“I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” Emma said. “Miss Peregrine opened the book herself, remember? She must’ve chosen that story on purpose.”

Bronwyn turned to look at the bird on her shoulder and said, “Is that right, Miss P? Why?”

“Because it means something,” said Emma.

“Absolutely,” said Enoch. “It means we should go and climb that bluff. Then maybe we’ll see a way out of this forest!”

“I mean the tale means something,” said Emma. “In the story, what was it the giant wanted? That he asked for over and over again?”

“Someone to talk to!” Olive answered like an eager student.

“Exactly,” said Emma. “So if he wants to talk, let’s hear what he has to say.” And with that, she waded into the lake.

We watched her go, slightly perplexed.

“Where’s she heading?” said Millard. He seemed to be asking me. I shook my head.

“We’ve got wights chasing us!” Enoch shouted after her. “We’re desperately lost! What on bird’s green earth are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking peculiarly!” Emma shouted back. She sloshed through the shallows to the base of the rock, then climbed up to its jaw and peered into its open mouth.

“Well?” I called. “What do you see?”

“Don’t know!” she replied. “Looks like it goes down a long way, though. I’d better get a closer look!”

Emma hoisted herself into the giant’s stone mouth.

“You’d better come down from there before you get hurt!” shouted Horace. “You’re making everyone anxious!”

“Everything makes you anxious,” Hugh said.

Emma tossed a rock down the giant’s throat, listening for whatever sound came back. She started to say “I think it might be a …” but then slipped on loose gravel, and her last word was lost as she scrambled and caught herself before she could fall.

“Be careful!” I shouted, my heart racing. “Wait, I’m coming, too!”

I splashed into the lake after her.

“It might be a what?” called Enoch.

“Only one way to find out!” Emma said excitedly, and climbed farther into the giant’s mouth.

“Oh, Lord,” said Horace. “There she goes …”

“Wait!” I shouted again—but she was gone already, disappeared down the giant’s throat.

*   *   *

The giant appeared even larger up close than it had from the shore, and peering down into its dark throat, I swore I could almost hear old Cuthbert breathing. I cupped my hands and called Emma’s name. My own voice came echoing back. The others were wading into the lake now, too, but I couldn’t wait for them—what if she was in trouble down there?—so I gritted my teeth, lowered my legs into the dark, and let go.

I fell for a long time. A full second. Then splash—a plunge into water so cold it made me gasp, all my muscles constricting at once. I had to remind myself to tread water or sink. I was in a dim, narrow chamber filled with water, with no way back up the giant’s long, smooth throat; no rope, no ladder, no footholds. I shouted for Emma, but she was nowhere around.

Oh God, I thought. She’s drowned!

But then something tickled my arms, and bubbles began breaking all around me, and a moment later Emma broke the surface, gasping for breath.

She looked okay by the pale light. “What are you waiting for?” she said slapping the water with her hand like she wanted me to dive down with her. “Come on!”

“Are you insane?” I said. “We’re trapped in here!”

“Of course we’re not!” she said.

Bronwyn’s voice called from above. “Hellooooo, I hear you down there! What have you found?”

“I think it’s a loop entrance!” Emma called back. “Tell everyone to jump in and don’t be afraid—Jacob and I will meet you on the other side!”

And then she took my hand, and though I didn’t quite understand what was going on, I drew a deep breath and let her pull me underwater. We flipped and scissor-kicked downward toward a person-sized hole in the rock through which a gleam of daylight was visible. She pushed me inside and then came after, and we swam through a shaft about ten feet long and then out into the lake. Above us I could see its rippling surface, and above that the blue, refracted sky, and as we rose toward it the water warmed dramatically. Then we broke into the air and gasped for breath, and instantly I could feel that the weather had changed: it was hot and muggy now, and the light had changed to that of a golden afternoon. The depth of the lake had changed, too—now it came all the way to the giant’s chin.

“See?” Emma said, grinning. “We’re somewhen else!”

And just like that, we’d entered a loop—abandoned a mild morning in 1940 for a hot afternoon in some other, older year, though it was difficult to tell just how much older, here in the forest, away from the easily datable cues of civilization.

One by one, the other children surfaced around us, and seeing how much things had changed, had their own realizations.

“Do you realize what this means?” Millard squealed. He was splashing around, turning in circles, out of breath with excitement. “It means there’s secret knowledge embedded in the Tales!”

“Not so useless now, are they?” said Olive.

“Oh, I can’t wait to analyze and annotate them,” said Millard, rubbing his hands together.

“Don’t you dare write in my book, Millard Nullings!” said Bronwyn.

“But what is this loop?” asked Hugh. “Who do you think lives here?”

Olive said, “Cuthbert’s animal friends, of course!”

Enoch rolled his eyes but stopped short of saying what he was probably thinking—It’s just a story!—maybe because his mind was starting to change, too.

“Every loop has an ymbryne,” said Emma, “even mystery loops from storybook tales. So let’s go and find her.”

“All right,” said Millard. “Where?”

“The only place the story made mention of aside from this lake was that mountain,” Emma said, indicating the bluff beyond the trees. “Who’s ready to do some climbing?”

We were tired and hungry, every one of us, but finding the loop had given us a burst of new energy. We left the stone giant behind and set off through the woods toward the foot of the bluff, our clothes drip-drying quickly in the heat. As we neared the bluff, the ground began to slope upward, and then a well-worn path appeared and we followed it up and up through clusters of brushy firs and winding rocky passages, until the path became so vertical in places that we had to go on all fours, clawing at the angled ground to pull ourselves forward.

“There’d better be something wonderful at the end of this trail,” said Horace, dabbing sweat from his forehead. “A gentleman doesn’t perspire!”

The path narrowed to a ribbon, the ground rising sharply on our right side and dropping away on the left, a carpet of green treetops spreading beyond it. “Hug the wall!” Emma warned. “It’s a long way down.”

Just glancing at the drop-off made me dizzy. Suddenly, it seemed, I had developed a new and stomach-clenching fear of heights, and it took all my concentration simply to put one foot in front of the other.

Emma touched my arm. “Are you all right?” she whispered. “You look pale.”

I lied and said I was, and succeeded in faking allrightness for exactly three more twists in the path, at which point my heart was racing and my legs shaking so badly that I had to sit down, right there in the middle of the narrow path, blocking everyone behind me.

“Oh, dear,” Hugh muttered. “Jacob’s cracking up.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I muttered. I’d never been afraid of heights before, but now I couldn’t so much as look off the edge of the path without my stomach doing flips.

Then something terrible occurred to me: what if this wasn’t a fear of heights I was feeling—but of hollows?

It couldn’t be, though: we were inside a loop, where hollows couldn’t go. And yet the more I studied the feeling churning in my gut, the more convinced I became that it wasn’t the drop itself that bothered me, but something beyond it.