The Peculiar (20 page)

“Bartholomew! What are you doing? Get away from the edge!” Mr. Jelliby hissed, tiptoeing across the hall. “The faery butler is with Mr. Lickerish as we speak. He has your sister, and he's getting the potion and he's going to take her down in the elevator.”

Bartholomew sat bolt upright. “Hettie? You saw her?”

“Yes! With my own eyes! But we must hurry.” He ran to the edge of the floor and reached out for the elevator, looking it over rapidly.

“There. See those metal bars underneath? We can squeeze down there, I think, and then leap out when the butler's alone in the warehouse. Quick now! In with you.”

Without another word, Bartholomew scooted off the edge of the floor and onto the metal bars. The warmth of the hall was gone in an instant. Wind and frozen ash blew around him freely, but he barely noticed.
Mr. Jelliby has found her. She is here and she is alive.

The space under the elevator was barely a foot high and utterly open. Only the widely set bars kept him from falling into the dark.
It's the luggage rack,
he thought. It was where the trunks and hatboxes would have been packed had the dirigible been used for anything ordinary.

Mr. Jelliby dragged at the cable, and the elevator sank a foot. The luggage rack dropped below the lip of the hatch, hidden. Then he, too, swung down.

Not a moment too soon. Mr. Jelliby barely had time to arrange his arms and legs before the first tread of feet sounded on the stairs.

“Come
on
!” the faery butler's whine drifted into the hall. “By stone, you are the most tiresome creature! The other nine weren't half as bad.”

There was a scuffling sound as he pulled Hettie along and she hurried to match his pace. Then the elevator swayed as they stepped aboard. Bartholomew could see a little through the metal grille of the floor. He could just make out the shadows of Hettie's bare feet, the great long soles of the faery butler's shoes. And there was something else, too. Something small and round that never stayed still, and made an odd sound like water in a jug.

Bartholomew held his breath. Hettie was so close. Inches above him. He wanted to climb up and grab her, and tell her that he had found her and they'd be going home soon.
Only a little longer. . . .

The elevator began to descend, creaking down through the night. The only light came from the faery butler's green eye. Mr. Jelliby prayed he wouldn't look down. He would see them instantly if he did, lying there under the floor. His mechanical eye would pierce metal and darkness and—

The faery lifted his nose and sniffed the air. Mr. Jelliby stiffened.

“I smell rain,” the faery said, looking at Hettie curiously. “Rain and mud.”

Hettie said nothing.

The faery butler tapped his fingers against the railing. “It has not rained in London for days.”

For several heartbeats the only sound was the wind. Then, without warning, a jagged blade descended from the faery butler's sleeve, and he slashed it down through the air, driving it through the floor. Its tip came to a halt, ringing, inches from Bartholomew's eye. He screamed.

“Barthy?” Hettie cried, pressing her face to the grating.

Mr. Jelliby dragged himself off the bars and hung from them, legs flailing forty feet above the ground. “Get out! Get out, Bartholomew, he'll kill you!”

The blade came down again, over and over, slicing Bartholomew's arm, drawing blood. The elevator had reached the roof of the warehouse. The air turned warm as they sank into it.

“Now!” Mr. Jelliby shouted, from where he clung. “Let go! It's not far anymore!”

Bartholomew saw the blade hurtling down toward him, glimmering like a streak of rain. It would kill him this time. It would meet its mark, go clean through his heart. But just as its tip bit into his skin, he slipped between the bars and fell, down, down into the warehouse.

The impact smashed the breath from his lungs. His knees buckled under him and he rolled, over and over, until he came to rest against a wall of crates. He heard the elevator clang against the floor. Then the patter of Hettie's bare feet, the faery butler's heels ringing on stone. When he opened his eyes he half expected to see the creature standing over him, knife poised to snuff him out.

But the faery butler seemed to have lost all interest in him. Nor was he paying any attention to Mr. Jelliby, who had dragged himself into the sea of crates and sat crouched there, gasping. With quick, efficient movements, the faery forced Hettie's feet into the charred shoes and set to knotting the shoelaces, over and over, until there was not the slightest chance she could step out of them.

