The Peculiar. Stefan Bachmann

Chancellor have decided to grace us with their presence after all.” He looked at them glumly. “Please be seated. Then, at last, we may begin.”

      There was much grumbling, much shuffling and pulling in of legs as Mr. Jelliby picked Through his way the rows to one of the empty chairs. The faery chose the one at the opposite end of the room. When they were both seated, the Speaker cleared his throat.

      “Gentlemen of the Privy Council,” he began. “I bid you all a good morning.”

      One of the faery politician’s pencil-thin eyebrows arched at this, and Mr. Jelliby smirked. (It was not morning, after all. It was night.)

      “We have assembled today to address a matter most grave and disturbing.”

      Drat again. Mr. Jelliby sighed and dug his hands into his pockets. Matters most grave and disturbing were not things he liked addressing. He left that to Ophelia whenever he could.

      “I daresay most of you have seen today’s headlines?” the Speaker inquired, in his slow, languid voice. “The latest murder of a changeling?”

      A murmur passed through the gathering. Mr. Jelliby squirmed. Oh, not murder. why couldn’t people simply be nice to each other?

      “For the benefit of those who have not, allow me to summarize.”

      Mr. Jelliby took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. You needn’t trouble yourself, he thought, a little desperately. It was getting unbearably hot. The windows were all closed, and there seemed not a breath of air in the room.

      “There have been five deaths in the past month alone,” the Speaker said. “Nine in total. Most of the victims appear to be from Bath, but it is difficult to say as no one has stepped forward to claim the bodies. Whatever the case, the victims are being found in London. In the Thames.”

      A small, stern-looking gentleman in the front row sniffed and raised his hand with an angry flourish.

      The Speaker eyed him unhappily, then nodded, giving him permission to speak.

      “Petty crimes, my lord. Nothing more. I’m sure Scotland Yard is doing all they can. Does the Privy Council have nothing more important to discuss?”

      “Lord Harkness, we live in complicated times. These ‘petty crimes,’ as you call them, may have dark consequences a little ways down the road.”

      “Then we shall step over them when they are lying across our path. Changelings have never been popular. Not with their sort, and not with ours. There will always be violence against them. I see no reason to give these new incidences any undue significance.”

      “Sir, you do not know the half of it. The authorities think the murders are related. Planned and orchestrated with malicious intent.”

      “Do they think that? Well, I suppose they must earn their wages somehow.”

      “Lord Harkness, this is not the time.” A trace of unease broke the Speaker’s sleepy manner. “The victims are …” He faltered. “They are all children.”

      Lord Harkness might have said “So?” but it would not have been polite. Instead he said, “From what I hear, there are very few changelings who are not children. They don’t generally last long.”

      “And the method of murder—it is also the same.”

      “Well, what is it?” Lord Harkness seemed to be intent on proving the entire meeting a ridiculous waste of time. Nobody wanted to hear about changelings. Nobody wanted to discuss changelings, or even think about changelings. But nobody wanted to hear how they died, either, and all Lord Harkness got for his efforts was a storm of black looks from the other gentlemen. Mr. Jelliby was tempted to cover his ears.

      The Speaker’s nose twitched. “The authorities are not exactly sure.”

      Ah. Thank goodness.

      “Then how can they possibly claim the murders are related?” Lord Harkness’s voice was acid. His handkerchief was in his hands, and he looked as if he wanted to wring the old Speaker’s neck with it.

      “Well, the corpses! They’re— Why, they’re …”

      “Out with it, man, what is it?”

      The Speaker looked straight ahead, and said, “Lord Harkness, they are hollow.”

      For several heartbeats the room fell completely still. A rat scurried under the polished floorboards and its hurrying feet rattled like a burst of hail in the silence.

      “Hollow?” Lord Harkness repeated.

      “They are empty. No bones or internal organs. Just skin. Like a sack.”

      “Good heavens,” breathed Lord Harkness, and fell back into his chair.

      “Indeed.” The Speaker’s eyes passed over the other gentlemen in the room, as if daring anyone else to disrupt the proceedings. “The newspapers said nothing of that, did they? That is because they do not know. They do not know many things, and for the time being we must keep it that way. There is something strange about these murders. Something wicked and inhuman. You will not have heard it, but the changelings were covered in writing, too. Head to toe. Little red markings in the faery tongue. It is an old and different sort of faery dialect that could not be deciphered by any of the Yard’s cryptographers. I am sure you can all see what sort of unpleasantness this might lead to.”

      “Oh, certainly,” the Earl of Fitzwatler mumbled from behind his drooping walrus moustache. “And I think it should be quite clear who is responsible. It is the anti-faery unions, of course. They had some waifs murdered and then scribbled up the bodies with faery words to put the blame on the Sidhe. It’s very plain to me.”

      There was a great hissing at this, and just as many sage nods. Approximately half the council were members of one anti-faery group or another. The other half thought being anti anything narrow-minded, magic absolutely fascinating, and faeries the key to the future.

      “Well, I say it is the faeries’ doing!” the ancient Lord Lillicrapp cried, hammering his cane into the floor so hard a splinter of wood flew up like a spark. “Little beasts. Devils straight from Hell, if you ask me. They’re the reason England’s in the state it is. Look at this country. Look at Bath. It’s going wild, it is. Soon we’ll have rebellion on our hands, and then where’ll we be? They’ll turn our cannons into rosebushes, take the city for themselves. They don’t understand our laws. They don’t care about murder. A few dead men here and there? Pshaw.” The man spat contemptuously. “It’s not wrong to them.”

      A bobbing of heads followed this outburst. Mr. Jelliby pinched the bridge of his nose and prayed it would end soon. He wanted very much to be somewhere else, somewhere cheerful and loud, preferably with brandy and people who talked about the weather and wine merchants.

      The Archbishop of Canterbury was the next to speak. He was a tall, grim-looking man with a haggard face, and his tweed suit—no longer very new— stood out sorely against the cravats and colored waistcoats of the other gentlemen.

      “I would not be so quick to judge,” he said, leaning forward in his chair. “And I do not know why we must insist upon this word ‘changeling.’ As if we are still children, whispering over faery tales in the nursery. Peculiars, they are called, and they are quite real. They are not waifs put into the cradles of human children while the true infants are stolen into the Old Country. They will not wrinkle and waste away in a few years’ time. They will be hanged. They are forever being hanged in our more remote villages. And no wonder, if we speak of them as if they were nothing but wind and enchantments. Humans think they are curses in child’s form. Faeries are disgusted by their ugliness and are in the habit of burying them alive under elderberry bushes in case it’s catching. I rather think both parties are sufficiently foolish and ill-informed to kill.”

      Up until then, Mr. Lickerish had been listening to the discussion quite impassively. But at the archbishop’s words he stiffened. His mouth formed a thin line. Mr. Jelliby saw his hand go to his waistcoat