Stefan Bachman - The Peculiar

“Ophelia!”

A wide-eyed maid appeared at the top of the stairs. “Good evenin’, sir,” she mumbled. “Cook kept your dinner warm and they’ve got a-”

Mr. Jelliby spun on her.

“Jane? Or is it Margaret. No matter. Fetch all the guns from over the mantelpieces, and all the swords and the carving knives, and perhaps a frying pan or two, and anything else that can be used as a weapon, and then lock up the door to the back garden. And tell Cook to go out and buy a good supply of crackers and salted pork, and lock up the attic windows in case they come in through the roof, and don’t forget the guns!”

The maid stood unmoving, her face a picture of confusion.

“Well? What’s the matter? Do as I say!”

She stammered something and began backing away down the upstairs hall. Then she turned and ran, polished heels pounding the carpet. A door slammed. Not a minute later, Ophelia arrived at the head of the stairs, the maid peeking from behind her.

“Arthur? Darling, whatever is the matter?”

“You don’t suppose we should knock him out,” the maid whispered. “I hear folks get possessed by faeries an’ start acting all strange, an’ then you have to get a club, see, or that candlestick there will do, and-”

“That’s enough, Phoebe,” Ophelia said, without moving her gaze from Mr. Jelliby’s face. “You may go sweep up the tea leaves in the sitting room. I’m sure they’ve collected a boatload of dust by now.”

The maid bowed her head and hurried down the stairs. She inched past Mr. Jelliby, casting him the most despairing look, and sped on toward the sitting room. Ophelia waited until she heard the door click. Then she hurried down herself.

She pulled Mr. Jelliby away from the front door, her pretty face crinkling with worry. “Arthur, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”

Mr. Jelliby cast a fearful look around him and then led his wife to a chair, whispering, “We’re in trouble, Ophelia. Terrible, terrible trouble. Oh, what’s going to happen to us? What will happen?”

“Well, if you will tell me what has happened, then perhaps I can tell you what will happen,” Ophelia said gently.

Mr. Jelliby buried his head in his hands. “I can’t tell you what’s happened. You can’t know. You mustn’t know. Oh, I stole something, all right? From someone rather important. And now they know. They know I stole it!”

“Arthur, you didn’t! Oh, you couldn’t have! With your inheritance?”

“People are being murdered, Ophelia. Children. I had to.”

“You ought to have called the police. Stealing money helps nothing in these cases.”

Mr. Jelliby made a complicated sound of annoyance. “I didn’t steal any money, won’t you listen? I stole a bird. A pisky-cursed mechanical bird.”

“A bird? From who? Mr. Lickerish? Darling, was it Mr. Lickerish?” She bit her nail. “Arthur, do you know what I suspect? I suspect you are reading crimes into his actions. Now, you will put your coat away-oh, it is sooty! Did you not have it brushed? — and sit down by the fire and drink some chamomile tea. Then you will take a hot bath and go to sleep, and tomorrow we shall see what must be done. Perhaps it won’t be necessary to rearrange the furnishings after all.”

That sounded sensible enough. Mr. Jelliby was in the safety of his front hall now. The window looked out on an emptying Belgrave Square, on carriages and people, shadowy in the dusk. The evening light was just touching the rooftops with copper and rose. What could Mr. Lickerish possibly do to him here? Out in the wilds of the city he could chase a million horrors onto Mr. Jelliby’s back. He could have him pushed from a bridge, or under a steam carriage, or order all the spiders in Pimlico to drag him to the roofs and spin him to a chimney. But here in Mr. Jelliby’s own home? The worst Mr. Lickerish could do was murder him in his sleep. And what were the chances of that. .?

Mr. Jelliby took off his coat and went to drink some chamomile tea.

Fog slunk among the headstones of St. Mary, Queen of Martyrs, that night. It smelled of charcoal and rot, and spread in slow shapes down the sloping graveyard. Above, clouds drifted, snuffing out the moon. Somewhere in the maze of streets beyond the wall a dog barked.

The watchman sat in his hut against the side of the church, fast asleep in the wavering glow of a lantern. Grave robbers had come and gone, finished their business hours ago and were well on their way to the physicians in Harley Street, and to certain faeries of delicate diet. No one heard the sudden shriek of wind, or saw the pillar of wings take shape out of the dark. No one saw the lady who stepped from among them. She looked around her, head snapping about like a bird’s. Then she turned and made for the gate, plum-colored skirts dragging over the damp soil.

The lady led a small child. It was a changeling girl, thin, with branches for hair. It was Hettie. She seemed to be falling asleep as they walked, stumbling over roots and sunken gravestones. Her head slumped to one side now and then, as if she didn’t know she was in a foggy graveyard, as if she thought she might nestle into her pillow and go to sleep.

“Stop dawdling, ugly thing,” the lady snapped, pulling her along. “We’re almost done.”

Her lips did not move as she spoke. The fog swallowed all sound, but even so the lady’s voice was distant, as if it were coming from behind layers of fabric. “One more little thing I must take care of tonight, and then you can sleep until your fingernails grow halfway to Gloucester for all I care.”

Hettie rubbed her eyes with her free hand and mumbled something about rats and houses.

“And hold your tongue.” The lady stepped through the gate of the graveyard, into Bellyache Street. She sniffed the air. Then she strode on over the cobblestones. Hettie could scarcely keep up, but the lady paid no attention. She dragged Hettie down Bellyache Street, into Belgrave Square. They hurried out across it, silent in the lamp-lit expanse.

They stopped in front of a tall house with a bicycle bolted to its fence. The house loomed, blacker than the night sky, not a single light tracing any of its windows. The lady eyed it a moment. Then she pulled Hettie toward the nearest lamppost and planted her under it, pointing up at the flame faery behind the glass and saying, “Do you see that? See how it presses its little orange hands against the panes and looks back at you? Now don’t move. I’ll return for you in seven breaths.” She whirled away, leaving Hettie transfixed under the streetlamp.

At the top of the steps, the lady paused and took from the folds of her dress a heavy metal cylinder. It was ancient, green with verdigris and forged with heathenish symbols. A smiling face, all fat cheeks and twinkling eyes, was etched on its lid.

The lady twisted the lid, winding it like a clock, and suddenly the face began to change. As it turned upside down it became angry, and its eyes began to darken, and its mouth drooped into a bitter frown. The cylinder sprang open.

“Arthur Jelliby,” the lady whispered, and smiled as something flew from the cylinder through the keyhole and into the plush darkness of the house. When there was nothing left inside the cylinder she tucked it back into her skirts, and collecting Hettie up off the curb, swept back toward St. Mary’s and the graveyard.

It was not a sound that woke Mr. Jelliby. Rather, it was the combined effects of being too cold, lying half out of his blankets, and feeling an uncomfortable lump in his mattress at the small of his back, like a broken spring poking out.

He sat up and felt about in the dark, trying to find the source of this discomfort. He was so tired. Had a man in pointed shoes appeared right then and asked him to sign his name in blood inside a black book, he would have done it just to be allowed to fall back into his pillows and sleep.