The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making (9 page)

“The wedding of Ghiyath the Jann and Rabab the Marid was celebrated with much pomp on the magnetized Arctic shores Tuesday,” continued the smooth, sweet announcer. “Witches present brewed a bouilliabaise of a long and interesting marriage, five children, (one a mermaid), a friendly sort of unfaithfulness for all involved, and an early death for Ghiyath, followed by an extended and scandalous widowhood for Rabab.”

A huge man with golden skin like desert sand embraced a woman passionately, one flaming hand on her foaming hair, one arm around her sea-slick waist. She wore a dress of anenomes, opening and closing. A few similarly-wet folk reclined on clouds, applauding, polite and bored. The scene was in black and white, and September slumped back in her chair, impatient for the Ifrit and her zeppelin.

“An exhibit of artifacts from the moon opens Sunday at the Municipal Museum. Scientists have discovered the moon is in fact made of pearl, and are even now investigating the method by which it is attached to the firmament, and what benefit lunar research might reveal for Fairies like you.”

A proud-looking spriggan with a thin, curved nose demonstrated how a piece of moon-rock could be dissolved in a mysterious solution. He dropped the stone into a crystal beaker with a three-fingered claw and drank down the draught completely. The scene cut away before any effect might be seen.

“The Changeling Recital at Dandydown Hall went off splendidly last week, featuring an orchestra of violins, oboes, one piano, a nickelstave, two tubas, a lorelei, and a full grumellphone section. The children played Agnes Buttercream’s famous
Elegy for Reindeer and Roc’s Egg
, in D Minor. The conductor unwisely chose a rousing encore of
Ode to Queen Mallow’s Third Fingernail
, however, and riot police were called to the scene.”

A host of children in prim black clothing played their instruments furiously on a stage shaped like a huge oak leaf. They all wore identical shoes, which seemed painfully small and tight on their little feet: mary janes very much like hers. A little piece of sad, gentle music played, sashaying into something brighter and livelier, before two unhappy-looking kobolds lifted the conductor unceremoniously off of the. The goblins seemed far too strong for their sleight height.

“The performance culminated in the righteous punishment of several Greenlisted musicians, who certainly deserved whatever they got.”

The same kobolds--or near cousins--hauled several terrified-looking Satyrs onto the flickering silver stage and made them stomp their pan-pipes underfoot. A man in a top hat and mustache brandished a whip menacingly before the scene went dark.

“And finally, our beloved Marquess has concluded a treaty with the Island-Country of Buyan, bringing prosperity and order to both. We here at the AP extend our praise and adulation to the Lovely Monarch.”

Onscreen, a young girl vigorously shook hands with a large bear. She was tall--but she could not have been a day older than September herself. She wore an ornate suit made for her small frame, an embroidered jacket over a fringed bustle. At her neck was a thin dark tie, like September’s father once wore. The girl’s hair was thick and silver in the flickering film, falling to her shoulders in great sausage curls. Most of all, however, September noticed her hat. It was black--or some color which seemed black on the old-fashioned film. It looked a bit like a cake that had fallen over to one side under the weight of peacock and pheasant feathers and chains of jewels that cascaded down from a silk rosette on its flat top. Ribbons, bows, and satin ropes made delicate tiers like icing on the body, and the brim was so crisp and perfect it seemed deathly sharp.

The bear wrinkled his muzzle. He did not look pleased.

September trembled a little. The Marquess seemed so awfully real. She smiled broadly at the bear and laughed silently as the announcer nattered on about the treaty.

And suddenly, without warning, the Marquess onscreen turned toward the camera, her hand still clutched in the bear’s paw. She cocked her head to one side like a curious bird. She blinked and leaned forward, looking directly out into the theatre--at September.

“You,” said the Marquess in the announcer’s voice. The other patrons twisted to look at September, who froze in terror. “It’s you.”

Ell moved his claw around September’s seat protectively.

“September,” said the movie-Marquess slowly, as if pulling each letter from a stubborn cabinet. “You shouldn’t be sitting in a theatre on such a lovely day. Why don’t you go out and play?”

