The Peculiar (13 page)

He glanced around the hall. Everything was quiet.

He went into the library and took up the decanter of brandy.
In a few hours I will wake up again. Carpets and willow beds will be precisely what they are supposed to be, and I can—

The creak of wood sounded behind him. He spun, just in time to see a claw-foot table bounding across the room toward him. It launched itself into the air. It caught him square in the chest. He was hurled back—decanter and all—against the far wall. The decanter burst, leaving a dripping blot on the wallpaper. Mr. Jelliby wrestled with the table, gasping, too stunned even to shout.

He saw the cutlass seconds before it struck. It came from the coat of arms above the fireplace, whizzing point-first toward him. He dragged the table up like a shield, but the cutlass sliced through it, singing past Mr. Jelliby's cheek and burying itself in the wall barely an inch from his left eye.

“Brahms!” he screamed. “Ophelia? Wake up!
Wake up!”
He ducked under the table, leaving it to thrash against the cutlass, and half limped, half crawled toward the front hall. A door banged upstairs. Voices called to each other and hurrying feet beat the floor.

By the time Mr. Jelliby arrived at the front door it was already moving. The mahogany lions carved into its frame snapped at him, straining against the edge of the beams. He gripped the door handle, but it squirmed in his hand. He let go with a cry. A brass lizard launched itself at his face, and its tail caught him on the cheek, leaving a bloody streak. From the ceiling, a plaster vine spiraled into his mouth. He bit down hard, cracking it in two.

At the top of the stairs a light appeared. Brahms stood there in his nightcap, a great kerosene lamp held aloft. It illuminated a circle of ghostly faces, all peering down in fear and wonderment at the battle raging below.

“Ophelia?” Mr. Jelliby shouted up. “Is Ophelia all right?” The hall carpet was alive, too, panthers and wildcats moving fluidly through the weave toward him.

His wife pushed through the huddle of servants, nightgown flaring white in the darkness. “I'm well, Arthur, we all are, but—”

Mr. Jelliby stamped his foot, mashing a red-eyed cat into the writhing stitches of the carpet. “It's Mr. Lickerish! He's sent someone. Something to—”

Another cat tore free. He felt it on his leg, a biting pain, as if the threads were sewing themselves into his skin. He clawed at it.

“Arthur, we're coming,” Ophelia cried. Brahms made a move to descend, but the stairs folded up like an accordion, leaving the poor footman flailing sixteen feet above the floor. The others caught him and pulled him back, shouting in fear.

“Arthur,
what's happening
?”

He had to get out. None of the others would be safe until he was gone. And if the front door wouldn't let him leave, he would find another way. He hobbled down the hallway toward the library and the back garden.

Things were flying at him from all directions now. Nails ripped themselves from the floorboards, plant stands and chairs skittered after him out of the corners. The paintings on the walls let loose their inhabitants, and old men in powdered wigs suddenly attacked, clawing and whispering. A beak-nosed lady grabbed a handful of his hair and wrenched his head against her canvas.

“Did you not see?” she hissed into his ear. “Did you not see that common little maid scratch me with her hairpin? And you did
nothing
!”

He could smell her painted hand, turpentine and dust, the brushstrokes of her fingers scraping over his face, searching for his eyes. With a yell, he rent her canvas top to bottom and flung himself away from the wall of portraits. An umbrella closed around his leg. He tried to kick it off, staggered into a bust of some king. It spat a lump of marble straight into his eye.

“My nose does
not
look like that!” the bust cried. Mr. Jelliby backed away, felt the stained-glass door that led into the back garden. His hand found the knob. He rattled it. Locked. Grasping the bust by the neck, he hurled it with all his strength through the door. The door smashed. He leaped through it.

Everything became quiet.

Side tables and teakettles clattered to a halt on the threshold. The bust rolled away into the bushes.

Mr. Jelliby fell to the grass, lungs heaving, half expecting the plants to rise up and devour him, but the garden was silent. No complaining voices. No carnivorous roses or hideous wood spirits. He pushed himself up, the dew and earth cold under his bare feet. And then he heard it. A noise from the knot of rhododendrons that grew in the far corner of the garden. The sound of stone grinding against stone.

Something was moving through the branches. Several things. The leaves began to rustle. A moment later a gargoyle slid out of the shadows, dragging its stone wings behind it. An apple-cheeked elf followed, brandishing a dainty ax. A lunatic grin was fixed across its face. Stone fauns, nymphs, and a great brass frog all emerged from the foliage, each one complaining of its own particular woes.

“There you are,” a Venus whispered, and the voice that came from her throat was eerie and grating. “Why do I not have arms? What sort of
imbecile
carves a goddess without arms? It is your good luck, I suppose, or I would surely strangle you with them.”

