The Whatnot (14 page)

“Lousy ghosts, probably,” the third soldier said, but by then Pikey was long gone.

 

Flecks of black were already beginning to speckle his invisible arms by the time he came to the general's tent. But it was raining hard. He didn't see. The tent stood by a well and an old stone church. Flags flew overhead. Herbs and iron had been laid out in a ring around it, and several guards were there as well, leaning on blunderbusses and brutal-looking pikes. Pikey flickered past them and peeked in through the tent's flap.

The sharp, hot smell of paraffin and wet wool filled his nose. Three men stood around a wooden table, their faces deeply lined in the light from a lantern. A map was spread in front of them. Small wrought iron figurines had been set here and there across its surface, and the officers were frowning at them, occasionally twirling them, but never moving any.

“The faeries will be waiting for an attack,” one of the officers said. He was a dark, angry-looking fellow, and not very tall. “But they will not strike first, not outright. We have fought them long enough to know that. They will stay in their woods beyond Tar Hill, where they are safe and hidden, and they will wait. So we shall flush them out. Gas into the trees, out they come, and we will be herding them to the prisons before they know what's happened.”

Pikey pricked up his ears, straining to hear every word. He didn't dare move any farther into the tent, but at the same time he was terrified someone would come from behind and bump into him. He kept glancing back over his shoulder, into the rain. The square was still. The sentinels sagged against their weapons, half asleep. He turned back to the tent.

The second officer was nodding, his brows low over his eyes. “Yes, but only if they do not escape around the hill or into the fields. My troops will come from the left flank, yours”—he nodded toward the third officer—“from the right. We will create a bottleneck, with the main force coming over the hill. They will have nowhere to go.”

The tall one, the one with the most medals on his chest and the largest plumes in his hat, nodded.

“Indeed. Haddock, to the east; I, to the west. Braillmouth? Up the hill. You will set off earlier than the rest of us. The fay will be strongest at night. We shall strike them in early morning while they are still dull and sluggish. I have scheduled the gas insects for a quarter to seven. You will set off at the same time. Haddock, you and I leave with our regiments at seven o'clock sharp. And one more thing, Haddock.” The general nodded at the small, angry-looking officer. “It is of the utmost importance that you secure the hill before the faeries come out of the trees. We
must
not let them gain the high ground. There will be skirmishes likely. The faeries will be in a fighting panic. Spare none that raise weapons against you. Remember these are traitors, the cold and heartless beings who fight our Queen and spit on their rights as Englishmen. They do not deserve our mercy.”

Pikey looked down at his hand. It was not solid yet, but the dark veins were seeping across it, slowly forming knuckles, fingers. Soft as air, he left the tent flap and returned to the muddy alley.

Bartholomew was waiting for him.

 

Pikey reported everything: the general's plans; the soldiers' stories; how everyone was so drenched and weary and afraid.

“Gas,” Bartholomew murmured when Pikey had finished. They were sitting by a tiny fire they had built at the very end of the alley. Fires were not allowed in the camp. None but the ones in lanterns and stoves. A few weeks ago, a faery had crept into the town and told the flames to run and play among the canvasing. Forty tents had been devoured before the men had even fastened their suspenders.

Bartholomew flexed his fingers over the warmth, his face thoughtful in the orange glow. “Gas to bring out the faeries. Well, it looks like the English have just as many tricks up their sleeves as the fay now.”

“Yeh,” said Pikey, watching Bartholomew and then flexing his own fingers over the flames. “The faeries'll never know what hit 'em. The English'll win, looks like. ”

“The English
have
to win,” said Bartholomew, so fiercely that Pikey flinched. “The woods are crawling with faeries. We'll never get in unless someone forces them out.”

Pikey stared at him. “Is that where you were? In the faery wood?”

“Not inside. But as close as I dared.”

“What did you see?” Pikey asked, eyes wide.

“I didn't see anything. But I heard things. Pipes and voices and scratching sounds in the branches. They're there. I know they're there, and their leader is there, and the door will be there, too, even after they've left.”

Pikey and Bartholomew sat in silence for a while. Pikey watched the struggling fire, spitting and snapping in the wet. Bartholomew sat across from him, the smoke turning his face ghostly. After a time, Bartholomew drew his boots in under his cloak and asked, “I don't suppose you've seen Hettie?”

