The Whatnot by Stefan Bachmann Page A

of cobwebs. She didn’t meet many faeries. The few she did all looked startled when they saw her and disappeared before she could come near.
    When she began looking in doors she regretted it rather quickly. The rooms were mostly false and flat, made to look like drawing rooms and dining rooms. At first glance, some of them appeared to be full of faeries and Hettie shrank back in fear, but the figures were only cutouts, silhouettes that ran on tracks in the floor. It was as if Piscaltine were pretending her house was busy and alive, even though it wasn’t. One door led into a room full of toys, too-large rocking horses and colorful blocks. Another opened on a room hung with nothing but bells, from little silver ones to great, big, ear-splitting ones. None of the doors led outside.
    At last Hettie gave up, and finding herself a real window seat in a real wall, she curled up against the cold panes.
    Outside, the sky was tarnishing like old silver, going black. It would be full night soon. She told herself she didn’t want to be escaping now anyway, but she did. She wanted to be home. She wanted to be in her cupboard bed, and she wanted her doll even though it was really just a handkerchief, and she wanted Mother who was always tired and a little bit sad and who loved Hettie very much. She wanted her brother most of all—her brother who would go looking for her no matter how far away she went, who would never give up. Perhaps he was already in the Old Country, following her tracks, coming to the cottage. Finding nothing. Nothing but blood on the snow . . .
    Hettie closed her eyes. Her hand went to the pendant inside her nightgown. She held it up. The eye set into the dark metal looked alive as ever, glistening wet and bright. She stared into it, trying not to cry.
    â€œWhat am I going to do?” she asked it softly. “Do you know? How am I going to get home?”
    â€œWho are you talking to?”
    Hettie flinched so hard her shoulder blades knocked together. The twins—the tall, tall pale one and the tall, tall dark one—stood directly behind her in their red dresses. She hadn’t heard them approach. She might have sworn there had not been a sound in the hallway since she had climbed onto the window seat.
    â€œOh . . .” she said quickly, dropping the pendant back inside her nightgown. She was sitting with her back to them. She hoped they had not seen. “Nothing. No one, I mean.”
    They stared at her. They looked just like dolls, Hettie thought. Not like her doll in Old Crow Alley, but like real china dolls that someone had punched the eyes out of.
    â€œWho?” they asked again, and their heads tilted suddenly.
    â€œNo one!” She hunched up to hide the shape of the pendant under the thin fabric of her nightgown. “Who are you?”
    The twins blinked at her, both at the same time. “We are Florence La Bellina.”
    â€œOh.” Hettie’s eyes flicked from one to the other. “Well—which one’s Florence and which one’s La Bellina?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, which one ?” They leaned toward her, and Hettie couldn’t tell if the pale one had spoken, or the dark one, or if both had spoken at once. “We, together, are Florence La Bellina. There is no which one .”
    â€œOh,” Hettie said again. Go away. Please go away.
    The pale twin lifted her hand, and Hettie saw there was something in it, a hook on the end of a long ivory handle. Florence La Bellina slipped it under Hettie’s sleeve, delicately, as if touching a slug. She started to pull back the fabric. But just before the red lines were uncovered, a voice sounded from far down the hallway—
    â€œMaud?” it echoed. “Maud, for stone’s sake !” It was Piscaltine.
    The pale twin drew back. The sleeve slipped into place. And as Hettie watched, the two women came together, linking arms and merging, until there was only one