The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Page 6

  “But Mallow begins with M. How do you know so much about her?” asked September.

  “Everyone knows about Good Queen Mallow,” replied the Wyverary, shocked that September did not.

  “Master Wyvern, if you please, where has my mistress gone? It has been many years, and I have drawn many baths, but she has never come back to me, and I cannot sleep or eat because she didn’t teach me how to sleep or eat, and it is dark at night and bits of me slough off in the rain.”

  “Oh, darling Lye,” cried the Wyverary. “How I wish I could bring you good news! But late in the golden reign of the Queen, the Marquess arrived and destroyed her. Or made her sit in a corner. Reports vary. And now there are complicated proclamations, and the lamentations of the hills and my wings are locked down to my skin, and no one has cocoa at all. Some of us hope that in the dungeons of the Briary, the Queen is still alive, and playing solitaire to pass the years, waiting for a knight to release her, to repeal the Marquess’s laws, and restore cocoa to Fairyland kettles.”

  A single liquid tear melted the cheek of the soap golem. “I suspected,” she whispered thickly. “I suspected when the place began to break down and crumble and cry big dusty tears at night. I suspected, because I am not very good company. Why stay with a silly golem when you can be Queen? Even if she said I was her friend.”

  “I’m sure she meant to come back,” said September, trying to comfort the great, kindhearted golem. “And we are going to Pandemonium to steal back a part of what the Marquess has taken away.”

  “A girl with green eyes, perhaps?”

  “Well, no, a Spoon.” September suddenly felt her lovely quest was a bit small and shabby. But it was hers. “Do you know how far it is from here to Pandemonium?”

  “What an odd question,” said Lye.

  “I’m not from these parts, you see,” September said demurely. She was beginning to feel she ought to have that stitched on her jacket.

  “Wherever you are, child, the House Without Warning lies between you and Pandemonium. However you turn, you cannot get to the City without passing through the House, without being cleaned and prepared, without having the road washed from you and your feet made soft and your spirit thoroughly scrubbed. I thought all cities were like that. How could they bear to have a great lot of filthy, exhausted folk milling around inside them, grumpy and nervy and dingy?” The soap golem extended her long, stiff arm, her skin a spiral of buttery greens. September took it. “When you leave this place, human child, you will find Pandemonium. The two are tied together, like a ship and a pier. Like my mistress and I, once, years and years ago.”

  The soap golem led them to the center of the House Without Warning, which was not really a house at all but many small rooms connected by long tiled halls and courtyards, which would once have been charming but were now covered in slime and green with age, falling apart, morose. Lye thoughtfully led A-Through-L to a great waterfall whose pool would accommodate him but drew September farther into the depths of the House. The soft smacking sounds of her soapy heels against the floor were pleasant, lulling. No one else seemed to be about. Everything was quiet—but not frighteningly so. The place seemed to be, well, napping. Finally, they entered the largest courtyard yet. In the midst of copper statues and fountains caked with verdigris rested three huge bathtubs. The floor showed two winged hippogriffs rampant in cobalt and emerald. The tubs covered their hooves like great horseshoes.

  Lye pulled at September’s jacket and she wriggled out of it—but when the golem tugged at her orange dress as well, September quailed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I … don’t like to be naked. In front of strangers.”

  Lye thought for a moment. “My mistress used to say that you couldn’t ever really be naked unless you wanted to be. She said, ‘Even if you’ve taken off every stitch of clothing, you still have your secrets, your history, your true name. It’s quite difficult to be really naked. You have to work hard at it. Just getting into a bath isn’t being naked, not really. It’s just showing skin. And foxes and bears have skin, too, so I shan’t be ashamed if they’re not.’”

  “Did Mallow tell you her true name?” September asked.

  Lye nodded slowly. “But I won’t tell you. It’s a secret. She told me and then cut her finger and mine and blood came out of her and liquid soap came out of me and they mingled and turned golden and she kissed the place where I’d been wounded and told me her name and not to tell, not ever. So I won’t. She already knew mine.” The soap golem pointed shyly to the word written on her forehead.

  “The Green Wind told me not to tell anyone my true name. But I don’t know of any name truer than September, and if I didn’t tell anyone that was my name, what would they call me?”

  “It cannot be your true name, or you would be in awful trouble, telling everyone like that. If you know someone’s true name, you can command them, like a doll.” Lye stopped uncomfortably, as though the subject caused her pain. “It’s very unpleasant.”

