The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making (16 page)

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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, 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 long 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 empy 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 post-doctoral 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 tea-kettle.

“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 any way. 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.” September straightened up, scowling at the spriggan. “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 hut was covered in white furs and bits of holly, but the bits were rather haphazard, 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.

“
Fftthit
!” 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 grey 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 wood. His forearms were covered in sailors’ tattoos. For a moment, the two of them just stared at one another, waiting for the other to speak first.

“You suit…its 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 were green islands, and his cufflinks, and his belt buckle was an enormous, sparkling gem, the biggest island of all. September recognized the shape. 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. 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, an easel, and a table groaning with paints and pens. September shut the door gently behind her. It latched, and somewhere deep in the wood, 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.”

“They…were taken. By two lions, the Marquess’s lions. She said their strength came from sleeping, but I didn’t understand…I guess I understand now.”

“Do you know where I learned my Art?” Mr. Map said nonchalantly, sipping a hot brandy which seemed to materialize in his hand. September could swear she had not seen him pick up a snifter from his side-table. “
Fftthiiit
!” sighed Mr. Map slowly, smacking his lips. “I promise, I waste nothing in asking. Like a ship, I always come round again to where I started.”

“No, Mister. I don’t know.”

“In prison, my kit, my cub! Where one learns anything worth knowing. In prison there is nothing but time, time, time. Time goes on just positively forever. You could master Wrackglummer, or learn Sanskrit, or memorize every poem ever written about ravens (there are exactly seven thousand ninety four at current count, but a no-talent rat down in the city keeps spoiling my count) and still you’d have so much time on your hands you’d be bored sleepless.”

“Why were you in prison?”

Mr. Map sipped his brandy again. He shut his eyes and shook his glossy curls. He offered it to September, who, having given up all pretense of carefulness, took a big gulp. It tasted like burnt walnuts and hot sugar and she coughed.

“That’s what happens to the old guard, my pup. You can always count on it. We who serve, we who make the world run. When the world changes, it stashes us away where we can’t make it run the other way again.”

Mr. Map opened his eyes. He smiled sadly. “Which is to say I once stood at the side of Queen Mallow, and loved her.”

“You were a soldier?”

“I didn’t say that. I said I stood at her side.” Mr. Map blushed. It looked like ink spreading under his skin. His wolfy ears flicked back and forth in embarrassment. “You’re young, little fawn, but surely you catch my meaning. Once, you might have called me Sir and no one would have corrected you.”

“Oh!” breathed September.

“
Fftthit
!” spat Mr. Map. “All done now, and gone, gone to old songs and older wine. History. She’s just another in a list of Queens to be memorized, now.”

“My friend the Wyverar--the Wyvern said some people think she’s still alive, down in the cellars, or wherever the Marquess keeps folk…”

Mr. Map glanced at her, and his eyes drooped sadly. He tried a smile, but it did not quite work out.

“I met a lady in prison,” he went on, as though September hadn’t spoken. “A Järlhopp. They keep their memories in a necklace, and wear it always and forever. Since her memory is so safe, she never forgets anything she’s seen, and the Järlhopp--her name was Leef, and how furry and sleek were her long ears!--Leef taught me to copy out my own memory onto parchment, to paint a perfect path…a path back to the things I loved, the things I knew when I was young. That’s what a map is, you know. Just a memory. Just a wish to go back home, someday, somehow. Leef kept hers in that jewel at her throat, I kept mine on paper, endless paper, endless time, until the Marquess had need of me, until she sent me away to the wilds of the Winter Treaty, where nothing happens, where I cannot possibly cause trouble, where no one lives. And where there are no kind Järlhoppes to comfort me, or folk who might need maps to find their way.”

September looked at her feet. At the elegant, glittering shoes. The brandy warmed her all over. “I…I need to find my way,” she said.

“I know, little cub. And I’m telling you your way. The way to the bottom of the world, to the Lonely Gaol where the lions take all the souls the Marquess hates.” Mr. Map leaned forward, licked his pen until it was full of ink, and wedged a jeweler’s glass into his eye so that he could brush in tiny details of the little island map. “You see, September, Fairyland is an island, and the sea that borders it only flows one way. It has always been so, and must always be. The sea cannot be changed in its course. If the Gaol were but offshore from us here in this land, you could not get there by sailing straight. The current does not move that way. You can only reach it by circumnavigating Fairyland entire, and that is not a small task.”

“You know my name.”

“I know quite a number of things, you’ll find.”

“But surely there is some place from which it is a short distance! If one could only get on the right side of it.”

“Surely. But I will not take you there.”

“Whyever not?”

Mr. Map looked grieved again.

“
Fftthit
,” he said softly. “We all have our masters.”

September clenched her fists. She could not bear to think of her friends in a wet, dreary prison. “It’s not fair! I could have gotten her this wretched thing in seven days! She didn’t even give me a chance!”