Slowly, steadily, the creatures advanced, feet whispering in the grass. Behind him, in the house, Mr. Jelliby heard the furniture, the tap of wood and marble, and tinny rattling. In a few moments he would be completely surrounded.

Taking a deep breath, he ran straight at the statues. The gargoyle reared, teeth bared. Mr. Jelliby leaped. His foot caught the gargoyle in its mouth and he vaulted over it, through the air and onto the grass beyond. The gargoyle let out a grating roar, but it was too heavy to turn with any speed. Mr. Jelliby struck the garden wall at a run. He began to climb. His toes found a trellis, his hands buried themselves in the ancient ivy, and he scrambled up onto the top.

He turned, looking down into the garden.

They were watching him. After a moment the Venus detached herself from the others and came to the base of the wall. She stared dolefully up at him with flat stone eyes.

“This is your home,” she said. “You will have to come back someday. And when you do, we will kill you for all the wrongs you have done us.”

“I didn't do anything!” Mr. Jelliby cried. “I didn't carve you without arms. I didn't hammer the nails into the floorboards or paint the pictures wrong!” But the Venus wasn't listening to him. It simply stared, its voice droning on about all the wicked things it was convinced he had done.

Mr. Jelliby swore and dropped down onto the other side of the wall. A narrow alley ran along it, a crooked chasm between the other garden walls. It was deserted. Wrought-iron gates and doors in peeling greens and yellows opened into it at regular intervals. Rain had fallen, and the moon shone down brightly on the slick pavement, turning it into a path of cold silver. Drips of water fell, echoing, from branches and drainpipes.

Mr. Jelliby looked back at his house, dark and waiting behind the garden wall. A lamp bloomed in an upstairs window. Then voices, muffled behind the glass. The police would arrive soon, bells clanging. They wouldn't find anything. Nothing but a willow bed, slashed portraits, and stabbed tables, all still as could be.

Pulling his dressing gown tightly around him, Mr. Jelliby hurried off into the night.

CHAPTER XIII
Out of the Alley

B
ARTHOLOMEW
didn't wake up because he had never truly gone to sleep. He had felt the coal scuttle slip from his hand, heard it fall and bounce, one long clear note going on and on inside his skull. He had fallen, too. Dull pain had stabbed his arm, and something inside his eyes had gone on, and he was able to see again, blurry and indistinct. The raggedy man stood at the window, a smudge against the light, waving out. Then the window had gone black, and the wings had filled the alley outside. But it had all seemed so far away. It had been as if Bartholomew were curled up, deep inside his stiff and hurting body, and what happened out in the world did not really concern him anymore.

It felt like he lay there for years. He imagined dust settling over him, and Old Crow Alley descending into ruins around him. But eventually he did feel himself drifting up, filling his body like a puddle spreading through a rut. It was bright outside. Sunlight fell through the grimy panes of the kitchen window and stung his eyes. He sat up and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

Hettie is gone.
It was a slow, hollow thought.
The lady in plum has come and stolen her away, just like the nine others before her. Just like my friend. I wasn't the one they wanted. I am just a silly little boy who didn't realize the danger until it was too late, who thought it was all about me, and going to London, and being important. And now Hettie is gone.

Bartholomew pulled himself off the floor with the help of a table leg. His clothes were scaly with ash, but he didn't notice. He went to his mother's bed. She was just as he had left her, fast asleep, her breathing regular, peaceful. Sometimes she would smile a little, or snort, or roll over the way she did when she was normally sleeping. Only she wouldn't wake up.

Bartholomew grasped her shoulder. “Mother?” he wanted to say, but only a cracking sound came from his throat.

In a daze, he wandered out of the flat, listening at the neighbor's doors as he passed them. All was quiet. No crying children, no footfalls on the bare old boards, not even the smell of turnips. He went upstairs, downstairs, through the whole house, and everywhere it was the same. All he heard were snores now and then, what sounded like the creak of a bedspring. Even the hobgoblin who kept the door to Old Crow Alley was asleep on his little stool, a string of spit glistening on his chin.

“Hello,” Bartholomew said. “Hello?” A little louder this time. The word flittered up the staircase, through silent passages and squares of sunlight. It echoed back to him,
“Low, low, low . . .”

Everyone was asleep. Every soul under the roof but him. The bells of Bath were ringing twelve o' clock noon. He went outside and stood in the alley, numb and staring, wondering what to do.

Clouds were drawing in, but it was still bright. He felt the sun on his skin, but it didn't warm him. A ring of mushrooms had grown up among the cobbles. They were few and far between, and when Bartholomew walked into their middle, the air didn't even stir. He stamped on them, one by one, and smeared the black liquid across the ground.

