The Peculiar Read online

  There was a great hissing at this, and just as many sage nods. Approximately half the council were members of one anti-faery group or another. The other half thought being anti anything narrow-minded, magic absolutely fascinating, and faeries the key to the future.

  “Well, I say it is the faeries’ doing!” the ancient Lord Lillicrapp cried, hammering his cane into the floor so hard a splinter of wood flew up like a spark. “Little beasts. Devils straight from Hell, if you ask me. They’re the reason England’s in the state it is. Look at this country. Look at Bath. It’s going wild, it is. Soon we’ll have rebellion on our hands, and then where’ll we be? They’ll turn our cannons into rosebushes, take the city for themselves. They don’t understand our laws. They don’t care about murder. A few dead men here and there? Pshaw.” The man spat contemptuously. “It’s not wrong to them.”

  A bobbing of heads followed this outburst. Mr. Jelliby pinched the bridge of his nose and prayed it would end soon. He wanted very much to be somewhere else, somewhere cheerful and loud, preferably with brandy and people who talked about the weather and wine merchants.

  The Archbishop of Canterbury was the next to speak. He was a tall, grim-looking man with a haggard face, and his tweed suit-no longer very new-stood out sorely against the cravats and colored waistcoats of the other gentlemen.

  “I would not be so quick to judge,” he said, leaning forward in his chair. “And I do not know why we must insist upon this word ‘changeling.’ As if we are still children, whispering over faery tales in the nursery. Peculiars, they are called, and they are quite real. They are not waifs put into the cradles of human children while the true infants are stolen into the Old Country. They will not wrinkle and waste away in a few years’ time. They will be hanged. They are forever being hanged in our more remote villages. And no wonder, if we speak of them as if they were nothing but wind and enchantments. Humans think they are curses in child’s form. Faeries are disgusted by their ugliness and are in the habit of burying them alive under elderberry bushes in case it’s catching. I rather think both parties are sufficiently foolish and ill-informed to kill.”

  Up until then, Mr. Lickerish had been listening to the discussion quite impassively. But at the archbishop’s words he stiffened. His mouth formed a thin line. Mr. Jelliby saw his hand go to his waistcoat pocket. The fingers slipped in, twitched, and were still.

  The faery stood. Mr. Jelliby thought he smelled wet earth. The air didn’t feel so close anymore, just old and damp and rotten-sweet.

  Without bothering to wait for the old councilman’s permission, Mr. Lickerish began to speak.

  “Gentlemen, these matters are indeed most troubling. But to say that the fay are murdering changelings? It is deplorable. I will not sit silent while the blame for yet another of England’s woes is laid upon the shoulders of the fay. They are citizens! Patriots! Have you forgotten Waterloo? Where would England be without our brave faery troops? In the hands of Napoleon, together with all her empire. And the Americas? Were it not for the tireless efforts of trolls and giants, forging our cannon and pouring our musket balls in the infernal heat of the factories, building our warships and aether guns, it would still be a rebel nation. We owe so much to the faeries.” Mr. Lickerish’s face remained smooth, but his words were strangely beguiling, full of nuance and subtle passion. Even the council members who were distinctly anti-fay sat up in their chairs.

  Only the man next to Mr. Jelliby-a Lord Locktower-clicked his tongue. “Yes, including forty-three percent of our crime,” he said.

  Mr. Lickerish turned on him. He flashed his pointed teeth. “That is because they are so poor,” he said. He stood a moment, considering Lord Locktower. Then he spun sharply, addressing instead the gentlemen on the other side of the room. “It is because they are being exploited!”

  More nods and only a few hisses. The smell of damp was very strong now. Lord Locktower scowled. Mr. Jelliby saw him pull out a heavy old pocket watch and examine it angrily. The watch was an antiquated thing, scrolled and made from iron. Mr. Jelliby thought it somewhat unfashionable.

  The faery politician began to pace. “It has been this way since the day we arrived,” he said. “First we were massacred, then we were enslaved, then we were massacred again. And now? Now we are your scapegoat, to be accused of all the crimes you find too distasteful to blame on your own people. Why does England hate us? What have we done that your world loathes us so? We do not want to be here. We did not come to stay. But the road home has vanished, the door is closed.”

