The Peculiar

by Stefan Bachman

  And to Bartholomew. There was one part where, if he was very careful, he could squeeze through a gap between a beam and the rough stone of a chimney. Then, with much wriggling and twisting, he would arrive in a forgotten little gable. It did not belong to anyone. There was no door, and only a child could even stand up in it. It was his now.

  He had fixed it up with odds and ends that he had salvaged-a straw mat, some dry branches and strands of ivy, and a collection of broken bottles that he had strung together in a pitiful copy of a Yuletide garland he had read about. But his favorite part of the attic was the small round window, like the sort in a boat, that looked out onto Old Crow Alley and a sea of roofs. He never tired of looking through it. He could watch the whole world from there, high up and hidden away.

  Bartholomew forced himself through the gap and lay panting on the floor. It was hot under the slates of the roof. The sun hammered down outside, turning everything brittle and sharp, and after that mad rush up seventy-nine uneven steps to the tip of the house, he felt like a little loaf under the pointed gable, baking.

  As soon as he had caught his breath, he crawled to the window. He could see across the alley and the high wall, directly into the Buddelbinsters’ yard. The lady was still there, a blot of purple amid the brown rooftops and scraggly, sunburnt weeds. The sour-looking woman had opened the door again. She appeared to be listening to the lady warily, her hands clamping and unclamping the gray braid that hung over her shoulder. Then the lady in plum was slipping her something. A little purse? He couldn’t see it properly. The sour one retreated back into the house, all hunched up and greedy, like a rat that has found a scrap of meat and is determined not to share it with anyone.

  The instant the door closed, the lady in plum became a whirl of activity. She dropped to the ground, skirts pooling around her, and plucked something from inside her top hat. A small bottle caught the sunlight and glinted in her hand. She bit off the seal, uncorked it, and began dribbling its contents in a circle around her.

  Bartholomew leaned forward, squinting through the thick glass. It occurred to him that he was likely the only one who could see her now. Other eyes had been following her since the moment she stepped into the alley. He knew that. But now the lady was deep in the yard, and any other watchers in the alley would see nothing but the high and crumbling wall. The lady in plum had chosen the Buddelbinster house on purpose. She didn’t want to be seen.

  When the bottle was empty, she held it up and ground it between her fingers, letting the shards fall to the weeds. Then she rose abruptly and faced the house, looking as poised and elegant as ever.

  Several minutes passed. The door opened again, a little uncertainly. This time a child stuck his head out. It was the boy, Bartholomew’s friend. Like Hettie, his faery blood showed clear as the moon through his white, white skin. A thicket of red thistles grew from his head. His ears were long and pointed. Someone must have shoved him from behind because he came tumbling out of the door and onto the ground at the lady’s feet. He stared up at her, eyes wide.

  The lady’s back was toward Bartholomew, but he knew she was talking to the boy by the way he kept shaking his head in a small, fearful way. The boy glanced timidly back at his house. The lady took a step toward him.

  Then a great many things happened at once. Bartholomew, staring so intently, nodded forward a bit so that the tip of his nose brushed against the windowpane. And the moment it did, there was a quick, sharp movement in the yard below, and the lady reached behind her and jerked apart the coils of hair at the back of her head. Bartholomew’s blood turned to smoke in his veins. There, staring directly up at him, was another face, a tiny, brown, ugly face like a twisted root, all wrinkles and sharp teeth.

  With a muffled yelp, he scrabbled away from the window, splinters driving into his palms. It didn’t see me, it didn’t see me. It couldn’t ever have known I was here.

  But it had. Those wet black eyes had looked into his. For an instant they had been filled with a terrible anger. And then the creature’s lips had curled back and it had smiled.

  Bartholomew lay gasping on the floorboards, heart pounding inside his skull. I’m dead now. So, so dead. He didn’t look very much like a half-blood, did he? From down in the yard he would look like a regular boy. He pinched his eyes closed. A regular boy spying on her.

