Night Visit to the Fishmonger’s Icehouse and Martin’s Brief Revival

Night Visit to the Fishmonger’s Icehouse and Martin’s Brief Revival turns Miss Peregrine’s precautionary lockdown into a dangerous investigation: Jacob and three companions leave the house to learn whether a dead man’s fate signals an immediate threat. At the fishmonger’s icehouse they uncover Martin, and Enoch uses animal hearts to bring him briefly back to life. Martin’s few words reveal that a Hollowgast killed him and came to his door, changing an unverified warning into a present danger even as the group’s clandestine expedition is interrupted by an armed man.

Lockdown and decision to investigate

Miss Peregrine announces that a man outside the loop has died under suspicious circumstances. She cannot establish either the cause of death or whether it threatens the house’s security, but orders the children to act as though the danger is real. No one may leave, she says, not even to gather vegetables or bring in a goose. The order is a precaution against an uncertain threat; for Jacob, it also creates an immediate conflict between obeying the house’s rules and returning to his father, whom he fears may be exposed to danger.

Jacob tries to persuade Miss Peregrine to let him go, but she insists that the prohibition applies to him and will not permit an exception. Upstairs, he tells the others that she has stopped him. The scene is one of collective confinement: Bronwyn watches from the window, Enoch works at a piece of hard clay, and Emma burns scraps of notebook paper between her fingers. Jacob then declares that he will leave regardless, because he will not remain inside while his father may be in danger. Emma volunteers to accompany him; Bronwyn objects to defying Miss Peregrine but insists that they need her protection.

The plan changes when Enoch asks where the dead man is being kept. Learning that the body is at the fishmonger’s, he proposes that they ask the dead man what happened. The expedition is assembled around that idea: Jacob goes to investigate, Emma refuses to let him go alone, Bronwyn joins for protection, and Enoch intends to attempt a revival. Millard, despite the potential usefulness of his invisibility, declines to join them and must be bribed not to report their plan. Emma reasons that Miss Peregrine would have to banish all four of them rather than Jacob alone, but the possibility does not reassure Bronwyn, who does not want to be banished.

Through the cairn to the fishmonger’s

The group leaves through the cairn, crossing from the calm summer night into a storm. At the tunnel’s end, the air pressure drops and the temperature falls as wind and thunder fill the passage. Outside, rain, lightning, and the flooded bog make the crossing difficult. Emma repeatedly tries to make a flame, but the wind extinguishes each attempt; the group pulls up their coats and presses on, navigating partly by memory.

They reach the town without drawing attention: the cottages are shuttered against the weather, and rain has scattered roof tiles and flooded the streets. At the fishmonger’s, the locked door does not stop Bronwyn, who forces it open with two kicks. Emma finally manages to kindle a flame inside. Jacob leads the others past the fish displayed in the shop and through a door to the icehouse, a small shed behind the premises. Their search is not a general inspection of the shop but an attempt to locate and question the particular man whose suspicious death prompted the lockdown.

Finding Martin and attempting the revival

The companions search the ice troughs by hand, clearing away the ice to find the body. Bronwyn is the first to uncover it and recoils; Emma insists that they have come together and must see the investigation through. They reveal Martin’s body, identifiable despite its condition. Enoch warns that Martin may be too far gone for his method to work, but Bronwyn says they have come too far not to try.

Enoch produces a sheep’s heart, one of several he has brought. He reaches into the ice-filled cavity in Martin’s chest and raises the heart in his other hand. It begins to beat, but then slows, darkens, and fails. Enoch tries again with a heart Jacob has kept in his pocket, then with one he had given to Emma; neither attempt succeeds. The last available heart belongs to Bronwyn. Enoch raises it over the trough and concentrates until it trembles, urging Martin to rise.

This final attempt works, briefly. Something shifts beneath the ice, then Martin’s body moves abruptly. When Jacob looks again, Martin’s head has turned toward him, and one eye focuses on him. Enoch tells Jacob that Martin can see him. Martin’s hand rises and rests on Jacob’s arm, establishing a short, direct connection between the witness seeking answers and the dead man capable of giving them. The revival does not restore Martin to ordinary life; it gives him only a limited interval in which to speak.

Martin’s testimony and the confirmed threat

Asked who killed him, Martin whispers that his old man did. His first answer is misleading, but not because he is concealing the truth: Jacob recognizes that Martin is describing the bog boy, a familiar figure he has mistaken for his attacker. Jacob recalls that Hollowgasts become visible to other people only when they are eating, usually too late for a witness to understand what is happening. Martin had seen a Hollowgast at night in the rain as it attacked him and misidentified it as the figure he most prized in his collection.

The implication changes the group’s understanding of the death. Jacob concludes that a Hollowgast killed Martin and warns the others that one is somewhere on the island. At Enoch’s suggestion, he asks Martin where he saw it. Martin first pleads that the questioning hurts; then he says that the attacker came to his door. When Jacob checks whether he means the old man, Martin corrects him: it was the other figure who came. The distinction confirms that Martin’s earlier identification was mistaken and links the attack to an intruder at his home.

Before the group can clarify the answer, a light sweeps into the icehouse and a voice challenges them. The companions turn to find a man in the doorway holding a flashlight and a pistol. Emma extinguishes her flame, but the expedition’s secrecy has already been broken. The interruption leaves the warning with a clear but incomplete result: a Hollowgast is active on the island, Martin’s testimony has identified its attack on him, and the group has been discovered while acting in defiance of Miss Peregrine’s order.