Abandoned House
"Fireplaces were throttled with vines that had descended from the roof and begun to spread across the floors like alien tentacles. The kitchen was a science experiment gone terribly wrong—entire shelves of jarred food had exploded from sixty seasons of freezing and thawing, splattering the wall with evil-looking stains—and fallen plaster lay so thickly over the dining room floor that for a moment I thought it had snowed indoors." (56)
Jacob takes in every aspect of the abandoned house on his first trip there, shocked by how old and decrepit it is, how different from his grandfather's stories. The text is rich in detail as he moves through the house and observes all the evidence of the children who once lived here, now long gone.
Murdering Monster
"It stared back with eyes that swam in dark liquid, furrowed trenches of carbon-black flesh loose on its hunched frame, its mouth hinged open grotesquely so that a mass of long eel-like tongues could wriggle out." (24)
Jacob stares in stunned shock at the strange creature that has just killed his grandfather, observing every inch of its face and trying to believe that such a monster could be real. In this moment, all the stories his grandfather told him about monsters come to life. It is so difficult for him to process that he faints.
Time Loop Reset
"The wind-bent boughs of trees were frozen in place. The sky was a photograph of arrested flames licking a cloud bank. Drops of rain hung suspended before my eyes. And in the middle of the circle of children, like the object of some arcane ritual, there hovered a bomb, its downward-facing tip seemingly balanced on Adam's outstretched finger." (115)
This moment completely defies reason for Jacob, as he watches the time loop reset and the bombs disappear. Miss Peregrine's ability to manipulate time has turned this terrible, horrifying moment of death into a beautiful display to be appreciated each night, showing that there is beauty in even the most savage of moments.
Battleships
"In the distance, black against the rising sun, a silent procession of battleships punctuated the horizon." (230)
As they row away from Cairnholm, the peculiar children observe the battleships on the horizon, a sign that the war is not yet over and that there is still much more to fear. They do not let this sight deter them though, and continue rowing, determined to face whatever it is that is out there.