  Very slowly he brought his head back level with the window, this time keeping deep in the shadows. The lady in plum had moved a little ways distant from the boy in the yard. Her other, hideous face was gone, hidden under her hair. One long, velvet-gloved hand was extended, beckoning.

  The boy looked at her, looked back again at his house. For the shortest instant, Bartholomew thought he saw someone in one of the upper windows, a stooping shadow, hand raised against the pane in farewell. One blink later and it was gone, and the window was empty.

  The boy in the yard shivered. He turned back to the lady. She nodded, and he moved toward her, taking her outstretched hand. She clasped him close. There was a burst of darkness, a storm of black wings flapping. It exploded up around them, screaming toward the sky. A ripple passed through the air. Then they were gone, and Old Crow Alley was sleeping once again.

  CHAPTER II

  A Privy Deception

  Arthur Jelliby was a very nice young man, which was perhaps the reason why he had never made much of a politician. He was a member of Parliament not because he was particularly clever or good at anything, but because his mother was a Hessian princess very well connected and had gotten him the position while playing croquet with the Duke of Norfolk. So while the other officials were fairly bursting their silken waistcoats with ambition, plotting the downfall of their rivals over oyster dinners, or at the very least informing themselves on affairs of state, Mr. Jelliby was far more interested in spending long afternoons at his club in Mayfair, buying chocolates for his pretty wife, or simply sleeping until noon.

  Which is what he did on a certain day in August, and which is why the urgent summons to a Privy Council in the Houses of Parliament caught him completely unprepared.

  He stumbled down the stairs of his house on Belgrave Square, one hand trying to get the worst of the tangles out of his hair, the other struggling with the tiny buttons of his cherry-red waistcoat.

  “Ophelia!” he called, trying to sound cheerful but not really succeeding.

  His wife appeared in the doorway to the morning room, and he pointed an apologetic finger at the length of black silk that hung limply under his collar. “The valet’s off, and Brahms doesn’t know how, and I cannot do it on my own! Knot it up for me, darling, won’t you, and spare us a smile?”

  “Arthur, you must not sleep so long,” Ophelia said sternly, coming forward to tie his cravat. Mr. Jelliby was a tall man, and broad-shouldered, and she rather small, so she had to stand on tiptoes to reach.

  “Oh, but I need to set an example! Think of the headlines: ‘War averted! Thousands of lives saved! The English Parliament slept through its session.’ You’d find the world a far more pleasant place.”

  This did not sound nearly as witty as it had in his head, but Ophelia laughed anyway, and Mr. Jelliby, feeling very amusing, sallied forth into the noise of the city.

  It was a fine day by London’s standards. Which meant it was a day slightly less likely to suffocate you and poison your lungs. The black curtain of smoke from the city’s million chimneys had been worn away by last night’s rain. The air still tasted of coal, but shafts of light sprang down through the clouds. Government-issue automatons creaked through the streets on rusty joints, sweeping the mud in front of them and leaving puddles of oil behind them. A group of lamplighters was out feeding wasps and dragonflies to the little flame faeries that sat behind the glass in the streetlamps, dull and sulky until nightfall.

  Mr. Jelliby turned into Chapel Street, hand raised for a cab. High overhead, a great iron bridge arched, groaning and showering sparks as the steam trains rumbled across it. On normal days Mr. Jelliby would have been ridi
ng up there, head against the glass, gazing idly out over the city. Or perhaps he would have had Brahms, the footman, heave him onto his newfangled bicycle and give a good push to get him started across the cobbles. But today was not normal. Today he hadn’t even breakfasted, and so everything felt spoiled and hurried.

  The carriage that stopped for him was driven by a gnome, sharp-toothed and old, with gray-green skin like a slimy rock. The gnome drove his horses as if they were a pair of giant snails, and when Mr. Jelliby knocked his walking stick against the carriage ceiling and shouted for a quickening of pace, he was thrown back into his seat by a volley of curses. Mr. Jelliby frowned and thought of all sorts of reasons why he should not be talked to so, but he didn’t open his mouth for the rest of the journey.

