Introduction
You find yourself cast adrift on a stormy sea with nine peculiar children and a wounded bird who is actually your beloved headmistress. The safety of your island loop on Cairnholm is gone, and you must survive a war-torn mainland while hunted by invisible monsters and hollowgasts.
Ten peculiar children and an injured Miss Peregrine must navigate the war-torn mainland of Britain and nineteenth-century London to find a cure and evade wights.
Ransom Riggs continues the dark fantasy chronicle in Hollow City by thrusting you directly from a destroyed sanctuary into an endless flight across hostile territory. You must master your strange abilities while protecting Miss Peregrine in her bird form before she is trapped forever. The journey tests your loyalties and forces you to confront the hidden society of syndrigasti living in secret loops.
Can you escape the relentless pursuit of the wights across enemy waters? Will you find a cure for your shapeshifting headmistress in the ruined loops of London? How do you distinguish true allies from monsters disguised as humans?
1. Escape from Cairnholm and Mainland Arrival
Ten peculiar children and an injured Miss Peregrine must make a perilous boat journey across the sea from their destroyed loop on Cairnholm to the mainland of Wales. You travel across eight and a half kilometers of rough water using three small boats while dodging enemy patrols.
The peculiar children navigate a perilous sea channel to reach the Welsh mainland, losing their essential maps and supplies while facing immediate military pursuit.
Bronwyn single-handedly rows one of the boats through the storm and rescues Olive, who is tied to an anchor line when her own boat flips over. Olive uses her lightness-manipulation peculiarity to act as an aerial guide through thick fog by tying herself to an anchor line.
Crossing the Channel
Miss Peregrine is rescued from a submarine in a damaged, bird-like form with a broken wing and is unable to speak or manipulate time. The headmistress perches silently on the boats and later on rocks, watching her charges with unutterable sorrow and displaying a wing hooked downward in an alarming V.
The group loses almost all their essential equipment and navigational tools during the channel crossing. Millard panics upon discovering that the Map of Days, one of only five extant copies containing years of personal notes, is gone. You also find a three-volume collection of Tales of the Peculiar inside Bronwyn's trunk before your supplies vanish.
Hunted on the Mainland
Emma takes charge of the group, deciding that they must walk inland to find a town and locate another ymbryne. Emma heals Millard's bleeding shoulder wound using her hands, which she can heat up like hot coals.
The refugees are hunted on the mainland by enemy submarine-hunting zeppelins and later a German submarine. Emma and the children sprint into a sea cave and hide their tracks to evade detection while miniature zeppelins buzz overhead.
Jacob struggles with self-doubt regarding his role as a hollow-slayer and his legacy as Abraham Portman's grandson. Emma uses her heated hands to warm Jacob's arms and reassures him that his confusion mirrors his grandfather's early days.
2. The Menagerie and Animal Allies
The refugees discover a hidden mountain loop containing talking peculiar animals and learn of the ymbrynes kidnapped by wights in London.
You read Tales of the Peculiar to hide from pursuers. Bronwyn reads a story to Claire about a kind giant named Cuthbert who was turned to stone and sank into a lake.
The next day, you stumble upon a lake containing a rock formation shaped exactly like the stone giant. You discover a hidden loop entrance through its mouth.
Discovering the Cuthbert Loop
Emma and Jacob investigate the open stone mouth of the giant rock formation. Upon diving into the throat, you discover an underwater shaft that leads you out into a warm, older year where the weather differs significantly from the forest outside.
Jacob and Emma jump into the stone giant's mouth, fall into freezing water, and swim through a ten-foot shaft to emerge into a hot, muggy afternoon in an older year.
When a hollowgast pursues the children up a mountain path, Jacob experiences a physical sensation in his gut that functions as a directional compass needle. By focusing intensely, you can track the creature's exact location, predict where it will climb next, and help coordinate an attack.
Jacob uses his internal compass feeling to correctly predict the exact spot where the hollow will jump on the cliff wall, allowing Bronwyn to crush it with a heavy boulder.
At the top of the steep mountain bluff, you discover a primitive elevator system consisting of a net, a pulley, and a warning sign about weight limits. The mechanism is used to reach a high plateau where a tower and menagerie are located.
Olive operates a lever from the top of the wall to hoist the rest of the children up in a small net elevator just as a hollowgast attacks.
