The Peculiars
Authors: Maureen Doyle McQuerry
Tags: #Young Adult, #Action & Adventure, #Fantasy, #Steampunk, #Romance, #Science Fiction, #Paranormal & Supernatural, #Historical
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0178-8
Text copyright © 2012 Maureen Doyle McQuerry
Book design by Chad W. Beckerman
Published in 2012 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
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Chapter 1: A Physical Examination Raises the Question of Genetics
Chapter 30: In Which Jimson and Merilee Display Acting Abilities
“There’s no mistaking what your father was, not when you’ve got feet and hands like those.” Nana Crane grabs my hand in her own plump one. She runs her finger with the emerald ring down the length of my palm. I try to pull away. She pinches my hand tighter. “Goblin phalanges. The hands and feet don’t lie, child. It’s in your genes.”
“But Poppa doesn’t have hands and feet like these!”
Nana Crane’s ring glints in the light. “No, he doesn’t. His are small. Everything about him is small, especially his heart. I always knew there was something peculiar about him despite his talk of being from the East.” She drops my hand and stares into the middle distance. Her chin quivers. “Not every goblin has them, but it’s a sure sign. Just like those feet. You’re bound to be just like him.”
It scares me when she talks that way about Poppa. Inside the ugly specially made shoes, I try to curl my stiff toes to make my feet as small as possible, feet that are so long no regular shoes will fit them. I am tired of the doctor prodding and poking at my tender feet, then speaking as if I weren’t in the room
.
“The girl has the signs of goblinism. There’s no denying it, even though not many people can recognize the syndrome anymore.” Dr. Crink looks at my mother over the edge of his glasses. “She displays three readily identifiable characteristics to the trained eye: elongated hands and feet, soft fleshy soles, and precocious intelligence. If you’re worried about what other people will think, don’t. Hardly anyone but a few old doctors has seen anything like this in their lifetime. Most doctors would say these hands and feet are a defect of birth.”
A small gulping noise. Mother is having trouble speaking
.
“When you find them clustered like that”—the good doctor shrugs his beefy shoulders—“it points in one direction. Of course, only time will tell about the other, less obvious, characteristics.”
I sit on my hands. They splay under me like giant spiders. Mother has always said that they are piano-player hands. That I have an advantage any pianist would envy. I can easily span more than an octave, but practice makes my fingers ache. I know I will never be more than a middling pianist
.
“And those characteristics?” Now that her voice returns, it is hardly more than a whisper
.
Dr. Crink continues as if he didn’t hear her. “You’re sure that no one in your family has displayed these traits?”
“No one.”
“Your husband’s family, then?”
“I’ve never met them, but my husband has normal hands and feet.”
The doctor writes something on a clipboard. “I’d like to meet with him.”
“My husband is no longer with us.”
He looks up, removing his glasses. “He is deceased?”
Mother’s face blooms pink. “No, he left us several years ago.”
She now has the doctor’s full attention. “Left, eh? Describe him to me, please.”