The Boy Who Lost Fairyland (5 page)

The Red Wind shook her head. “Special Handling. Fragile: Excessive Narrative Weight. Changeling Type: Live Troll, Active Exchange.”

“Would you like to pay his return postage in advance?”

“Certainly not,” snorted the Red Wind.

“Would you like him Wrapped Specially?”

The Red Wind waved her hand in the air. “He can choose—I always find it's funnier when they pick it all out themselves.”

The Postal Ruler vanished from the air like butter melting away. Mr. Benjamin Franklin emerged from behind the counter and took him by the hand. Her fingers felt moist and soft; Hawthorn suddenly worried that he might crush her, or any human, if they were all made of this velvety, squishable stuff. The Postmaster led him to a charming little desk on which rested several rolls of wrapping paper, spools of ribbon, and a handsome book of colorful stamps. The Panther padded along behind with his Wind, whiskers twitching curiously.

“It's always nice to put on your glad rags when you're traveling,” said Mr. Franklin kindly. Her pale-blue uniform shone with crisp cleanliness. “Where I come from, some people wear fine suits just to ride on an Aeroplane—I suspect they think if they impress it enough it will be sure to carry them safely. Let's get you bundled up!”

Hawthorn looked at the wrapping paper. There was a roll of plain brown, of gleaming gold, a merry green print with foil Ferris wheels and snowflakes and sailboats upon it, and a rosy one with leaping fish and palm trees and umbrellas. Hawthorn wanted the gold, if he wanted anything in this strange place. But when he looked at the snowflakes he remembered Skaldtown and how the snow sounded falling into his old chimney-house. He had no idea on earth what those funny wheels were, but they looked marvelous and shiny and magical and before he knew it he had reached out a tentative finger toward the green paper. The ribbons came in every color he could think of and three that only existed in that singular Post Office and had never been seen by anyone except packages and Postmen. He could only choose his favorite, the long, shimmering, silken red cord that looked so much like the yarn of a Redcap's very cap.

But when he came to the book of stamps, the poor troll was quite overcome by the hundreds of lovely pictures pasted to the pages, some drawn in ink, some in gems, some in nothing more than scents that swirled into his mind, making gentle rectangle-shaped images of popcorn and sunshine and centaurs racing. He looked to Benjamin Franklin for help but found none. Hawthorn sighed. He supposed it mattered little. It was only a stamp. He peeled back one of the biggest and most lurid—a field of Knights with banners fluttering, and before them all a beautiful girl with long, dark hair dancing in an orange dress, holding them all back as they stared at her, fascinated, and the sun set behind them.

“Well met and well done!” cried the Red Wind. She seized the edge of the paper and unfurled a great sail of wheels and snow and boats, spinning it round him before he could squeak. The troll could feel it squeezing him, pressing his skin, making him smaller, rubbing furiously at the jewels that show through a troll's skin. She flung the ribbon over him in long loops and cinched them tight. And now Hawthorn's insides huddled up into a strange little shape, making something different, something new, something not-quite-Hawthorn. His fingers were no longer thick and strong but slim, delicate, pink. He began to panic; the ribbons closed up his throat. But it was the Postmaster herself who lifted the stamp carefully from the book and placed it over his heart. It lay against him for a moment and then slowly, gently faded down into the paper and into his skin. He felt it sinking down inside him. It felt odd and hot, but not unpleasant. Like a new bone settling in.

If there had been a mirror in the Post Office, our Hawthorn would have seen in it a small human child, with dark hair and huge dark frightened gray eyes like the stones at the bottom of an ancient well. Only a sort of green shadow around his fingernails and a nose too big for his face hinted that he had ever been a troll who lived underneath an old well and loved a toad.

“Where will you take me?” he choked fearfully. The voice that came out did not sound like his at all.

The Postmaster smoothed his hair. “All Postboxes are portals. You'll see. Things vanish out of them and appear in them with no notice at all. They're as good as wizards' hats. You'll get where you're going, and just when you need to. The Post is never late. It is only On Time or Fashionably Early for Your Next Life. Didn't I mention all Postmasters are time travelers? How else could we get all our work done? I live in the year Two Thousand and Five. It's nice, if a little excitable for my taste.”

“Wait, wait!” cried the Red Wind. “I'd almost forgotten! You must take this with you and keep it by your side. It's a talisman.”

Hawthorn tried to catch his breath. The wrapping paper had nearly crept over his face. “But you said talismans weren't allowed!”

“Oh, don't be silly. I wasn't born yesterday. I bribed three elves and a congressman. I wouldn't leave you defenseless! You want this, trust me. In the human world, it's a talisman of great power. It grants strength and manfulness and protection against the twin wights of boredom and bullies. Take it and keep it and guard it and love it or I shall be very cross with you. Hurry along, we've dawdled too long. Someone else is hurtling through the system as we sit around and jaw—you must get on your way.”

And the Red Wind put a little pale thing with red patterns stitched round it into a sturdy knot of ribbon round Hawthorn's waist. He did not know what it was, but if we peer between his thick, trollish fingers, you and I should know it right away, without a moment's hesitation.

It was a baseball.

*   *   *

What price the Red Wind paid for Hawthorn's postage he never saw. One can only know the weight and heft of the prices one pays oneself. The costs borne by others are their own, secret and deep and long. He knew only a sudden black rushing, which I shall tell you was the inside of a mailbag, and the trundling, grumbling sounds of a delivery truck crunching the long earth beneath it, and these sounds were as awful and wonderful and strange to our troll as any dragon hawking up fire. Only once in his headlong hurtling did Hawthorn see anything but the dark—off in the distance, so dim it might only have been a dream, he thought he saw a girl in a green coat soaring along even faster even than he, and in the other direction, her hair streaming out behind, riding upon the back of a bright, roaring Leopard.

