Stefan Bachman - The Peculiar

His fingers touched on something smooth and cold among the bedsheets. It wasn’t a bedspring. What on earth? It wasn’t even metal.

With a groan, he heaved himself up and lit the lamp on the nightstand. He held it over the bed, surveying the wrinkled sheets. The thing that had woken him was a piece of wood. It was well polished and seemed to have grown from under the bed, piercing mattress and feather comforters until it had finally jabbed into his back.

Mr. Jelliby stared at it, his sleep-fogged mind stumbling, not understanding. Clumsily, he dropped to one knee and looked under the bed. It was a great old four-poster, built of dark wood and carved to look like a grove of weeping willows, their branches entwined to form a canopy. Now that he thought of it, the wood among the sheets looked very much-

He stiffened. Something was wrapping itself around his ankle. With a muffled yelp he jerked his leg around, whirling to see what it was. A brittle snap, like the breaking of a match. He looked down, and there at his feet was another piece of branch, lying still.

“Ophelia?” he whispered into the dark. “Ophelia, I believe you should have a look at this-”

But even as he spoke, another branch rose up behind him and snaked itself silently around his neck. With one swift movement, it drew itself tight. The lamp fell from Mr. Jelliby’s hands. It smashed to the floor and went out. His eyes bulged. He reached for his throat, gagging.

“Ophelia!” he croaked, snapping the wood from his neck. The branches were coming quicker now, left and right, crackling from the woodwork of the bed and slithering toward him. “ Ophelia!”

All of a sudden, the carpet under his feet gave a violent lurch and streaked out from under him. He struck the floor like a ten-ton stone. The carpet turned, flew back at him, and began wrapping itself around him, winding and knotting. With a cry, he kicked it off and started crawling desperately toward the door.

He managed to get out into the hall and would have lain there had not the floorboards begun flipping up, slamming him in the back, in the arm. He scooted down the front stairs and stood, trembling. This was a dream, surely. He must be dreaming.

He glanced around the hall. Everything was quiet.

He went into the library and took up the decanter of brandy. In a few hours I will wake up again. Carpets and willow beds will be precisely what they are supposed to be, and I can-

The creak of wood sounded behind him. He spun, just in time to see a claw-foot table bounding across the room toward him. It launched itself into the air. It caught him square in the chest. He was hurled back-decanter and all-against the far wall. The decanter burst, leaving a dripping blot on the wallpaper. Mr. Jelliby wrestled with the table, gasping, too stunned even to shout.

He saw the cutlass seconds before it struck. It came from the coat of arms above the fireplace, whizzing point-first toward him. He dragged the table up like a shield, but the cutlass sliced through it, singing past Mr. Jelliby’s cheek and burying itself in the wall barely an inch from his left eye.

“Brahms!” he screamed. “Ophelia? Wake up! Wake up!” He ducked under the table, leaving it to thrash against the cutlass, and half limped, half crawled toward the front hall. A door banged upstairs. Voices called to each other and hurrying feet beat the floor.

By the time Mr. Jelliby arrived at the front door it was already moving. The mahogany lions carved into its frame snapped at him, straining against the edge of the beams. He gripped the door handle, but it squirmed in his hand. He let go with a cry. A brass lizard launched itself at his face, and its tail caught him on the cheek, leaving a bloody streak. From the ceiling, a plaster vine spiraled into his mouth. He bit down hard, cracking it in two.

At the top of the stairs a light appeared. Brahms stood there in his nightcap, a great kerosene lamp held aloft. It illuminated a circle of ghostly faces, all peering down in fear and wonderment at the battle raging below.

“Ophelia?” Mr. Jelliby shouted up. “Is Ophelia all right?” The hall carpet was alive, too, panthers and wildcats moving fluidly through the weave toward him.

His wife pushed through the huddle of servants, nightgown flaring white in the darkness. “I’m well, Arthur, we all are, but-”

Mr. Jelliby stamped his foot, mashing a red-eyed cat into the writhing stitches of the carpet. “It’s Mr. Lickerish! He’s sent someone. Something to-”

Another cat tore free. He felt it on his leg, a biting pain, as if the threads were sewing themselves into his skin. He clawed at it.

“Arthur, we’re coming,” Ophelia cried. Brahms made a move to descend, but the stairs folded up like an accordion, leaving the poor footman flailing sixteen feet above the floor. The others caught him and pulled him back, shouting in fear.

“Arthur, what’s happening ?”

He had to get out. None of the others would be safe until he was gone. And if the front door wouldn’t let him leave, he would find another way. He hobbled down the hallway toward the library and the back garden.

Things were flying at him from all directions now. Nails ripped themselves from the floorboards, plant stands and chairs skittered after him out of the corners. The paintings on the walls let loose their inhabitants, and old men in powdered wigs suddenly attacked, clawing and whispering. A beak-nosed lady grabbed a handful of his hair and wrenched his head against her canvas.

“Did you not see?” she hissed into his ear. “Did you not see that common little maid scratch me with her hairpin? And you did nothing !”

He could smell her painted hand, turpentine and dust, the brushstrokes of her fingers scraping over his face, searching for his eyes. With a yell, he rent her canvas top to bottom and flung himself away from the wall of portraits. An umbrella closed around his leg. He tried to kick it off, staggered into a bust of some king. It spat a lump of marble straight into his eye.

“My nose does not look like that!” the bust cried. Mr. Jelliby backed away, felt the stained-glass door that led into the back garden. His hand found the knob. He rattled it. Locked. Grasping the bust by the neck, he hurled it with all his strength through the door. The door smashed. He leaped through it.

Everything became quiet.

Side tables and teakettles clattered to a halt on the threshold. The bust rolled away into the bushes.

Mr. Jelliby fell to the grass, lungs heaving, half expecting the plants to rise up and devour him, but the garden was silent. No complaining voices. No carnivorous roses or hideous wood spirits. He pushed himself up, the dew and earth cold under his bare feet. And then he heard it. A noise from the knot of rhododendrons that grew in the far corner of the garden. The sound of stone grinding against stone.

Something was moving through the branches. Several things. The leaves began to rustle. A moment later a gargoyle slid out of the shadows, dragging its stone wings behind it. An apple-cheeked elf followed, brandishing a dainty ax. A lunatic grin was fixed across its face. Stone fauns, nymphs, and a great brass frog all emerged from the foliage, each one complaining of its own particular woes.

“There you are,” a Venus whispered, and the voice that came from her throat was eerie and grating. “Why do I not have arms? What sort of imbecile carves a goddess without arms? It is your good luck, I suppose, or I would surely strangle you with them.”

Slowly, steadily, the creatures advanced, feet whispering in the grass. Behind him, in the house, Mr. Jelliby heard the furniture, the tap of wood and marble, and tinny rattling. In a few moments he would be completely surrounded.