“I…”

“Hush. Listening is tiresome for me. September, if you do not come to the Briary right this very instant I shall become cross with you. I am a very pleasant Marquess, if you are tractable and sweet.”

September could not move. Her hand clutched the bag of pomegranate seeds so tightly they began to spill out of the top. She felt as though she had been caught out doing something awful and black. But she hadn’t done anything! Not yet! How could the Marquess know her? Where could she hide?

“Right
now
,” hissed the Marquess, “you
wicked little thief
.” She beckoned horribly with her ringed finger. The screen crackled and flickered. Silver sparks flew for a moment, and then the Marquess’s face disappeared in a little burnt ring and the theatre went suddenly dark.

#

In Which September Meets the Marquess At Last, Argues Several Valid Points But Is Pressed Into Royal Service Anyway, Being Consoled Only By the Acquisition of a Spoon and a New Pair of Shoes.

Somewhere, under all those brambles, there was probably a building.

A palace, even. Certainly September could make out towers, a portcullis, even a moat of floating golden flowers. Not golden in the darling little way folk in our world call buttercups or certain girls’ hair golden: these flowers were genuinely gold, burnished, glowing, deep. Yet they were soft; pleasant winds crinkled the petals as they drifted along on a lazy current, spinning and colliding gently. But the briars tangled up everything else, great vines thicker around than September whose thorns were awfully sharp and angry looking. They braided each other, ran up and down the walls, snarled in great knots. Here and there were clutches of pale gold berries, their skin so thin September could see the juice sloshing inside. But neither she nor the Wyverary could glimpse even an inch of masonry. It was as though the Briary had just
grown
that way, and had never been any different.

No guards flanked the door--if it was a door. Large flowers bloomed aggressively through an arch in the brambles in a sort of door-like fashion. Their centers were clotted with glistening pollen. September reached out her hand to touch one--A-Through-L cried out a wordless warning! But the flower simply soaked her hand in pollen and closed its petals over her fingers, searching and suckling with its silken blossom. Satisfied, it wrinkled away and aside to allow September to duck into a hall hung with dim, sun-dappled shadows.

It drew closed again sharply, keeping the Wyverary outside. A-Through-L bellowed, and the bellowing of any Wyvern is terrible to hear. He struck the flower; it remained, tough and unyielding as bronze. The brambles writhed a little, as if in silent, viney laughter.

September walked through the grand hall, trying not to make noise on the beautiful polished floor. A giant, heart-shaped double staircase ran up to a bank of windows. There was a neat rack on which to place one’s shoes and umbrellas. A kind of light drifted in between the bramble-vines, falling on a grandiosely-framed painting of a tall, lovely woman with long golden hair tied back in a velvet bow. Her hand rested on a leopard’s head, and in her other she held a simple wooden hunter’s bow. She wore an ivory crown and a smile so wide and kind September felt she could love that lady all the days of her life and never feel cheated, even if she never looked twice at such a poor, shabby soul as September. Even in the painting, she seemed to glow.
That is what a grown-up looks like,
thought September
. Not like the grown-ups in my world who look sad and disappointed and grimy with work and bored with everything. Like
her
. What do the storybooks say?

In the fullness of her strength.

“Did you come all the way here with only one shoe?” came a sweet, wondering voice.

September whirled away from the painting. In the center of the heart-shaped staircase sat a little girl, holding her chin in her hands. She had thick cherry-purple hair that hung in old-fashioned sausage-curls to her shoulders, and that magnificent, terrible hat poised on her head, like a cake tipping to one side. The hat was black, September could see now as she could not when this child shook hands with a bear onscreen. The feathers shone blue and green and red and cream-colored. The jewels glittered dark and violet. Next to her, a huge panther purred languidly and watched September out of one green eye.

“That must have been just
awfully
painful,” the child marveled. “How brave of you!”

