The Whatnot Read Online Free PDF

smooth as polished stone, and she had woken with the ghastly feeling that the roots had begun to wrap around her while she slept, as if to swallow her up.
    The snow was cold, but at least she was not in danger of being eaten by a tree. She curled up for the seventh time and went to sleep.
    Â 
    The sound of footfalls woke her.
    At first she thought the faery butler must be up again, pacing, but when she peered around the tree, she saw he was lying still. His gangly legs were propped up akimbo, long white hands limp in the snow. He made only very small sounds as he slept, little wheezing breaths that formed clouds in the air.
    Hettie sat bolt upright. Something was moving through the trees, quickly and stealthily toward them.
    Tap-tap, snick-snick. Hard little feet on roots, then on snow, limping closer.
    She remembered the faeries she had seen the day they had arrived in the Old Country, the wild, hungry ones with their round, bright eyes. They had all leaped and swarmed around her, poking and prodding until the faery butler had chased them off with a knife. For a few nights they had followed, slinking along at the edge of sight, darting around the trees and giggling, but after a while they had seemed to tire of the strangers and had vanished back into the woods.
    Only the cottage remained.
    Hettie crawled around the tree trunk. The faery butler was still asleep. She poked him in his ribs, hard.
    He grunted. Slowly his face turned toward her, but his eye remained shut. The green-glass one was dull, tarnished lenses loose across its frame. Hettie shivered.
    She looked back around the tree.
    And found herself staring straight into the red-coal eyes of a gray and peeling face.
    â€œMeshvilla getu?” it said, and placed one long finger to its lips.
    Hettie made a little noise in her throat. The skin of its cheeks curled like ash from a burned-up log. Its breath was cold, colder than the air. It blew against her, and she could feel it freezing in a slick sheen on her nose. It smelled rotten, wet, like a slimy gutter.
    â€œMeshvilla?”
    She wanted to run, to scream. Panic welled in her lungs. She couldn’t tell if the gray thing’s voice was threatening or wheedling, but it was without doubt a dark voice, a quiet, windy voice that prickled up her arms.
    â€œNo,” she squeaked, because back in Bath that had always been the right answer for changelings like her. “No, go away.”
    The creature pushed closer, eyeing her. Then its horrid hands were feeling over her cheeks, running through the branches that grew from her head. Bone-cold fingers came to rest on her eyes.
    Hettie screamed. She screamed louder than she had ever screamed in her life, but in that vast black forest it was just a little baby’s wail. It was enough to wake the faery butler, though. He sat up with a start, green clockwork eye clicking to life. It swiveled once, focused on the gray-faced faery.
    The faery butler jerked himself to his feet. “Valentu! Ismeltik relisanyel?”
    The gray face turned, its teeth bared. Hettie heard it hiss. “Misalka,” it said. “ Englisher. Leave her. Leave her to me.”
    Hettie began to shake. The long, cold fingers were pressing down. An ache sprang up behind her eyes. She knew she should fight, lash out with all her might, but she could not make herself move.
    The faery butler had no such troubles. A knife dropped from inside his sleeve and he swung it in a brilliant arc toward the other faery, who let out a grunt of surprise. It was all Hettie needed. She threw herself to the ground and began to crawl desperately around the base of the tree. Once on the other side, she wrapped her arms around the trunk and peered in terror at the battling faeries.
    They moved back and forth across the snow, swift and silent. The faery butler was fast. Faster than rain. She had seen him fight back in London, seen him use that cruel knife on Bartholomew, but right now she was glad for his