The Peculiar

by Stefan Bachman

  CHAPTER VI

  Melusine

  Pak, n. Faery vernacular meaning “one who has a long nose,” or spy. (Not to be confused with the breed of faery called “puck” or “pooka,” those wicked shapeshifters whose cunning, and shocking lack of moral restraint, do yet again illustrate for us the debased nature of the fay.)

  Mr. Jelliby slammed the dictionary closed and buried his head in his hands, letting the leather-bound volume slip from his lap. It fell to the carpet and lay there, spine up, its pages crumpled.

  A low moan escaped his lips. They thought he had been spying. Mr. Lickerish, Lord Chancellor to the Queen, thought he was a spy. He, of all people. No doubt the Throgmortons and Lumbidules of this world would think nothing of breaking down a door or two in order to inform themselves on other people’s business. But Mr. Jelliby, who thought simply getting out of bed quite tiring enough and had no wish to pry into other people’s business, was now the one under suspicion. He was not used to being distrusted, and it upset him very much.

  For days after his disgraceful departure from Nonsuch House he was in a glum mood. Ophelia noticed almost at once, but when she asked what was troubling him he wouldn’t say. He stopped going to his club. He stopped seeing the visitors who came to the house on Belgrave Square. For the Covent Garden performance of Semiramide, he was absent from the family box, and he even stayed home from service on Sunday morning. When Ophelia at last confronted him and told him she had heard what had happened from some dear and trusted friends and that he needn’t worry himself over it, he locked himself in his study and refused to come out.

  He knew most of Ophelia’s “dear and trusted friends.” He knew them quite well. Gossips, the lot of them. They made it their business to find out everything about everyone, and then to toss this information around them like flowers at a wedding. If they had obtained some scandalous bit of news, every drawing room in London would have heard of it by now. What humiliation. What dishonor to his name. People had always thought him a pleasant, vacant sort of person. The sort of person you could invite to parties without having to worry about his bringing up sore topics like faery integration or Charles Dickens’s novels. No one had ever taken much notice of Mr. Jelliby, but at least they hadn’t thought ill of him. And now? Now they would be inventing all sorts of stories. He had an image in his mind of a gaggle of long-necked geese, all done up in petticoats and crinolines, sitting around a stuffy parlor and talking about him.

  “Did you hear, Jemima, he broke down a door? Oh, yes! In the Lord Chancellor’s house! You know, behind all those handsome looks and broad smiles he must be secretly quite the violent fellow.”

  “Almost certainly, Muriel. One has to be in his profession. And how poor Ophelia is faring, with that hanging over her head like a veritable Sword of Damocles, heaven only knows. She’s a perfect angel, not carrying on and saying only good of him. The silly dear. When he’s so obviously a wicked spy. .”

  And they were not even the worst. He absolutely dreaded the next meeting of the Privy Council. Mr. Lickerish would be there. The other members would be there, all quite well-informed, all wondering whether he worked for the Americans or the French or some radical anti-faery formation. All wondering how well it paid.

  But the day came whether he wanted it to or not, and when Ophelia pressed her ear against his door and told him he must make himself ready, he growled at her to send the valet with a note.

  “Arthur, that will only make things worse,” she said, leaning her head against the door. “You must go out and confront them! You have nothing to fear.” She waited for a reply, and when none came she added gently, “I don’t believe you were spying on Mr. Lickerish. And you know you weren’t. You did no wrong other than that little accident with the door, and I’ve already sent Mr. Lickerish a sincere apology with six guineas for the repairs.”

  Mr. Jelliby grunted and stabbed at the cold ashes in the grate with the poker. “Six guineas. Six guineas won’t mend my reputation. I won’t ever be able to show my face again. Thanks to your daft friends it may as well have been printed front page in the Times.”

  Ophelia sighed. “Oh, Arthur, you’re making it out to be far worse than it really is. People will always talk! They will always invent and embellish things to make them more interesting. Why, you remember the time I wore the blue silk instead of the mourning colors for Father’s passing, and it was quite by mistake, but a tale started up that Papsy had not been my father and that I was in fact adopted from India. From India, darling! The only thing one can do against these things is ignore them. Present yourself cheerfully and confidently and. .”