- Climb inside the net for the only access to the menagerie
- Strictly enforce the weight limit of one rider
Addison MacHenry and the Menagerie
After entering the menagerie loop, you encounter Grunt, a savage man-thing, and Addison MacHenry. Addison is a refined, pipe-smoking dog wearing round glasses who speaks with a British accent and explains his own history of renaming himself after biting his former master.
Addison MacHenry introduces himself, bows politely, and explains that he chose his own name based on an illustrious line of hunting dogs after despising his former master's name for him.
Miss Wren's menagerie houses surviving peculiar animals with rare traits, functioning as an ark that has gradually become a tomb. The remaining peculiar animals live in a hidden loop on a plateau, including talking creatures, Armageddon chickens that lay exploding eggs when excited, and fading mice. Many animals from the Aldinn days are now extinct due to human hunting and exploitation.
Addison introduced Deirdre the emu-raffe, an animal resembling a donkey and a giraffe with fewer limbs and a peevish temper, and showed the group a graveyard containing animals like Pompey the healing dog and Ca'ab Magda the eighteen-tusked wildebeest. Ca'ab Magda allegedly marched over the Alps with Hannibal's army in 218 BC.
Addison informs you that Miss Wren is currently away because she flew off days prior to assist her ymbryne sisters in London due to an ongoing war. According to spy pigeons, the captured ymbrynes are being held in punishment loops originally designed for wights and dangerous criminals.
Addison explained that Miss Wren's spy pigeons reported the ymbrynes are being held in punishment loops guarded by wights and hollows. These loops contain the bloodiest episodes from London's history, such as the Great Fire of 1666 and the Viking Siege of 842.
Miss Peregrine has been artificially poisoned in her bird form, and without intervention from another ymbryne within two days, her human self will be permanently lost. Wights transport ymbrynes in bird form to limit their powers and keep them compact and hidden.
Addison diagnosed Miss Peregrine as being dosed with a liquid or gas spray and stated that Olivia the owl had suffered the same fate ten years prior during her training.
Recognizing that Miss Peregrine's loop is gone and she is your only way back to your own time, Jacob accepts that staying in the past means risking a life in a dying world. Jacob reflects on how Miss Peregrine saved his grandfather in Wales, which enabled his father's life and his own, driving his commitment to rescue her.
A subgroup of children stays behind at the animal menagerie to recuperate while the rest embark on the rescue mission to London. Claire remains behind because her fever and physical weakness prevent her from making the journey, and Fiona volunteers to stay with her so she is not alone.
Claire and Fiona stay at the menagerie under the shade tree with the peculiar animals, while Emma, Jacob, Bronwyn, Enoch, Horace, and Millard prepare to travel to London in 1940. Horace hopes to reach his 105th birthday milestone.
3. Encounters with Outcasts and Armed Pursuit
Alliance with the Gypsy syndrigasti aids the children's travel toward London before wights intercept them and Hugh's bees intervene.
The Gypsy Caravan and Syndrigasti
When the peculiar children attempt to hitch a ride on a colorful Gypsy caravan, they are interrogated, accused of being thieves, and eventually locked inside a large iron animal cage until the leaders can determine if there is a reward for them. Bekhir and his men surround the children with knives and lock them in a twenty-by-ten-foot iron cage mounted on a flatbed wagon.
Millard uses his invisibility to sneak around the camp and plant a peculiar exploding chicken egg into the Gypsies' cooking fire, creating enough chaos and smoke for the children to attempt an escape. Millard slips a peculiar egg into a Gypsy cookfire, sending pots and pans flying and setting a woman's dress on fire.
Once the Gypsies witness the children's extraordinary abilities, their hostility completely dissolves because they recognize them as syndrigasti, sharing a long-standing understanding as souls clinging to the margins of the world. Bekhir changes his attitude entirely after witnessing Emma's fireball and Millard's ventriloquism, welcoming them as honored guests by the campfire.
During the First World War, when the British army confiscated all their horses, the Gypsies successfully hitched wild goats to their wagons, leading to their local moniker as the Goat People. The Gypsies share a photograph of Bekhir's uncle riding a wagon pulled by a herd of long-horned goats.
Bekhir's young son Radi begins losing his physical form a piece at a time, starting with his toes and eventually leaving his lower half entirely invisible, causing him to fear losing his connection to his family. Radi drops his trousers to show Millard that his entire lower half has vanished into thin air.
Millard comforts Radi by revealing that he also underwent progressive invisibility in his youth, assuring the boy that he will adapt and find many advantages in his condition. Millard wraps a scarf around his face to show Radi his features and reassures him that being invisible does not hurt.
