The Peculiar

by Stefan Bachman

  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 bicy
cle 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.

  The bird! Where is the bird? He stopped, panting, whirling to scan the rooftops.

  There. He was ahead of it. It was flying along the tops of the houses toward him, leisurely as could be. He dove into the cool shadow of an archway, sending a legless faery scrabbling for safety, and burst through a door. Up some stairs, down a hallway, up some more stairs that were so rickety he felt they might collapse under him at any moment. Third floor, fourth floor. . He had to get to the top of the house, find a window, and snatch the bird right out of the air. It was the only way.

  The stair ended at a low crooked door, painted with now-peeling whitewash. He hammered on it, and it was shaken off its bolt. It yawned open. A pretty room lay beyond. A tiny room under a sloping roof, clean and neat, with china in the cabinet and a snowy cloth on the table. An elderly woman sat in it, bent over an embroidery hoop. She looked up languidly when he burst in, as if his intrusion were the dullest thing in the world.

  “Do forgive me, madam, I’ll be along in a moment, this is most embarrassing, just one moment, may I open your window?”

  He didn’t wait for her answer. In two strides he had crossed the room and was flinging the window wide. Its panes shivered in the frame as it knocked against the wall of the gable. He thrust his head out.

  There was the bird. It was coming, coming up the street. In three seconds it would be past, fluttering on over the smoking city. But he could reach it. If he leaned all the way out and stretched his fingers as far as they went, the bird would fly straight into his hands.

  He flailed out over the sill, over the street below. Fifty feet down, people stopped and pointed. Someone screamed. Mr. Jelliby saw the bird approaching-it looked suddenly rather frightening up close-and then. . Ow! It was strong. The wafer-thin metal of its feathers chopped at his fingers as the wings continued to flap. He jerked it toward him, throwing himself back into the old woman’s garret. The bird wrenched itself from his grasp and flew across the room, harsh and foreign in the lavender softness of the flat. It smashed against the wall, was hurled to the floor, and there it lay, skittering frantically.

  Mr. Jelliby watched it, wide-eyed, his breath scraping in his throat.

  “Herald?” The old woman was at his side, her hand on his sleeve. “Herald, deary, you’re very late,” she said. “It’s time for tea.”

  She led Mr. Jelliby to the table. He didn’t resist. The tea things were all there, laid out and waiting-two cups, two saucers, a creamer, a sugar bowl, and a gooseberry tart, as if he had been expected all along.

  And so they drank tea, side by side, watching silently as the metal bird convulsed to pieces at their feet.

  When it could flap no more, it gave a pitiful mew, and its beak opened and it coughed up a drop of golden light that sputtered and spun, before winking out like a star being covered up.

  “Oh.” The old lady said, setting down her cup. “It’s dead now. Herald, be a sweet and take it outside in the dustpan. I’d want it didn’t go bad on the rose-print rug.”

  CHAPTER IX

  In Ashes

  Crouched on the floor of his ruined sanctuary, Bartholomew Kettle made up his mind. That night he would catch his rebel faery. He would confront the little beast and whether it be good or bad, force it to do what he had called it to do. It didn’t want to be his friend, and there was nothing he could do about that, but it thought it could play tricks on him. It thought it could break his treasures, and frighten Hettie, and Bartholomew wasn’t going to stand for that anymore. At nightfall, when it came slipping in with the shadows and the moonlight, he would be ready.

  But someone else came first that evening, and Bartholomew was forced to postpone his plans. Heavy boots shuffled in the stairwell, a lantern lit the edge of the door, and Agnes Skinner from the house down the way dropped in for a cup of tea. Bartholomew and Hettie were shooed into the tiny room Bartholomew slept in, and the door was locked behind them.

  Settling against the clammy wall, Bartholomew waited for the voices in the kitchen to become louder. He dreaded company. He thought it was foolish, letting people in, like letting a wolf into a room full of birds. But wolves could be interesting, too. Sometimes he would hear a fragment, or a single word, and he would think about it for days. Sometimes he wished he could sit in the kitchen, listening and drinking tea.

  As long as the wolf doesn’t ask questions.

  Only a few people knew of Betsy Kettle’s two children, and Agnes Skinner was one of them. Don’t get yourself noticed, and you won’t get yourself hanged. It wouldn’t take much to get noticed-a glimpse of too-white skin, or bad luck and a goose that didn
’t lay. Then people would stop bidding Mother good morning in the passage. They would creep past the Kettles’ door like it was cursed. And then. .

  Hettie was the worrisome one. It hurt her when Mother tried to clip the branches from her head, and nothing short of a blindfold could hide her black-glass stare. Mother had sewn her a deep green hood so that she could go into the courtyard to scratch for sand, but she was never allowed to speak to anyone, never allowed up the stairs or into the street.

  It was a delicate balance Mother had to strike, and Bartholomew felt a little bit proud when he thought how well she managed it. Too open, and they would be discovered; too secret and people would start to talk, filling in all the things they didn’t know with their own ugly suspicions. So she kept a few friends, gossiped with the neighbors, and brought violets to folks when there was a death in the family. Agnes Skinner was one of her oldest friends. She was a widow and a thief, with a hard staccato voice that pried and poked into everything. She did ask about the children now and then, sometimes so pointedly Bartholomew wondered if she suspected. And every time she came he sat in the dark and worried, a little bird, and the wolf just beyond the door.

  The kitchen filled with talk as the women pattered about. The kettle began to whistle, and Bartholomew smelled brewed tea leaves. He heard a cork being pulled free with a wet plop.

  That would be the spirits. A tall, cut-glass bottle of blackberry cordial sat on a high shelf in the kitchen. It was a relic from the time when Bartholomew’s father still lived with them. He had gone away often, without warning, sometimes for months at a time, and then the door would open and he would be back. Sometimes he came back dirty and travel-stained, sometimes clean and polished, with lace at his cuffs. He always brought something when he returned. One time it was ribbons, one time cabbages. Once he had brought a ham and a string of pearls stuffed inside his shirt. The blackberry cordial was one of those fleeting gifts, the only one Mother hadn’t sold or traded. Bartholomew didn’t know why she kept it. Still, the only reasonable excuse to use it was for company, and so she had the habit of lacing the tea with it.