Stefan Bachman - The Peculiar

“Yes, Mother. We’ll be all right. We’ll be back before you know it.”

Mrs. Kettle did laundry for the few people who could afford not to do it themselves, the few people she could trick into believing she had a proper laundry service and didn’t trundle their nighties and undergarments into the depths of the faery slums in a green-painted wheelbarrow. She bought the lye from peddlers, but it had always been the children’s job to dig for scrubbing sand in the little courtyard behind the house.

Hettie tied her hood under her chin and went to Bartholomew, ignoring his outstretched hand.

“Let’s go !” he said under his breath, taking hold of her shoulder and bundling her toward the door. He unbolted it, peeked out to make sure no one was there. Then he crept into the passage and motioned for Hettie to follow. As soon as they were out of earshot, Bartholomew pulled her into a hollow under a flight of steps and knelt down next to her, whispering, “Where does he live, Het? Can he fly? Was he very nice?”

Hettie looked at him dumbly. “Nice?” she repeated. “We’re supposed to get sand. Why are we under the stairs?”

“Yes, and when was the first time you saw him? And what were you thinking, startling Mother like that?” He gave her shoulder a shake. “Come on , Hettie, tell me!”

“The day before yesterday,” she said, shoving his hand away. “And Barthy, you don’t need to joggle me. You’ll shake my head loose.”

The day I built the faery dwelling. Bartholomew scrabbled out from under the stairs.

“Run back quick as you can, Hettie, we’ll get sand later.”

Mother would clout him for leaving Hettie by herself, but he couldn’t be bothered with that right now. His invitation had worked. It had worked. He ran down the passage, up another staircase, taking the steps two at a time. And for one bright moment as he flew up the steps, he was happy. Completely and utterly happy.

Then he pulled himself into the attic and the dusty darkness, and he thought of how the faery had only shown itself to Hettie and not him, and a little thistle of envy buried itself between his ribs. She shouldn’t have seen it first. It was his faery. It should have come to him.

He stole across the floor and squirmed into his secret gable. The faery dwelling was exactly as he had left it. The shriveled cherries were still tangled in its walls. The salt he had sprinkled over its roof sparkled in the sunlight like snow, undisturbed. The last few days, Bartholomew had come up there every chance he’d gotten, searching the little room for the slightest change, the slightest hint that his faery had come. Each time there had been nothing. And there was still nothing.

He went down on his knees, huffing, blowing a cobweb back and forth, back and forth. What could that mean ? If the invitation had been successful, why hadn’t the faery eaten Bartholomew’s offerings? He had spent enough time collecting them for the stupid thing. And shouldn’t it have announced itself? His breathing slowed. The happiness of a few moments went out like a candle. How long will I have to wait?

He thought back to the words in the tattered book, about the faery and how it was supposed to have followed its summoner home. He hadn’t seen any faery. Hettie had. And if it could follow him home from a stream in some wild wood, it ought to be able to find its way down a few flights of stairs.

But what if the faery didn’t want to make itself known? What if that was not how house faeries worked, and Bartholomew had to be nice to it first and gain its trust? The book had been very vague on all that. He supposed he could try it. He could write the faery a letter, ask it a question or two, place the paper inside the faery dwelling, and hope upon hope it would answer him. He didn’t know if domesticated faeries could even read. But he could think of nothing else to do.

His first question would be what the patterns on his skin meant. They were words, he was sure of that, but in what language? They looked a lot like the writing he had seen on the floor of the room with metal birds. Not nearly as complicated, though. In fact, they appeared to be just two or three of the same symbols, repeated over and over again.

One of his old books had a blank page between the cover and the title page, and this he separated from the spine, very carefully so as not to crack the glue. He was not especially good at writing. When he was very small-what seemed like ages ago-a young man who wore garish waistcoats and looked perpetually ill had lived in the flat next door. He was a poverty-stricken painter who, for some unfathomable reason, found the filthy streets and leaning houses of the faery districts picturesque. He hadn’t been like other people. When he had spotted Bartholomew running up to the attic, he hadn’t been afraid of him or buried him under an elderberry bush. He had told Bartholomew stories, taught him how to read. He had given him the books Bartholomew now kept behind the stove. He had been rather like a friend. But then he had left in a pine box and Bartholomew had forgotten much of what he had taught him. No, Bartholomew was not very good at writing. But he did it anyway.

Dear Mr. Fayrye, he wrote. He was using a quill rubbed in the tar from the window frame. The tar was used to seal the chinks and keep the rain from dripping in, but during the summer months it turned almost liquid under the hot sun. It didn’t make very good ink. It was sticky and difficult to direct across the paper, but proper ink was not to be had.

I have an important question. I would be very happy and grateful if you would answer it. What do these signs mean?

Here he copied the markings on his skin as exactly as he could onto the paper. It was much easier than writing in English. It was like a drawing, and he didn’t have to worry about how the letters fit together or what sounds they made. Then he wrote:

Thank you very much, and good day,

And signed the whole thing,

Bartholomew Kettle

He made a flourish under his name that made him very proud, and pushed the paper carefully into the faery dwelling. Then he went down to the flat and was clouted for leaving Hettie by herself.

That night, as Bartholomew lay on his cot half thinking, half dreaming about faeries and quills and question marks, he heard a sound. A gentle clicking in the kitchen, like old, rusty metal grinding against itself. The door to the flat. Someone was fiddling with the lock.

He sat bolt upright. More clicks. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, he got up and padded silently to the door of his room. The sound stopped. He knelt down and pressed his eye to the keyhole. The kitchen beyond was eerie, dead. The fire had gone out completely. Mother was fast asleep in her narrow bed, and all the keys were hanging in their place on the far wall: the big toothy key to the flat door; the key to his room; the keys to the soap cupboard and the back gate, all there on a spike in the plaster.

Something was wrong. His eye made another sweep of room. The door to Hettie’s cupboard bed. It was open, just a crack. And inside, someone was singing.

His heart dropped into his belly. It was not Hettie’s voice. It was not like any voice he had ever heard before. It was hollow and earthy, and it sang in a thin, pointy language that for some reason made Bartholomew feel wicked for listening to it, as if it was not meant for him to hear, as if he were eavesdropping. But the melody was paralyzing. It went up, then fell, now tempting, now wild, snaking out of the cupboard and filling the whole flat. He was surrounded by it, swimming up through swirling black ribbons of sound. It filled his head, becoming louder and faster until it was all there was, all he heard, all he knew.