  The faery stopped pacing. He was watching the assembled gentlemen, watching them very closely. In a voice that was barely a wisp, he said, “We will never see our home again.”

  Mr. Jelliby thought this unbearably sad. He found himself nodding gravely along with most of the others.

  But Mr. Lickerish was not finished yet. He walked to the center of the room, right up next to the Speaker’s podium, and said, “We have suffered so much at the hands of fate. We live here in chains, locked into slums, among iron and bells that harangue against the very essence of our beings, but is that enough for you? Oh, no. We must be murderers as well. Murderers of innocent children, children who share our very blood.” He shook his head once, and as the light shifted across it, his features seemed to change and the angles soften. He didn’t look so cold anymore. He looked suddenly tragic, like the weeping angels under the trees of Hyde Park. “I can only hope justice will prevail in the end.”

  Mr. Jelliby gave the faery politician what he hoped was a look of deep and heartfelt sympathy. The other gentlemen tutted and harrumphed. But then Lord Locktower stood up and stamped his foot.

  “Now stop all this!” he cried, glaring at everyone at once. “Whining and sniveling, that’s what this is. I, for one, shall have none of it.” The gentleman two chairs over tried to shush him. He only spoke louder. Other men broke in. Lord Locktower began to shout, his face flaring red. When Baron Somerville tried to pull him back into his seat, he brought up a glove and slapped him hard across the face.

  The whole room seemed to draw in a breath. Then it exploded into pandemonium. Chairs were overturned, walking sticks were hurled to the floor, and everyone was on his feet, bellowing.

  Mr. Jelliby made for the door. Barons and dukes were everywhere, jostling and elbowing, and someone was crying “Down with England!” at the top of his lungs. Mr. Jelliby was forced to turn aside, and when he did he caught sight of Mr. Lickerish again. The faery was standing in the midst of the commotion, a pale slip in the sea of red faces and flailing black hats. He was smiling.

  CHAPTER III

  Black Wings and Wind

  Bartholomew lay in the attic, curled up, still as stone. Daylight slipped away. The sun began to sink behind the looming bulk of New Bath, the light from the little round window stretched its fingers ever farther and ever redder across his face, and still he did not move.

  A hard, cold fear had moved into his stomach, and he couldn’t make it go.

  He saw the lady in plum again, over and over in his mind, walking in the alley. Her hair was pulled away, the little face staring, dark and knotted, and the bramble-haired boy followed her in shadows shaped like wings. Jewels, and hats, and purple skirts. A blue hand grinding glass. Wet black eyes, and a smile under them, a horrid, horrid smile.

  It was too much for him. Too much, too quickly, a rush of sound and fury, like time sped up. Bartholomew had seen thieves from that attic window, an automaton with no legs, a pale corpse or two, but this was worse. This was dangerous, and he had been seen. Why had the lady come? And why had she taken his friend away? Bartholomew’s head ached.

  He stared at the floorboards so long he could make out every rift and wormhole. He knew it wasn’t the magic that had shaken him. Magic was a part of life in Bath, always had been. Somewhere in London, important men had decided it would be best to try to hide it, to keep the factories heaving and the church bells clanging, but it hadn’t done much good. Magic was still there. It
was simply underneath, hidden in the secret pockets of the city. Bartholomew saw a twinkly-eyed gnome in Old Crow Alley now and again, dragging behind him a root in the shape of a child. Folk would open their windows to watch, and when someone dropped the gnome a penny or a bit of bread, he would make the root dance, and make it wheel around and sing. Once in a blue moon the oak on Scattercopper Lane was known to mumble prophecies. And it was common knowledge that the Buddelbinsters’ faery mother could call the mice out of the walls and make them stir her soups and twist the wool for her spinning wheel.

  So a whirling pillar of darkness was not really dreadful to Bartholomew. What was dreadful was that it had happened here, in the muddy confines of his own small street, to someone just like him. And Bartholomew Kettle had been seen.

