“Really? That’s all? I can take you home just now,” murmured the Green Wind. “If that’s all you want. Nothing but a blink, and we’re in Omaha, no harm done, all well and ending well. There, there. No need of crying.”
September’s leg burned, and her arms felt so heavy. “No, but … my friends … they’re locked away and they need me…”
“Well, it’s all a dream, no worries about that. I’m sure it’ll all work itself out. Dreams have a way of doing that.”
“Is it a dream?”
“I don’t know, what do you think? It certainly seems like a dream. I mean, talking Leopards! My stars.”
September squeezed her fists in the dark.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s not. Or if it is, I don’t care. They need me.”
“Good girl,” chuffed the Green Wind. “When little ones say they want to go home, they almost never mean it. They mean they are tired of this particular game and would like to start another.”
“Yes, please, I would like to start another.”
“That’s not a magic I have, love. You’re in this story. You must get out on your own if you are to get out at all.”
“But how does this story end?”
The Green Wind shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems familiar to me so far. A child whisked off to a foreign land beset by a wicked ruler, sent to find a sword…”
“Am I to save Fairyland, then? Did you choose me to do that? Am I a chosen one, like all those heroes whose legs were never broken?”
The Green Wind stroked her hair. She could not see his face, but she knew it was grave.
“Of course not. No one is chosen. Not ever. Not in the real world. You chose to climb out of your window and ride on a Leopard. You chose to get a witch’s Spoon back and to make friends with a Wyvern. You chose to trade your shadow for a child’s life. You chose not to let the Marquess hurt your friend—you chose to smash her cages! You chose to face your own death, not to balk at a great sea to cross and no ship to cross it in. And twice now, you have chosen not to go home when you might have, if only you abandoned your friends. You are not the chosen one, September. Fairyland did not choose you—you chose yourself. You could have had a lovely holiday in Fairyland and never met the Marquess, never worried yourself with local politics, had a romp with a few brownies and gone home with enough memories for a lifetime’s worth of novels. But you didn’t. You chose. You chose it all. Just like you chose your path on the beach: to lose your heart is not a path for the faint and fainting.”
“I cannot just choose to get out of a well, though.”
The Green Wind laughed. “No, no, you can’t. But, September, my sparrow, my pigeon … I am still not allowed in Fairyland.”
“But you’re here!”
“Technically speaking, I am below Fairyland. It’s these little loopholes that make cheating so pleasurable. I mean to say, I can push you up—oh, any Wind can with half a mind. But I can’t go with you. I can’t help you anymore. Until the great doors swing open, I cannot enter.”
The Green Wind bent his head and blew gently upon September’s mangled leg. September grimaced—it was rather a horrid feeling, being forcibly healed all at once, bones shoving together, muscles righting themselves. She groaned as the Leopard of Little Breezes lifted her head and licked roughly at the wounds on her arms until they vanished.
But still, September clung to the Green Wind, her safety, her protector. “I had to kill a fish,” she whispered finally, as though confessing a great sin.
“I forgive you,” the Green Wind said softly, and dissolved in her arms with one great final purr from the Leopard. In his place, a whirlwind spun and spat, catching September up and pushing her into the air, up and out of the well.
It was night, and the stars were going about their shimmering business in the sky. The Tsukumogami slept in their warm field. The last of the Green Wind dissipated in a rustle of dry grass.
“Good-bye,” said September quietly. “I wish you could stay.”
September crept along the field as silently as she could. The Spoon-mast of her little ship bobbed into view, and she nearly whooped for joy, but caught herself in time—for the orange lantern floated expectantly next to the raft, her green tassel hanging still.
“Please don’t cry out,” whispered September. “You brought me food; I know you don’t think I’m wicked. Don’t give me away, please!”
The orange lantern glowed warmly, beaming reassurance. Golden writing looped and swooped over her face.
Take me with you.
“What? Why? Don’t you want to stay here? I’m only twelve, what am I to you?”
I’m only one hundred and twelve.
I wish to see the world. I am brave. I am strong.
They used to unpack me for festivals,
and I kept the night at bay.
When you get lost in dark places, I can show the way.
And you must admit, getting lost is likely,
and where one is lost, it is likely to be dark.
“I’m afraid I’m not much of a tour guide. I’m going to rescue my friends from the Lonely Gaol, and very terrible things will almost certainly happen.”
I will not disappoint you, I promise.
My name is Gleam. Take me with you.
I held you in the dark.
I defied straw sandals to bring you sunfruit.
I am worth something.
One hundred and twelve years is worth something.
September shrugged off her jacket and dress. She looked down at her shoes, the beautiful, shining, glittering black shoes. Slowly, she took them off, one by one, and set them on the sand. September looked at them for a long time, shining blackly on the beach. Finally she picked them up and threw them as hard and as far as she could into the sea. They bobbed for a moment, then sank.