“September, my calf, my chick, seven days were never seven. They were three, or eight, or one, or whatever she wished them to be. If she wants you at the Lonely Gaol, she has a reason, and you could never have gone anywhere else. And I suspect,” he looked at the copper wrench, twisting his mustache in one great hand, “that she has devised some work for you to do there, with your fell blade. Hello, old friend,” he greeted it, “how strange for us to meet again, like this, with the snow blowing so outside.”

“You know my…my wrench?”

“Of course I know it. It was not a wrench when we were last acquainted, but one’s friends may change clothes and still one knows them.”

“Why does she need me to go all the way to her horrid old Gaol? I had the sword! The lions could have taken it and left us alone!”

“September, these things have their rhythms, their ways. Once the sword is taken up, none but the hand that won it can brandish it true. She cannot touch the sword, not for all the power in both her hands. But you can. And both your hands called it forth, gave it shape, gave it life.”

“I’m really very tired, Mr. Map. Ever so much more tired than I thought I could be.”

Mr. Map signed his parchment with a flourish.

“
Fftthit
, sweet kitten. So it always goes.”

September turned to go. Her feet felt heavy. She turned the knob of the great door and listened to the lock whirr in the wood. When she opened it, no winter wood glittered outside, but a long shore and a bright sea. Gillybirds cried over head, wrestling over bits of fish. The tide flowed out foamily from a silver beach, the very opposite from the one she had arrived on. Here the sand was all manner of silver coins and crowns and sceptres and bars, filigreed diadems and long necklaces set with pearls and chandeliers glittering with glass. The violet-green sea--The Perverse and Perilous Sea, she reminded herself--beat huge waves against the strand.

“What is a map,” said Mr. Map, “but a thing that gets you where you’re going?”

“The sword,” September whispered, her eyes all full of the sea. “Who had it before me?”

“I think you know. My Lady Mallow kept it.”

“And what was it, when she had it?”

Mr. Map cocked his head to one side. He drank off the last of his hot brandy.

“A needle,” he said softly.

September stepped out of the hut and onto the silver beach.

September could see the current Mr. Map meant. It flowed just offshore, a deeper violet amidst the violet waves, fast and cold and deep. She could see it--but she was still only September, and she could not swim all the way around Fairyland. The empty beach stretched far and long, and nowhere hulked a broken ship or raft for her to climb aboard. She had come so far, and for lack of a boat her friends suffered in who knew what dark place. And Saturday, especially, had such a horror of being closed up and trapped. And Ell! Sweet, enormous Ell! At least Gaol begins with G--or J, she was not exactly sure. What awful cell could they devise to contain her beast?

She could not leave them there to wait for the Marquess to get angry enough to deal with them. She did not think they would get cozy government posts in the winter wilds. She would simply have to think, and think quickly.

September began to walk through the jeweled, silver beach, searching desperately for real wood, something that might float.
But,
she thought suddenly
, it was all wood, once, on the other beach! Wood and flowers and chestnuts and acorns! It’s not really silver or gold at all! The wairwulf said it was Fairy gold! Like in stories, when you wake up after selling your soul for a chest of pearls and it’s all full of mud and sticks!
September scrabbled in the flotsam and drew up a huge silver rod tipped in sapphire, something like her old long-spent sceptre, if it had been made of a giant’s hand. She tugged it down to the shoreline and tossed it onto the waves experimentally.

It floated, bobbing happily in the surf.

September yelped in victory and set about hauling several of the log-sized sceptres together and lining them up, side by side. By the time she had finished, the sun was very high, and she was all sweat from scalp to sole.
But how shall I ever lash it together?
She despaired. There was no silver rope or filigree wire to be had on all the beach. The distant dune grasses were short and sharp and furry, and would never do.
Oh, but I’ve just gotten it back
, September thought.
Surely I could use something else
. As if to answer her, September’s hand fell upon the handles of a pair of silver scissors.

Well. If that’s the way of it, that’s the way of it
.

She held out the length of her hair, heavy and thick and not red at all, not falling away bit by bit. She did not want to sniffle--what was a little hair? She had already lost it once, after all. But that was magic, which could be undone, and this was scissors, which could not. And so, as the scissors sliced smoothly through her hair, she cried a little. Just a tear or two, rolling slowly down her cheek. Somehow, she had thought it would hurt, even though that was silly. She wiped her face clean. September braided her hair into many thin, strong ropes, and knotted the sceptres together into a very serviceable raft. She wedged the witch’s Spoon into the center of it as a makeshift mast.

“Now, I really am terribly sorry, Smoking Jacket. You’ve been a loyal friend to me, but I’m afraid you’ll get quite wet, and I must ask you to excuse my using you so.” September sadly secured the mast with the long green sash, and stuffed the jacket into a gap where seawater might come in. The jacket did not mind. It had been wet before. And it liked very much being asked pardon.