The Peculiars (34 page)

“He removed them at my request. My sister died in the mines here.”

“And these fine ladies?” The old woman rose and walked toward Mrs. Fortinbras and Mrs. Fetiscue. “What about them?”

“We are missionaries. We’ve come to help the heathens of Scree. Peculiars are none of our business.” Mrs. Fetiscue’s chin trembled as she spoke.

“None of your business, you say?” The old woman made her way around the table to Lena’s side. Again she raised Lena’s hand in her own and looked at it.

“Your father, Saul, is dead.” Her faded eyes grew dark and glittered.

Lena felt the room recede. She struggled to release her hand, but the old woman gripped it firmly with her own sharp fingers. All this way, all for nothing. The empty space inside her expanded until she was hollow.

The woman was speaking. Her words circled like birds. How many times she repeated them, Lena never knew, but eventually they landed, whispered in her ear.

“I am your grandmother, Saul’s mother. I am Lavina Mattacascar.”

But Lena only stared. The emptiness consumed her.

Lena and her grandmother sat long by the fire. Merilee had fallen asleep at the table, her cheek pressed to the wood plank like a small child, and Mrs. Fortinbras and Mrs. Fetiscue had been led to an alcove where they could rest. But Jimson and Mr. Beasley, with Mrs. Mumbles twitching her tail, remained alert nearby. My guardians, Lena thought.

“He died this past summer, here in Scree. But I know he thought of you and your mother every day.”

Lena had found a voice again, but it was flat and empty, not her own voice at all. “How do you know?”

“Because he told me so. He wasn’t a monster, no matter what other people want you to believe. He was a man who made his own bad choices and reaped what he sowed. He was my son, and I loved him.”

“How did he die?”

“He was shot in a brawl, which he started.” Her voice was neutral, contained. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to see him again.”

Lena shook her head. “I was so little, I don’t know if I ever knew him. I only remember bits and pieces.” Pausing, she phrased her next words carefully. “I need to know if I’m like him. What it means to be a goblin.” She looked down at her hands.

“He was brilliant and charming, but also selfish and rash.
You were the one choice he made that wasn’t completely selfish. He courted trouble all his life.”

“I heard he killed a man.” Lena’s voice was almost a whisper.

Her grandmother nodded. “He liked nothing better than a good fight. But this time he picked the wrong man. He killed a federal marshal, a man named William Saltre. But the truth is if he hadn’t killed Saltre, the marshal would have killed him. After that, his life was never the same. He was always on the run.”

William Saltre. Lena’s head reeled.
Her
marshal’s father? Margaret Flynn had said her father killed a man in Scree. She never mentioned it was Thomas’s father. Is that the only reason the marshal had sought her out? Her grandmother was watching her intently. “But my father couldn’t help himself; he was a goblin.”

“Is that what you think? That being a goblin predisposes you to selfishness and trouble?” Lavina snorted. “Being alive does that. We’re all selfish, Peculiar or not. But Saul made the kind of choices that changed him into a bitter, angry person. It wasn’t because he was a goblin.” With one pointy finger, she tilted Lena’s chin up so that their eyes were level. “It’s not your family who defines you; they’re an influence, all right, but they don’t have the final say. We answer for that ourselves.”

Lena should have felt relief, yet she felt nothing but a great sadness and weariness. The marshal had used her all along. Jimson was watching her too closely. The room was too small;
the purpled stone was pressing in on her. She wanted to be out, above the ground with the cold stinging her cheeks.

Mr. Beasley spoke. “Perhaps Lena could use some rest?”

“Perhaps she could, but you and I still have much to discuss, Tobias Beasley.”

When he raised the empty space that should have been his painted eyebrows, Lavina added, “Oh, yes, I’ve heard of you. I know you were once a medical man, and my people have been without medical care far too long. Kroll, take Lena somewhere to rest, and take her friends as well.”

The last words Lena heard her say were directed to Mr. Beasley. “I need to know if you’ve been followed.”

