| “ | She's as close to royalty as we peculiars have. They tried for fifty years to elect her leader of the Council of Ymbrynes, but she would never give up teaching at the academy she and Miss Bunting founded. Today there's not an ymbryne worth her wings who didn't pass under Miss Avocet's tutelage at one time, myself included! | ” |
Esmerelda Avocet was an ymbryne who ran the European Ymbryne Academy for a couple of centuries. She was considered to be very popular and many wanted her to be in charge of the Council of Ymbryne's for years.
Biography[]
Pre-Series[]
Esmerelda would be found and taught by an unknown ymbryne. When she finished her training, she would take on the name Miss Avocet. She became fast friends with Miss Bunting, who she established the Ymbryne Academy with in the 1800s.
At some point, she rescued a tree-talker named Sweedlepipe from being hanged after he was convicted of murdering a lumberjack. He was afterwards exiled to a treeless island loop in the Far North.[1]
In the late nineteenth century, a young Alma Peregrine, Caul, and Myron Bentham were discovered and came to the Ymbryne Academy. Rather than separate the trio, since all three were extremely young when they were found, the brothers lived at the academy even though they were not ymbrynes. Neither boy would be transferred out of the school despite Caul's repeated offenses of abusing Alma, even plucking her feathers when she practiced turning into a bird.
Years later, Caul founded the Claywings, a group dedicated to the quest for immortality and the search for Abaton. For months, Caul molded the group into "the foot soldiers of a dangerous political movement." The older ymbrynes, including Miss Avocet, warned and even threatened them, but were unable to dissuade the group from performing the Experiment of 1908. This led to the birth of hollowgasts and later, wights.
Around the 1940s and 1950's, Abraham Portman asked Miss Avocet to train Velyana Greenshank, which she did. Decades later, an ymbryne from Bombay would find Noor Pradesh and bring her to Miss Avocet. Miss Avocet had an experimental serum used on Noor in order to suppress the baby's powers until young adulthood, and sent her to America with Velyana to hide her from the wights and hollowgasts.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children[]
When her loop is raided by wights and hollowgasts, some of her younger students, who were tired, accidentally let wights into the school. Miss Bunting is dragged off. It is assumed that the students were captured as well since they would be a good bargaining chip, but they were not named amongst the captured peculiars later in the series.
She decided to fly to Alma Peregrine's loop to warn her, since she was one of the few ymbrynes whose loop Miss Avocet hadn't heard to be attacked yet. Luckily for her the loop hadn't been raided, and the inhabitants were able to start taking precautions to defend their loop. Though Miss Avocet is able to warn Miss Peregrine of the wights causing problems near her loop, they do not immediately flee, since the peculiars all thought they had the home advantage since most of them had been there for seventy years.
Unfortunately, both Miss Avocet and Miss Peregrine are captured after Bronwyn Bruntley, Enoch O'Connor, Emma Bloom, and Jacob Portman, decide to go question the late Martin Pagett about what he had seen the night he was attacked by a hollow. Both ymbrynes are shipped to Devil's Acre.
Library of Souls[]
Miss Avocet is quite happy when Jacob and Emma arrive to help the ymbrynes, though she is scared when Jacob arrives with twelve hollows. She takes part in the battle between the wights, twelve ymbrynes, peculiar children, and Jacob's twelve captured hollows.
Almost immediately after the battle wraps up, she is captured by Myron and Caul and taken into the Library of Souls, which had been closed for a millennium to prevent souls from being stolen. After helping others escape, she and the other eleven ymbrynes perform the emergency shut down of the loop, and is barely able to escape from the loop. Because of the procedure her internal clock was reset, preventing her from aging forward if she ever left. She almost instantly jumps into helping rebuild Devil's Acre.
The Conference of the Birds[]
Jacob and his friends go to meet Miss Avocet after Horace discovers that she knows of the Prophecy of the Seven and its origins. She tells them the story of Bob the Revelator, and introduces Francesca, who reads out a translation of the prophecy. After, she tells them more about Noor Pradesh's history, adding that she was wondering when she might see Noor again. She later agrees with Francesca that Noor had gone through a memory wipe; a small one to keep Noor safe. She tries to stand up quickly, accidentally pinching a back muscle. Afterwards, she summons Reggie Breedlove to try restoring some of Noor's memories.
After Jacob, Enoch and Emma return from finding Ellery, Horace mentions that Miss Avocet and her team have been digging more deeply into the Apocryphon. She thinks that a certain footnote that they just discovered refers to the wights.
The Desolations of Devil's Acre[]
With Miss Peregrine, Miss Avocet listens to Jacob and Noor's story of Caul's return, and reveals that she knew V was an ymbryne. Afterwards, she tells Francesca and Sigrid to call an emergency meeting of the Ymbryne Council, and to escort her to the council chamber.
After the all-Acre meeting, in the aftermath of Jacob and Noor almost getting assassinated, Miss Avocet begins to tell Noor more about the prophecy. She says that although she asked V to accompany Noor to America, she had no idea of the prophecy at the time and didn't know just how important Noor was.
Miss Avocet, along with 11 other ymbrynes, wove together a shield for Devil's Acre to keep out Caul. She passed away from old age after the final battle at dawn, her final words being a quote from Emerson. She, V and Miss Babax were given an ymbryne funeral.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (film)[]
Her loop was attacked by hollowgasts and all of the children were slaughtered. She tried to save them, but she was outnumbered and they put the machine in her loop. She somehow managed to escape and fled to Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children. She was found by Jake and Emma in the Cairn Tunnel, hurt and unable to turn back to human form. She was brought back to Miss Peregrine and nursed back to health. When Miss Peregrine went with Mr. Barron, Miss Avocet took charge and led the children. She was later killed by Malthus.
Description[]
Appearance[]
She is described to be elderly and frail, and has rheumy eyes. In later books, she needs the use of a wheelchair. She has a monocle that hangs from a thin chain around her neck. She does not appear as old in the graphic novel.
In the movie, she has the looks of being elderly and having white hair with streaks of black to represent her bird. She wears a gray skirt with a gray blouse, and also has a pair of spectacles.
Personality[]
Miss Avocet is a serious woman, to the point shrugging is oddly casual when she does it.
Peculiarity[]
She is an ymbryne, which gives her the power to manipulate time and turn into a avocet.
Relationships[]
Miss Peregrine[]
Miss Peregrine was one of Miss Avocet's students, and their relationship is said to be very close. Miss Avocet traveled to Miss Peregrine's loop to warn her about the wights and hollowgasts when loops was raided after her wards were killed. Miss Peregrine sees her as a maternal figure,[2] and looks up to her, though Miss Avocet's direct feelings towards Miss Peregrine are unknown.
Trivia[]
- Miss Avocet had a special interest in lunacy, divination, and automatic writing.[3]
- She wrote Embarrassing Moments in Old Peculiar and How to Avoid Them.[4]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ Miss Peregrine's Museum of Wonders (A Necessarily Incomplete Taxonomy of Peculiar Abilities)
- ↑ Miss Peregrine's Museum of Wonders (Photography: A Peculiar Art Form)
- ↑ The Conference of the Birds (Chapter 2)
- ↑ Miss Peregrine's Museum of Wonders (Important Books by Peculiar Writers)