Fear slithered through Pikey. “I—I tried. I did, honest, but— Well, the last thing I saw were the fingers and a bit of light and what looked like some nice shiny wood and red carpet. And I already told you about that,” he added quietly.

Bartholomew nodded. Pikey hoped he wouldn't say anything more about it, and he didn't. Instead he looked at Pikey over the tops of his knees, and asked, “How did you lose your eye?”

“What?”
Blood. Blood welling between the stones.
He blinked, hard. “Oh. Something took it.”

Bartholomew looked at him curiously. “You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I don't tell you everything.”

You don't tell me nothing,
Pikey thought, but he said, “No, it's—it's all right. It's just, it's not a big thing. It's a long time ago now, and just an eye. Not a sister or anything.”

Pikey hoped Bartholomew would smile, but his face was grave and serious. “It's a big thing for you,” he said. “I don't think you like faeries very much. I don't think you like having their eyes.”

“I get by.” Pikey nudged the embers with the toe of his boot. “It's having it in my head that's the worst.” He paused. It made him feel cramped and uncomfortable talking about it, as if all his clothes were too tight. But at the same time he didn't want to stop. No one had ever wanted to listen before.

“I was sleeping when it happened,” he said. “It was winter like it is now, and I was dreaming about plums and apples and— Well, I was dreaming. And then I heard this sound. I didn't think nothing of it. Just a sound, I thought. But it kept coming, right up to my hole under the chemist's shop. And I see these two feet. One's all nasty and really gray. And I'm awake then, all the way. A face leans down, this horrid, peeling one with eyes like red lanterns.

“‘Hello,' it says to me. And then something in a language I don't understand. And then something about an Englisher. And then it puts its fingers over my eyes and starts mumbling. I tried to fight it. I did. I tried to shout and punch and call Rinshi to bite its gimpy leg off, but no one came. Rinshi was dead, see. They were all dead, old Marty and his work-boy and everyone.”

Pikey looked up. He half-expected to see Bartholomew curling into his cloak, going to sleep. Because why would he care? Why would anyone care what had happened to Pikey? But Bartholomew was still listening. Pikey peered at him sharply a second. Then he went on, his words coming faster.

“There was this terrible hurting, like a ripping
in
my eye. And it's pulling it, the faery is. Not really the eye, but something in it. The faery takes it and bounces it in its palm, like it's a shilling. And then the faery just turns and limps away into the night. I never saw it after that.”

Bartholomew was silent. For a long while the two of them sat, staring into the dying fire. Finally Bartholomew said, “What d'you suppose the faery did? Why can you see the Old Country through it?”

“I dunno. Might be some sort of disease. Something the Sidhe boiled up to scare us. Just like that ghost in the road, and the fire in the camp, and all those things. It's a stupid sort of game is what I think. I hate it.”

“I hate it, too,” Bartholomew said. Somewhere in the distance, the scream of a crow. “But it's good, too, isn't it? A little? I mean, not good exactly, but—I wouldn't even know Hettie was alive if not for your eye.” He gave an apologetic smile. “So thanks, Pikey. We'll get Hettie back. And when we do, we'll all go to Bath, all three of us, and nobody will mind if you have a faery eye there. Nobody will mind at all.” Then Bartholomew hunched into his cloak and closed his eyes.

Pikey didn't move. He sat a long while, feeling warmer than he had in months. It was true what Bartholomew had said. It
was
a little bit good. He never would have gone on this adventure without that awful gray eye. He never would have even started. For the first time in his life he was going somewhere, somewhere important, and it was all because a faery had stolen his eye, and a leadface had chased him, and a cobble spryte had tripped him in Bluebottle Street, and a boy in a brass-buttoned coat had punched his stomach in, and a sylph had stolen a boatload of gems, and Pikey had gone to prison. It was all because of that.

For the first time in his life Pikey felt lucky.

CHAPTER XIV

The Fourth Face

T
HE Sly King stared at Hettie through the slitted eyes of his mask and his laugh went on and on, howling up out of the hall.

No one was laughing with him. The faeries had all gone still as statues. Piscaltine was still smiling, her lips pulled back across her teeth. One hand picking feverishly at her frock.

You knew,
Hettie thought.
You knew all along who the Sly King was. You didn't want me to succeed. You were never going to let me go.

