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He said his name was Englebert, and as she had nowhere else to go, he invited her back to his camp. It was a ragged settlement of tents and open cook fires, and the few dozen people who lived there were every bit as strange as Englebert. They were so strange, in fact, that most of them had been chased out of other villages—just like Ymeene. They welcomed her even after she showed them how she could turn herself into a hawk, and in turn they showed her some of the unusual talents they possessed. It seemed she was not alone in the world. Perhaps, she thought, there was a place for her after all.
These were, of course, the early peculiars of Britain, and what Ymeene didn’t realize was that she had joined them during one of the darkest periods in their history. There had been a time when peculiars were accepted—even revered—by normal people, with whom they mixed easily. But an age of ignorance had dawned of late, and normals had grown suspicious of them. Whenever something tragic happened that couldn’t be explained by the rudimentary science of the day, peculiars were made the scapegoats. When the village of Little Disappointment woke one morning to find all their sheep burned to a crisp, did the villagers realize that a lightning storm had killed them? No, they blamed the local peculiar and drove him into the wilderness. When the seamstresses of Stitch didn’t stop laughing for an entire week, did the villagers blame the wool they had just imported, which was infested with mites that carried Laughing Flu? Of course not: they pinned it on a pair of peculiar sisters and hanged them.
Such outrages were repeated across the land, driving peculiars out of normal society and into bands like the one Ymeene had joined. It was no utopia; they lived together because they could trust no one else. Their village leader was a peculiar named Tombs, a red-bearded giant cursed with the squeaky voice of a sparrow. His tenor made it difficult for others to take him seriously, but he took himself quite seriously, and never let anyone forget that he sat on the Council of Important Peculiars.6
Ymeene avoided Tombs, having developed something of an allergy to prideful men, and instead spent her days with her funny, occasionally headless friend, Englebert. She helped him till the camp’s vegetable patch and collect wood for cook fires, and he helped her get to know the other peculiars. They took to Ymeene instantly, and she began to think of the camp as her adopted home and the peculiars as her second family. She told them about life as a hawk and amused them with her trick of repeating things—once looping a moment where Tombs tripped over a sleeping dog until the whole village hurt from laughing—and they regaled her with tales of peculiardom’s colorful history. There was, for a while, peace. It was the happiest time Ymeene could remember.
Every few days, though, the village’s tranquil bubble was punctured by woeful tidings from the outside world. Desperate peculiars arrived in a steady stream, seeking refuge from terror and persecution. Each had a familiar tale to tell: they had lived peacefully among normals their whole lives, until one day they were accused of some absurd crime and chased out, lucky to escape with their lives. (Like the unfortunate sisters of Stitch, not all were so lucky.) The peculiars welcomed the new arrivals just as they had welcome Ymeene, but after nearly a month of influx the village swelled from fifteen peculiars to fifty. There wasn’t enough space or food for things to continue this way indefinitely, and a sense of foreboding began to weigh heavily upon the peculiars.
One day another representative from the Council of Important Peculiars arrived. He wore a grim expression and disappeared into Tombs’s tent for hours, and when he and Tombs finally emerged, they gathered everyone together to deliver some distressing news. The normals had already driven peculiars out of many of their towns and villages, and now they had decided to drive them out of Oddfordshire altogether. They had assembled a force of armed fighters that would soon be on the peculiars’ doorstep. The question now was whether to fight or flee.
Needless to say, the peculiars were alarmed, and not a little hesitant.
A young woman looked around them and said, “This hill and these flimsy tents aren’t worth dying for. Why don’t we pack our things and go hide in the woods?”
“I don’t know about all of you,” said Tombs, “but I’m tired of running. I say we stand and fight. We must reclaim our dignity!”
“That is also the council’s official recommendation,” added the grim-faced councilman, nodding.
“But we aren’t soldiers,” said Englebert. “We don’t know the first thing about fighting.”
“They’re a small force, and lightly armed,” said Tombs. “They think we’re cowards who will flee at the first sign of force. But they underestimate us.”
“But won’t we need weapons?” asked another man. “Swords and clubs?”
“You surprise me, Eustace,” Tombs replied. “Can’t you turn a man’s face inside out just by pulling his nose?”
“Well, yes,” the man said sheepishly.
“And, Millicent Neary, I’ve seen you light fires with only your breath. Imagine how terrified those normals will be when you set their clothes ablaze!”
“You paint quite a picture!” said Millicent. “Yes, it would be something to send them running for a change.”
At that, the crowd began to mutter.
“Yes, it would be something.”
“Those normals have had it coming for a long time.”
“Did you hear what they did to Titus Smith? Cut him into bits and fed him to his own pigs!”
“If we don’t stand up for ourselves now, they’ll never stop.”
“Justice for Titus! Justice for us all!”
With little effort, the councilmen had whipped the peculiars into a fervor. Even mild-mannered Englebert was spoiling for a fight. Ymeene, whose stomach had turned at the first mention of a battle, couldn’t listen anymore. She slunk out of the village and went for a long walk in the woods. Returning at dusk, she found Englebert by his cook fire. His temper had cooled, but his resolve to fight had not.
“Come away with me,” Ymeene said to him. “We’ll start over somewhere else.”
“Where will we go?” he replied. “They want to chase us out of Oddfordshire!”
“Wontshire. Therefordshire. Peacewickshire. You’d rather die in Oddfordshire than live elsewhere?”
“They’re just a few dozen men,” said Englebert. “How would it look if we ran away from such a puny threat?”
Even with victory practically assured, Ymeene wanted no part of it. “How it looks isn’t worth sacrificing a single hair from our heads, much less a life.”
“So you won’t fight?”
“I lost one family to war already. I won’t watch another throw itself willingly into the furnace.”
“If you leave, they’ll think you a traitor,” said Englebert. “You’ll never be able to come back.”
She looked at him. “What will you think?”
Englebert stared into the fire, struggling for words. The silence between them seemed answer enough, so Ymeene slipped away and walked to her tent. As she lay down to sleep, a great sadness stole over her. She was sure it would be her last night as a human.
Ymeene left at the first inkling of dawn, before anyone else had woken. She couldn’t bear to say good-bye. She walked to the edge of the camp and turned into a hawk, and as she leaped into the air, she wondered if she would ever find another group that would accept her, human or avian.
Ymeene had only been flying a few minutes when she spotted the normals’ fighting force massed below. But it was no loose brigade of a few dozen men—it was an army of hundreds, and they blanketed the hills in glinting armor.
The peculiars would be slaughtered! She turned around at once and flew back to warn them. She found Tombs in his tent and told them what she’d seen.
He didn’t seem surprised in the least.
He had known.
“Why didn’t you tell them so many soldiers were coming?” Ymeene said. ?
??You lied!”
“They would have been terrified,” he said. “They would not have comported themselves with dignity.”
“They should be terrified!” she shouted. “They should have fled by now!”