  She was forced to go on like this for a good fifteen minutes, reassuring him patiently while he sulked and grumbled. But there are few things quite so persuasive as time, and in the end he said, “Oh, confound it all,” and dressed himself, and combed his hair, and left his room rather cautiously, as if he expected the whole house to pounce on him the instant he stepped into the hall. He was almost surprised when the maid only curtseyed, Brahms was cheerful, and the ancient gnome, whom he again had the misfortune of having as his driver, was no more ill-disposed toward him than usual.

  Wagons and steam carriages clogged the thoroughfares more thickly than the smoke that day, but the gnome took a roundabout down Tothill Street and Mr. Jelliby arrived at Westminster in good time. He stepped down from the carriage in front of the South Gate and stood for a few moments, very still, in the usual gaggle of protesters and newsboys that collected there. He let the chimney ash drift onto his coat. Then he took a deep breath and plunged into the cool of the hall.

  All Ophelia’s gentle coaxing and encouragements melted away as he stepped onto the massive stone slabs of the floor. Suddenly he was a boy again, the new one entering the boarding school refectory for the first time, and every titter and sideways glance set off little pangs of embarrassment around his temples. He kept his eyes fixed on the tips of his shoes as he walked, wishing he could simply fly past all those staring faces. It was only when he was seated in the farthest, darkest corner of the Privy Council’s chamber that he dared raise his eyes again. A servant looked back at him from where he was waxing the chair legs. For a moment they stared at each other. Then the servant shrugged and returned his attention to his wax cloth. Mr. Jelliby slumped back. Drat. Except for him and the servant the room was empty. He was ridiculously early.

  He couldn’t just sit there for twenty minutes. Not while the lords and barons trickled in with their noses in the air and bemusement in their eyes. He got up and left the room, walking down the hall at a brisk pace so that everyone who saw him would think he was actually going somewhere. There were miles of corridors in the new palace, all very wide and slightly dim despite the gasoliers burning along the walls. At first there were people crowding everywhere and the air was full of voices, but the farther he walked the more deserted the halls became until he could hear nothing but the distant ticking of a clock, echoing in time with his shoes. After several minutes he began to feel foolish hurrying down corridor after empty corridor. He sidestepped quickly into a doorway, listened, and hearing nothing, let himself in.

  The room was small, just a closet compared to some of the other chambers in the palace. The wall facing the river was all windows, and the rest was all empty bookcases except for a large walnut cabinet that stood next to the door. There were no drapes, no papers or photographs. Mr. Jelliby decided it must be a clerk’s office not yet moved into. All the better. He sat down on the bare floorboards and resolved to wait. In ten minutes he would hurry back to the council chamber and enter unnoticed during the main crush of gentlemen.

  It was very quiet in the room. The absence of books on the shelves made it feel hollow somehow, not lived in. He pulled out his timepiece and waited for the minute hand to move. It took an eternity. Tick. He set to drumming his fingers against the floor. Tick. Two people passed by the door, deep in conversation. “Most unbecoming. .” he heard, before the voices receded again. Tick
. More footsteps. Another person was coming down the hallway, pattering lightly. Mr. Jelliby stood, stretching. The footsteps came closer. Are they slowing? Oh heavens, they won’t stop. They will go past. They must go past.

  The feet stopped, directly in front of the door to the empty clerk’s office.

  Mr. Jelliby clutched his watch so hard he almost cracked its glass face. His eyes flickered around the room. What am I to do? He could go to the door and face whoever was about to enter. Or he could hide. Hide in the cabinet and hope upon hope that whoever it was, he was a quick fellow utterly uninterested in walnut closets. Mr. Jelliby chose the cabinet.

  It was one of those odd desk cabinets that is actually a tiny closed chamber, with drawers and compartments for ink and envelopes all up its walls. It had a little padded bench and a paraffin lamp to see by. A pane of warped glass looked out its door. Mr. Jelliby scooted in clumsily, and when he was pressed back as far as he could get, he shut himself in.

