Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

Jacob, Emma, and Millard walk towards the forest, and Jacob wonders when he’s going to come out of this strange fever dream that he’s having, walking next to a girl who makes fire and an invisible boy. Soon, they reach the house, and Jacob sees it in pristine condition—it’s a beautiful sight now that it’s not destroyed. Emma ties Jacob’s hands before they go in and makes him take his shoes off, or else Miss Peregrine will be very angry. 

Inside the house, everything is in order: it’s cheerful and comfortable, with nice furniture and curious faces peeking around corners to see Jacob. Emma goes to retrieve Miss Peregrine and Jacob wanders to the window, noticing all of the children—almost all of whom he recognizes—playing with each other or hanging out under the trees. It’s a paradise, just as Jacob’s grandfather said. Jacob thinks that if he’s dreaming, he doesn’t want to wake up. Jacob sees the levitating girl retrieve a ball that got stuck in a tall bush shaped like a centaur. Another girl touches the bush, which comes to life. Millard says they’re showing off because they know they have an audience. Jacob asks what they are, and Millard says they’re “peculiar,” asking if Jacob is, too. Jacob says he doesn’t think so.

Emma returns and pulls Jacob further into the house into a sitting room, where Miss Peregrine waits. She is dressed all in black with lace gloves, a formal blouse, and her hair pinned in a bun. Miss Peregrine greets Jacob by name, which startles Emma. The headmistress is shocked to see that Emma tied Jacob up, explaining that he is a guest and Abe’s grandson. Jacob is thrilled that she was expecting him, and Emma grumpily unties Jacob.

Miss Peregrine requests an audience with Jacob in private, and Emma leaves. The headmistress also tells Millard to leave, making sure she hears his footsteps down the hall; the door shuts behind him. Miss Peregrine asks Jacob why it took so long for him to visit them, and Jacob replies that he didn’t know where they were. Miss Peregrine explains that she’s been watching him—she was the bird in his room in the morning.

Then, Miss Peregrine asks what Jacob was searching for in the house. When he explains, she realizes how little his grandfather told him about his old friends. Jacob admits that he always thought his grandfather’s stories were just fairy tales. Miss Peregrine intuits that his grandfather is dead, which Jacob confirms. She gets angry, explaining that she warned Abe not to leave the house. Jacob assures her that he lived a long and fulfilling life, and he wasn’t very sharp anymore. She asks Jacob not to tell the other children yet because it would upset them, and he agrees.

Jacob then admits he has questions of his own, but before he can ask any, Miss Peregrine pauses and opens the door. There, Emma is hunched over, sobbing. She runs out of the room and Miss Peregrine grows frustrated, knowing how deeply the news would upset Emma—she and Abe were sweethearts at the home. Jacob realizes that this is why Emma didn’t want to believe that Jacob was Abe’s grandson, because he would only be bringing news that would upset her.

Miss Peregrine brings Jacob to the library, explaining that there are “peculiar spirits” that sometimes crop up in the human species. They exist all over the world, but in diminishing numbers. The ones who remain live in hiding, though they used to live openly with regular people as shamans or mystics. But then modernity and religion often led to persecution, because many people viewed peculiars as evil.

It’s difficult for peculiars to form communities because peculiar children do not always have peculiar parents, and peculiar parents do not always have peculiar children. Peculiar children are often “abused and neglected in the most horrific ways”—sometimes they are even killed. So, people like Miss Peregrine founded places where young peculiars could live separately from common people.

Miss Peregrine then explains how time works there. One of Miss Peregrine’s skills is that she can manipulate time—she is known as an ymbryne. She can create temporal loops in which peculiar people can live forever. They only occupy one day: September 3, 1940. She created this loop because otherwise, the bomb would have killed them all. There are other ymbrynes, all of whom take the shape of birds (birds are time travelers), and they each live in different time periods. She shows Jacob a few pictures of her friends, particularly Miss Avocet, who taught her and many of the other ymbrynes.

Ymbrynes scour the world for young peculiars and provide them safe harbor from the world. If they don’t ensure that the loops reset each day at the exact right time, “disaster” will ensue. But, Miss Peregrine assures Jacob, it’s not too difficult to reset: someone must simply cross through the entryway every so often. With that, Miss Peregrine explains that she doesn’t have much more time to spend, but hopes Jacob will stay for supper. Jacob asks whether his grandfather was truly running from the Nazis, and Miss Peregrine says yes—she found him in a refugee camp. Jacob asks then if his grandfather was like the other peculiars, to which Miss Peregrine ambiguously replies, “he was like you, Jacob.”

