Hugh Apiston is a male peculiar capable of commanding and protecting the many bees that live in his stomach. He is one of Miss Peregrine's peculiar children.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Hugh discovered his peculiar abilities at age 5. While eating large amounts of honey and honeycomb, he swallowed a bee and soon had an entire hive in his stomach. When the bees needed to pollinate, he went to a flowering field and met Fiona there.[1]
His father once sent him to a workhouse, where he had to make rope all day.[2]
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children[]
He is first seen in the dining hall. Hugh also went to the beach with Emma and some of the older kids. Later, Emma catches him and Fiona "snogging each other's faces off". After that encounter Hugh later notifies Emma and Jacob to report to the home due to Esmerelda Avocet's arrival. When Horace and Enoch were teasing Olive and Claire, Hugh told them to leave them alone and sent his bees after them. Hugh was very concerned about Miss Peregrine after she had been captured, shouting at Enoch when Enoch was saying that their situation was hopeless.
Hollow City[]
In the beginning of Hollow City, Hugh is in Jacob and Emma's boat and assists in the rowing. He brought with him a doorknob that was blown off of Miss Peregrine's home. Unfortunately, he loses the memento when their luggage falls off of Bronwyn's boat.
He goes to Miss Wren's menagerie to hide and has to leave his beloved Fiona and Claire behind because of how sick Claire was. T Unfortunately, Hugh never said a proper good bye before Fiona fell off a cliff during the wights' invasion there, leading to her presumed death.
Hugh loses most of his bees when he commands them to sting on separate occasions: a group of wights (disguised as World War II British Home Guards) at an unknown bunker and civilians who mistook the peculiars as air bomb children evacuees at a London train station. He is left with a solitary bee, Henry, who sadly has a broken wing.
In the first event Hugh, by Jacob's account, summoned enough bees to block out the sun. Hugh had arrived at the nick of time to save his friends and Gypsies from the wights. Though he had planned to throw exploding eggs, he found that the nearby flower field had a lot of bees. Hugh was able to swarm the wights and even sting them inside their bodies through their mouths.
Library of Souls[]
Hugh is taken to the Devil's Acre with the rest of the captured peculiars and helps fight against the wights at the end of the story.
A Map of Days[]
At the beginning of the book, he is digging through the fridge of Jacob's house, eating cheese. He does not have frequent appearances, but at one point he calls Jacob, Enoch, Emma, Bronwyn, and Millard while they are on their mission from H and reminds them to ask around for Fiona.
The Conference of the Birds[]
Along with Bronwyn, he saves Jacob and Noor from a bunch of men, and bring the pair to Devil's Acre. In a map room, Millard orders Hugh to get a giant book of maps and says not to spill food on the pages as the penalty is thirty years in prison and hefty fine. Hugh gets mad at everyone for not putting effort into finding Fiona, storming away, and Emma goes to collect him. Bronwyn mentions that he is reading about Ireland and Horace mentions he had a vision of Fiona on a bus with some boy. Millard says not to tell him or they'll be on every bus in London. Hugh later joins Jacob, Emma and Enoch's mission to get his mind off Fiona, by Miss Peregrine's orders. The group take a bus and end up near the site of another bus's crash, where they find the peculiar they were looking for, Ellery, who is close to death. The ymbryes attempt to slow down the worst of Ellery's aging forward until they can get her to a loop. Meanwhile, Hugh notices a vine of dog roses, a flower Fiona would grow even without meaning to, and gets confirmation that she is alive.
The Desolations of Devil's Acre[]
Description[]
Hugh at the dinner table with Claire, Jacob, and Enoch.
Physical[]
In the graphic novel, Hugh is drawn wearing a bee keeper's net hat and a pair of goggles/sunglasses. He has black hair that is slicked back and commonly sports a white shirt and suspenders, his overall appearance strongly resembling his photograph A Boy and His Bees from the collection of Robert Jackson. In the film, he is portrayed by Milo Parker.
Film Poster with Milo Parker as Hugh Apiston
Personality[]
Hugh is very rash, and states his opinions very clearly. He is obviously proud of himself when he helps his friends in various situations. Hugh has an open mind to basically anything, and is very kind to all of his friends. He uses his abilities to aid the other peculiars, and is known to be very smart and witty at times. In TDODA Jacob notes that he is a "famously bad explainer of things."