The Marquess ran one hand luxuriously along the panther’s spine, winding her fingers in his fur--and drew up a pair of exquisite black shoes, like September’s, if September’s shoe had grown up, gone to a great many balls and theatrical to-dos, and found a dashing mate. They had little heels and black crystal lilies on the toes, with bits of ribbon looping and whorling all around, speckled with garnets and tiny black pearls. She held them out to September, whose bare foot, truthfully, ached and throbbed with cold and blisters. She wanted to take them, she did, but taking gifts from wicked Queens, even if they are called Marquesses, even if they are very pretty children not big enough to hurt anyone, is a dangerous business, and September knew it.

She shook her head, with much sadness. The shoes were so beautiful.

“I am only trying to help you, child,” said the little girl. She set the shoes gently on the gleaming floor and ran her hand along the cat’s spine again. This time, the Marquess drew up a silver plate piled high with wet red cherries, a wedge of black cake crusted with sugar, swollen raspberries and strawberries, several lumps of dark, dusty chocolate, and a tall goblet of steaming hot cider.

“You must be
so
hungry. You’ve come so far!”

September swallowed. Her throat was dry, her stomach empty. But this was certainly Fairy food. The worst kind, the kind that never let you go, if you even taste it once. “Is that Queen Mallow?” she said instead, nodding toward the portrait and forcing her voice to be friendly.

The Marquess looked up at the great painting and scowled. Her curls shivered and went deep blue, the color of the sea. She sighed and snapped her fingers. The rich plate disappeared.

“You would think that new management would have the right to redecorate. But some magic never bends, not even if you tear at it with your own teeth. No matter how I tear, the portrait stays. She was never that beautiful, though. The painter must have been a loyalist.” The Marquess turned away from Queen Mallow’s sweet gaze and focused on September again. She smiled. “But she
is
dead, my child. I promise you that. Dead as autumn and last year’s apple jam. We haven’t come all this way to dish gossip about ancient history. How have you been enjoying Fairyland, September?”

“How do you know my name?”

“You filed papers, of course. You have a visa. What in the world do you think all that is for, if not to make certain that I know everything?”

September didn’t say anything.

“Well, I do hope everyone has been nice to you, and hospitable in every way they can think of. It’s important to me, September, that you’re treated well.”

“Oh, yes! Everyone has been terribly helpful and kind--except the Glashtyn, I suppose. I had heard that fairies were nasty and tricky and cruel, but they’re not, not really.”

“Oh?” said the Marquess with arch amusement. She stroked the panther with her small hands, covered in jeweled rings. “But they
are
, truly, September. Just the worst sort of folk. You’d never believe how wicked! They’re nice because I
make them
nice. Because I
punish them
if they are not nice. Because I put them on the Greenlist if they are not nice. Before I came, Fairyland was a dangerous place, full of brownies spoiling milk and giants stomping on whomever they pleased and trolls telling awful, punning riddles. I fixed all that, September. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to invent bureaucracy in a world that didn’t even know what a ledger was? To earn their submission, even to the point of having their wings locked down? But I did it. I fixed it for children like you, so that you could be safe here and have lovely adventures with no one troubling you and trying to steal your soul away. I do hope you didn’t think you had charmed them all with your sparkling personality, child.”

“Why do you keep calling me a child? You’re no older than I am.”

“Really, September. You’re going to have to be a bit more discerning than that if you expect to get along here. I suppose I shouldn’t expect any better from a Midwesterner. They teach you such frightful things about the world.” The Marquess paused. The tips of her hair grew silver and shining. “Do you like my Panther? He is called Iago. I love him very much, and he loves me. I used to have a Leopard, but she ran off some time ago. Could not change with the times, I suppose.” The Marquess nodded toward the portrait of Queen Mallow, whose hand still rested on a Leopard’s head. “That sort of thing is so tragic, don’t you think? I do so prize adaptability.” The Panther Iago growled at the mention of his predecessor.

Could she mean my Leopard?
Thought September.
The Leopard of Little Breezes?
She did not like to think of the Marquess riding her Leopard, even for a little while.

“Cats are temperamental,” offered September softly. “I have heard you have lions, too.”

“Too true!” cried the Marquess, her hair wholly silver now, gleaming like true metal. “On both counts! Lions sleep a great deal, for it is from their dreams that their strength chiefly comes. They are closeted in their chambers, snoozing away on lacy coverlets. Now, I believe you wanted to steal a Spoon from me?”