She tried to lift her feet, kick his hands away, but the shoes were hammered fast to the floor. His long fingers tugged at the knots, testing them. She scratched at his head, tried to pick at the laces herself, but the faery swatted her away.

Bartholomew began crawling toward her on hands and knees. Still the faery took no notice of him. The butler rose and took the greenwitch's elixir from his coat. He placed it to Hettie's lips, tipping up the bottle. She spluttered once, spat, but he clenched her little face in his hand and forced it skyward, and there was nothing she could do but cough the liquid down in great gulps.

When the bottle was empty the faery flung it aside. Without another word, he strode back toward the elevator.

Mr. Jelliby leaped out from among the crates, swinging a metal hook before him like a rapier. The faery didn't even flinch. He dodged it gracefully, sliding around it like a snake, and spinning, he struck Mr. Jelliby a vicious blow to the side of the head. Bartholomew watched Mr. Jelliby stagger and then scrabbled toward Hettie.
I'll get her to the window. We'll climb out while the faery butler's distracted and—

He froze. The faery butler did, too. Mr. Jelliby dropped the hook.

A gentle breeze had sprung up out of nowhere, carrying on it the smell of snow. And something was happening to Hettie. A black line had begun to trace itself along her skin, starting at the top of her head and slithering down over her shoulders, down her arms and her legs.

“Barthy?” she said, her voice cracking with fear. The pale skin around her mouth was stained blackberry-dark. “Barthy, what's happening? What are you looking at?”

The instant the line reached the nailed-down shoes, they disintegrated, turning to delicate flakes that scudded over the floor. The breeze became a wind, stirring the branches of her hair. And suddenly there was no longer a wall behind her, or crates, or a warehouse, but a great, dark wood extending into the distance. Snow lay on the ground. The trees were black and leafless, older and taller than any English trees. Far back among them, Bartholomew could see a stone cottage. A light was burning in its window.

Hettie wrapped her arms around herself and looked at him, eyes wide.

“It's working,” a voice lisped from the ceiling. Bartholomew glanced up, whirling, and saw a small white shape in the gloom, perched at the end of one of the dangling chains. It was staring at the woods, at Hettie. Its mouth was wide and empty, and somewhere inside its cold, wet voice was the echo of Mr. Lickerish's whispery one. “The door is opening.”

Bartholomew spun back to Hettie. The door
was
opening. Slowly the black line expanded, stretching into a ring, like a black flaming hoop for a tiger to leap through. And as the door grew so did its frame, until it was no longer only a thread but a writhing chain of angry, flapping wings. They looked like the wings that flew around Jack Box and Melusine wherever they went, only stronger somehow, blacker. And whatever they touched, they destroyed. The stone slabs of the warehouse floor curled and snapped as they brushed them. The crates nearest them exploded in showers of wood. And still Hettie stood rooted to the spot, a small figure against the woods and snow of the Old Country.

“Yes.”
Mr. Lickerish's voice came through the milk imp's mouth, soft and sibilant. “Child Number Eleven. You have opened.”

The faery butler lurched toward the elevator, but Mr. Jelliby was upon him again, kicking and punching with all his might. Bartholomew started toward Hettie. He felt the wind, smelled the ice and rot of the ancient woods. The door was not very large. Mother always said the one in Bath had been the hugest thing the world had ever seen.

“Go to her, boy,” the milk imp said from the ceiling. “Go and get her and bring her home.” Its voice held a sly edge now, like silk wrapping a sharp knife. “Don't worry. The sylphs won't hurt you. Not one of their own.” The imp leaned down off its hook. “Go on,” it coaxed. “Go get her.”

Bartholomew did not need to be told twice. He broke into a run, dodging Mr. Jelliby and the faery butler. Then Hettie was in front of him and he was pulling her to him.

Hettie flew out of the black wings of the doorway. Her feet touched the stone floor. Bartholomew had her hand, was already starting to dash for the window, out. Behind them the door gave a horrible jolt. With sickening speed the wings shrieked outward, devouring everything in their path. Bartholomew felt them scrape against his skin, rough feathers and bones. But the imp had not lied. Whatever faery creatures were hidden inside those wings, they did not hurt him now.

