“September!” cried A-Through-L. Saturday leapt to his feet, upsetting the cupcake checkers.
Saturday gasped, “Oh, no, no … are you all right?”
September sank to her knees, shaking her head. Saturday put his thin blue arms around her. He was not sure it was allowed, but he could not bear not to. He held her, gingerly, much as she had held Death. Saturday had never had anyone to cradle and protect before, either.
Saturday, September tried to say, I understand now. But red leaves puffed from her mouth, branches ground on branches in her throat, and no words came. Rubedo and Citrinitas peeked out of one of the low, round houses, clucking piteously. Rubedo stroked his wan crimson face. Citrinitas nervously tied knots in her golden hair. But Doctor Fallow kept smoking his pipe, smacking his lips and blowing rings.
Ell! The Marquess needed me because of my mother! Golden leaves dribbled onto the square. Saturday stroked September’s brow, and she had a moment, only a moment, to be amazed that he did not think her ugly, that he was not afraid to touch her.
Because she fixes engines, Ell. So this is her sword. Do you understand? If it had been anyone else, it would have been something else. Like, for you, it might have been a book. For Saturday, a raincloud. If only I knew what she needed a magic wrench for! I am sure if we think hard on it, all three of us, we shall be able to figure it out. A torrent of orange leaves vomited up from her dry brown mouth. September laughed. More leaves flew. She was probably the only girl in all of Fairyland who could have pulled a wrench, of all the ridiculous things, out of that casket. Whose mother here could have wielded such a weapon? The Wyverary and the Marid exchanged miserable looks.
“We must get her out,” Citrinitas said. “How could this have happened so fast?”
“Does it happen often?” snapped Saturday, quite beside himself. A-Through-L’s eyes rimmed slowly with turquoise tears. One fell with a plop onto September’s poor bald head.
“Well, no … but then, we don’t have many human visitors…” Rubedo swallowed wretchedly.
“Autumn,” said Doctor Fallow, the Satrap, the Department Head, “changes everything. If she could only relax, she could be happy. She might even bear fruit, given a few years’ careful pruning. One must accept the way of the world, for it will always have its way, one way or another.”
“But everything doesn’t change,” said A-Through-L. “They have their wedding, every night, just the same. Because every day is harvest and feasting! I may not know Winter or Spring or Summer, but I know my Autumn, I know my Fall, that’s A and that’s F, Doctor Fallow! September is the only thing changing here! Winter never comes. It will never snow. The leaves never die and fall off; they stay red and golden forever. Why not her? Why must she wither all up? What have you done? We only have a few days left to get back to the Marquess…”
Saturday was shaking his head back and forth like a little bull. His face darkened, as though clouds moved beneath his skin. “Did the Marquess tell you to do this to her?” he said coldly.
“Oh, no!” cried Citrinitas. “No, it’s only that she’s Ravished and human, and it’s all so unpredictable, the chymical processes that occur in Autumn…”
“But she probably knew,” mumbled Rubedo. “She could have guessed what might have happened. She could have hoped.”
Doctor Fallow smoked his pipe and sat back, his expression unreadable.
A terrible sound broke through the morning, like a tuba being crushed with iron hammers. The sound shook Doctor Fallow from his chair. Saturday laughed cruelly at him, but his laughter caught itself and crawled away as the sound grew only louder. September found she could not get up, her knees had locked into sapling trunks. They no longer moved at all. Rubedo and Citrinitas shrieked together and dashed into their house, bolting the door. Doctor Fallow squeaked and abruptly shrank to the size of an insect. He scurried away between their feet. September, Ell, and Saturday were left alone, clinging to each other, Ell trying to shelter the little ones with his bound wings, when the lions came.
