The Conference of the Birds by Ransom Riggs

Author:Ransom Riggs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2020-01-13T16:00:00+00:00

I’m so sorry, Jacob. I so regret putting you in this situation.”

Miss Peregrine, Emma, and Enoch were following me through tunnels as I tracked the trail of hollowgast residue. It was easy enough to follow down here, but what about on the other side of the loop?

“What if I can’t do it?” I said. “I’ve never tracked a hollow like this before. I’m not like Addison, who can smell peculiars from a long way off . . .”

“What you can do is even better. You can sense them.”

The trail led to the loop entrance the Americans used—yet another elevator—which led us up through a much gentler changeover and into the present. We walked out into a lobby full of tourists.

“Hope you folks had a great time!” A grinning tour guide slapped a sticker on my shirt that read I saw the Olde Time Gold Mine and all I got was this lousy sticker!

Soaked into the carpet by the exit, I saw a black spot. The hollow had come through this way, into the present.

The trail of hollowgast residue continued outside, down the sidewalk, around a corner—and I found it easier and easier to follow, so that after a while I hardly even had to look for it—my nose, and more than that, a sensation in my gut, was telling me where to go. I felt like an old cartoon character following the wafting scent of a pie cooling in a window.

We were passing through the crowded center of the downtown, and I worried that my companions’ old clothes might attract attention—until I looked more closely around me. There were people in Old West costumes, in full cowboy attire and dressed like old-timey madams, walking everywhere. A lot of the old buildings had been preserved. What had once been a lawless frontier town had become a kind of open-air Wild West theme park, and you could get your photo taken in Old West gear, buy chaps and ten gallon hats and replica buffalo bones at gift shops, and watch costumed reenactments of famous shootouts. One was happening in the town square right now, the duelists cheered on by a crowd of sunbaked tourists and their bratty, distracted kids. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the very real armed standoff that was still happening inside the loop—and I realized that this town was the perfect cover for a loop entrance. The comings and goings of strange people in strange costumes would arouse no special interest at all.

“This is fun for normals?” Enoch said. “Watching people pretend to shoot one another?”

“Keep your eyes sharp,” Emma hissed, scanning the faces of the crowd. “Murnau and the other wights could still be nearby. It would be best if we saw them before they saw us.”

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,

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