DESPITE EXHAUSTION, LENA WAS UP EARLY, ALTHOUGH IT WAS
impossible to tell time within the perpetual gloom of the mine. If she didn’t get outside, she thought, she’d go mad. She tiptoed past the still-sleeping Jimson, but the small man called Kroll stopped her before she was able to leave the large chamber. From a greater depth she could hear the sound of the mining operations. Shadowy figures moved purposefully in the dimness, already going about the daily operations of the mine. Lena noticed something that had escaped her attention in the dark. A large water wheel turned slowly, fed by an underground stream.

“Our ventilation system.” Kroll’s voice was full of the creaks of rusty hinges. “It draws fresh air down the shaft.”

“Why is the stone purple?”

“This is a porphyrium mine. We mine the rock for its purple color and for its heat-storing properties.”

Lena wondered if Kroll was also a goblin. Although short and wiry, his feet and hands were of normal length, but his teeth were odd—widely spaced and pointed as if they’d been filed.

“I’ve never heard of porphyrium.”

“That’s because the only mines are here in Scree, and your government isn’t interested in ’em. Leastways not the way they’re interested in silver and copper and coal. We grind the stone for purple dye, and we cover our cooking pots in porphyrium dust to hold the heat longer.”

Lena ran a gloved finger along the stone. The finger of her glove came away stained with a fine purple dust. She looked at her gloves in disgust. They were streaked and dirty. Why would she need them here? Deliberately, she removed one and then the other. She flexed her hands, goblin hands. Then she balled the gloves tightly and dropped them in the pockets of her skirt.

“Your grandmother asked to see you when you woke up,” Kroll said. He led Lena back to the eating area, but even before they arrived, she could hear the demanding voice of Mrs. Fortinbras asking if there were any “normal people” she could speak with.

Lavina Mattacascar ignored Mrs. Fortinbras’s request and welcomed Lena to the table, where Merilee and Mr. Beasley sat. “Good morning, Lena. Join us. We were just discussing the properties of porphyrium.”

Mr. Beasley was wiggling on the bench like a schoolboy.
Mrs. Mumbles sat next to him at the table as if she were part of the conversation. “Why, this is remarkable!” he said. “Porphyrium. I’ve heard rumors of the stuff for years.” He got to his feet and rubbed one hand along the wall. “But I never expected—Do you know what this could mean?” He turned to look directly at Lavina.

She looked even more stooped and wizened than she had the night before, Lena thought, as she watched her fold her sinewy arms on the table.

“It means that we scrape by. The market for purple dye is almost gone, and Peculiars leave to work in other mines. It means we can’t support the ones who’ve escaped and come here for refuge.”

“No, no.” Mr. Beasley held up his hands as if warding off blows. “Its heat-storing properties—”

“We’ve dyed clothes with it for years.” Now Lavina was on her feet too. “I have mined here my entire life and my parents and their parents.”

“But technology has changed, Lavina; heat storage is invaluable. It goes way beyond cooking pots. Why, we could coat boilers for steam power. We must go outside into the sun. We need to take a chunk of this marvelous porphyrium with us for a demonstration.”

Looking at Mr. Beasley as if he’d gone quite mad, Lavina reluctantly led the group, including Kroll, along the lengthy passage to the mouth of the mine. Outside, the sun was glinting. Medrat stood contentedly munching a breakfast of
grain. Lena’s heart sped up. It was all she could do to keep from running toward the light. Mr. Beasley carried a large chunk of purple porphyrium in one hand. Holding out an arm to stop them before leaving the mine, Lavina nodded at Kroll, who scooted out and returned immediately to say all was clear.

They trooped into the sun, blinking against the bright day. The sun danced off snow and rocks. Lena squinted to shield her eyes. She had never felt so happy to be out of doors. Mrs. Mumbles was already there, eyes closed, her body stretched long as she warmed herself on a rock. Following her example, Lena leaned into a warm rock and her shoulders relaxed.

“I shall put the porphyrium in the direct sun against an already-warm rock and I’ll put another type of rock next to it,” Mr. Beasley said, describing his experiment. He grabbed a piece of basalt that had been shaded by the overhang of the mine entrance. “Now we wait.”

