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eBook ISBN 9780399538551

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Photograph of Millard Nullings: Credit: Leah Gallo. ‘MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN’ © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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1. An historic zone of exile thought to lie somewhere within modern-day Cornwall.

2. There was a time—a certain long-ago halcyon era—when peculiars could live together, unlooped and in the open, without fear of persecution. Peculiars of the day often divided themselves into groups according to their ability, a practice now frowned upon as it encourages tribalism and inter-peculiar hostility.

3. The source of the cannibals’ wealth? The manufacture of candy and children’s toys.

4. The country names here are fictional, though in some regional versions of the tale they are substituted with real places. In one telling Frankenbourg is Spain, in another Galatia is Persia; the story, in any event, remains the same.

5. There used to be a highly acidic liquid you could buy on the peculiar black market. The bottles were wrapped in snakeskin, and the stuff inside could burn through metal. It was called Princess Spit—in honor, no doubt, of this tale. After a number of unfortunate incidents involving its misuse, peculiar authorities shut down its manufacture. These days, bottles of Princess Spit are rare collectors’ items.

6. The Council of Important Peculiars, made up entirely of men, predated the Council of Ymbrynes by a great many years. It was composed of a dozen chummy councilmen who met twice a year to write and amend the laws peculiars were supposed to follow, which mainly concerned conflict resolution (duels were permitted), the circumstances under which peculiars were allowed to use their abilities around normals (whenever it suited them), and the myriad penalties for breaking the rules (ranging from tongue-lashings to banishment).

7. While this tale doesn’t mention them, likely because they are too numerous to mention, many remarkable discoveries were made at this time regarding the behavior and function of loops. These included the concept of arrested aging, the limits of accessibility for non-peculiars, a loop’s dual exits into past and present, and perhaps even the rudiments of time-stream theory and the problems of parallel streams. All of which makes Ymeene not only Britain’s first ymbryne but a true pioneer in loopology. Neither should the contributions of her friend Englebert be overlooked: within his removable head dwelled a keen scientific mind, and if not for his detailed notes, many of Ymeene’s breakthroughs would have been lost.

8. This small, popular revolt was the beginning of matriarchal ymbryne leadership in peculiardom, but it was not a clean break. The council and its cronies did not let go of power easily, and in years following they staged a series of unsuccessful coups. But that’s a story for another time.