The Peculiar (8 page)

But this time nothing was the way he had left it. His breath caught in his throat as he crawled under the gable. It looked as if a storm had blown through. His treasure box lay open, its contents strewn across the floor. The string of glass had been tied into a great knot so tight and complicated-looking that he knew he would never be able to undo it. The straw inside the mat had been torn out and stuffed between the tiles overhead. It sifted down now, gentle and golden in the light from the window. As for the faery dwelling, it was in ruins. The twigs he had spent so many months gathering had been trampled into the cracks in the floorboards. The cherries were gone. So was the spoon.

He took a few steps forward, his mind numb. Something crinkled underfoot. It was his letter, half hidden under a tangle of ivy. He knelt down and unfolded it shakily.

There was his writing, so crooked and bad he was ashamed of it now, and around it, little dirty fingerprints like those of a small child. On the other side, bleeding into the creamy paper like a stain, was a number. A single number . . .

10

And that was all.

He stared at it, the straw drifting around him, and his mother's words came unbidden into his mind. The words she had said that day, weeks ago, when the lady in plum had first swept into the shadows of Old Crow Alley and he had begged Mother to let him invite a faery.

And what if you get a bad one.

CHAPTER VIII
To Catch a Bird

T
WENTY
minutes after the faery gentleman prodded Melusine from the room like a mangy goat, Mr. Jelliby was still huddled inside the cabinet, eyes closed, blood thumping a tattoo inside his head. He felt he was going mad. His brain ached. He was almost certain it would come sliding out of his nose at any moment, and wriggle away across the floor on tentacle feet.

The lady in plum had seen him. She had looked straight into his eyes and she had not cried out, or alerted Mr. Lickerish to his presence as one would have expected from the henchwoman of a dreadful murderer. No, she had implored Mr. Jelliby for help. He could still see her lips forming the two words, the desperation in those bright and shining eyes.

Help me.
She may as well have screamed it. But help her how? Who
was
she?

Slowly, cautiously, Mr. Jelliby opened the cabinet door and peeked out. The room looked ridiculously pleasant. Sunlight shone warmly through the windowpanes, making a pattern on the floor. All the gloom and darkness seemed to have gone out with the faery and the lady in plum.

Mr. Jelliby stepped down from the cabinet. His legs very nearly collapsed under him, and he had to cling to the woodwork for support, his knees all at angles.

He didn't understand any of it. He didn't understand where that leafy voice had come from, or all its talk of rose hips and numbers. But he couldn't very well do nothing. After all, hadn't the lady kept Mr. Lickerish from discovering him? He owed it to her to do
something.
He supposed he could rescue her. Very subtly, of course. There was no need to be all valiant about it. Ophelia would not approve of him gallivanting after foreign ladies in dirty dresses.

He took a few unsteady steps to get rid of the needles in his legs and then made for the door.

Melusine.
What a strange, shadowy sort of name. Was it French? No, that was Mélisande. He would have to look it up when he got home. Or ask Aunt Dorcas. She would know. She knew everything. Aunt Dorcas was his father's sister, was married to a clerk, and lived in three rented rooms in Fitzrovia; because she was not nearly as well-to-do as she would have liked, she consoled herself by knowing all about everyone who was. For all practical purposes, Aunt Dorcas was an encyclopaedia of society in a frock. If there was a lady of any importance at all by the name of Melusine, Aunt Dorcas was sure to know.

Putting his head out the door, Mr. Jelliby looked first up the hall, then down the hall, then slipped out and hurried stiffly away.
Drat,
he thought miserably.
Drat, bang, and smash it all.
The Privy Council. It would have started ages ago. There was no chance of his entering unnoticed now.

He retraced his steps down the echoing corridors until he was back in the wing of the building where the council chamber was. The hall was bare of people now. He laid his hand on the brass handle, putting his head against the cool wood of the door. The droning voice of the Speaker sounded from the other side. One sentence. A pause. Three sentences and another pause. A chair creaked resoundingly. No fighting or arguing. Everyone was probably bored out of their minds.
And wouldn't it be an exciting diversion if that Arthur Jelliby fellow came in right now, late of course, probably having been detained by some dastardly bit of spying.

He couldn't open that door. He couldn't possibly. He would go to a coffeehouse and wait an hour behind a newspaper, and then he would go home and . . . Ophelia would be unhappy with him. She would ask him how it had gone, and he would have to lie endlessly. But lying seemed vastly easier than this. He simply did not have the courage to open that door and walk past all those curious eyes. Besides, Mr. Lickerish would be there. How Mr. Jelliby could ever again sit coolly in the company of that villainous creature, he did not know.