“There,” September said. “That’s better.” She smiled at the orange lantern. “Oh, Gleam, do you know? I forgot to tell the Leopard that I met her brother the Panther…”
September pushed her raft into the bouncing waves. Gleam followed quickly behind, lighting up the night like a tiny autumn moon.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE LONELY GAOL
In Which September Arrives at Last at the Bottom of the World, but Is Unexpectedly Expected
A ring of blue storms dance around the Lonely Gaol. They are on social terms with one another—the storms hold cotillions in the spring and harvest dances in the fall. If one has the right wind speed and precipitation, one can attend storm weddings, storm funerals, storm christenings. It is a happy life for a storm. None think of travel, nor sailing the free ocean, nor venturing into foreign lands of any sort. They do not know why they stay, huddled up tight at the bottom of the world, only that they have always lived there. These were their parents’ and grandparents’ stomping grounds, too, all the way down to the single primordial storm that in days of old covered the whole of the continent.
But I am a sly and wicked narrator. If there is a secret to be plumbed for your benefit, Dear Reader, I shall strap on a head-lamp and a pick-ax and have at it.
The current of Fairyland circles the Lonely Gaol. It sluices in through holes in the base of the great towers and emerges on the other side, to begin once more its long journey around the horn of Fairyland. This unstoppable circulation kicks up storms the way you kick up dust when you run very fast down a dirt road. It cannot be helped. Somewhere deep down there in the roots of the Lonely Gaol lives a hoary old beast, something like a dragon, something like a fish, something like a mountain rill. She is older than the Gaol and the sluicing of the water—older, perhaps, than Fairyland. When she breathes in, she sucks up crystal from the stones of the earth. When she breathes out, she blows bubbles in the crystal, so that it swells up in great lumps and heaps. The sea splashes and cools the glass, and it grows and grows. Perhaps, she is sleeping. Perhaps, she is too big and too old to do much but breathe. But this is how the Lonely Gaol, which was not always a ga
ol at all, grew out of the sea in the first place. If you squint just so, you can see the red flares of her breath between the roaring waves, blinking on and off like a dock light.
September could see it. She did not know what it was she saw. That is the disadvantage of being a heroine, rather than a narrator. She knew only that a red light glowed and went dark, glowed and went dark. In the shrieking whirl of the storms, she clung to her copper wrench and steered toward the light. Rain slashed at her face. Her skin had long ago gone numb and half blue. Everything ached from wrestling the raft to stay on course. Gleam bobbed and floated up ahead, valiantly trying to show the way, but the storm air was so awfully dark and thick. Lightning turned the world white—when she could see again, September looked up and glimpsed huge holes tearing open in her orange dress. A whip of wind lashed out and finished the job: The dress ripped along the sleeves and shot off into the dark. The storm ate up September’s cry of despair, delighted at its mischief, as all storms are.
Gleam flashed several times up ahead, her orange paper soaked and ragged.
Look!
At first, September could not see what the lantern meant. Before her lay only shadows within shadows. The red light sighed faithfully, off and on, off and on. But one shadow grew greater and blacker than the others as she strained to peer through the violet and violent clouds. It soared lumpish and huge, towering up in gargantuan humps, boulders, misshapen domes. Pale fires lit windows far up the sides of the towers. In flashes of lightning, September could see that mold and moss and lichen covered the lower domes, slurping upward toward the peaks. But the high towers were all of glass, and storms showed through, roiling and purple.
A sickening crack shuddered through the raft—they had run aground. A spear of glassy rock spurted through the silver sceptres, just barely missing September’s leg. The rain hissed and fell, and for once, September was glad she had cut off her hair, for if she still had it, she would surely be unable to see a thing for all its flapping in her face. Shaking and tired, she pulled up the sodden green smoking jacket from its place, wedged in between cracks in the raft. Oh, how the jacket wanted to hug her and reassure her that a little rain was not so terribly bad! Having no dress now, September pulled the emerald jacket over her sore body. She untied the sash from the Spoon, which had served so well and loyally as a mast, and knotted it tight round her waist. The smoking jacket rushed to lengthen and broaden into a dress for her, and tried its best to radiate warmth. September slung the Spoon and the Wrench through the sash on either side of her hips, like a cowboy’s guns.
Gleam extended a long, pale green arm from the base of the lantern. September took it and began hauling herself up the slippery glass humps of the Lonely Gaol.
Far below, the creature who was neither a dragon, nor a fish, nor a mountain rill, breathed in and out, in and out.
“Gleam,” September whispered. “Can you fly away up to the top of the towers and see whether a red Wyvern or a blue Marid is there to be seen?”
Gleam brightened a little and disappeared like an orange arrow, darting up through the howling storm. September watched her go, crouching behind a slime-slathered boulder. She did not want to think about the door. All prisons have their gates, and all prison gates are guarded. The gate of the Lonely Gaol glimmered faintly in the storm light, bolted with iron.
To keep them in, September thought. For iron hurts them so. The two blue lions flanked the door, their manes waving and curling slowly as though they were underwater, silver stars gleaming in their tails, their fur. Still, they slept, but September remembered that even sleeping they had stolen her friends away in half a blink. Certainly, she would be no work at all for them.