 

INTERLUDE

H
IC
S
UNT
D
RACONES

In Which Apologies Are Begged and Explanations Offered

Being patient and trusting readers, you must by now be awfully worried about the state of your addled narrator. I can hear you across the ineffable miles between my house and yours, twisting your thumbs and whispering:
Yes, Miss, Trolls and Jungles and Postmasters are very nice and all, but have you hit your head on something
very
hard? This is not what we came to hear! We left September in such a state and you have said not one word about her in two whole chapters! And quite long ones! Won't you please let her come out to play?
And how kind of you to be so polite about it. I'm sure I have not half your manners when books vex me. I shall explain before we go a step further.

A story is a map of the world. A gloriously colored and wonderful map, the sort one often sees framed and hanging on the wall in a study full of plush chairs and stained-glass lamps: painstakingly lettered, researched down to the last pebble and participle, drawn with dash and flair, with cloud-goddesses in the corners and giant squid squirming up out of the sea. The maker of such a map will have made it as accurate as she possibly could, for she knew folk would rely on it to travel through a strange country safely. But the troubles of cartography are many. One can never predict when a volcano will explode or a flood should change a coastline, when a silly layabout prince in one tale will suddenly be called to lead a terrible battle in another. Choices must be made: The map must show its splendid country and not another even though an equally splendid nation, just as dangerous and exciting, lies just off the edges, just beyond the borders.

In the map of a story, one follows certain traditions so that mariners do not get confused and lost in a storm of metaphors. Heroes get big, splashy symbols, for they are the Capitals of their tales: circles with stars in the center, or magical swords, or a crown stuck all over with jewels. Villains likewise must be marked clearly with serpents biting their own tails or black hats or bold, uppercase letters which read
Terra Pericolosa
. This is a very old and fancy way of saying
Wrong Way, Detour, Do Not Stop for Tea
. Important Objects, Enchanted Houses, and Plot Twists will have pretty stamps and bear the label of
Points of Interest
. Companions, those stalwart souls who stand beside the Hero as she Does What Must Be Done, often manage only the unassuming dot of a Small Town or Shipwreck, even if they are quite as fascinating, as full of snaggle-streets and dark towers, as the Capital. In mapmaking, too, choices must be made. Paris takes up so much room that poor lovely Calais only gets a brief moment in the sun.

But the truth of the matter is, there are more maps in the world than anyone can count. Every person draws a map that shows themselves at the center. But that does not mean that no other countries exist. Just because most of the maps show Europe in the middle does not make it so. A Capital in one map may be a distant, unknown, misty village in another. A terrible wasteland in one map may be a cozy home in another. It all depends on who is drawing the map, and where they begin.

And in order to get to September, we must journey off the main road for a bit. Don't be afraid. Let us wander in the frightful forests and uncharted islands. Let us find a path through the snow to those little pockets of story which happen while the Hero is off doing other things. The hidden, leafy places where life goes on, even if the
Dramatis Personae
are on the run and incognito and being very
Dramatis
indeed. Let us look, for just a moment, at a little troll lost. Let us stride right up to the part of the map which says in magnificent and mysterious letters:
Hic Sunt Dracones
. For in that same old and fancy way of speaking, those words mean:
Here There Be Dragons
.

And, occasionally, humans.

 

CHAPTER III

T
ROLL
TO
B
OY
, B
OY
TO
T
ROLL

In Which a Troll Named Hawthorn Becomes a Boy Named Thomas, Meets His Parents (One a Psychologist), and Hunts a Wild and Woolly Word

Do you remember being born? Only a few can say they do and not be caught immediately in the lie, and most of them are wizards. I, of course, remember it perfectly. Certain benefits are granted to narrators as part of the hiring package, to compensate for our irregular hours and unsafe working conditions. As clear as waking, I remember your hands on the cover of the book, your bright eyes moving swiftly over the pages, the light of your reading lamp, your small laughs and occasional puzzlements. But it is against the rules for a human to recall the moment of their birth. If people did remember it, they would never agree to let it happen to them again, and to live in this world is to be born over and over and over again, every time a new thing happens to your heart, each time more frightening and more thrilling.

Because he will very soon forget it, I shall tell you how a curious boy was born in winter, at night, in a city called Chicago, which is four thousand miles from London, something like a million nautical leagues plus a feral furlong, a shake of the leg, and a stone's throw from Fairyland, but not so very far from Omaha, Nebraska. Chicago at the time owned a lake the size of a sea, several advertising firms, at least six tribes of marauding criminals, healthy herds of sailors grazing free, the first Ferris wheel in all the world, and more wind than it could care for. The boy was called Thomas Rood, or at least he shall be called that shortly. If you squint, you can see him hurtling through the snowy air at the speed of story. At the moment, he is still called Hawthorn. The faster you go, the brighter you get, and Hawthorn glowed so hot the clouds went up in smoke when he touched them.

If you have ever seen a falling star, you have seen a Changeling arriving.

The parcel box outside the home of Gwendolyn and Nicholas Rood, 3 Racine Avenue, received one troll, slightly singed, with a soft sound like an envelope sealing. The Roods were very much alarmed in the morning to find their little boy sitting on the doorstep with snow in his hair, blinking up at them as though he had never seen them before—which, of course, he hadn't, because only a moment ago he had been a troll called Hawthorn. If they'd investigated later, they might have missed him. He just couldn't abide that cramped little box another second and had gotten busy with his escape.