  The sun was completely gone now. The shadows were beginning to slink from behind the rafters, and that made Bartholomew get up. He crawled out of the attic and made his way downstairs, trying not to let the groaning, sagging house give him away. Don’t get yourself noticed, and you won’t get yourself hanged.

  At the door to their rooms, Bartholomew paused. Oily yellow light seeped from under it. The rhythmic clank of the mechanical wash wringer sounded dully into the passage.

  “Come now, Hettie,” Mother was saying. Her voice was loud and cheerful, the way it was when nothing was well and she was determined not to show it. She was trying to keep Hettie from worrying. “Drink your broth down quick-like, and then off to bed. This lamp’s not got more ’n fifteen minutes in it, and I’ll be needing it another night or two.”

  There was a slurp. Hettie mumbled, “It doesn’t taste like anything.”

  That’s because it’s only water, thought Bartholomew, leaning his head against the door frame. With wax drippings so we think there’s meat in it. It was why the saucers at the base of the brass candlesticks were always empty in the mornings. Mother thought she was careful about it, but he knew. They were scraped clean by the kitchen spoon.

  “Mummy, Barthy isn’t back yet.”

  “Yes. .” Mother’s voice was not so loud anymore.

  “It’s dark outside. It’s past bedtime. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes, dearie, it is.”

  “I suspect something, Mummy.”

  “Oh. .”

  “Do you want to know what I suspect?”

  “There isn’t any salt left.”

  “No. I suspect a kelpy got him and dragged him down into his bottomless puddle.”

  Bartholomew turned away before he could hear his mother’s reply. She wasn’t really thinking about the salt. She was thinking about where he might be hiding, where she hadn’t searched yet, and why he hadn’t returned. He felt cruel suddenly, slinking around outside their door while she worried inside. Soon she would start to panic, knock on the neighbors’ walls, and go into the night with the last fifteen minutes of the lamp oil. He had to be back before then.

  Tiptoeing the rest of the way downstairs, he scraped himself along the wall toward the alley door. A goblin sat by it, fast asleep on a stool. Bartholomew went past him and brushed his hand over the door, feeling for the bolt. The door had a face in it-fat cheeks and lips and sleepy old eyes growing out of the gray and weather-beaten wood. His mother said the face used to demand beetles from folks who wanted to come in and spat their shells at folks who wanted to go out, but Bartholomew had never seen it so much as blink.

  His fingers found the bolt. He pulled it back. Then he slipped under the chain and onto the cobbles.

  It was strange being in the open again. The air there was close and damp. There were no walls or ceilings, just the alley splitting into other alleys, on and on into the great world. It felt huge, frightening, and endlessly dangerous. But Bartholomew didn’t suppose he had a choice.

  He scurried across the alley to the low arch in the Buddelbinsters’ wall. The yard was dark, the crooked house as well. Its many windows had been thrown open. They looked as if they were watching him.

  He leaped over the broken gate and pressed himself to the wall. The night was not cold, but he shivered anyway. Only a few hours ago, the lady in plum had stood here, so near where he was standing now, luring his friend to her with blue-gloved fingers.

  Bartholomew shook himself and moved on. The circle the lady had poured onto the ground was still there, a few steps to the right of the path. From his attic window Bartholomew had been able to see it clearly, but up close it was very faint, practically invisible if you didn’t already know it was there. He knelt down, pushing aside a tuft of weeds to examine it. He frowned. The ring was made of mushrooms. Tiny black mushrooms that looked like no sort of mushroom he would want to eat. He plucked one up. For a moment he could feel its shape, soft and smooth against his fingertips. Then it seemed to melt, until it was only a droplet of black liquid staining the whiteness of his skin.

  He stared at his hand curiously. He waved it over the circle. Nothing happened. One more hand and his forehead. Still nothing. He almost laughed then. It didn’t work anymore. They were just mushrooms now.

  Standing up, he dug his bare toe into the cold soil inside the ring. Then he stomped a few of the mushrooms. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a soft titter at that, like a crowd of whispers, far away. Without another thought, he leaped up and landed in the middle of the mushroom ring.