September thought furiously. She could not possibly fight the lions—they were the size of houses! If Ell could not fight them, she had no hope. All she had was the Spoon and the Wrench and a very wet jacket. And really, I oughtn’t to use the Spoon. It’s not mine. I’ve no idea about how witchcraft is done. Might as well ask me to make a pie out here. With ice cream on top.
And yet, the Spoon loomed large in her mind, as if offering its services. September peered around her and spied a little tide pool. She crept along the rocks and stuck her hand into the cold water. She could feel a few stubborn mussels clinging to the glass along with a great deal of dead kelp and mud. Well, it was a kind of soup, wasn’t it? September blindly scraped at the glass lumps around her, gathering lichen and moss and unnameable gunk into the pool, trying to look like a brave, resourceful witch who knew just exactly what she was doing. She took up the Spoon and slid it into the pool, stirring counterclockwise, which is to say, widdershins.
“Please,” September whispered, squeezing her eyes shut as if wishing. “Show me a future when I have already gotten through the door, and how I did it.”
For a long while, the pool stayed black and murky. The storm laughed at her, throwing out a few more lightning bolts for good measure. September stirred harder. She did not know what else a witch was meant to do. Perhaps, it would not work, since she did not have a hat and was not at all dressed well. “We have to dress well or the future will not take us seriously,” Good-bye had said. Well, certainly the soupy pool had no reason to take September seriously. She didn’t even have shoes anymore.
Slowly, the pool began to quiver. Oh, please! September thought desperately. A fuzzy, warped image flickered on the surface of the water, like a broken movie reel. September watched a small version of the iron gate coalesce, with two small lions on either side. They were not really blue, but sort of green and wriggly, like mold. A tiny green something walked up to the lions. Behind the tiny green something floated an even tinier round light, like a Will-o’-the-wisp. September turned her head to one side, trying to see what was happening in the tide pool. The tiny green somethings, which were surely herself and Gleam, walked boldly up to the gate. Herself took something out of her coat and held it up high. After a moment, the lions lay down before the tiny green September and put their paws over their eyes.
The Wrench, September thought. They recognize the Wrench! Of course, they do: It’s Queen Mallow’s sword! They must still be bound by some feline fealty to it, even if she is gone.
Just then, Gleam came spiraling back down the rain-slick towers. She tucked in behind the boulders and kept her golden letters dampened and dim.
Your friends are in the highest cell.
I think the red one is sick.
“Oh, Ell! I’m coming!” September whispered.
Together, September and Gleam approached the gate. September tried to be as bold as the little green version of herself in the tide pool. But of course, tide-pool girls don’t sweat and breathe very fast and worry about their Wyveraries. The lions were ever so much bigger than she remembered. A line of silver light shone under their furry blue eyelids. September wondered if they were always on the verge of waking if they ever did wake, and if, perhaps, they were kind and dear when they did, and not vicious at all. She held up the copper Wrench, and it flashed in the lightning-shadows. The waiting was horrible—September winced, prepared for the blow of a great paw. But they lay down gently, the left one first, then the right. They put their paws over their eyes.
September ran at the door and hauled it open, her bare feet slipping in the rain. She slipped inside, and Gleam behind her, chased by three thunderclaps, all in a row: crash, boom, crack.
Warm firelight turned the Lonely Gaol cheerful and ruddy. A great white hearth crackled and snapped with fresh logs. Filigree silver torches shone on the walls. A long, rich rug of every possible color swept over the grand floor. The lumpy glass walls showed the storm still raging outside, but instead of a terror, it had the effect of a beautiful painting hung in a fine hall. The boiling clouds were quiet and brilliant, blue and violet and pale gold all bleeding into one another. Rain spattered the buttresses and left sparkling drops like cast-off diamonds. A few stars even peeked through the ceiling, their light filtering down through many thin, spiral staircas
es.
A door at the far end of the hall burst open. September started and steeled herself to fight if she had to. All that mattered was getting up the staircase and finding Saturday and Ell, whoever she had to go through to do it.
A peal of delighted laughter echoed through the glass room, and a little girl in a frilly white dress ran full tilt across the many-colored rug, her golden curls bouncing. She embraced September like a long-lost sister, still laughing and exclaiming with joy.
“Oh, September, you’re safe! I’m so happy you’ve come, finally, and not a scratch on you!” The Marquess pulled away and cupped September’s face in her hands. “What fun we are going to have!” she exclaimed.
“Fun?” September cried, still dripping, sopping wet. “Fun? You stole my friends and set the Tsukumogami after me! I broke my leg, and I almost died, and I almost froze in the storm! And you cheated! I could have gotten the Wrench back to you in seven days and none of this would have happened! And now Ell is sick and he needs me and this is fun?”
September could not help it. Before she even knew she had done it, she slapped the Marquess across the face. But the Marquess’s hair flushed pale blue, and she just laughed again. She used her laugh like a little knife. September’s handprint flushed on her face.
“Of course I cheated. Why wouldn’t I cheat? If I hadn’t cheated, you would have brought me the sword like a good little questing knight, and it would have been of no use to me whatsoever. I can’t touch the ridiculous thing. I needed you. Here, in this place, with your loyal blade at your side.”