Stefan Bachman - The Peculiar

Mr. Jelliby wasn’t listening anymore. He had what he needed. “Thank you, sir, thank you so very much. Might you give me the marks, though? The longitudinal lines or whatever they’re called.” He held up another sovereign. “I’d be terribly grateful.”

The old man pocketed the coin and scribbled a series of numbers on a yellowing scrap of paper. He passed it to Mr. Jelliby. “I don’t know what you’re up to. Trying to ruin the fellow like as not. Maybe a bit of blackmail? You are so alike really, you English and the faeries. So desperately far on either side that you can’t see anything in between. Ah, well. I’ll not talk. This part of London, nobody talks but the face on the coin, and as I said, it’s none of my business.”

Mr. Jelliby thought that was not a very nice thing to say out loud. He was about to bid the man a cool farewell, when the bells above the door jangled again, and in ducked another customer.

And who should it be but the Lord Chancellor John Wednesday Lickerish’s faery butler.

Mr. Jelliby’s hand tightened around the bird. Slowly, slowly he began slipping it up his sleeve. The claw snagged his cuff. It wouldn’t go. Quite out of nowhere it struck him how very like a praying mantis the faery butler looked, like a deathly pale insect, with those long arms and fingers. The faery had to bend his head to the side in an odd way to keep it from knocking against the ceiling. The brass machinery around his face was stiff, unmoving.

One step. One step to the right and Mr. Jelliby would be hidden behind the rivet-studded tentacles of a mechanical octopus. But it was too late. The faery butler turned, saw him.

“Ooh!” he whined, lenses clicking across his one green eye as it focused on the bird in Mr. Jelliby’s hand. “Fancy seeing you here. . ”

The goat tracks looped across the kitchen floor, from the door to the table to the beds and the potbellied stove under the drying herbs. Mother’s bulk rose and fell gently in sleep, the old bed creaking with each breath. Inside her cupboard, Hettie shifted a little, and sighed.

Bartholomew let his breath out slowly. What has the faery come for? What does it want?

If only he hadn’t invited it. If only he had listened to Mother and heeded her warnings. She had told him what might happen. She had practically begged him not to do it. But he had wanted a friend so badly. He wanted something to protect him, and talk with him, something that would make him feel he wasn’t just strange and ugly. Only it wasn’t going to be his friend. It wasn’t going to protect him, and it wasn’t going to wind up the wash-wringer either. All it did was slither about in the night and put nightmares in Hettie’s head. The number ten on the paper in the attic was another of its pranks, like as not. It was probably snickering into its sleeve right that very moment.

Bartholomew bit his lip and followed the tracks to the flat door. It was still locked. He puts his finger into the keyholes, see, and the locks spring open, just like that. And spring closed again, too, it seemed. Slipping the key down off its peg, he unlocked the door. Then, careful not to make a sound, he tiptoed out into the passageway.

The house was cool and dark. The floorboards, worn smooth by the years, gleamed dully in the feeble light from the window.

The trail of ash led upstairs. It became fainter as he followed it, whispering away until it was only breaths against the wood. By the time Bartholomew reached the third floor it had almost disappeared. It didn’t matter. He knew where the faery had gone.

Silent as the moon, he slipped up through the trapdoor and into the attic. Ducking under the first crossbeam, he crept forward, eyes darting, searching for a hint of where the faery might be hiding. He would kill it if he found it. The thought came to him with sudden violence. If he found the little monster, he would wring its neck. Wring it before it wrung Hettie’s, and Mother’s, and his.

A sound stopped him dead-voices, muttering, muffled under the roof.

“Oh, yes. That one’s a Peculiar if ever I saw one.” The voice that was speaking was hushed, but Bartholomew recognized it at once. Hollow, earthy. The singing voice. Only this time its owner took great wheezing breaths every few words, sucked in between its teeth. “The leetle half-blood builds a house, see? A downright inferior house to catch himself a faery with. I found it whiles I was exploring the place. Kicked it to pieces, I did! Ha-ha! All in leetle pieces.” There was a giggle.

Bartholomew dug his fingers into his palms and flattened himself against the sloping roof. The voice was coming from the place under the gable. His place.

“And the stupid changeling still thinks it worked. It thinks I’m its faery slave.” A wheeze. “It asked me questions, it did. It wrotes me a letter, with words, all fancy like, and asked me what something meant in the language o’ the faery lords and”-another wheeze-“now this is the strangest part of all. It was-”

“I don’t care,” a second voice interrupted. It was also very low, but in an entirely different way. It was a harsh, dangerous low, and so cold. “Is the changeling what I need, or is it not? I cannot afford any more mistakes. Not from you, not from anyone. I hire you to make sure the changelings are usable, to make sure they are what the Lord Chancellor needs.” The voice rose in anger. “And nine times in a row you give me rubbish! It will be taken from my neck if the child is again unsuitable.”

“Well, you got so many necks it wouldn’t hardly make a-”

There was an angry hiss and Bartholomew saw a shadow lash out across the beam. “ Shut up. Shut up, I tell you. Too much is at stake now. Did you make certain with the list my master sent you? Did you even get the list? There have been. . interruptions of late with the Lord Chancellor’s messenger birds. He could not be certain it had arrived.”

“Yeh, I gots the bird. Came just as it always does.”

Bartholomew edged closer. Through the gap between the beams he could just make out a figure. Bartholomew’s breath caught in his throat. It was the raggedy man. There could be no doubt. The creature matched Hettie’s description exactly. It was small and misshapen, standing very still with its chin against its neck. A broken stovepipe hat was pulled low over its face. A waistcoat and tattered jacket were its only clothes. It wore no trousers. Bartholomew saw why right away. From the waist down the creature was not a raggedy man but a raggedy goat. The fur on its haunches was thick and black, matted with dirt and blood. Two chipped hooves peeped out from under its shaggy fetlocks. The raggedy man was a faun.

“Very well,” the cold voice said. “I will believe you. I haven’t the time, or I would investigate these matters myself.” Bartholomew couldn’t see who had spoken those words. Whoever it was, he was hidden around the corner of the gable, and Bartholomew didn’t dare go any closer for a better look.

The voice went on, just barely a whisper. “I warn you, sluagh. If the Lord Chancellor is again displeased with the delivery-if the changeling is again a failure-I will knock more from your head than just a few teeth.”

The raggedy man shuffled its hooves and said nothing.

“Is that clear?” The voice was ice.

Bartholomew didn’t wait to hear the rest. Sliding backward, he made for the trapdoor. Everything was different now. Everything had changed. This wasn’t just about some silly house faery anymore. He didn’t want to think what these creatures would do to him if they caught him listening. He climbed down into the third-story passage and hurried toward the stair.