  A hideous screeching erupted all around him. There was a burst of darkness, and wings were everywhere, flapping in his face, battering him. He was falling, flying, a fierce and icy wind tearing at his hair and his threadbare clothes.

  “Idiot!” he screamed. “You stupid, stupid, what were you thinking, you-” But it was too late. Already the darkness was subsiding. And what he saw then was not Old Crow Alley or the Buddelbinsters’ yard. It was not anything in the faery slums. Flashing through the wings like scraps of sunlight was warmth, luxury, the gleam of brass and polished wood, and heavy green drapes stitched with leaves. A fire was somewhere nearby. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there, crackling.

  With a desperate lunge, he tried to throw himself free of the wings. Please, please put me back. The magic couldn’t have taken him far in those few seconds, could it? Maybe a few miles, but if he hurried he could find his way back before the faeries and the English filled the streets.

  The wings slashed past his face. Gravity seemed to become unsure of its own laws, and for a moment he thought his plan might have worked; he was soaring, weightless. And then the wings were gone. The screeching stopped. His head thudded against smooth wood, and the air was knocked from his lungs.

  Bartholomew propped himself up on his elbows dizzily. He was on the floor of the loveliest room he had ever seen. There were the green drapes, drawn against the night. There, the fireplace and the flames. Woodsmoke drifted from the grate, making the air warm and hazy. Books lined the walls. Lamps with painted silk shades threw a soft glow about them. A few feet away from where Bartholomew had fallen, a circle had been carefully drawn with chalk on the bare floorboards. Rings of writing surrounded the circle, thin twining letters that seemed to spin and dance as he looked at them.

  That was where I was supposed to land, he thought, feeling the bump that was growing on his head.

  Shakily, he got to his feet. The room was a study of some sort. A heavy wooden desk took up most of one end. It was carved with bulbous frogs and toads, and they all looked to be in the process of eating one another. On top of the desk, in a neat row, were three mechanical birds. They were each a slightly different size, and were built to look like sparrows, with metal wings and tiny brass cogs that peeped out from between the plates. They sat utterly still, obsidian eyes staring keenly at Bartholomew.

  He took a few steps toward them. A little voice at the back of his mind was telling him to run, to get away from that room as fast as he could, but he was feeling dull and silly, and his head still hurt. A few minutes wouldn’t make any difference, would they? And it was so pleasant here, so shiny and warm.

  He walked a little cl
oser to the birds. He had the strongest urge to reach out and touch one. He wanted to feel those perfect metal feathers, the delicate machinery, and the sharp black eyes. . He uncurled his fingers.

  He froze. Something had shifted in the depths of the house. A floorboard or a panel. And then all Bartholomew heard was the clip-clip of feet approaching briskly from the other side of the door at the far end of the room.

  His heart clenched, painfully. Someone heard. Someone heard the noise, and now he was coming to investigate. He would find a changeling in his private chambers, a pauper from the faery slums clearly breaking into his house. A constable would come, beat Bartholomew senseless. Morning would find him swinging by the neck in the hot breath of the city.

  Bartholomew flew across the room and wrenched at the doorknob with desperate fingers. It was locked, but the person on the other side would have a key. He had to get out.

  Racing back to the chalk circle, he leaped and landed squarely in the middle. His heels struck the floor, the force jarring his legs.

  Nothing happened.

  He threw a frantic look back at the door. The footsteps had stopped. Someone was right there, right on the other side, breathing. Bartholomew heard a hand being placed on the knob. The knob began to turn, turn. Click. Locked.

  Panic slithered in his throat. Trapped. Get out, get out, get out!

  For a moment the person outside was silent. Then the knob began to rattle. Slowly at first but becoming more insistent, getting stronger and stronger until the whole door was shivering in its frame.

  Bartholomew stamped his foot. GO! he thought desperately. Work! Take me away from here! His chest began to ache. Something was pricking the back of his eyes, and for a moment he wanted nothing more than to sit down and cry like he had when he was little and had lost hold of his mother’s hand at the market.

  The person outside began to beat viciously against the door.