Hettie whirled, searching for the door. Her head was still spinning from the dance and the frantic wailing of the pipes.
Think, Hettie.
You have to think.
Any second the Sly King would stop laughing. The faeries would snap from whatever enchantment they were under. They would come for her, and they must not catch her.

She backed away. The Sly King stopped laughing. The smile fell from his face. “Oh,” he said. “Don't go. We were having such a wonderful time.”

His necklace dropped from her hand and clanged against the floor, impossibly loud. “I'm sorry,” she whispered, “I did it because I had to, I—”

“The mask,” said Piscaltine from the edge of the crowd, and she practically shook with wicked glee. “Take off her mask,
Mi Sathir.
She stole that, too.”

The Sly King turned to Piscaltine. Slowly he looked back at Hettie. His eyes glittered. “She is a liar, is she not? Such a little liar. I will deal with her. But you . . . You would not do such a thing, would you? You would not pretend to be something you never were.” He smiled again. “Englisher.” And then he reached out and snatched the blue-feathered mask from her face.

Hettie froze. The black gown withered around her like a dying flower. Her copper hair twisted into branches. She shrank and turned, and a second later she was nothing but an ugly little Peculiar in the middle of a great, shadowy hall. All around her, the faeries' eyes widened. Their mouths fell open. They saw her branch-hair, the red lines all over her arms like threads of blood.

“Milkblood,” a faery whispered.

“Valentu,”
said another.

“Oh dear,” said Piscaltine.

The Sly King spun on them. “You are all traitors and liars here,” he said, and his voice slashed through the hall like a gale. “That is why you were invited. A valuable creature was hiding under your very noses, and you never said. You
kept
her from me. To thwart me. Well.” He giggled. “I will not need you in the world ahead. None of you will leave this house alive.”

And then a great many things happened at once. Piscaltine's hands went to her mouth, and she looked suddenly as if she had made a terrible mistake. Snell, the moth-winged faery, began to run at Hettie full tilt. Florence La Bellina split in two, a pale figure, and a dark one. And Hettie took a deep breath and lunged toward the door.

The Sly King did not move. He simply raised his hand and said, “Catch her.”

The guests drew back in fear as Hettie pelted toward them. No one stopped her; no one dared. The door loomed. She had almost reached it. Then the last of the faeries parted and Hettie saw that the pale Belusite was standing directly in front of her and the dark one was gliding at Hettie's side.

“Come with us,” Florence La Bellina said as one. The dark twin reached for her. There was a knife in her hand. Hettie saw its glimmer, heard the ring of steel. She didn't stop. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Snell burst from among the faeries and fling itself at the pale Belusite. Her twin whirled in surprise. In a flash, Hettie was through the door, kicking up ivy and branches as she fled down the hall.

Behind her she heard shrieks and desperate weeping. The music began again, a frenzy of scratching chords and whistling pipes. She came to the Glass Wing, flew through it. Everything was hollow and deserted, the night and fog pressing against the glass walls. Ahead were the Innard Stairs. She started up them. A sharp pain was stitching into her side, but she didn't slow down. Behind, she heard footsteps, hundreds of them, echoing through the great house, and shouts and cries.

She came to the top of the Innard Stairs and limped down the long window-lined gallery. A clock was bonging, over and over again. She did not stop to look at it or count its strikes. She didn't care what Piscaltine's mood was anymore.

Then Hettie glanced out the window and stopped.

Five statues now. Under the shadow of the trees, staring at the house, five stone-hooded statues. She spun away from the glass. But she had waited a moment too long.

Florence La Bellina stood at the end of the gallery, her face all pale. At the other end, the dark half. They had appeared without a sound.

No!
Hettie thought. She started walking.
No, I didn't do anything, it was Piscaltine who told me to.
She started to run, desperately, barreling straight toward the dark twin. It didn't move. It stared at her, its expression blank and malevolent. Hettie started to cry. Her lungs hurt very badly.
Go. Go, leave me alone,
she wanted to scream, but she didn't have the air. The dark twin spread out her arms, like a cross, and opened her mouth. She began to speak, a word, half-formed. Then the moth-winged faery slammed into her back and she tipped straight forward, as if made of stone. Her head struck the floor with a solid
crack.
Snell leaped over her, gripped Hettie, and dragged her out of the gallery. Behind them, the pale twin shrieked. Hettie looked back over her shoulder. The pale one's arms were outspread, too, her mouth open. A tongue the color of old milk darted out. And then Hettie was scrambling up the ladders toward the attics, close at Snell's heels.