When military vehicles carrying hunting wights arrive at the camp, the Gypsy leader orders the peculiar children to hide under a tarp in the cage and lies to the wight searchers to protect them. Bekhir tells the wight searching the camp that they have not run across anyone all day and threatens to feed anyone who disobeys to his dog.
A young Gypsy ventriloquist uses his voice-throwing ability to mimic the roar of a giant bear from inside the children's cage, frightening away the wight's dog handler and ending the search. The Gypsy youth growls like a bear and yowls like a cat, making it sound like a beast is stalking the soldiers from inside the cage.
The Gypsies provide eight horses and riders to rush the peculiar children down through the valley forest toward the town station before the first morning train departs. Bekhir and seven riders gallop through the valley forest at full speed to reach the town gates before the train leaves.
Train Station Ambush and Hugh's Rescue
Horace had hidden a large sum of money from Miss Peregrine's dresser drawer in a tailored pocket and slaps a fat wad of bills on the counter to buy out an entire first-class car, demonstrating that money can compel compliance from petty bureaucrats. Horace pulls a thick wad of bills from his coat pocket at the Coal train depot, astonishing the ticket clerk.
When the conductor spots Miss Peregrine in Bronwyn's coat, Emma claims she is a wind-up toy belonging to a delayed sister. Miss Peregrine plays along by going completely stiff and falling over mechanically when wound. Bronwyn kneels on the platform, pretends to wind Miss Peregrine under her wing, and makes the bird toddle mechanically before toppling over stiffly.
A wight posing as a British soldier fires warning shots to stop the children from boarding the train and forces them into a march at gunpoint alongside two soldiers in a jeep, eventually imprisoning them in a thatch-roofed shack with Bekhir and his men. Mr. White and his disguised soldiers capture the children after shooting the Gypsies' horses and holding them captive in a farm shack.
Having evaded capture at the depot, Hugh follows the group and commands a swarm of honeybees, hornets, and wasps to emerge from a soldier's throat and swarm the captors, ultimately killing Mr. White and his men while leaving the children unharmed. Hugh commands a massive cloud of bees that pours out of Corporal Brown's mouth and subsequently swarms and kills Mr. White and his men.
Millard theorizes that hollows can breach loops because they consume peculiars to transform into wights. This supports the notion that peculiarness has physical substance, functioning like a second soul that can theoretically be bottled or transferred. Millard discusses the theory of peculiar essence with Jacob and Emma while riding the train to London.
Emma began accidentally setting her bed on fire at age ten. Her superstitious mother fled and her abusive father locked her in a bare room tied with asbestos sheets before her sister freed her, leading to her employment as a fire-eater in a traveling circus where Miss Peregrine found her. Emma tells Jacob how her parents locked her down with asbestos sheets after her fire-starting peculiarity manifested.
4. The Frozen Fortress and Final Confrontation
Navigating Wartime London and St. Paul's
You arrive in London amidst railway stations crowded with normal children being evacuated to the countryside for safety, wearing tags pinned to their blouses. Olive befriends a crying normal girl named Jessica who wears a tag reading 115-201 from London to Sheffield before the crowd sweeps her away. Standing on Bronwyn's trunk at the platform, you scan the sea of faces for invisible monsters while your friends worry about wights seeking revenge. Millard consults the Tales to locate Miss Wren's peculiar pigeons, reading the story titled "The Pigeons of St. Paul's" to the group while bombs fall inside the cathedral.
Following the birds into the cathedral, you discover a crypt filled with inscribed marble slabs and the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, near which a small hole in the floor leads to an underground space. Horace catches a non-peculiar pigeon at the cathedral square before Miss Peregrine rejects it, and the group uncovers an opening at the base of Sir Wren's tomb. Descending into the dark, you rely on peculiar twin boys Joel and Peter who make clicking sounds with their tongues, allowing sound waves to form a mental picture of surroundings.
You can follow these instructions through dark passages:
- Link hands with companions to form a human chain
- Let the echolocating twins lead the way through dark passages
- Make clicking sounds with the tongue to detect nearby obstacles
Horace stops the telekinetic girl Melina Manon from attacking by accurately reciting her birthplace in Luxembourg, her birth year of 1899, and the details of her childhood donkey, Habib. Melina's pet pigeon Winnie flaps toward doors when asked about Miss Wren.
