The Whatnot by Stefan Bachmann

Author:Stefan Bachmann
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-07-30T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

The Masquerade

AFTER the incident in Piscaltine’s chair room, all the clocks in the house pointed their hands to the Hour of Wrath, and that was where they stayed for the next twelve nights.

Hettie hardly dared leave her closet anymore. Pity-faeries prowled the upstairs almost always now. She heard them howling and snuffling along the passageways, sometimes right in front of her door. She heard the shrieks of the servants, the chittering of the reconstructionists as they swung away in their harnesses. But the pity-faeries were the least of her troubles. Florence La Bellina hadn’t left Yearn-by-the-Woods with the other Belusites. She was still in the house. And she was following Hettie. Every time Hettie stole down the ladders and pulleys into the lower house, she spotted them. Sometimes it was the pale half, sometimes the dark one, sometimes both together. Hettie would be on her way back from the lavatory, or from the kitchens with a mushy fistful of cake, and then she would glimpse Florence, and Florence would glimpse her, and in an instant the Belusite would be after her. She would slide out of the dark and follow, gliding fast as anything. Hettie would have to climb and crawl and run with all her might to lose her, but every time Florence came a little closer, a little closer to Hettie’s hiding place in the attic.

Hettie sat on her bed and stared at the door. It was bolted with its flimsy bolt and then wedged closed with a chair. She had barred it with several locks, too, that she had built for herself out of spoons and cooking utensils. They wouldn’t stop anyone, but they made her feel a little better.

A whirring sounded from the hall. Then a click. Then the grandfather clock’s bell echoed along the walls. Hettie waited, listening. Two strikes for the Hour of Mirth, three for the Hour of Wrath. She waited. The sound faded away. The hallway became silent again. One strike for the Hour of Melancholy. Oh no. . . .

She got up, sat back down, patting her hands nervously on her knees. The clock rang according to Piscaltine’s mood, so that the reconstructionists and all the other servants could prepare the house to suit her. The Hour of Melancholy always, always meant Piscaltine wanted Hettie. But Hettie didn’t want to see the faery lady again. She never did, ever again. Perhaps she could just ignore it. Perhaps Piscaltine didn’t really want to see her, and the clock was simply ringing, and Piscaltine was being melancholy without any desire for Hettie’s presence at all.

Bong went the clock again.

Hettie leaped to her feet. The bell reverberated in the passage, long and solemn, and all over the house the other grandfather clocks answered. There could be no mistake. Piscaltine was waiting.

Hettie slipped out of her room. No pity-faeries, but there were other sorts about, more than she had ever seen this high up in the house. They darted in front of her, in

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