  Westminster’s great new clock tower was ringing thirty-five minutes when he alighted on the curb in Great George Street. Drat. He was late. Five minutes late. He dashed up the steps to St. Stephen’s Porch and pushed past the doorkeeper, into the vast expanse of the main hall. Huddles of gentlemen stood scattered across the floor, their voices echoing in the rafters high above. The air stank of lime and fresh paint. Scaffolding clung to the walls in places, and some of the tile work was unfinished. It was not three months since the new Westminster Palace had been opened for meetings. The old one had been reduced to a pile of ash after a disgruntled fire spirit blew himself up in its cellars.

  Mr. Jelliby hurried up a staircase, along an echoing, lamp-lined corridor. He was almost pleased when he saw he was not the only one late. John Wednesday Lickerish, Lord Chancellor and first Sidhe ever to be appointed to the British government, was also running behind the swiftly ticking hands of his timepiece. He rounded a corner from one direction, Mr. Jelliby came from the other, and they barreled into each other with some force.

  “Oh! Mr. Lickerish! Do forgive me.” Jelliby laughed, helping the faery gentleman to his feet and slapping some imaginary dust from his lapels. “A bit clumsy this morning, I’m afraid. Are you all right?”

  Mr. Lickerish gave Mr. Jelliby a withering look, and removed himself from Jelliby’s grip with a faint air of distaste. He was dressed to perfection, as always, every button in place, every snippet of fabric beautiful and new. His waistcoat was black velvet. His cravat was cloth of silver, faultlessly knotted, and everywhere Mr. Jelliby looked he caught a glimpse of leaf stitchery, of silk stockings, and cotton starched so stiff you could crack it with a mallet. It only makes the dirt stand out more, he thought. He had to bite his tongue to keep from smiling. Brown half-moons looked up from under the faery’s fingernails, as if he had been clawing about in the cold earth.

  “Morning?” the faery said. His voice was thin. Just a rustle, like wind in leafless branches. “Young Jelliby, it is no longer morning. It is not even noon. It is almost night.”

  Mr. Jelliby looked uncertain. He didn’t exactly know what the faery had just said, but he supposed it not very polite to be called young. For all he knew, the faery gentleman was not a day older than himself. It was hard to tell, really. Mr. Lickerish was a high faery, and like all high faeries he was the size of a small boy, had no hair at all, and his skin was as white and smooth as the marble under his shoes.

  “Well,” Mr. Jelliby said brightly. “We’re very late, whatever the case.” And much to the faery gentleman’s annoyance, he kept pace with him all the way to the privy chamber, talking amiably about the weather and wine merchants and how his summer cottage in Cardiff had almost been blown into the sea.

  The room in which the Privy Council was expected to meet was a small one, dark-paneled, at the heart of the building, its diamond-paned windows overlooking a hawthorn tree and the court. Rows of high-backed chairs crowded the floor, all but two of them already filled. The Speaker of the Council, one Lord Horace V. Something-or-other (Mr. Jelliby could never remember his name) sat perched at its center, at a sort of podium artfully carved with fauns and sagging clusters of grapes. The Speaker must have been dozing because he sat up with a start when they entered.

  “Ah,” he said, folding his hands across his ample girth and frowning. “It appears Mr. Jelliby and the Lord Chancellor have decided to grace us with their presence after all.” He looked at them glumly. “Please be seated. Then, at last, we may begin.”

  There was much grumbling, much shuffling and pulling in of legs as Mr. Jelliby picked his way through the rows to one of the empty chairs. The faery chose the one at the opposite end of the room. When they were both seated, the Speaker cleared his throat.

  “Gentlemen of the Privy Council,” he began. “I bid you all a good morning.”

  One of the faery politician’s pencil-thin eyebrows arched at this, and Mr. Jelliby smirked. (It was not morning, after all. It was night.)

  “We have assembled today to address a matter most grave and disturbing.”

  Drat again. Mr. Jelliby sighed and dug his hands into his pockets. Matters most grave and disturbing were not things he liked addressing. He left that to Ophelia whenever he could.