Peculiarity[]
In Miss Peregrine's Museum of Wonders, Hugh is classified as an animal communicator (specifically bees). Bees live inside Hugh's stomach, that he protects and directs. Often, a few bees will fly out of his mouth each time he opens it. The bees only sting on command or when Hugh is upset. He can instruct any number of bees at a time, even using hundreds of them to attack. He controls them by imagining himself as one of them. While Hugh's peculiarity to control his bees is a useful weapon, the bees themselves are not peculiar. As all honeybees do, they'll die after stinging.
Hugh (movie adaptation) peculiarity.
Aside from using the bees as a weapon, Hugh also provides shelter for his bees (in his stomach) and cares for them. He often pollinates his bees, usually using Fiona's flowers to do so. Hugh is very fond of his bees, and is heartbroken after using them to kill several wights and attack some civilians in Hollow City. He has also used his bees for spying, as he had one follow the wights that had taken his friends hostage. Hugh seemingly has named all his bees as well, as he refers to his sole remaining one-winged bee as Henry.
Like Olive and Claire, Hugh eats dinner at Miss Peregrine's under different circumstances due to his peculiarity. He eats under a large mosquito net at a separate table for just himself in the corner, most likely so that his bees do not interrupt the other children's meals.
Relationships[]
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Hugh (Milo Parker) and Fiona (Georgia Pemberton) watching the vision from Horace
Fiona Frauenfeld[]
Hugh and Fiona are what one would call 'soul mates'. Not only do they get along, but their peculiarities also match well. Their relationship is an example of dramatic irony due to the joint connection between their abilities. Fiona possesses the ability to produce flowers (along with other vegetation) which attract bees (Hugh's ability to contain and control them with his body and mind).
The pair met when Hugh, looking for a place to let his bees pollinate, found her sleeping in a field of flowers after she was chased out of her village.
In Hollow City, Hugh is visibly saddened when Fiona volunteers to stay back with Claire in Miss Wren's Menagerie. The two share in an affectionate goodbye, with Fiona growing roses between them for Hugh's bees to pollinate. When they turn and catch the others staring at them, Hugh sheepishly cuts the goodbye short.
Near to the conclusion of Library of Souls, Hugh refuses to believe that Fiona had perished during her fight with the wights at the menagerie. He clings to the hope that she is still alive and wandering in nature. He hopes to find her and makes a lot of effort to, searching the Panloopticon during A Map of Days. The loss had impacted him deeply, causing him to become moody, depressed, and to have a few outbursts. In a loop in Amazonia, the peculiars there with Fiona's peculiarity overwhelmed and distressed him so much he had to leave almost immediately. However, he was still very hopeful of seeing her again when most others are doubtful. Such is the hope of true love.
Luckily, it turns out that he is right that she had survived, and in The Conference of the Birds he becomes hysterical from worrying about her after learning that she is under the wights' mind control. Eventually, the couple is finally properly reunited, with Hugh initially refusing to let her go after having her in his arms after so long. In The Desolations of Devil's Acre Hugh stays with Fiona in Devil's Acre instead of going to Miss Tern's loop with Jacob and some of their other friends, and Jacob thinks it likely that Hugh would've tried to stop Fiona if she'd wanted to go on the dangerous trip.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Hugh has a one-winged bee whom he named "Henry."
- The inside of his body is a living beehive.
- He not only has the ability to control bees, but can also sense their minds.
- It is possible that he can control other Hymenopteran insects since hornets and bumblebees were also among the bees he used to kill the wights.
- He makes an appearance in the first Hollow City book trailer.
- In Ransom Riggs' post in his Tumblr account, on the peculiar calendar, Hugh's birthday is stated to be May 15.
- In the book, Hugh eats at a separate table from the others, but in the film and graphic novel he sits with everyone else, beside Olive.
- He is likely one of the oldest of Miss Peregrine's wards, as he comes from the same time period as Fiona, who lived during Ireland's famine.
References[]
- ↑ Hollow City (Chapter 7)
- ↑ A Map of Days (Chapter 6)