They pounced with a horrible silence, their paws landing softly. There were two of them, each nearly as big as the Wyverary. Their fur shone deep blue, deeper than Saturday’s skin, the color of the loneliest winter night, and all through their manes and tails silver stars shone and burned. They roared together; the terrible tuba sound blared once more. Saturday screamed, and if she could have put out an arm to comfort him, September would have. But it all happened faster than she could understand. One lion snatched up Saturday in his jaws. Drops of Marid blood, the color of seawater, spilled onto the square. But he did not scream when the lion’s teeth clamped on him. The boy only closed his eyes and reached out for September, imploring, even though he knew it to be useless. The second lion slashed Ell’s face with his claws, leaving a long gash in his red scales. There must have been a treacly-dark poison in those claws, for the great red Wyverary tottered and fell with a crash down to the forest floor in a deep sleep. The starry lion grabbed Ell by the scruff and began dragging him away. Neither of them paid the slightest bit of attention to September.
No! cried September. But only leaves fell out of her mouth, and she could not move. No!
But even if she could have spoken loud and true, it would have been no help. The lions’ eyes were shut. The Marquess’s lions slept, and dreamed, even as they did their work, and carried off their prizes into the bright, clear day.
September screamed without a sound and cried bitterly and beat her twig-hands against the ground. Her heart ached as though a knife had quietly slipped between her ribs. She looked up to the cheerful sun, as ever unimpressed by little girls’ sorrows, and tears of amber maple sap squeezed out of her eyes.
September finally fell backward, quite out of herself, and the world slid away, for a little while.
September dreamed. She knew she was dreaming, but she could not help it. She was quite well and whole and sitting at a very fine table with a lace tablecloth draped over it. On the table lay several greasy, grimy iron gears and a great number of mismatched nuts and bolts. September did not know what they were for, but she felt certain that if she could fit them together as they were meant to go, everything would suddenly become clear.
“Shall I serve?” said Saturday. He sat primly across from her, dressed in a fine Sunday suit, with a high collar and cuff links. His hair was neatly combed; his face, scrubbed clean. The Marid took up one of the gears and scraped it with a butter knife. He handed it back to September.
“It’s getting very late, November,” said a young man. He sat very near to her and held her hand. September felt certain she had never seen him before. He had dark red hair and oddly golden skin. His eyes were big and blue. They swam with turquoise tears.
“My name is September…,” she said softly. Her voice was weak, as it often is in dreams.
“Of course, October,” said the young man. “You must speak twice as loudly just to be heard in the land of dreams. It is something to do with physicks. But then, what isn’t? Dreams begin with D, and therefore, I can help you. To be heard.”
“Ell? Where is your tail? Your wings?”
“It is mating season,” the Wyverary said, straightening his lapels. “We must all look our best, January.”
“She wouldn’t know a thing about that,” said Saturday reproachfully. September saw suddenly that Saturday had a purring cat in his lap. The cat’s fur was blue, and in his bushy tail was a single, glowing star. “Such a lazy girl. Lax in her studies. If only she’d kept up with her physicks homework, we’d all be safe and sound and eating pound cake.”
“I’m not lazy! I tried!” September looked down at the buttered gear in her hand. It was smeared with Marid blood, like seawater.
“Mary, Mary, Morning Bell,” sang a third voice. September turned to see a little girl sitting next to her, swinging her legs under her chair. The girl looked terribly familiar, but September could not think where she could have met her before. She had dull blondish hair bobbed shor
t around her chin, and her face was a bit muddy. She had on a farmer’s daughter kind of dress, gray and dusty, with a yellowish lace at the hem. She rubbed at her nose.
“All praise and glory to the Marquess,” said Saturday reverentially, passing a thick iron gear to the girl. The child accepted it and allowed him to kiss her dusty hand.
“Dances in her garden dell!” she sang. The blond child giggled and swung her legs harder.
“Please, oh, please, start making sense!” cried September.
“I always make perfect sense, December,” said Ell, smoothing pomade into his hair. “You know that.”
The dream-Saturday held up his hands. They were chained in ivory manacles. “Did it mean me, do you think?” he said. “When it said you’d lose your heart?”
