Stefan Bachman - The Peculiar

Hettie had crawled to where the figurine lay smashed. She was picking up the pieces one by one, staring at them in dismay. Mr. Lickerish turned on her.

“And take that one to the preparation room. Beg the rain and stones she is everything we need her to be, or you and your sweetheart can stumble off in your present state, secure in the knowledge that nothing will ever happen to change it. She is becoming more and more unbecoming, by the way. Your sweetheart.” The faery gentleman flicked his long fingers in the direction of the lady in plum. “You might have her change out of that horrid dress.”

Mr. Jelliby had spent the night on a bench in Hyde Park. The moment the dreary London sky was light enough to see by, he’d set off to his bank in nothing but his dressing gown and had rung the bell frantically until a sleepy-eyed clerk had let him in. He demanded his jeweled pistol and a great deal of money from the family safe box, and when he had gotten them, he took a cab to Saville Row, woke the tailor, and paid double so that he could leave with the Baron d’Erezaby’s new coat and waistcoat, a satin cravat, and a top hat. An urgent telegraph to his house on Belgrave Square told Ophelia that he was safe, that she must leave for Cardiff that very day if she could and not speak to anyone about it. By eight o’clock in the morning he was on his way to Bath.

It was a comfortable journey despite the damp and the chill that pervaded everything. The great black steam engine sped across the countryside, dragging its fumes in a plume behind it, and leaving only a watercolor blur of greens and grays painted on Mr. Jelliby’s window. He arrived at the train station in New Bath just before noon.

He had decided right away there was no point in going anywhere else. The London coordinates made no sense at all to him, and the other address on Mr. Zerubbabel’s scrap of paper was up north in Yorkshire. Besides, Bath was where the changelings were. If Mr. Jelliby was going to do anything to save them, it would be here.

He climbed down from the railway carriage, into the swirling steam of the platform. He had heard about this vertical, filthy city, but he had never been to it before. It was not the sort of place people went if they could help it. The train station had been built close to the city’s foundations, under a rusting iron-and-glass dome. The platforms were almost deserted. Station masters and conductors rushed from wagon to wagon, hopping up onto the steps as soon as they could as if the ground were poison. No faeries waited here. Very few humans, either. One look at the rabbit-hole streets and drooping houses surrounding him, and Mr. Jelliby was convinced to go in search of a cab.

A few dingy transports stood at the edge of the train station-a wolf-drawn carriage, two huge snails with tents atop their shells, and twelve bottles of potion that were more likely to leave you knocked out and penniless than take you where you wanted to go. Mr. Jelliby chose a towering blue troll with a palanquin strapped to its back and put a guinea into the box on its belt. Even on his toes, he could barely reach it. The guinea struck the bottom of the box with a clunk . There were no other coins inside.

The troll grunted and flared its nostrils, and Mr. Jelliby was certain it would lift him up into the palanquin. It didn’t. He waited. Then he saw the wooden footholds attached to the outer part of the troll’s leg, and he climbed into the palanquin himself.

The troll heaved into motion. Mr. Jelliby settled into a heap of pungent-smelling cushions and studiously avoided looking at the faery city as they traveled down through it.

At the base of the city, the troll stopped abruptly. Mr. Jelliby leaned out to complain, but one look at the creature’s storm-dark eyes and he closed his mouth with a clap. He climbed down the blue leg and watched the troll loaf back into the shadows of New Bath. Then he waved down a proper steam cab and gave the driver the Bath address that Mr. Zerubbabel had written down for him.

The cab had driven no more than five minutes before it stopped, too. Mr. Jelliby wanted to scream. He thrust his head out the window.

“What is it now ?”

“That’s a faery slum, through there,” the coachman said, pointing his whip toward an ivy-strangled arch between two tall stone buildings. “You’ll have to go on foot the rest of the way.”

With an oath, Mr. Jelliby climbed out and walked under the arch. He went down first one foul street, then another. He asked directions several times, got lost, was stared at and cackled at and had his hat stolen off his head. But eventually he turned into a cramped, crooked little street called Old Crow Alley, and there came upon a child in the process of being murdered.

“Well, are you?” Mr. Jelliby asked, trying to make his voice as kind as possible. “Are you Child Number Ten?” He wasn’t in any mood to be kind. His eyes kept returning to the boy’s pointed ears, his sharp, hungry face. So this is what a changeling looks like. Ugly, partway between a starving street child and a goat. But not really something to make a fuss about. Half of England’s faery population was uglier, and no one buried them under elderberry bushes. The boy didn’t look like he could cast curses on people, either. All he looked was sad and banged up. Mr. Jelliby was not sure what to make of that.

“I don’t know,” the boy mumbled. “Mother’s asleep and she won’t wake up.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She won’t wake up,” the boy repeated. For an instant his dark eyes had looked Mr. Jelliby over, read his face, read his clothes. Now they refused to look at him.

“Oh. Well-She must be very tired. Perhaps you know of a lady in a plum-colored dress? She wears a little hat on her head with a flower in it. And blue gloves. I am quite determined to find her.”

A flicker passed behind the boy’s eyes, and Mr. Jelliby could not tell if it was recognition or fear or something else entirely.

For a moment the boy just stood there, staring at his feet. Then, very quietly, he asked, “How do you know about her?”

“I met her once.” Impatience was plucking at Mr. Jelliby’s brows, pulling them into a frown, but he forced himself to remain calm. He mustn’t scare the child off. “She appears to be in some peril, is associating unwillingly with a murderer, and is beset with troubles concerning her beau. Also, I believe she-”

The boy wasn’t listening. He was looking past him, through him, his eyes piercing. “She’s been here,” he said. Mr. Jelliby could barely hear him. “Twice now. She took my friend and then my sister. She steals changelings out of the faery slums and. .”

Bartholomew went cold all over. Fished out of the river, all dripping and cold. Empty, floating like cloth in the swill. No guts! Ha-ha! No guts!

The changelings were dead. His friend, and. . No. No, not Hettie. Hettie couldn’t be dead.

Panic gripped his neck with bony fingers. “Please, sir,” he whispered, looking Mr. Jelliby in the eye for the first time since their meeting. “The lady took my sister.”

Mr. Jelliby looked uncomfortable. “I’m sure I’m very sorry,” he said.

“I have to get her back. There’s still time. She wouldn’t have killed her yet, would she?” It was a plea, really, more than a question.

“Well-well, I don’t know!” Mr. Jelliby was becoming flustered. He had come too late. The lady had been and gone, and there was nothing to do now but go to the next of Mr. Zerubbabel’s coordinates and hope he would find something. He didn’t want to hear the grief of the child’s brother. He didn’t want to know how much his failure had cost.

“It was only a few hours ago,” the boy was saying. “She might still be close. Have you seen her?”