  Not a moment too soon. The door to the hallway opened quietly. Mr. Jelliby held his breath. And John Wednesday Lickerish slipped into the room.

  It took Mr. Jelliby a second to fully grasp his own bad luck. This was a dream, surely. Perhaps there was a gas leak in the palace and he had breathed the fumes, or contracted lead poisoning, and the effects were coming on now in hallucinations and headaches. But no. This was his life. And it made him angry.

  Confound it! Confound everything! Of course it would be the faery politician. And of course the bulb-headed blighter would choose this room to enter, out of all the hundreds of rooms in Westminster. Now if Mr. Jelliby were to be discovered it would mean more than just humiliation. It would mean an investigation, banishment from his club and all his favorite drawing rooms, perhaps even arrest. Hiding inside the furnishings of a private Parliament chamber only days after widespread rumors of spying was not something that could be interpreted favorably. With a few well-placed words, his opponents could easily have him thrown out of Parliament altogether. Mr. Jelliby had half a mind to burst from the cabinet then and there, and shout at the faery that he was bringing him ill fortune by the buckets and Mr. Jelliby wanted nothing to do with him. But of course he could never have brought himself to do it. He simply sat, rooted to the bench, and watched through the glass pane.

  The faery politician walked to the center of the room. He glanced around him. Then he moved toward the large mullioned windows that looked out over the Thames and undid a latch, throwing wide the casement. His hand went out. Something moved in his palm-metal feathers and mechanics. A clockwork sparrow. It rose out of Mr. Lickerish’s palm, fluttering for an instant in the air. Mr. Jelliby saw a brass capsule catch the sunlight and glint from one brass leg. Then the bird shot away across the river and was lost in the ribbons of smoke rising from the city’s roofs.

  Mr. Jelliby took a very small, very careful breath. A capsule. It was carrying a message. The bird was a messenger bird, like the sort his grandparents had used when there were no such things as speaking-machines and telegraphs. Only the ones his grandparents had used had pumping hearts and soft feathers. A contraption of the sort the faery had just launched did not come cheaply. Mr. Jelliby’s own household didn’t have any. Ophelia wasn’t taken with such things, being sophisticated, and far more interested in magic than in machinery. But he had seen them often while promenading: automatons shaped like dogs, like crows and spiders and even people, staring with beady eyes from the windows of the fine mechanicalchemist’s shops on Jermyn Street. Clockwork horses were the newest craze. They were hideous and loud, shot steam from every joint, and looked rather more like rhinoceroses than horses, but the king of France owned a stableful, and the Queen of England, not to be outdone, had purchased a fieldful, and soon every duke and minor noble owned at least one mechanically drawn coach.

  The faery refastened the window and turned to go, again casting a wary look around the room. He was only steps from the door to the hallway when it was thrown open again. It only barely missed knocking out a few sharp faery teeth.

  Mr. Jelliby couldn’t see the visitor from his hiding place in the cabinet, but he did see the Lord Chancellor’s face go sharp, saw his eyes harden and his hands grasp at the fabric of his coat. It was someone the faery knew, then. Someone he didn’t want to see.

  “You stinking candle,” Mr. Lickerish hissed. “What are you doing here? Melusine, we must not be seen together! Not in public!”

  It was the lady. The lady Mr. Jelliby had seen rushing down the brilliant passage in Nonsuch House. Mr. Lickerish pulled her into the room and shut the door behind her, drawing the bolt with a sharp clank.

  She stepped into the middle of the room. “We are not in public,” she said, turning to face the faery.

  Mr. Jelliby stared. Her lips, bright red in the powder of her face, had not moved. The voice had come from somewhere in her vicinity, but it was not the voice of a lady. It was not even the voice of a man. It was a thin, cold, lazy-sounding voice that made Mr. Jelliby think of frosty leaves against stone. And it was unmistakably the voice of a faery.

  Mr. Lickerish stamped his foot. “Melusine, we-”

  “Don’t call me that,” the voice snapped. Again the red lips were motionless.

  Mr. Lickerish’s eyes went wide, expanding into two black moons. With savage suddenness, he lifted his walking stick and struck it hard across the back of the lady’s head. There was a yelp. The lady bent forward under the force of the blow, but her face remained stiff.

