Stefan Bachman - The Peculiar

His head was reeling. It never worked, then. The invitation. The pitiful house with the cherries twisted into its walls. It has all been for nothing. The raggedy man wasn’t his faery. The raggedy man had been hired. To spy. To make sure Bartholomew would do , be suitable, not a failure like the other nine. Nine. The Buddelbinster boy was one of those. He must be. And now Bartholomew was number ten. The paper in the attic. He pulled up his sleeve and examined the markings on his arms. Bloodred tens in the faery language. At least the raggedy man had told the truth about that.

He broke into a run, down the stairs, wood splinters pricking his hand from the rickety banister. He didn’t know what they wanted him for. He didn’t know whether he should hide, or tell Mother, or wait quietly until they came for him. The creature-the one he hadn’t seen-had said it was working for the Lord Chancellor. Wasn’t that good? Weren’t only the kindest and wisest people allowed to be Lord Chancellors? But why would a Lord Chancellor employ faeries that sounded like winter and knocked people’s teeth out? Bartholomew didn’t know what to think anymore. He was terrified and excited, both at once, and it felt like a whole cloud of moths were beating their wings inside his stomach. An image flared up in his mind of grand people, of dukes and generals encrusted with medals, of ermine cloaks dragging across marble, and great halls ablaze with candles. A knife tapped, silvery, against a wineglass. A cheer went up. And Bartholomew realized they were cheering for him. Barthy Kettle. Child Number Ten, of Old Crow Alley, seventh faery district, Bath. It was a ridiculous thought. A happy, hopeful, ridiculous thought that had a million cracks running through it.

He was almost to the flat door when something caught his eye through the passage window. Something was out in the alley, an extra shadow where no shadow belonged. He retraced his steps and brought his face up close against the round leaded panes.

It was the lady in plum. She was back again in Old Crow Alley, sitting still as death on a rough-hewn bench against the wall of the place known as moss-bucket house. The moldering eaves hung low over her, drowning her in gloom. She was slumped against the wall, her hands in her lap, her chin resting against her neck.

Bartholomew raised his hand to the glass. The image of the candlelit halls, ermine cloaks, and admiring faces became brighter than ever. Why shouldn’t the lady take him away? Someone-no, not just someone-the Lord Chancellor himself, had gone through a great deal of trouble to find him. That meant he was important. In the faery slums he wasn’t important. In the faery slums he was just another ugly thing to be hidden away and never spoken of. He would die here. Sooner or later.

But the dreadful faeries in the attic, a voice cried, clanging in his head like a fire-engine bell. The Buddelbinster mother’s warning, that ugly face on the back of the lady’s head, and the hooves, and the voices- Bartholomew silenced it. It didn’t matter. What did any of that matter when all they were doing was taking him to a better place? A place where he belonged. It would be better for everyone if he were gone. It would mean one less mouth to feed for Mother, one less changeling for her to worry about. Hettie would cry, and he would miss her awfully, but surely he could visit. And if the room he had traveled to through the mushroom ring was anything like the place he was going, he knew he wouldn’t mind living there. He could just scrape bits of gilt off the furniture and Mother and Hettie would have pies and duck to eat for months.

By the time he turned away from the window he had made up his mind. Somewhere in London people were waiting for him, glorious people with clockwork birds, fine rooms, and fireplaces. He was leaving Old Crow Alley behind.

He laid his head against the door to the flat and whispered, “Good-bye, Mother. Good-bye, Hettie.” He waited several heartbeats, as if listening for a reply. Then he went downstairs. The goblin was asleep on his stool. The face in the door stared out sightlessly, gray wooden eyes over gray wooden cheeks. Silently, Bartholomew said good-bye to them, too. Then he slipped out into the narrow confines of the alley.

The houses all around were black spikes against the sky. The sun was just starting to rise, and only the early morning red gave the alley any light. Somewhere several streets away, a cart was rattling over the cobbles, echoing.

Bartholomew crossed the alley and approached the lady cautiously, scraping himself along the wall toward her. She looked even larger up close, even darker and more forbidding, as if the shadows from the recesses and deep doorways were being drawn to her, soaking into her skirts. The last time Bartholomew had seen her he had been in the attic, behind glass. Now he could see her every detail. She was young. Not a great lady at all, but a girl no more than twenty. Her hat still sat askew atop her head, but the jewels were no longer around her throat and one of her night-hued gloves was torn, crisp with something like dried blood. Her red lip paint was somewhat smeared. Bartholomew thought she was the most marvelous and frightening thing he had ever seen.

He came within three steps of her and then stopped. She sat so still. So very, very still in the shadow of the eaves. He contemplated reaching out and touching her hand. It didn’t seem wise at all.

He was just about to slip back inside and lie shivering against the door until he could think of something to say, when the lady moved. Her eyelids fluttered open and she said ever so softly, “Oh! Hello, sweet child.”

Her voice was airy, dreamy, half between waking and sleeping.

Bartholomew flinched. For a moment he wasn’t sure she had been speaking to him, since she hadn’t turned her head or even really looked at him. But the alley was empty. He and the lady were the only ones in it.

“Did Father send you?” she asked. “Are you the new valet?”

Bartholomew stood, mouth open, unsure of how to answer. Is this some sort of test? Oh, no. I mustn’t muddle it. Something clever, something clever so she will be impressed. This was still the sorceress who had taken his friend, still the lady with the secret, twisted face. But her eyes were so kind. And she had such a lovely voice. He couldn’t even remember that second face anymore. Perhaps it had belonged to someone else.

“Tell him I will not relent,” she continued. “Never as long as the hills are green. Jack will be mine, and nothing shall ever come between us. But I am so tired. . What is this hard chair I sit on? Where are my pillows? Where is Mirabel with peches et creme ? Sweet child, where am-”

Suddenly her eyes snapped wide. Her pupils focused on Bartholomew and she sat bolt upright, snatching both his hands. “Oh, no,” she whispered, and her voice shivered at the edges. Desperation wrote itself across her face, and her eyes shone, fearful-bright. “No, no. You must run. Sweet child, they are here to take you. Don’t let them. Run. Run with the wind and never look back.”

All at once there came a sound, a tapping that drifted down into the alley. It was coming from the rooftops. Bartholomew looked up just in time to see the small round window of his little gable burst outward, shooting a cloud of glass into the air. A shape flew out, a writhing mass of blackness. It plummeted, glass glinting around it, and landed in the alley with a dreadful scuttling sound.

Bartholomew’s heart lurched. The lady gasped and dropped his hands.

Everything seemed to move very slowly then. The glass from the window rained down, tinkling like diamonds into the gutter. The writhing shape hurtled toward them over the cobblestones. And the lady’s head turned to Bartholomew, her eyes full of tears.