loop.

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''Well that was better than I expected.'' Alma announced when every member of the household was in their room. She walked across the room to the cabinet with mirror above it and started to undo her bun. Mariana softly smiled at her and sat on bed. Alma quickly noticed her silence and turned to face her. The other woman was looking out of the window deep in thoughts. Alma sighed, she quickly took out last pin from her hair and walked towards her wife. 

''I didn't expect it to be this soon, you know what I mean?'' Alma knew exactly what the other woman meant. She felt the same way. 

''I know, ma chérie.''she answered sadly. 

They already lost three of their children - Victor, Marcie and Charlotte and now? Now they lost another one, they lost Abraham. 

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