  “I daresay most of you have seen today’s headlines?” the Speaker inquired, in his slow, languid voice. “The latest murder of a changeling?”

  A murmur passed through the gathering. Mr. Jelliby squirmed. Oh, not murder. Why couldn’t people simply be nice to each other?

  “For the benefit of those who have not, allow me to summarize.”

  Mr. Jelliby took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. You needn’t trouble yourself, he thought, a little desperately. It was getting unbearably hot. The windows were all closed, and there seemed not a breath of air in the room.

  “There have been five deaths in the past month alone,” the Speaker said. “Nine in total. Most of the victims appear to be from Bath, but it is difficult to say as no one has stepped forward to claim the bodies. Whatever the case, the victims are being found in London. In the Thames.”

  A small, stern-looking gentleman in the front row sniffed and raised his hand with an angry flourish.

  The Speaker eyed him unhappily, then nodded, giving him permission to speak.

  “Petty crimes, my lord. Nothing more. I’m sure Scotland Yard is doing all they can. Does the Privy Council have nothing more important to discuss?”

  “Lord Harkness, we live in complicated times. These ‘petty crimes,’ as you call them, may have dark consequences a little ways down the road.”

  “Then we shall step over them when they are lying across our path. Changelings have never been popular. Not with their sort, and not with ours. There will always be violence against them. I see no reason to give these new incidences any undue significance.”

  “Sir, you do not know the half of it. The authorities think the murders are related. Planned and orchestrated with malicious intent.”

  “Do they think that? Well, I suppose they must earn their wages somehow.”

  “Lord Harkness, this is not the time.” A trace of unease broke the Speaker’s sleepy manner. “The victims are. .” He faltered. “They are all children.”

  Lord Harkness might have said “So?” but it would not have been polite. Instead he said, “From what I hear, there are very few changelings who are not children. They don’t generally last long.”

  “And the method of murder-it is also the same.”

  “Well, what is it?” Lord Harkness seemed to be intent on proving the entire meeting a ridiculous waste of time. Nobody wanted to hear about changelings. Nobody wanted to discuss changelings, or even think about changelings. But nobody wanted to hear how they died, either, and all Lord Harkness got for his efforts was a storm of black looks from the other gentlemen. Mr. Jelliby was tempted to cover his ears.

  The Speaker’s nose twitched. “The authorities are not exactly sure.”

  Ah. Thank goodness.

  “Then how can they possibly claim the murders are related?” Lord Harkness’s voice was acid. His handkerchief was in his hands, and he looked as if he wanted to wring the old Speaker’s neck with it.

  “Well, the
corpses! They’re- Why, they’re. .”

  “Out with it, man, what is it?”

  The Speaker looked straight ahead, and said, “Lord Harkness, they are hollow.”

  For several heartbeats the room fell completely still. A rat scurried under the polished floorboards and its hurrying feet rattled like a burst of hail in the silence.

  “Hollow?” Lord Harkness repeated.

  “They are empty. No bones or internal organs. Just skin. Like a sack.”

  “Good heavens,” breathed Lord Harkness, and fell back into his chair.

  “Indeed.” The Speaker’s eyes passed over the other gentlemen in the room, as if daring anyone else to disrupt the proceedings. “The newspapers said nothing of that, did they? That is because they do not know. They do not know many things, and for the time being we must keep it that way. There is something strange about these murders. Something wicked and inhuman. You will not have heard it, but the changelings were covered in writing, too. Head to toe. Little red markings in the faery tongue. It is an old and different sort of faery dialect that could not be deciphered by any of the Yard’s cryptographers. I am sure you can all see what sort of unpleasantness this might lead to.”

  “Oh, certainly,” the Earl of Fitzwatler mumbled from behind his drooping walrus moustache. “And I think it should be quite clear who is responsible. It is the anti-faery unions, of course. They had some waifs murdered and then scribbled up the bodies with faery words to put the blame on the Sidhe. It’s very plain to me.”