The Peculiar Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 pocket. The fingers slipped in, twitched, and were still.
    The faery stood. Mr. Jelliby thought he smelled wet earth. The air didn’t feel so close anymore, just old and damp and rotten-sweet.
    Without bothering to wait for the old councilman’s permission, Mr. Lickerish began to speak.
    â€œGentlemen, these matters are indeed most troubling. But to say that the fay are murdering changelings? It is deplorable. I will not sit silent while the blame for yet another of England’s woes is laid upon the shoulders of the fay. They are citizens! Patriots! Have you forgotten Waterloo? Where would England be without our brave faery troops? In the hands of Napoleon, together with all her empire. And the Americas? Were it not for the tireless efforts of trolls and giants, forging our cannon and pouring our musket balls in the infernal heat of the factories, building our warships and aether guns, it would still be a rebel nation. We owe so much to the faeries.” Mr. Lickerish’s face remained smooth, but his words were strangely beguiling, full of nuance and subtle passion. Even the council members who were distinctly anti-fay sat up in their chairs.
    Only the man next to Mr. Jelliby—a Lord Locktower—clicked his tongue. “Yes, including forty-three percent of our crime,” he said.
    Mr. Lickerish turned on him. He flashed his pointed teeth. “That is because they are so poor,” he said. He stood a moment, considering Lord Locktower. Then he spun sharply, addressing instead the gentlemen on the other side of the room. “It is because they are being exploited!”
    More nods and only a few hisses. The smell of damp was very strong now. Lord Locktower scowled. Mr. Jelliby saw him pull out a heavy old pocket watch and examine it angrily. The watch was an antiquated thing, scrolled and made from iron. Mr. Jelliby thought it somewhat unfashionable.
    The faery politician began to pace. “It has been this way since the day we arrived,” he said. “First we were massacred, then we were enslaved, then we were massacred again. And now? Now we are your scapegoat, to be accused of all the crimes you find too distasteful to blame on your own people. Why does England hate us? What have we done that your world loathes us so? We do not want to be here. We did not come to stay. But the road home has vanished, the door is closed.”
    The faery stopped pacing. He was watching the assembled gentlemen, watching them very closely. In a voice that was barely a wisp, he said, “We will never see our home again.”
    Mr. Jelliby thought this unbearably sad. He found himself nodding gravely along with most of the others.
    But Mr. Lickerish was not finished yet. He walked to the center of the room, right up next to the Speaker’s podium, and said, “We have suffered so much at the hands of fate. We live here in chains,