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Jacob was furious, angry beyond belief but very much unsure what to do about it. The task the Ymbryne Council had given him was as stupid as it was naive, and seeing as all his friends were already engrossed in whatever menial task they'd been assigned, he had nothing better to do than to try and walk off the anger.
His moody stomping across the rotting floorboards of the Asylum brought him deeper and deeper into the heart of the old stone building. When he finally stops, he's standing in front of the unfamiliar door to a room marked as ‘309 - office’. Jacob hesitates for a second,wondering if he should be there, but after realizing that no Ymbryne would find him, he simply rushes into his new sanctuary.
Only, the room is not empty, as he had expected it to be. Sitting on a chair by a rotting desk in a dirty corner of the dusty room, a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other, was Miss Isabel Cuckoo.
The older Ymbryne's face was a mask of worry and pain, the cheerful attitude she had presented earlier all but swept away.
Just seeing her, Jacob knew he should probably go somewhere else, but he couldn't bring himself to do it, not now.
Not when he could tell something was wrong.
Carefully, Jacob knocked on the door to attract the woman's attention. "Miss Cuckoo?" He asked quietly when she didn't look up.
Hearing her name, Isabell finally looked up from her work, a fake smile filling her face as she spotted Jacob. "Mr. Portman! How are you? Nervous about your..." She paused, a look of panic passing over her face as she seemed to have forgotten what she’d assigned him for a task. "Your speech?" She asked finally, the words and the smile both coming back to her. The fact that Jacob had violently refused to accept this ‘mission’ earlier on that day didn't seem to cross her mind.
Jacob shook his head. “I still don't want to do it. I won't lie and I won't waste my energy on something so mundane." He explained angrily.
Isabel nodded sympathetically. "I know it's not ideal, dear, but positivity is what's needed right now. We need a hero to lead us to victory and you fit the bill." Her eyes left his face, glancing down into the blue book which perfectly matched her outfit. "It's what Abe did."
Now standing close enough to be able to see the pages in it, Jacob too glanced down at the notebook.
"I'm not my grandfather" He pointed out quietly.
The page Isabelle had opened was, to Jacob's surprise, not containing any charts dividing work needing to be done or anything else related to Miss Cuckoo's official position as appointed by the council. Rather, it contained a detailed portrait of a young peculiar.
"I know" Isabelle confirmed, dragging her finger over the young woman's face.
"That's beautiful." Jacob said, his awestruck voice hardly more than a whisper as he watched her every move as she inspected the drawing. "Did you make it?"
"Yes. I'm glad you like it" Isabell smiled again, and this time it seemed much more genuine. "It's Alma, the way she looked back when I learned to know her." Carefully, Isabel put pen to paper, adding just a bit of thickness to her down-pulling brows, making the girl's expression a little more veary and hostile than before. Adding some shadows under her eyes further selled the illusion, and Isabell nodded in satisfaction. “There. Finished.”
Jacob watched as she made the girl's expression more severe. Undoubtedly, it made the child drawn up on the page look more like the Ymbryne he knew than the sweet face that had been portrayed earlier. Still, for Jacob, it was hard to imagine that Miss Peregrine had once looked that way. "You're really talented." He said honestly. "You and Miss Peregrine have known each other a long time, haven't you?"
"Oui" Isabell agreed, the honest smile becoming more plastic as it clearly evoked new memories in her. "I entered the academy some years before her, but we were both children of Miss Avocet's good grace, and we bonded quickly." She stroked a tiny hand along the outlines of her drawing again. "Alma used to say I could have been an artist, had I not been an Ymbryne. I like to think so too." She looked up at Jacob, and this time there was no happiness - fake nor real - in her crumbling smile. "You know, my only dream was to have my paintings hanging in an art gallery. I would work so hard, and I'd make it happen…. But then Miss Avocet came...and it was all gone." She started down at her drawing, her eyes glassy and her face radiating sorrow.
Hearing her words, a light finally turned on in Jacob's head. All this time, he had complained about how he did not want this. How he never asked for his gift or to save the peculiar world. And yet, not for a single second did he think about the fact that the Ymbrynes hadn't chosen this life, either. None of them had asked to be tasked with protecting and keeping alive all these thousands of children who depended on them to be able to exist at all. Just like him and many of the other peculiars, they had once had other ambitions.
"You never wanted to be an Ymbryne, did you?" Jacob asked. "You Ymbrynes are always so...so, I never realized you're just like us.” He paused, but quickly continued, his eyes focused on the picture of the young Miss Peregrine as he thought of what she'd told him about her own family. “You never had more of a choice than any of us other peculiars did.”
Isabel shook her head. “No. We're trimmed and trained to be natural, to be the most peculiar of all peculiars. No one should ever think of us as anything but Ymbrynes.” She sighed heavily. “I love my children. I love my sisters. I love our dear mothers, the Ymbrynes supreme, but in this job there is little of us left at the end of it all. I'm an Ymbryne, and that is as much as I'll ever be.” She turned back to her note book, flipping over to another page. Hesitating for but a second, she showed Jacob the picture.
It was a self-portrait. Her own face is beautiful, made with gray pencil and blue ink. The woman in the picture was younger and the hair was longer, but compared to the original it was still impressive how recognisable she was.
“This is me.” Isabel said. She tapped the picture. “This is who I was.” She explained. Then, she looked Jacob deep in the eye. “You don't think we understand. You don't think we are controlled the way you are. But we do! The same way you feel like you're slaves to your respective Ymbrynes, we are slaves to the birds Supreme. Bunting and Avocet and Wren push us around and make us do the same to you in turn.”
“But you don't have to listen to them!” Jacob argued, suddenly angry again. “You are Ymbrynes, you can do whatever you want!”
“Schh!” Isabel tried to silence him, quickly telling him to be quiet. Then, after glancing around to see that no one had heard what she said, she laughed and smiled. “Alma always told me you were so smart, and yet you ask such stupid questions. If it was up to us, you'd be taking on our sticky problem head on. If I could decide, you wouldn't have to do these menial tasks, but everything is at a breaking point.” She looked around her again, and sighs deeply. “And we have our hands tied. We do not dare to oppose our Ymbrynes supreme much the same way your friends still do as me and Alma tells them, no matter how much they hate it.”
Jacob listened. "So you're telling me I have to do this, until you can win over the other Ymbrynes?" He asked. "Convince them to face the fight head on."
Isabelle nodded vigorously. "Yes. Please! It won't be long…just hold out a little longer." Jacob has never seen eyes so desperate for a promise to agree and act accordingly.
"Alright" He relented. "I will wait. Just a little longer" He warns her as Isabelle nodded her head vigorously.
"That's all I ask," She said, hugging him tight. "Just give me time. Hold on, and if you need it, come to speak to me."
Something in her voice is emotional, and Jacob wonders if she didn't wish she had someone who could make the same offer to her. He'd thought she had someone, but he had no idea which Ymbryne thought what and so he held a little closer in turn.
"You too" He said. "Hold on, and soon we'll all be free."