“But when the night comes rushing on,” sang the girl, laughing uncontrollably. She took a bite out of her iron bolt. It crumbled like cake in her mouth. “Down falls Mary, dead and gone!” The girl smiled. Her teeth were full of black oil.
And for a moment, just a moment, September saw them all: Saturday, Ell, and the strange blond girl, bound and bolted and chained in a dreary, wet cell, sleeping, skeletal, dead.
CHAPTER XIV
IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING
In Which September Leaves Autumn for Winter, Meets a Certain Gentleman of Means, and Considers the Problem of Nautical Engineering
September woke to the sound of the snow falling. Hoarowls cried overhead: “Hoomaroo! Hoomaroo!” The sun burned white and soft behind long clouds. A cold, piney wind blew over her skin.
She opened her eyes—and she had eyes! She had skin! She could even shiver! September lay on a makeshift stretcher, a piece of piebald hide stretched between long poles. Her hands—and she had hands!—were folded neatly over her chest, and her hair flowed over her shoulders and down to the sash of the exultant green smoking jacket, dark brown and familiar and dry and clean. She was well again and whole.
And alone. It all came rushing back to her: the sleeping blue lions, Saturday and A-Through-L, all of it. And the dream, too, still clinging to her like old clothes.
Mary, Mary, Morning Bell.
In a panic, she reached for her sword—and felt the copper wrench safely beside her on the piebald hide. The Spoon still rested snugly in her sash. Saturday’s favor was gone, though, lost to the woods. September sat up, her head heavy and sick. A wood spread out around her, and it appeared long past autumn, the trees black and stark, snow glittering on everything, softening every edge to exquisite, perfect white. The green smoking jacket busily puffed up to keep out the gently blowing snow.
“You see? You’re quite well again. I promised you would be.” Citrinitas sat a little ways away, as though afraid to come too near. The little spriggan clutched her three-fingered hands together miserably. She scratched her long yellow nose and pulled up a great yellow hood over her head. She snapped her fingers, and a little golden fire burned before her, floating above the snow. Citrinitas sheepishly fished a marshmallow out of her pocket and speared it on her thumbnail to roast.
“Where are my friends?” September demanded, happy to find she had her voice back, strong and loud, echoing in the empty wood.
“I didn’t have to bring you out, you know. I could have left you there, and it would have been a good bit less trouble than dragging you out across the Winter Treaty. So close to Spring! It doesn’t sit right with the stomach. Rubedo didn’t even want to come. And he so longs to travel! Doctor Fallow is a bit of a coward—he hid when the lions came. Eventually, we’ll find him, though. I think he’s angry with you—you might have at least matriculated before turning all … tree-ish. And now I’ve missed our wedding, thank you very much.”
“You’ll have another tomorrow! And, anyway, if it’s so much bother, why didn’t you just grow and cover the distance in three steps?”
“Well,” Citrinitas blushed deep ochre, “I did. But that’s not the point. The point is gratitude, and how you ought to have it.”
September gritted her teeth. She liked the feeling of it—of having teeth. “Where are my friends?” she repeated icily.
“Oh, how should I know? We were only told to feed you up and send you into the woods. No one tells us anything unless it’s ‘Mix up Life-in-a-Flask for me, Citrinitas!’ ‘Bake me a Cake of Youth, Trinny!’ ‘Grade these papers!’ ‘Watch that beaker!’ ‘A monograph on the nature of goblins’ riddles, Ci-ci!’ I swear to you, I am finished with postdoctoral work!”
The golden spriggan struck her bony knee with her fist. As she spoke, her voice got higher and higher until it squeaked like a teakettle.
“Anyway, it’s no use interrogating me. I don’t know. But I’ve brought you to the snow, and the snow is the beginning and the end of everything, everyone knows that. I’ve brought you to the snow and the Ministry, and the clerk will … well, mainly he’ll say ‘Ffitthit’ at you. But I expect they’re in the Lonely Gaol, you know, since that’s where the lions take people usually, and that’s far, oh so awfully far, and it won’t do you any good, anyway. Parole was outlawed years ago. And the Gaol is guarded by the Very Unpleasant Man, and you’re just a little girl.”