You can guide your search using these methods:
- Ask the pigeon direct questions about the target's location
- Observe the bird's flight direction and wing flutter
- Tie a string around the bird's foot and follow its pull
Miss Peregrine interrogates the guide pigeon by pecking and swinging it until the bird chirps out the exact combination sequence for a locked door. She taps the ground three, ten, and five times after talking to the pigeon, revealing the code three-ten-five for the hidden door lock. The group enters a nineteenth-century London underground transit loop featuring gaslamps and a miniature locomotive train. You strip off twentieth-century clothes to change into nineteenth-century outfits, and you visit the Congress of Human Oddities to encounter an illustrated man, a snake charmer, and a folding man.
Miss Wren's Fortress and Caul's Betrayal
Wakeling and Rookery streets house archives that mysteriously become completely encased in supernatural ice resembling a born glacier. An elderly woman listening to the children suddenly vanishes from her clothing, leaving behind an empty cloak from which a wren emerges. The children discover cellar doors leading to an ice-tunneled passage where Balenciaga Wren reveals herself to them.
Reaching Miss Wren's frozen London loop, the children encounter the resistance army and face a betrayal that reveals the wights' true ideological motives.
Miss Wren's apprentice Althea used her power to freeze a four-story building to protect it from invading wights and hollows, creating a massive ice cube with a tunnel entrance. Miss Wren takes Miss Peregrine into a private room to work through the night with medicinal remedies.
You should follow these rules during recovery periods:
- Keep the subject in a quiet, undisturbed environment
- Apply specialized medicinal solutions, infusions, and suspensions
- Gently massage and work the rigid form like clay
- Sing traditional old peculiar lullabies to encourage mental recovery
Led by Sergei Andropov, a small group of surviving peculiars forms a resistance army that recruits your group and tests abilities, such as the blind brothers Joel-and-Peter whose synchronized scream shatters dishes. Wights systematically extract the second souls and abilities of peculiar captives through thin red surgical scars about the length of a cigarette, leaving victims catatonic to feed hollowgasts. Examining the giant edition of the Map of Days, you study geographical names such as Simhaladvipa and Land of Serendip.
Caul reveals himself after shedding his bird form on the floor, stripping off sticky translucent gel and announcing his imprisonment of the group. Caul delivers a speech to the captured children about how peculiars were once like gods and kings before their blood was diluted by normal humans. Althea bravely fights Caul, resulting in her fatal stabbing with an icicle, which causes the defensive fortress of ice to melt completely.
The captive children are marched by wight soldiers through an underground changeover, shifting them forward in time from 1940 to a modern subway station equipped with electronic displays and a 2-minute countdown time on the scrolling LED screen. When a hollow attacks the phone booth, you realize you can command the creature.
You can subdue the beast using these mental steps:
- Do not fight the pain of the hollow's presence
- Welcome the pain and let it speak to you
- Recognize that the hollow's nature is tied to your own
- Release fear and emit an innate guttural command to subdue the creature
10 Key Ideas
- Ten peculiar children and an injured Miss Peregrine navigate a perilous sea channel from Cairnholm to the Welsh mainland, losing their essential maps and supplies while facing immediate military pursuit.
- The refugees discover a hidden mountain loop containing talking peculiar animals and learn of the ymbrynes kidnapped by wights in London.
- Addison diagnosed Miss Peregrine as being dosed with a liquid or gas spray and stated that Olivia the owl had suffered the same fate ten years prior during her training.
- An alliance with the Gypsy syndrigasti aids the children's travel toward London before wights intercept them and Hugh's bees intervene.
- Hugh commands a massive cloud of bees that pours out of Corporal Brown's mouth and subsequently swarms and kills Mr. White and his men.
- Millard theorizes that hollows can breach loops because they consume peculiars to transform into wights, supporting the notion that peculiarness has physical substance functioning like a second soul.
- Millard consults the Tales to locate Miss Wren's peculiar pigeons, reading the story titled "The Pigeons of St. Paul's" to the group while bombs fall inside the cathedral.
- Reaching Miss Wren's frozen London loop, the children encounter the resistance army and face a betrayal that reveals the wights' true ideological motives.
- Wights systematically extract the second souls and abilities of peculiar captives through thin red surgical scars about the length of a cigarette, leaving victims catatonic to feed hollowgasts.
- Jacob discovers that he can subdue a hollowed beast by welcoming the pain, recognizing that the hollow's nature is tied to his own, and emitting an innate guttural command.