An elegant gentleman wearing a hat made out of a giant toadstool turned into the hall, instantly cutting Mr. Jelliby's conflict short. Without another thought, he walked away in the opposite direction.

Once free of Westminster's walls, out in the whirling smoke and the sunshine, with the noise of the city all around, Mr. Jelliby felt almost weightless. He took a few deep breaths of the foul air. Then he headed up Whitehall, his fingers toying with the watch chain at his side.

He would need a plan if he were to find Melusine. She might have been abducted. Or become a victim of blackmail. Aunt Dorcas would definitely know of her then. Likely she would know either way, as the lady in plum had obviously been wealthy once. Not so long ago that velvet dress had been a marvelous sight, tailored to turn heads and slacken jaws. It must have cost a fortune.

He wandered into the labyrinth of shop stalls in Charing Cross, letting the vendors swarm around him. He barely noticed their trays of wind-up toys, their pretzels and sticky apples and hand mirrors that made you look prettier than you really were. People jostled him from all sides. Dirty faces blared up close and then fell away again, lost among the coattails. A very tiny faery woman with flowing green hair like river grass materialized in front of him. Strapped to her back was what looked like a bundle of canes.

“An umbrella for the guv'nor?” she said, and flashed her pointed fangs. “An umbrella for the rain?”

Mr. Jelliby laughed. It wasn't the merry, carefree laugh he was used to performing, but it was the best he could do right then. “Rain? Madam, it's bright as bells out here.”

“Aye, guv'nor, but it won't be forever. The clouds are comin' in. Down from the North. Be here by evening. A blackbird told me not one hour ago.”

Mr. Jelliby paused, regarding the faery woman curiously. Then he tossed her a farthing and plunged into the crowds, a spring in his step.

A blackbird had told her.
A bird.
Birds knew all sorts of things, it seemed. And what would Mr. Lickerish's bird know—the little clockwork one that had flown from the window of the empty clerk's office? What sort of message had been in the glinting capsule on its leg? And to whom was it so swiftly headed? It might not lead him directly to Melusine, but to someone she knew? An associate perhaps? It was a trail at least, something to follow.

He had to catch the bird. Once he had the bird, he hoped it would lead him to Melusine. And once he had bravely rescued her and all that, he supposed he ought to find a way to stop Mr. Lickerish. That part sounded less appealing. In fact, it sounded a little bit dangerous. The faery politician was not some violent street murderer skulking in London's alleys on fog-bound nights. One couldn't simply send the constable around to cart him off. He was Lord Chancellor to the Queen. He was wealthy and powerful, and if he wanted to he could grind Mr. Jelliby under his thumb like a louse. The Law would be no help to Mr. Jelliby. Not against a Sidhe.

But enough of that. Enough moping and wondering. He had a bird to catch. Only, he had no idea
how
to catch it. He sat down at a coffeehouse on the corner where the Strand runs into Trafalgar Square and wondered some more.

He could shoot the thing out of the sky, he supposed. An old hunting rifle hung above the mantel in his study. But the gun was a beast of a thing, and even if he somehow managed to smuggle it into the Westminster area, all London would hear it when it went off. Then there was the brace of Spanish pistols in the hall cabinet. And that little gun he had gotten for his fifteenth birthday. Its handle was mother-of-pearl and there were real rubies and opals all down its barrel and encrusting the trigger. He didn't know if it actually worked. Things so pretty seldom did.

A waiter in antiquated knee breeches and frock coat arrived at Mr. Jelliby's table, and he ordered one of those new tropical drinks that were said to be “sweet as sugar, cold as ice, bright as flowers, and twice as nice.” London could be stiflingly hot in summer when the ash clouds closed like a lid overhead and not so much as a breeze stirred from the river. Even here, where the arteries of the city were wider than most, and the houses stood tall and straight on either side, the air was practically solid, rank with the smell of onions and chimneys and unwashed skin. The starched collar of Mr. Jelliby's shirt was already damp with sweat.

By the time the drink arrived it was no longer very cold. It looked like a cup of green paint, thick and syrupy and so sweet it set his teeth on edge. He took two sips and pushed it away, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. What was he thinking? A
gun
? The bird would be shattered in midair. He had to knock it out of the sky and catch it with as little damage as possible. Not blow it to smithereens. Perhaps he should first see where the bird flew. He knew that clockwork things of that sort could only travel to and from a single point. Their whole being was constructed for one route, their wings the proper length, their cogs and insides the proper size for one stretch, and one stretch only. The newer ones, he knew, had tiny battery faeries to propel them. They were equipped with a sort of mechanical map that assured they did not run into church steeples or trestle bridges. The bird still had to be sent off from the correct place, from the correct height, and in the correct direction. Then it would simply fly until its spring wound down. That must be why Mr. Lickerish had launched it from the clerk's office high up in Westminster. Any lower and the bird would probably have crashed through someone's attic window.