After a while he caught sight of a man working his way up the alley. The man wore a dirty white suit with a blue collar. Bartholomew thought he must be a sailor. He was only a few steps away when he noticed Bartholomew. His eyes went wide and he crossed himself as he passed, scraping himself along the wall and hurrying on around the corner. Bartholomew watched him go, a dull, cold expression on his face.

Stupid, stupid person.
Suddenly Bartholomew hated him.
Why should he cross himself and stare? He isn't better than me. He's just a stupid, dirty sailor, and he probably can't even read. I can read.
Bartholomew's teeth began to ache, and he realized he was clenching them. His hand knotted into a fist at his side. In his mind he was hitting the man over and over again, punching his face until when he looked down it was no longer a face at all but a round broken pot with red stew dripping from it.

“Oi! You there!” a rough voice said behind him. A hand grabbed Bartholomew's shoulder and spun him violently about.

He found himself looking into a round, pockmarked face like an old pancake. The face belonged to a thick, small man practically bursting out of his tattered military coat. A peddler's backpack was on his back, but all the hooks where the spoons and pans and dollies should have been were empty.

“What d'you think you're doing, eh? Whispering enchantments at people's backs? What kind of witchcraft are you up to, boy?” The little man drew Bartholomew up by the collar until he was only inches from his dirty, stubbly face.

“Ah, a devil's child, are we,” he wheezed. “A Peculiar. Tell me, devil boy, did your ma raise you on dog's blood instead of milk?”

“N-no,” Bartholomew rasped. His mind was no longer dragging. It was blunt and quick with fear.
Don't get yourself noticed, and you won't get yourself hanged.
Don't get—
He had gotten himself noticed.

“Your lot is being murdered right now, did you hear 'bout that? Oh, yes! Being fished out of the river, all dripping and cold. I hear they have red marks up their arms, on their skin. And they're just . . . empty, floating like cloth in the swill.” The little man laughed gleefully. “No guts! Ha-ha! No guts! Whada you think 'bout that, hmm? Do you have red lines up your arms, all a dancin' and a whirlin'?” He tore at one of Bartholomew's sleeves. His piggy eyes went wide, then narrowed slowly. When he spoke again his voice was low and dangerous.

“You're goina be dead soon, devil boy. You're marked. You know the last boy who died? He was right from around here, looked like you. Binsterbull or Biddelbummer or sommet like that. And they just fished him out o' the Thames, they did. In London. And he had just the same marks as that. Oh, yes. Just the same.” The man's breath stank of gin and decaying teeth. Bartholomew began to feel sick. “Watcha been up to, eh, devil boy?” the man whined in his face. “Why they gonna kill you? Maybe I should kill you first and save them the tr—”

Behind them, someone cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” a polite voice said.

Without loosening his grip on Bartholomew's collar, the peddler whipped around. He snorted.

“Whada you want?”

“I want you to unhand the young man,” the voice said.

“You best start runnin', mister. Run away, or I'll finish you next.”

The man didn't move. “Release him or I'll shoot you dead.”

Bartholomew craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of his benefactor. He found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. It was a tiny silver gun with mother-of-pearl on its handle and rubies and opals all down its sides.

The peddler only spat. “You? You couldn't shoot a kitten if it bit your nose.”

The man shot. A fine round pearl rolled lazily down the barrel of the gun and plopped out, falling to the cobblestones and bouncing away.

“Drat,” the man with the gun said. “Look, leave the boy alone, won't you? You can have the pistol. It's worth a great deal, I suppose. And I assure you there's no more. My money is all in named bills so you'll never be able to cash them, and I don't even have a watch chain, so you needn't bother robbing me.” He held out the bejewelled pistol. “Now do unhand the child.”

The man with the pancake face dropped Bartholomew unceremoniously to the cobbles. He snatched the pistol. “All right,” he said, squinting warily at the stranger. “But this ain't no child. This is one o' them changelings, it is, and it's marked. It's gonna be dead soon.”

Then he was gone, scrambling away down the alley.

Bartholomew got up off the ground and looked his rescuer over.

The man was a gentleman. His shoes gleamed black, and his collar was starched, and he smelled terribly clean, like soap and fresh-pumped water. He was rather tall, too, with broad shoulders and square features, and blond stubble pricked up along his jaw so that it looked like he hadn't shaved in several days. His face wore an expression of mild inquiry. Bartholomew disliked him right away.

“Hello,” the gentleman said quietly. “Are you Child Number Ten?”

 

“
Mi Sathir?
There is a problem.”

The lady in plum stood with her back to Mr. Lickerish. Her arms were at her sides, and her elegant fingers were moving ever so slightly, picking at the velvet of her skirts. Her lips remained motionless.

