The Peculiar. Stefan Bachmann
didn’t know everything. She was just afraid of faeries, had been ever since their Sidhe father had danced off into the night and never come back. That was different though; Bartholomew wished she could see that. His father had been a high faery, sly and selfish, and had whisked Mother away from her theater troupe when she was young and pretty and full of life. Mother had given everything up to be with him. And then, when her pretty face was gone, and her hands were cracked from the lye, from drudging to feed their children, he had simply left. Mother hadn’t spoken to a faery since.
Bartholomew’s fingers found a slip of ribbon in the box, and he lingered a moment. Memories of his father were dim, but he knew he had been afraid of him, of those black eyes always turned toward him with disgust, and perhaps the hint of a question. One time his father had spoken to him in a strange language, on and on for what seemed like hours, and when he had finished and Bartholomew had simply stood there, dumb and wide-eyed, his father had flown into a rage and thrown all Mother’s dishes against the wall. House faeries weren’t like that, Bartholomew told himself. Nothing so cold and flighty. They were more like animals, he decided, like very intelligent birds.
He looked darkly at the items before him, trying to ignore the pain in his arms. The faery wouldn’t throttle them in their sleep. It wouldn’t. Scratched out in black ink in one of Bartholomew’s books was a tiny shimmery creature, barely as tall as the candlestick it stood by. The faery wore a cap with a feather in it and had snowdrop petals growing out of its back. It looked nice.
Bartholomew picked up one of his twigs and then threw it down again. Why did Mother have to go and forbid things? It just made everything worse. She was wrong. She would see that soon enough when the domesticated faery became the end of all their troubles. Once Bartholomew had the faery whisper away the red lines and tell him things and play hide-and-seek in the attic, he would make it work. It could help with mending, and run errands, and stoke the potbellied stove for the wash kettle. Mother wouldn’t have to work so hard, and maybe someday they could get out of the faery slums and live in a beautiful room like the one with the green drapes and the fireplace.
Then she would see.
Banging open a dusty volume, Bartholomew began to invite a faery.
The domesticated fayrye, or “House fayrye,” is a magikal being originating from the Old Country, that lies beyond the fayrye door. It is immaterial and can appear in all shapes and syzes. The appearance of your fayrye will depend entirely on its personal charactre and mood.
To invite this fayrye, you must find a quiet place, secluded and very stille. The dark and mossy hollows that form near woodland streams are particularly suited. (Have no fear, the fayrye will follow you home.) Gather an assortement of leaves, straw, twigs, and other plant-ish fibre. Weave them together into a hollow mound, leaving a little openning at its base. (This is the door so that the fayrye may entre.) Tangel scraps of naturel food (such as elderberries and annis) into the walls of the dwelling. Place inside:
One spoon (NOT iron)
One ribbon, prettily coloured
A thimble
A shard of glass
Bits of domestic food (such as bread, or cheese)
Lastly, sprinkle a pinch of salt over it all. Fayryes despise salt above all elss, but in putting it over your offering you will give them cause to respect you. Do not strew too much salt, however, or the fayrye will fear you as the Devil Himself and be of no use.
Note: the higher the quality of each item, the better chance one has of attracting this fayrye. Also, the quality of the items is directly related to the quality of the fayrye swayed by them. A silver spoon and silken ribbon will likely get you a house fayrye kind and good.
And then, in very small and faded type:
Excerpt from the original “Encyclopaedie Fayrye” by John Spense, 1779. Thistleby & Sons Ltd. Can make no guarantee as to the efficacy of the above-stated actions, nor can it take responsibility for any undesired results they might procure.
Bartholomew had read all this so many times he could almost have said it from memory, but he read it again one last time. Then he picked up the ingredients and set to work. Each of the things on the list he had gathered over the course of many months, searching them out and hiding them away in his treasure box. The leaves were from the rope of ivy that clung to the back of the house. The straw he had taken from his own pillow. Spoon, breadcrumbs, three dried cherries, and the last of the salt, were all snitched from Mother’s kitchen.
Twenty minutes later, Bartholomew clapped the dust from his hands and sat back to inspect his work. The faery dwelling didn’t look like much. In fact, it looked dejected, as if someone had simply emptied a pail of rubbish on the floor. He began to wonder if perhaps this was just silly and hopeless. His skin hurt so terribly. He didn’t know how long it took a faery to find such a dwelling, and he didn’t know if he should wait for it, or if he should go away and come back later. And what if the faery didn’t help him? What if it didn’t want to be his friend, and soured the milk like his mother had said it would? The more Bartholomew thought about it the more miserable he became, until finally he shook his head and crouched down in front of the round window. Hugging his knees to his chest, he looked out.
A mangy black dog was wandering along the gutter, searching for a cabbage leaf or a bone. At the far end of the alley, two men were conversing quietly in the blue-gray shadows of some eaves. Light the color of lamp oil drifted down from the slit of sky. Across the way, the Buddelbinsters’ house stood hunched around itself. The sour-looking woman was in the yard, a basket of washing against her hip. She was laying sheets out on the grass to dry. She shuffled across the place where the circle of mushrooms had been, once, twice, a dozen times, but nothing happened. No wings, or wind. It didn’t work anymore. The magic was gone.
Bartholomew’s gaze traveled on to the house. Something stirred in an upper window. He tensed, half expecting to see the figure again, the dark one that had stood there the day his friend had been taken. The window swung open. Some flimsy curtains were brushed aside. It was the faery mother, seated on a straight-backed wooden chair, head up, hands in her lap, looking out.
Bartholomew pulled back from the glass. He had hardly ever seen her before. But then he hardly ever saw anyone. She was a wood spryte, small and delicate, with a crown of antlers growing out of her head. She was almost pretty. All but her eyes. They were flat, empty, staring out onto the yard as sightless as marbles. She had been weeping.
Bartholomew squinted at her, puzzled. Does she miss her son? Was he kidnapped, after all? He had almost managed to persuade himself that the lady in plum was a magician of some sort, and a relative, and had taken his friend away with her to give him a better life. But all in an instant he wasn’t so sure. That was not the face of a lonely mother. That was the blank, disbelieving face of someone with so much grief locked up inside her that she didn’t know what to do with it, someone with a barb in her heart that no amount of crying or screaming could ever dull.
In the yard, the sour-looking woman continued to lay out the washing. She faced the house, even walked under the window several times, but she never even glanced at the faery in it. What a rude, mean person, Bartholomew thought. He looked back at the faery mother.
Her mouth had begun to move. Her lips were forming words, but he was too far away to make sense of them. In her lap, her hands folded, unfolded. Slowly she began to rock back and forth in the chair. The sour-looking woman was laying out bedding now, turning the yard into a checkerboard of pillowcases and withered grass.
Bartholomew inched closer to the windowpane. A breeze was picking up. Wisps of the white curtain were blowing across the faery mother’s face, into her antlers and eyes. She didn’t move from her chair.
The breeze gathered in strength. Sheets and bedclothes began to shift, skittering gently across the weeds in the yard. A shadow passed overhead. Bartholomew glanced up and saw that the summer sky had become low and angry, darkening with sudden weather. The sheets began to curl over themselves, piling up into heaps.
The sour-looking woman worked on, flicking out more sheets,