The Peculiar

“Hello,” Bartholomew said. “Hello?” A little louder this time. The word flittered up the staircase, through silent passages and squares of sunlight. It echoed back to him, “Low, low, low. .”

Everyone was asleep. Every soul under the roof but him. The bells of Bath were ringing twelve o’ clock noon. He went outside and stood in the alley, numb and staring, wondering what to do.

Clouds were drawing in, but it was still bright. He felt the sun on his skin, but it didn’t warm him. A ring of mushrooms had grown up among the cobbles. They were few and far between, and when Bartholomew walked into their middle, the air didn’t even stir. He stamped on them, one by one, and smeared the black liquid across the ground.

After a while he caught sight of a man working his way up the alley. The man wore a dirty white suit with a blue collar. Bartholomew thought he must be a sailor. He was only a few steps away when he noticed Bartholomew. His eyes went wide and he crossed himself as he passed, scraping himself along the wall and hurrying on around the corner. Bartholomew watched him go, a dull, cold expression on his face.

Stupid, stupid person. Suddenly Bartholomew hated him. Why should he cross himself and stare? He isn’t better than me. He’s just a stupid, dirty sailor, and he probably can’t even read. I can read. Bartholomew’s teeth began to ache, and he realized he was clenching them. His hand knotted into a fist at his side. In his mind he was hitting the man over and over again, punching his face until when he looked down it was no longer a face at all but a round broken pot with red stew dripping from it.

“Oi! You there!” a rough voice said behind him. A hand grabbed Bartholomew’s shoulder and spun him violently about.

He found himself looking into a round, pockmarked face like an old pancake. The face belonged to a thick, small man practically bursting out of his tattered military coat. A peddler’s backpack was on his back, but all the hooks where the spoons and pans and dollies should have been were empty.

“What d’you think you’re doing, eh? Whispering enchantments at people’s backs? What kind of witchcraft are you up to, boy?” The little man drew Bartholomew up by the collar until he was only inches from his dirty, stubbly face.

“Ah, a devil’s child, are we,” he wheezed. “A Peculiar. Tell me, devil boy, did your ma raise you on dog’s blood instead of milk?”

“N-no,” Bartholomew rasped. His mind was no longer dragging. It was blunt and quick with fear. Don’t get yourself noticed, and you won’t get yourself hanged. Don’t get- He had gotten himself noticed.

“Your lot is being murdered right now, did you hear ’bout that? Oh, yes! Being fished out of the river, all dripping and cold. I hear they have red marks up their arms, on their skin. And they’re just. . empty, floating like cloth in the swill.” The little man laughed gleefully. “No guts! Ha-ha! No guts! Whada you think ’bout that, hmm? Do you have red lines up your arms, all a dancin’ and a whirlin’?” He tore at one of Bartholomew’s sleeves. His piggy eyes went wide, then narrowed slowly. When he spoke again his voice was low and dangerous.

“You’re goina be dead soon, devil boy. You’re marked. You know the last boy who died? He was right from around here, looked like you. Binsterbull or Biddelbummer or sommet like that. And they just fished him out o’ the Thames, they did. In London. And he had just the same marks as that. Oh, yes. Just the same.” The man’s breath stank of gin and decaying teeth. Bartholomew began to feel sick. “Watcha been up to, eh, devil boy?” the man whined in his face. “Why they gonna kill you? Maybe I should kill you first and save them the tr-”

Behind them, someone cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” a polite voice said.

Without loosening his grip on Bartholomew’s collar, the peddler whipped around. He snorted.

“Whada you want?”

“I want you to unhand the young man,” the voice said.

“You best start runnin’, mister. Run away, or I’ll finish you next.”

The man didn’t move. “Release him or I’ll shoot you dead.”

Bartholomew craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of his benefactor. He found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. It was a tiny silver gun with mother-of-pearl on its handle and rubies and opals all down its sides.

The peddler only spat. “You? You couldn’t shoot a kitten if it bit your nose.”