A group of raggedy children came running up among the tables, all shouting and begging at once, trying to get some pennies before the waiters drove them off. One came up to Mr. Jelliby, hand outstretched, so dirty a little garden could have grown from it. Mr. Jelliby offered the urchin the green-paint drink, but the child just made a face and ran on.

He turned his attention back to the task at hand. All he had to do was find the bird's trajectory across London's rooftops. Then he could simply choose a point along its path and wait for it to arrive. He pictured himself balancing on a chimney somewhere, swinging wildly about with a butterfly net. It was not a nice thought. He hoped no one would be there to see it.

Leaning down from his chair, he poured the sluggish green concoction into the gutter. Then he set off for home, drifting through the city streets at an aimless pace, eyes to the cobbles, hat pulled down low over his face.
Crimson lips, unmoving in a white face. Plum-colored skirts. The little top hat, casting a shadow over her eyes.
He was so deep in thought that he was already stepping up to the front door of his house on Belgrave Square before he realized it had begun to rain and he was soaked to the skin.

 

The next morning, after a good breakfast of sausage and buttered toast, Mr. Jelliby pedaled himself to Westminster on his bicycle and got off on the bridge in a place that gave him a view of the river-facing windows of the new palace. He leaned the bicycle up against a lamppost and crossed his arms on the railing, watching the rows of windows carefully. They barely ever opened. When they did, Mr. Jelliby would crane his neck and squint very determinedly, but the only things that came out of them were hot, flustered faces and once a gentleman's tailcoat. It fell into the river and was fished out by a boatman who put it on sopping wet.

The flower sellers next to Mr. Jelliby began shaking their heads at him. A police officer shot him ever more suspicious looks each time he stalked by. After six hours, Mr. Jelliby could take it no longer and cycled home, tired and humiliated, just as the flame faeries were beginning to flare in the streetlamps.

It took six days of this. Six days of watching the windows of Westminster like a madman before one finally opened, high up near the roof, and a little bead of clockwork and brass flittered out across the river.

The moment Mr. Jelliby saw it he set off running. He left his bicycle, he left his hat, he left the flower sellers hooting and twirling their fingers next to their ears, and he tore away across the bridge.

Just as before, the bird was flying straight toward the forest of garrets and chimney pots on London's east bank. Mr. Jelliby careened into the traffic on Lambeth Road, ignoring the blaring horns and angry shouts. A steam carriage whizzed past inches from his nose, but he barely flinched. He mustn't lose sight of the bird. Not now.

Fortunately for him it was not a real sparrow. Its metal wings made it heavy and slow no matter how frantically they flapped, and it didn't swoop after worms and insects lodged in the stonework the way regular flesh-and-feathers birds did. Mr. Jelliby could very nearly keep pace with it when he ran his fastest.

Unfortunately, his fastest was not overly impressive. He hadn't run properly since a fox hunt several years ago at Lord Peskinborough's country estate; Mr. Jelliby had disagreed with his horse over which direction to take, and the horse had left him to go whichever direction he pleased.

He sped into a side street, feet jarring against the cobblestones. His chin was pointed skyward, eyes blind to everything but the metal bird high above. Someone quite literally bounced off him as he ran, and he heard that someone thump against a shop window. People began shouting after him, laughing and jeering. A rough-looking man with metal teeth grabbed his arm and spun him around. Mr. Jelliby shook him off, only to collide violently with a plump lady holding a parasol. The lady screeched. The bundle he had taken to be a muff revealed a mouth and yelped, and a shower of colorfully wrapped packages tumbled around him. He didn't stop.

“Excuse me! I must get through! Do forgive me!” he cried, swatting a soot-blackened chimney sweep out of his way.

There it was. A glimpse of brass and clockwork, as the bird shot across the slit of sky between two roofs, and then it was gone again.

He had to get on different street.
Blast it, this one was leading him in the wrong direction!

He spotted an alley, sinuous and dark, leading into a thicket of buildings, and hurled himself down it. Washing, sour with lye, lashed his face. Street children scattered shrieking before him, disappearing into various recesses like so many beetles before a broom. A fallen piece of gutter very nearly ended his chase then and there, but he leaped over it and burst out into the brightness of a wider street.