The Peculiar Read Online Free PDF Page B

someone just like him. And Bartholomew Kettle had been seen.
    The sun was completely gone now. The shadows were beginning to slink from behind the rafters, and that made Bartholomew get up. He crawled out of the attic and made his way downstairs, trying not to let the groaning, sagging house give him away. Don’t get yourself noticed, and you won’t get yourself hanged.
    At the door to their rooms, Bartholomew paused. Oily yellow light seeped from under it. The rhythmic clank of the mechanical wash wringer sounded dully into the passage.
    â€œCome now, Hettie,” Mother was saying. Her voice was loud and cheerful, the way it was when nothing was well and she was determined not to show it. She was trying to keep Hettie from worrying. “Drink your broth down quick-like, and then off to bed. This lamp’s not got more ’n fifteen minutes in it, and I’ll be needing it another night or two.”
    There was a slurp. Hettie mumbled, “It doesn’t taste like anything.”
    That’s because it’s only water, thought Bartholomew, leaning his head against the door frame. With wax drippings so we think there’s meat in it. It was why the saucers at the base of the brass candlesticks were always empty in the mornings. Mother thought she was careful about it, but he knew. They were scraped clean by the kitchen spoon.
    â€œMummy, Barthy isn’t back yet.”
    â€œYes . . .” Mother’s voice was not so loud anymore.
    â€œIt’s dark outside. It’s past bedtime. Isn’t it?”
    â€œYes, dearie, it is.”
    â€œI suspect something, Mummy.”
    â€œOh . . .”
    â€œDo you want to know what I suspect?”
    â€œThere isn’t any salt left.”
    â€œNo. I suspect a kelpy got him and dragged him down into his bottomless puddle.”
    Bartholomew turned away before he could hear his mother’s reply. She wasn’t really thinking about the salt. She was thinking about where he might be hiding, where she hadn’t searched yet, and why he hadn’t returned. He felt cruel suddenly, slinking around outside their door while she worried inside. Soon she would start to panic, knock on the neighbors’ walls, and go into the night with the last fifteen minutes of the lamp oil. He had to be back before then.
    Tiptoeing the rest of the way downstairs, he scraped himself along the wall toward the alley door. A goblin sat by it, fast asleep on a stool. Bartholomew went past him and brushed his hand over the door, feeling for the bolt. The door had a face in it—fat cheeks and lips and sleepy old eyes growing out of the gray and weather-beaten wood. His mother said the face used to demand beetles from folks who wanted to come in and spat their shells at folks who wanted to go out, but Bartholomew had never seen it so much as blink.
    His fingers found the bolt. He pulled it back. Then he slipped under the chain and onto the cobbles.
    It was strange being in the open again. The air there was close and damp. There were no walls or ceilings, just the alley splitting into other alleys, on and on into the great world. It felt huge, frightening, and endlessly dangerous. But Bartholomew didn’t suppose he had a choice.
    He scurried across the alley to the low arch in the Buddelbinsters’ wall. The yard was dark, the crooked house as well. Its many windows had been thrown open. They looked as if they were watching him.
    He leaped over the broken gate and pressed himself to the wall. The night was not cold, but he shivered anyway. Only a few hours ago, the lady in plum had stood here, so near where he was standing now, luring his friend to her with blue-gloved fingers.
    Bartholomew shook himself and moved on. The circle the lady had poured onto the ground was still there, a few steps to the right of the path. From his attic window Bartholomew had been able to see it clearly, but up close it was very faint, practically invisible if you