  “Never are you to give me orders,” Mr. Lickerish said, lowering the walking stick. “Melusine.” He spat the name.

  “Forgive me, Sathir.” The voice was subdued again. “That is her name. It is not mine. It brings back memories to her. Ones I do not wish her to recall.”

  Mr. Lickerish began to pace to and fro behind the lady’s back. She remained still as waxwork, a shadowy statue in the center of the room. With a start, Mr. Jelliby realized her face was directed straight at his hiding place. She wore a little top hat that hid her eyes, but was she watching him? Right that very moment? He stared at her, wondering who she was. Her clothes had been sumptuous once, all those yards of velvet, the seed buttons and swirling stitchery. They weren’t anymore. The plum-colored skirts had become filthy, every swish bringing to light layers upon layers of lace and petticoats, discolored with dirt. One of her gloves was torn and flecked with what looked like dried blood. He tried to make out her features, but all he could see was a dainty chin and that red, red mouth.

  “Why are you here, Jack Box?” Mr. Lickerish stopped pacing long enough to glare at her back. “Speak quickly and beg the wind-strewn stars it was important enough to disturb me. The Privy Council is convening in less than five minutes.” He took a pocket watch from his waistcoat and examined it fiercely.

  “Minutes,” the voice said, disdain and disbelief coming together in a point. “Minutes are for humans.”

  Mr. Lickerish’s eyes grew round again. The lady took a few halting steps away from him. “No matter!” the voice added quickly. “You must do as you please, of course. I have found a new one.”

  There was a pause.

  “I saw it the day I took Child Number Nine, watching from a window. It lives right across from Nine, in the same alley”

  Another pause. Still Mr. Lickerish said nothing.

  “The faery districts are a boon to us, Sathir. Tens and hundreds of changelings just waiting to be plucked up. And no one gives a tinker’s thumb if they live or die.” A brittle, unpleasant laugh sounded in the room. “The last one I didn’t even have to steal. I bought it right from under its mother’s nose. For a purse of rose hips.”

  Mr. Jelliby, who had developed a cramp and was trying every possible way to relieve it without making a sound, pricked his ears. Changelings. Where have I last heard about- Oh. Oh dear. It was John Lickerish, then. He was a part of it. The Lord Chancellor of England, and all tangled up with the deaths of nine half-bloods.

  All Mr. Jelliby could think of was
his awful luck at having to know this. If only I had stayed out of this accursed room. He might have chosen a different door, or pretended to be lost, or simply stayed in the council chamber and faced the stares. He might have gone home a few hours from now and spent a pleasantly uneventful evening complaining to Ophelia about his many woes. Because Mr. Jelliby didn’t want to know who was murdering the children. They were changelings, after all. They were far away, and he had never known them, and he had his own troubles. But the conversation went on, and Mr. Jelliby was forced to hear every word.

  “I don’t want hundreds,” Mr. Lickerish was saying, and his voice was angry and very soft. “I want one. Just one that actually works. I tire of this. I tire of the endless failure. It has gone on far too long, do you hear me? Too much attention, too many people coming to know about it. Last week the Privy Council was convened to discuss this very operation.” He turned back to the window, his face taut. “If you pay any attention at all to what is happening around you, you will have heard that the failed changelings were found. I knew they would be. The river does not keep his dead for long. But that it would cause such a stir! There have only been nine. Nine sniveling, worthless little Peculiars, and the whole country goes into hysterics. It must end. You must find me a changeling that works, one that meets every qualification. I want no more almosts. No more very nears.” Mr. Lickerish stood on the tips of his polished shoes and whispered up into the hair at the back of the lady’s head, so quietly that Mr. Jelliby could hardly hear the words. “I want one that is everything, Jack Box. Do not bring me another until you are sure.”

  The lady shied away again, away from Mr. Lickerish. “I thought I was sure last time,” the voice said. “I was sure. And yet- No. There will be no more mistakes, Sathir. I will make doubly certain this time. Beyond a shadow of a doubt.”