Bending Light

11~September 3, 1940...Again

When (Y/N) woke up, the sun was streaming brightly through the window, just like yesterday...and the day before. After she had finished dinner last night, she had searched for Millard so that they could talk, but to no avail. That morning's challenge would be to find him.

(Y/N) ankle had almost healed, and the tea Miss P kept giving her was very helpful for the headaches the concussion brought, so she deemed herself healthy enough to clothe herself into another borrowed dress—a blue one—and go search. She pulled her hair into a messy bun and walked downstairs to the living room.

•     •     •

After breakfast, (Y/N) began to search the library. It was the most obvious place to look from what she'd heard. When she got there, there was nobody inside. There were, however, many beautiful books, some even with gilded pages. It was a grand library, and there were many classics like Peter Pan and The Secret Garden.

Hmm. Well, as much as she would've liked to stay and read, her purpose for being there was to find Millard, and he obviously wasn't here. She especially needed to talk to him about her peculiarity.

After thinking about what Miss Peregrine said last night, (Y/N) had theorized that if light could make things visible, then she could also make things appear invisible. She had started with a small mascara tube, imagining what would be behind it if she couldn't see it.

At first, (Y/N) didn't notice anything, but the more she concentrated, the more she could see the edges begin to fade away. She practiced over and over, and she finally got her peculiarity to work so that she could close her eyes and find the mascara to be completely invisible when she opened them.

She had practiced so much, that like an overworked muscle, her peculiarity became harder to connect to each time. Finally, overcome by fatigue, she was forced to go to sleep, but not before expanding the limits of her peculiarity until she was able to do another new trick. She had to show Millard,

But where was he? (Y/N) walked back down the hall and into the living room.

"Where's Millard?" (Y/N) asked, taking the easiest route. Asking first was always better than searching for hours.

Horace, Hugh, and Emma were inside, talking, and Bronwyn was in a corner playing a game with Olive and Claire.

"Oh, he's out writing notes in the woods," Emma replied.

(Y/N) had been there long enough to realize that it was a pretty obvious thing for Millard to do.

"Okay, thank you!" (Y/N) called as she left to go outside.

As she walked across the front lawn, she stared down at her hand, practicing her peculiarity. When she got to the edge of the garden, she stopped, concentrating. She stared at the mermaid topiary through where her hand should've been. She let out a laugh, amazed with what she could do.

She kept going toward the woods, the invisibility creeping up her arm and eventually to her shoulder. The birds chirped and the trees rustled with life. The grass susurrated under her feet.  It was strange to see the bright, sunshiny version of Cairnholm, but (Y/N) wasn't complaining. Her ankle felt better with all the cheeriness that went on.

The invisibility was already through her other arm, spreading up from her feet. Unlike Millard, (Y/N) could make her clothes invisible too—it just took some extra visualization and concentration. That was the best part—there were probably tons of other things she could do with her peculiarity if she just concentrated hard enough.

Scratches on paper. She had found him. This time, no sneaking away from me, she thought. I want answers.

Her whole body was nearly invisible at that point, and the work it took was really tiring her out, not to mention that the headache was resurfacing. She came out from behind a tree, and she finally found him. He was studying a tabby cat that was rolling around in the grass. One that looked a lot like the one that had led her there in the first place. He was working intently, and every movement was noted by furious scribbling.

"Hello," (Y/N) said, leaning against a tree. By now, she was completely invisible.

His head whipped around in her direction, searching for a figure that he couldn't see.