Jacob washes off the bog mud before joining the others for dinner, finding a change of clothes of suspenders, tweed pants, and a button-up shirt before descending for dinner. When Jacob enters the room, the kids are thrilled to meet someone new, but they ask many questions about Abe that Jacob’s not sure how to answer, so Miss Peregrine simply changes subjects. Jacob sits on what he thinks is an empty seat, but he bumps into Millard, and Mrs. Peregrine admonishes Millard for eating naked.

The children on kitchen duty appear with food: a roasted goose, salmon and cod, vegetables, mussels, and loaves of bread. It all looks delicious to Jacob, and he digs in greedily. While eating, he looks around at some of the children. Olive the levitating girl is tied to a chair screwed into the floor, so she doesn’t float away. Hugh, the boy with bees, eats under a mosquito net. A girl named Claire is embarrassed and doesn’t eat because she has a mouth on the back of her head, underneath a pile of golden curls. They ask her to demonstrate, and she does so, turning around to eat her dinner.

The children then turn to questions about the future. When Jacob explains that there are no flying cars or cities on the moon where he’s from, they’re disappointed, and Miss Peregrine seems vindicated, seemingly having told them many times that there’s nothing wrong with remaining in the same time period. Jacob asks in turn how old they all are. They range between 75 and 117—some of them lived in other loops before this one. They’re shocked to learn that Jacob is only 16. Jacob thinks that despite their ages, they still seem young, as though their activities have made them perpetually immature—like Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.

Suddenly, a boom erupts outside, and Miss Peregrine tells the kids to finish quickly. Jacob panics, realizing what’s about to happen, but Miss Peregrine assures him that they’re not going to die—it’s only the “changeover.” The children plead to show Jacob what’s happening, and Miss Peregrine agrees as long as they wear their gas masks. Jacob runs outside with the other children, watching as the bombs streak by. The children applaud like they’re watching fireworks, and Jacob realizes that the bombing has become such a part of their daily lives that they no longer view it in terror.

As the attack is ending, the children bring Jacob over to another topiary, this one a copy of Michelangelo’s painting of Adam in the Sistine Chapel. Meanwhile, Jacob can hear one airplane getting closer and closer. There is a whistling noise, and Jacob sees something falling out of the sky. He ducks, bracing for a blast, but suddenly all of the noise stops. He slowly looks up to see the sky completely frozen in place; the bomb rests atop Adam’s finger. Then, whiteness engulfs the world.

When the whiteness fades, Jacob sees they are all still standing there in front of Adam, but the night is completely clear—it has reset to September 2. Jacob feels uneasy, and he asks Miss Peregrine if he can go home—otherwise his dad will worry. Emma volunteers to escort Jacob home, and the two set off through the woods, with a small ball of flame from Emma’s fingertips providing them light. Jacob admires the flame but stays carefully away from her, still worried that she might try to kill him.

Emma notices that Jacob is keeping his distance, and she apologizes for how she acted earlier—she knew that Jacob was Abe’s grandson because they look so much alike, but she didn’t want to believe it. He tells her that he’s sorry to have to break bad news, and Emma hugs him tenderly. She and Jacob both start to cry, until they slowly break the hug. They continue on, trudging through the bog and passing through the cairn. Emma then takes Jacob’s hand, guiding him back to the path, before she disappears into the fog once more.

Jacob returns to town, happy to see TV screens glowing and hear generators humming. He finds his dad upstairs, asleep in front of his laptop. His dad asks what he was up to and what happened to his clothes—Jacob is still wearing the borrowed suspenders. Jacob explains that he was just exploring the house and put on these old clothes that he found. Jacob’s dad grows concerned, explaining that he doesn’t think Jacob spending his days alone in an abandoned house is what Dr. Golan had in mind for the trip.

Jacob tries to protest, explaining that Dr. Golan has been a help to him but can’t be in control of all aspects of his life. He sarcastically asks himself how Dr. Golan would want him to go to the bathroom. Jacob’s dad declares quietly that Jacob will go birding with him tomorrow instead of going back to the house, and Jacob refuses. At this, Jacob’s dad goes downstairs to the pub.

A few minutes later, Jacob’s dad says there’s a phone call downstairs for Jacob, and when Jacob picks up, it’s Dr. Golan. Jacob is furious at his dad, but he assures Dr. Golan that he’s okay. Dr. Golan agrees and explains that he told Jacob’s dad that it’s best to give Jacob a little space to heal from his grandfather’s death. Jacob is stunned and very grateful. After he gets off the phone, Jacob’s dad tells Jacob to do what he wants, and Jacob promises he'll be home for dinner. As Jacob falls asleep, he thinks about the kids asking whether he would stay with them, and he realizes for the first time that he might be able to refuse the “unremarkable life that had been mapped out for [him].”