“Who are you?” Hettie sobbed as the moth-winged faery dragged her onto a landing. “Are you the Sly King's? Are you going to take me back to him?”

She could barely keep herself moving. Every joint and muscle ached. They came to the attics and turned down a strange little passageway Hettie didn't think she had ever seen before. They hurried this way and that, up steps, under gables, and at last Snell stopped and turned on her. It didn't look so gentle anymore. Its face was the same, drooping and gloomy, but its eyes were a deep, angry black. It touched a hand to its face. A ribbon appeared in its fingers, seemingly coming out of the back of its head. And suddenly it began to change, its skin bubbling and warping. The moth wings fell away. It became gaunt and hunched, and its eyes slanted up. And there, in front of Hettie, stood the faery butler, a mask in his hands and bruises and half-healed cuts all up his neck and around his mouth.

“Do not look so pleased to see me,” he growled, and Hettie almost collapsed on the spot.

No. No, he was dead. He had died all that time ago in the snow in front of the cottage.
And yet here he stood. He was just a shadow of the tall, ghoulish butler she had known in London. He looked as if he had been chased with scissors and then dragged through a bog and then put into the chimney of a steam engine. The brass clockwork that wrapped around one side of his face hung useless and broken. His green eye was dark.

He gripped her shoulder. “We are leaving. Now.”

“What?” Hettie felt dizzy. She tried to pull away, but he dragged her around, back toward the Innard Stairs and all the frightened, angry Sidhe
.

“No,
stop.
I'm not going with you!”

“Be still. They're after you. All of them. Piscaltine and the Sly King and that abomination of a red woman.”

Hettie stopped struggling. “Are you rescuing me?” She practically sobbed with relief. “Are you bringing me back to the cottage? Is that why you came?”

The faery butler looked down at her. Hettie looked up, and for a second she thought she saw something behind that slanted eye. But it was gone again as soon as it had come.

“No,” he said, and his voice was hard. “I have been hunted and harried for a hundred moons because of a petty killing, because I was protecting
you.
You will be my pardon. A Whatnot for a Whatnot. You are the London Door. The first changeling in a hundred years to be such a great and perfect gateway. If the King doesn't forgive me out of gratitude, I shall sprout a new head.”

Hettie's face went dark. “You can't kidnap me again,” she said. She had stopped crying. She was done with that. Again she tried to wrench away. “You can't, I won't
let
you!”

The faery butler didn't even blink. “We go to Hezripal,” he said, his hand squeezing and his face leaning down, tilted, eyes sharp. “The City of Black Laughter. Capital of the Old Country. This house is doomed. Piscaltine is disgraced. If we stay, I will die with the rest. I will get you away just long enough for them to fear you are gone for good, and then I will deliver you to the King and be done with you once and for all.”

Hettie writhed, hissed, scratched at the faery butler, but he only shrugged her off and, slipping a cord around her wrist, set to pulling her along the upper passageway like some sort of unruly goat.

Below them in the house, the music was still wailing. The hall they traveled down was silent, but the distant footsteps still pounded, causing the pictures to shiver in their frames.

“I can't leave,” Hettie said. She spoke it calmly, but her stomach was tying itself into knots. “I've been trying every day since I got here, but I can't. I've eaten faery food.” Her voice turned savage. “You and your stupid plans. Piscaltine will have to be dead before I can leave this house.”

The faery butler said nothing. He dragged her down another flight of stairs. They were in the window-lined gallery again. Florence La Bellina was gone. At the place where her dark half had struck her head, the floor had splintered in a perfect circle.

The faery butler hurried them down the gallery, Hettie fighting against his long, long strides. And then she stopped dead in her tracks, and not even the faery butler's yanks could get her walking again.

“What
is it
, you little—?” he started, and wheeled around. Then he saw it, too.

The statues were everywhere, all along the edge of the wood, looking out at the house. Hundreds of them.

The grandfather clock gave a whirr. Hettie spun to look at it. The hands were moving again, past the grinning face and the sad face, past the Hour of Wrath. With a sharp
clack
they locked onto the fourth face, the flat, cold face with its eyes shut tight and its mouth pinched into a pin hole.

Not sleep,
Hettie thought.
Death.

Outside, the statues stepped toward the house.