“Bartholomew!” Mr. Jelliby screamed, ducking as the faery butler's knife whizzed over his head. “Put her back! Put her back or you'll kill us all!”

In a panic, Bartholomew pushed at Hettie, but the damage was done. The door had almost reached the warehouse roof, a vast tornado of wings swallowing everything in sight. The wind buffeted his face, sharp with snow. The forest seemed to fill the whole space, growing dark out of the crates and the river. Feet pounded the stone floor close by—Mr. Jelliby's or the faery butler's—but he didn't see anyone.

Hettie was trying to reach him again, her hands grasping for his shirt. On the other side, the forest was no longer empty. Something had emerged from the cottage in the distance. The light was still there, but it blinked on and off as a figure darted in front of it, now hiding behind trees, now rushing forward, coming closer. Behind it, other shapes were approaching through the woods, dark and quick, curious eyes glinting in the moonlight.

The faeries.
They were coming.

“Don't you want your sister?” the imp mocked. “Oh, dear little Hettie, do you see? Your brother doesn't like you anymore. He doesn't want to save you.”

Bartholomew looked at her desperately. He wanted nothing more than to save her. He had traveled hundreds of miles, braved the Bath police and the Goblin Market and the rat faery to find her. But Hettie was peering at him, eyes round and uncertain.

“You know, if you push her back—if you shove her into the Old Country and that dark winter's wood, with those wicked, wicked faeries approaching from all sides, the door will begin to shrink. Wouldn't that be grand? Wouldn't that be
smashing
? It would become unbalanced. It would implode. I'm not lying. Try it. Abandon your darling sister for a world you don't care a pennyworth for.”

The imp's words sparked something in Bartholomew's memory. In a flash, he was back in the greenwitch's clearing, walking away from the painted wagon and the cheery light of its window.
I don't care about the world.
That's what he had said, growling under his breath as they trudged into the night. No one else did either. The faeries didn't care. The people didn't care. They had other things to worry about, like coins, and bread, and themselves. Bartholomew could let them all die. He could pull Hettie away, and the wings would sweep out across that cruel, hateful city. They would destroy everything, topple churches and houses and palaces of government. Mr. Jelliby would turn to dust. And Bartholomew and Hettie would walk away, hand in hand, across the ruins. It would be so easy.

You're no different
, that nasty voice had said, and it was saying it again, louder and harsher than ever.
You're no different from the rat faery. No different from Mr. Lickerish, and the greenwitch, and all the other people you thought you hated.

But Bartholomew
was
different. He knew he was. He was frail and ugly and not very tall, and he didn't care anymore. He didn't care if the faeries hated him, or the people feared him. He was stronger than them. Stronger than the rat faery had been, stronger than Mr. Lickerish ever was. He had gone places and done things, and he had done them not for himself but for Hettie and Mother and Mr. Jelliby, who had taken him with him when Bartholomew was standing alone in the alley. They were what made him belong. Not the faeries, and not the people. He didn't need to be like them.

Bringing his face up to Hettie's ear, he began to whisper, quickly and urgently, his hand tight around her fingers. “Don't listen to him,” he said, through the wind and the wings. “He's all lies. Don't be afraid. You're going to have to go in there for a short while, but as soon as the door is as small as it gets, leap back to me. Leap with all your might, do you hear me? It'll work, Het, I know it will.”

“Barthy?” Hettie's voice was shaking. And then the wind howled around them and he couldn't hear her anymore. But he knew what she was saying.
Barthy, don't make me go in there. Don't let the faeries get me.

Bartholomew tried to smile at her. His face wouldn't move. Even the tears were frozen, aching behind his eyes. He hugged Hettie to him, hard and fierce as if he would never let her go.

“It'll work, Het. It'll work.”

Very gently, he pushed her through.

Her bare feet sank into snow. Wind whipped through her branches, her clothes. For an instant the wings became still, as if soaring through open sky. Then they seemed to turn, shrieking inward.

“What?”
the milk imp spat, clutching at its chain and staring. “What are you doing, you wretched child. Pull her out! Pull her out or you will never see her again!”