September’s face burned. She got up and marched over to Citrinitas and crouched next to her. And maybe Lye’s bath, oh so terribly long ago now, really had given her a red, frothy draught of courage, because otherwise she could not imagine where she might have found the gall to hiss at the miserable spriggan, “I am not just a little girl.” Then September straightened up, scowling at the alchemist. “I can get bigger, just like you. Only … it just takes me a little longer.” She turned on her heel, seized her copper wrench, and began to walk over the crystal snow drifts to a little hut nestled between two great yew trees, which could only be the Ministry, or at least, she hoped it was the Ministry, because otherwise she would suddenly look very foolish. She did not look back.
“I’m sorry!” cried Citrinitas after her. “I am! Alchemy really is lovely, once you get past the alchemists…”
September ignored her and walked up the hill, the snow swallowing up the spriggan’s voice.
September breathed relief. The Marquess’s lovely black shoes had gotten soaked with snowmelt. A pleasant sign, freshly painted black and red, rose up out of a snow drift:
THE MARVELOUS MINISTRY OF MR. MAP
(YULETIDE DIVISION)
The hut was covered in white furs and bits of holly, but the bits were placed rather haphazardly, as if someone meant to be festive but got bored and gave up instead. The door was a sturdy thing with a compass rose stamped rudely into the wood. September knocked politely.
“Ffitthit!” came the answer from within. It was an odd sound, like someone spitting and coughing and growling and asking after one’s relations all at once.
“Excuse me! Citrinitas sent me! Please let me in, Sir Map!”
The door cracked.
“It’s mister, kitten. MISTER. Do you see an Order of the Green Kirtle on my chest? Eh? A Crystal Cross? It’d be news to me. Call me by my proper name, good grief and all gallows!”
An old man peered down at her, the bags under his eyes wrinkled like old paper, his hair and long corkscrewed mustache not even white, but the color of old, stained parchment. His skin was lined and brown, and his neatly brushed hair curled in a stately fashion, tied up in a black ribbon, like the old portraits of presidents in September’s schoolbooks. He had a pleasant, jolly belly and broad cheeks—and fat, furry wolf’s ears with a great deal of gray fur in them. He wore a bright blue suit with the cuffs rolled up over impressive forearms, so bright it startled in the midst of the white woods. His forearms were covered in sailors’ tattoos. For a moment, he and September just stared at one another, waiting for the other to speak first.
“Your suit … it’s lovely…,” murmured September, suddenly shy.
Mr. Map shrugged. “Well,” he said, as though it were perfectly logical, “world’s mostly water. Why pretend it’s not?”
September leaned in close, rather closer than is courteous. She saw that his suit was a map, with little lines and bits of writing on it. The buttons of his blazer and his cuff links were green islands, as was his belt buckle, an enormous, sparkling gem, the biggest island of all. September recognized the shape of the buckle. She had seen it, oh so briefly, as she fell from the customs office in the sky. That’s Fairyland, she thought.
Mr. Map left the doorway and went back to his work. September followed him inside. A great easel dominated the little room, on which Mr. Map had been busy painting a sea serpent in a wild ocean bordering a small island chain. Maps covered and cluttered every surface of the hut, topographical maps, geological maps, submarine maps, population-density maps, artistic maps, and scribbled-over wartime maps. The maps left room for only a single chair, the easel, and a table groaning with paints and pens. September shut the door gently behind her. It latched, and somewhere deep in the woods, a lock spun.
“Excuse me, Mr. Map, but the lady alchemist said you’d know where to find my friends?”
“Now why would I know that?” Mr. Map licked his pen—his tongue was all black with ink, and the pen’s bristles filled up with it. He returned to his map. “Seems to me a friend knows best where friends are.”