“
Mi Sathir,
” the voice said again. Mr. Lickerish did not look up. He was busy scribbling away on a scrap of paper with a curling black feather, fierce concentration etched into his fine-boned features.

The lady and the faery were in a beautiful room. Books lined the walls and lamps cast halos around them. A low humming filled the air. Two metal birds were perched on the desk where Mr. Lickerish sat, their eyes dark and keen. In one corner of the room, a chalk circle had been drawn carefully on the floorboards. One section of the circle looked newer than the rest, crisper and whiter, as if it'd had to be redrawn.

“A
problem
,
Sathir
.”

Mr. Lickerish threw down the quill. “Yes, there are many problems, Jack Box, and one of them is you, and one is Arthur Jelliby, and one is old Mr. Zerubbabel and his crooked, slow fingers. How long does it take to build another bird out of metal? He has the plans and the route and . . . Speaking of which, did you kill him? Arthur Jelliby?”

“I did. He's dead by now. Most likely strangled by his bedsheets because they did not like being put under sizzling irons and drowned in suds. You know, it's almost a shame wasting the
Malundis Lavriel
spell so late at night. There's no one about to appreciate it. Now, on a crowded street, in the heat of the day, the result can be quite spectacular but . . . But I digress. We have a problem.” The lady in plum stepped aside, revealing a little girl curled up on the floor. The lady extended a jet-black toe from under her skirts and dug it into the child's ribs. “Wake up, ugly thing. Wake up!”

Hettie raised her head sleepily. For half an instant her eyes were blank, as if she thought she was still at home, safe. Then she sat up. Her mouth pinched, and she glared at the lady and Mr. Lickerish, each in turn.

“Pull up your sleeves, half-blood. Show him.”

She did as she was told, but she didn't stop glaring. The dirty fabric was rolled up, revealing a pattern of lines, red tendrils twisting around her thin white arms.

“Well?” the faery politician demanded. “What is it? She looks very nearly as wretched as the other nine.”

A tongue clicked in annoyance. It was not the lady's tongue, not the tongue behind the vivid red lips. It was a long, rough, barbed tongue, scraping over teeth. “Read it,” the voice growled.

The faery politician leaned across the desk. He paused. One perfect eyebrow arched. “Eleven? Why is she marked eleven?”

“
That
is the problem. I don't know. I set up the spell just as you ordered,
Skasrit
Sylphii
to brand each of the changelings as they traveled through the wings and to open their skin to the magic. This one ought to have been marked number ten.”

Mr. Lickerish snapped his fingers and settled back into his chair. “Well then. It counted incorrectly. Magic is only as clever as its user, and you are not nearly as clever as you suppose.”

“My magic is quite sound,
Sathir
. And at least
I
can still do such things. You know nothing of the old ways. You buy all your spells and potions like a regular spoilt toff.” The voice ought to have stopped there, but it went on, goading. “Or else you dispense with it altogether. Mechanics are so much more practical, after all. Clockwork birds and iron horses.” There was a snicker. “Just like a proper
human
.”

“Hold your tongue,” Mr. Lickerish spat. “I am the one who is going to save you. Save us all from this cage of a country. And you will do your part just as I do mine. Now,” he said, suddenly calm again. “If the spell is still functioning, what could have happened?”

“I see only one way: someone else came through the faery ring.”

The room went deathly still. Only the gentle humming could be heard, throbbing somewhere in the walls.

The lady's fingers began to twitch, little jerks like a spider's legs when it's just been crushed.

“Someone,” the voice said again, “after number nine and before this one. The magic fades slowly. If someone stepped in by accident, I suppose it's . . . No. No, it couldn't be. The sylphs would have devoured him in an instant, gnawed him to the bone. Oh, it makes no sense! Only a changeling would have been marked!”

Mr. Lickerish stared at the back of the lady's head. His eyes were hard and black.

The voice went on, hurrying, stumbling. “It is the only way. The magic did not count incorrectly. The spell is quite sound. Eleven changelings have traveled to this room. Nine have met their deaths. One—this one, I assure you”—the lady's hands were moving furiously now, scratching at the fabric like claws—“will be the means to a glorious end, and the other one is . . .”—the hands went limp—“. . . still about.”

“Still about,” the faery politician enunciated slowly. “Still
about?
A changeling slipped into my private chambers, saw needle-knows-what, and is now marching lively as firelight through England?” Mr. Lickerish picked up a china figurine and hurled it across the room.
“Find it!”
he screamed. “Find it at once and kill it.”

The lady in plum turned to face Mr. Lickerish. Her expression was blank, her lips slack. She slumped forward in a clumsy bow, and the voice said, “Yes,
Mi
Sathir.
It will be the simplest thing in the world to track it down.”