Merilee caught her hair up with one hand and let the sun warm the back of her neck, and Mrs. Fortinbras washed her face with a handful of snow. Lavina squatted nearby, watching skeptically. In the bright light, Lena could see that her grandmother’s hair was thin and silvery white. She saw that Kroll’s bones jutted beneath his pale skin. As they waited, Mrs. Fortinbras and Mrs. Fetiscue excused themselves from the group to attend to women’s business.

“Don’t go far. It isn’t safe,” Lavina warned.

Jimson appeared in the mouth of the mine looking tousled and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Put your hand on this rock. It’s slightly warm.” Mr. Beasley was almost shouting in his excitement. “Now here—put your other hand on the porphyrium. It’s hot. Porphyrium absorbs heat very efficiently. Instead of radiating the heat away, it transfers the heat through conduction.”

Lavina laid a hand on each stone. “That’s why we’ve used it on our cooking pots.”

“Yes, but there are so many new applications. You could coat a solar collector with porphyrium and it would be a very efficient way to capture heat. You could coat a steam boiler—the options are endless!”

“And to think you have a whole mine of this stuff!” Jimson transferred the hot chunk of porphyrium from hand to hand. “I can’t believe nobody ever tried to exploit this before.”

“Not many people know about the porphyrium mines, and Peculiars aren’t about to broadcast the news,” Lavina said. “There’re only a few working porphyrium mines left. This may be the largest.” She turned to Lena. “Besides, it’s Lena’s mine now.”

Lena startled. She had been enjoying the sunlight, hardly focusing on the conversation at all. She saw that all eyes were turned on her. “But I don’t know anything about mining.”

“Nevertheless, your father has left you a lega—” Lavina stopped suddenly as a loud swishing sound cut through her words. A shadow slid over them.

Lena shivered.

“It’s a dirigible!” Jimson shouted. “Get inside!”

Mrs. Fetiscue and Mrs. Fortinbras, still several yards away, screamed.

Lena looked up.

A voice boomed directly overhead, amplified by a megaphone. “We’ve found their nest. Shoot them all!” A face appeared in a window of the dirigible. Lena squinted up into the sun.

In one leap, Jimson knocked Lena into a bank of snow. She sputtered and twisted up her face, cold and pocked with snow.

“But he can’t mean us! We’re not Peculiar!” Mrs. Fetiscue cried, her hat askew. She stood in a clearing of snow, looking upward.

“Why, I suppose he does, my dear,” replied Mrs. Fortinbras, shaking her fist at the dirigible.

The sun glinted off the barrel of a revolver.

“Get down!” Merilee dove toward the missionary ladies, arms outstretched, just as a gunshot from the dirigible split the air. She landed in a belly flop, her arms at their feet, as if beseeching. The snow bled.

There was a second shot, and then another. The horse screamed and struggled against his tether. Lavina pointed a rifle at the underbelly of the now listing dirigible and pulled the trigger a third time. “I think I managed a few good hits.”

The dirigible was already obscured by trees. Instantly, Mr. Beasley joined Mrs. Fetiscue and Mrs. Fortinbras at Merilee’s
side. Lena sat up, caked with snow from chin to knees. Jimson was on his feet beside her. Mr. Beasley straightened slowly. “We have to get Merilee inside now.” The snow grew redder.

Lena rushed to help Mr. Beasley, but he had already lifted Merilee in his arms. Her body was limp and her hair spilled almost to the ground. Lena’s heart hammered wildly. She had known the voice as soon as she’d heard it.

The marshal had found them at last.

Mrs. Fetiscue seemed to have recovered her wits more quickly than Lena. “Hurry! We need to set up a place where he can work.” She pulled Lena by the arm. They moved quickly into the mine.

Lavina, rifle at her side, was giving orders. “Use the eating table.” She turned to Jimson. “Make sure some water is boiled. We’ve got clean rags and more lanterns.”

They laid Merilee on the table. Her mouth was still open as if caught in mid-shout, and her face was an ashy gray. Her eyes flickered briefly.

Mrs. Fetiscue blew her nose forcefully. “She was trying to save us. Her being a Peculiar and all, she was trying to save us.”