Free Sir Thursday by Garth Nix

Sneezer replied. He tapped one long finger against his nose and smiled. In Monday’s service that would have been a ghastly gesture made with a dirty, long-nailed hand against a nose covered in boils, but now Sneezer’s hand was clean and manicured and his nose, though long and hooked, was healthy. Even the long white hair that grew from the back of his head was neat and tied back with a dark blue velvet bow, matching his long, tailed coat. “Please stay out of the circle of clocks until I tell you otherwise, Miss Leaf.”
    The butler took a deep breath, then quickly strode in and started moving the hands of the nearest clock. That done, he raced to the next, and then the next, adjusting the time on each face. After changing the seventh clock, he quickly left the circle.
    “We should see something in a moment,” Sneezer explained. “Then I shall tweak the setting a little and send you back. I’m afraid it is clear that I am unable to return youany earlier than twenty-one minutes past ten on the Thursday after the Wednesday you left. Ah—it is beginning.”
    A slowly spinning tornado of white fog began to swirl up out of the floor, getting slower and spreading wider as it rose. In a few seconds, it had completely filled the circle between the grandfather clocks. As Leaf watched, a silver sheen spread through the cloud, becoming so bright that she had to squint.
    Then the silver paled and the cloud became transparent. Leaf found herself looking down on a hospital room, as if she were a fly on the ceiling. It was a typical hospital room with a single bed. Arthur was in the bed—or rather, Leaf reminded herself hastily, the Skinless Boy was in the bed. It looked exactly like Arthur, and she shivered, thinking that if she hadn’t been told, she would never have known it wasn’t her friend.
    The next thing she saw was the clock on the wall. It read 10:25, which was comforting. If it was still only Thursday…
    The door opened and a doctor came in. Leaf started, because she hadn’t expected to hear anything. But the sound of the door opening and the doctor’s footsteps were as clear as if she really were looking down from the ceiling.
    “Hello, Arthur,” said the doctor. “Remember me? Doctor Naihan. I just need to take a look at your cast.”
    “Help yourself,” said the Skinless Boy. Leaf shivered again, for the Nithling’s voice was exactly the same as Arthur’s.
    The doctor smiled and folded back the bedclothes to take a look at the high-tech cast on the Skinless Boy’s leg. He had hardly looked for more than a few seconds when he straightened up and scratched his head in surprise.
    “This is…I don’t understand…the cast appears to have merged with your leg…but that’s impossible. I’d better call Professor Arden.”
    “What’s wrong with the cast?” asked the Skinless Boy. It sat up and slid off the bed as Dr. Naihan picked up the bedside phone.
    “No, you mustn’t get up, Arthur,” exclaimed Naihan. “I’ll just call—”
    Before the doctor could say anything else, the Skinless Boy struck him in the throat so hard that the man was propelled against the oxygen outlets on the wall. He slid down the wall and lay on the floor, not moving.
    The Skinless Boy laughed, a strange mixture of Arthur’s laugh overlaid with something else, something inhuman. It bent down and laid one finger against Naihan’s neck, clearly checking to see if he was dead. Then it picked up the body with one hand, something Arthur could never have managed, and casually slung the dead doctor in the closet.
    Then it went to the door, opened it, and looked out for a second, before it went through. The door slowly swung shut behind the Nithling, closing with a final click that made Leaf shudder.
    She had not realized just how awful it would be to see a monster that looked and sounded exactly like Arthur. A monster that killed people with careless ease.
    “Now, Miss Leaf, it is time for you to return,” said Sneezer,