The man shot. A fine round pearl rolled lazily down the barrel of the gun and plopped out, falling to the cobblestones and bouncing away.

“Drat,” the man with the gun said. “Look, leave the boy alone, won’t you? You can have the pistol. It’s worth a great deal, I suppose. And I assure you there’s no more. My money is all in named bills so you’ll never be able to cash them, and I don’t even have a watch chain, so you needn’t bother robbing me.” He held out the bejewelled pistol. “Now do unhand the child.”

The man with the pancake face dropped Bartholomew unceremoniously to the cobbles. He snatched the pistol. “All right,” he said, squinting warily at the stranger. “But this ain’t no child. This is one o’ them changelings, it is, and it’s marked. It’s gonna be dead soon.”

Then he was gone, scrambling away down the alley.

Bartholomew got up off the ground and looked his rescuer over.

The man was a gentleman. His shoes gleamed black, and his collar was starched, and he smelled terribly clean, like soap and fresh-pumped water. He was rather tall, too, with broad shoulders and square features, and blond stubble pricked up along his jaw so that it looked like he hadn’t shaved in several days. His face wore an expression of mild inquiry. Bartholomew disliked him right away.

“Hello,” the gentleman said quietly. “Are you Child Number Ten?”

“Mi Sathir? There is a problem.”

The lady in plum stood with her back to Mr. Lickerish. Her arms were at her sides, and her elegant fingers were moving ever so slightly, picking at the velvet of her skirts. Her lips remained motionless.

“Mi Sathir,” the voice said again. Mr. Lickerish did not look up. He was busy scribbling away on a scrap of paper with a curling black feather, fierce concentration etched into his fine-boned features.

The lady and the faery were in a beautiful room. Books lined the walls and lamps cast halos around them. A low humming filled the air. Two metal birds were perched on the desk where Mr. Lickerish sat, their eyes dark and keen. In one corner of the room, a chalk circle had been drawn carefully on the floorboards. One section of the circle looked newer than the rest, crisper and whiter, as if it’d had to be redrawn.

“A problem, Sathir.”

Mr. Lickerish threw down the quill. “Yes, there are many problems, Jack Box, and one of them is you, and one is Arthur Jelliby, and one is old Mr. Zerubbabel and his crooked, slow fingers. How long does it take to build another bird out of metal? He has the plans and the route and. . Speaking of which, did you kill him? Arthur Jelliby?”

“I did. He’s dead by now. Most likely strangled by his bedsheets because they did not like being put under sizzling irons and drowned in suds. You know, it’s almost a shame wasting the Malundis Lavriel spell so late at night. There’s no one about to appreciate it. Now, on a crowded street, in the heat of the day, the result can be quite spectacular but. . But I digress. We have a problem.” The lady in plum stepped aside, revealing a little girl curled up on the floor. The lady extended a jet-black toe from under her skirts and dug it into the child’s ribs. “Wake up, ugly thing. Wake up!”

Hettie raised her head sleepily. For half an instant her eyes were blank, as if she thought she was still at home, safe. Then she sat up. Her mouth pinched, and she glared at the lady and Mr. Lickerish, each in turn.

“Pull up your sleeves, half-blood. Show him.”

She did as she was told, but she didn’t stop glaring. The dirty fabric was rolled up, revealing a pattern of lines, red tendrils twisting around her thin white arms.

“Well?” the faery politician demanded. “What is it? She looks very nearly as wretched as the other nine.”

A tongue clicked in annoyance. It was not the lady’s tongue, not the tongue behind the vivid red lips. It was a long, rough, barbed tongue, scraping over teeth. “Read it,” the voice growled.

The faery politician leaned across the desk. He paused. One perfect eyebrow arched. “Eleven? Why is she marked eleven?”

“That is the problem. I don’t know. I set up the spell just as you ordered, Skasrit Sylphii to brand each of the changelings as they traveled through the wings and to open their skin to the magic. This one ought to have been marked number ten.”