September bit the inside of her lip. This was not precisely how she had thought her adventure would go. How could she be brave for the sake of the witch Goodbye if she was found out before she could even try?

“Don’t be ashamed, my love. I would not be a very good Marquess if I could not tell when troublesome little Ravished children are incoming with poor intentions towards me and my belongings. After all, the Ravished are
always
trouble. Any ruler of Fairyland must learn to watch out for them particularly, as they have a nasty habit of dethroning one, and undoing decades of hard work.”

“But…Miss Marquess. The Spoon is not one of your belongings. You took it from the witch Goodbye. That’s stealing. So it’s not really very wicked of me at all to want to steal it back--stealing things back is hardly stealing at all.”

The Marquess cocked her head to one side and smiled. Somehow her smile was worse than her frown. The Panther licked his black paws nonchalantly. “Is that what she told you? That I stole it? What a dreadful misunderstanding! I shall have her to tea immediately to apologize. You must appreciate my position, September, I was under the impression that all things in my realm belong to me, and Goodbye was under the impression that Good Queen Mallow would arrive at any moment to save her. You can see how things got terribly confused!”

“Where…” September cleared her throat. He hands shook. “Where I come from, if a person has a Spoon, no one can come and take it just because they’re the governor or something.”

“I think that’s very naive of you, September.” The Marquess put her finger on her delicate chin as if an extraordinary idea had just occurred to her. “Tell me, what does your father do?”

September felt her face flush. “Well, he was a teacher. But now he’s a soldier.”

“Oh! Iago, did you hear that? You mean to say that one day the governor or something came and took your father even though you were quite sure he was yours and yours alone? Well, that is certainly different. A Father is nowhere near so valuable as a Spoon! I can see why you prefer your sensible, logical world.”

“Well, they didn’t kill anyone in the process!”

“No, September. They wait until little girls like you are out of sight first. War must always be done out of sight, or it shocks people and they stop immediately.” The Marquess’s hair slowly deepened to the color of blood.

September squeezed back tears. “Why did you kill Goodbye and Hello’s brothers?” she cried wretchedly.

“Because, child. They were not
nice
. They defied me. But I do not wish to talk about them, or anyone else dead and therefore not useful. We were speaking of your parents. I do wish children could pay attention!” Her voice got very hard all of the sudden, no longer bright and full of tea-time conversation, but keen and deadly interested. “What about your mother, September?”

“She…she builds engines.” September did not think she ought to mention airplanes in Fairyland--visions of fleets of bombers belonging to the Marquess flooded her mind.

The Marquess stood suddenly. She was wearing a short blackberry-colored dress with violet stockings, all lace and stiff black petticoats. She rushed down the stairs to stare September directly in the eye--they were precisely the same height. The Marquess’s blue eyes were full of interest. The Panther slowly descended the stairs behind her, unconcerned.

“What if I told you that I would give you the Spoon? That thievery need never be mentioned between us? You can take it back to Goodbye and her silly sister or use it to stir soups of your own, whatever you like.” The Marquess was very close, as close as kissing. She smelled like beautiful, dying flowers. “I can be nice, September,” she whispered. “It is only right that I behave as I require my people to behave. I can help you and pet you and give you lovely presents. I can be a faithful guide.”

September felt much as she had when Goodbye had tried to convince her to be a witch. But there was no glamour. The Marquess was not a witch. It was only that she was so terribly strong, and so terrible close. “But not for nothing,” September whispered. “Never for nothing.”

“Never for nothing.” The Marquess wavered back and forth like a snake charmer. “But it is such a little thing, and such fun to get, that I’m sure you will leap at the chance. You want to have fun, don’t you? And marvelous adventures? That’s why you came to Fairyland, isn’t it? To have adventures?”

“Yes…”

“Well! What is the use of ruling Fairyland if one cannot make little children happy? There is a place, September, oh, very far from Pandemonium. A place where it is always autumn, where there is always cider and pumpkin pie, where leaves are always orange and fresh-cut wood is always burning and it is always, just
always
Halloween. Doesn’t that sound splendid, September?”