  “Can’t you call Mallow back then, if you know her name?”

  Lye sobbed a little, a terribly awkward noise at the back of her throat, like snapping a bar of soap in half. “I’ve tried! I’ve tried! I’ve called and called and she won’t come so she must be dead! And I don’t know what to do except keep the baths full.”

  September took a step back from the force of the golem’s grief. She slowly pulled off her orange dress—which to tell the truth had become rather filthy—and her precious remaining shoe. In the cooling evening, she stood naked before the many-colored golem, uncomplaining. “The baths smell very nice,” she whispered. She only wanted the golem to stop being sad.

  A breeze came sighing along the courtyard and picked up her clothes and her shoe, shaking them and soaking them in the fountain water to get the seawater and beach grime out. The green smoking jacket spluttered and wrinkled, most upset.

  Lye lifted September up suddenly and put her down in the first tub, which was really more like an oak barrel, the kind you store wine in, if you need to store rather a lot of wine, for it was enormous. September’s head ducked immediately under the thick, bright gold water. When she bobbed up, the smell of it wrapped her up like a warm scarf: the scent of fireplaces crackling and warm cinnamon and autumn leaves crunching underfoot. She smelled cider and a rainstorm coming. The gold water clung to her in streaks and clumps, and she laughed. It tasted like butterscotch.

  “This is the tub for washing your courage,” Lye said, her voice as even and calm as ever, performing her task, grief packed away for the duration of a bath.

  “I didn’t know one’s courage needed washing!” gasped September as Lye poured a pitcher of water over her head. Or that one needs to be naked for that sort of washing, she thought to herself.

  Lye poured a bucketful of golden water over September’s head. “When you are born,” the golem said softly, “your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you’re half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it’s so grunged up with living. So every once in a while, you have to scrub it up and get the works going or else you’ll never be brave again. Unfortunately, there are not so many facilities in your world that provide the kind of services we do. So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.”

  Lye broke off one of her deep blue fingers and dropped it into the tub. Immediately, a creamy froth bubbled up, clinging to September’s skin and tickling.

  “Your finger!” she cried.

  “Don’t fear, little one. It doesn’t hurt. My mistress said: ‘Give of yourself, and it will return to you as new as new can be.’ And so my fin
gers do, when the bathers have gone.”

  September looked inside herself to see if her courage was shining up. She didn’t feel any different, besides the pleasure of a hot bath and clean skin. A little lighter, maybe, but she could not be sure.

  “Next tub!” said Lye, and lifted her up, still covered with golden foam, out of the oak barrel and into a shallow, sloping bronze tub, the kind noble ladies in films used. September loved the movies, though they could not afford to go often. In her most private moments, September thought her mother was prettier than any of the girls on the screen.

  The water of the bronze tub gleamed icy and green, redolent of mint and forest nights and sweet cakes, hot tea and very cold starlight.

  “This is for washing your wishes, September,” said Lye, breaking off another of her fingers with a thick snap. “For the wishes of one’s old life wither and shrivel like old leaves if they are not replaced with new wishes when the world changes. And the world always changes. Wishes get slimy, and their colors fade, and soon they are just mud, like all the rest of the mud, and not wishes at all, but regrets. The trouble is, not everyone can tell when they ought to launder their wishes. Even when one finds oneself in Fairyland and not at home at all, it is not always so easy to remember to catch the world in its changing and change with it.”

  Lye dropped in her finger, which did not foam this time, but melted, like butter in a pan, over the surface of the green water. September sank under and held her breath, as she often did at home, practicing for a swimming meet. I used to wish my father would come home and my mother would let me come sleep with her like when I was a baby. I used to wish I had a friend at school who would play games and read books with me, and then we would talk about what wonderful things had happened to the children in the books. But all that seemed far away now. Now I wish … I wish the Marquess would leave everyone alone. And that I could be a … a paladin, like Lye said. A bold knight and true. And that I will not cry when I get afraid. And that Ell really is part library, even though I know he probably isn’t. And that my mother will not be angry when I get home.

  September’s hair floated up above her head in drifting curls. Lye scrubbed her, even under the water, with a rough brush until her skin tingled. Abruptly, the soap golem lifted her up and dropped her into the next tub, a silver claw-foot filled with creamy hot milk. It smelled of vanilla and rum and maple syrup, just like Betsy Basilstalk’s cigarette. Lye stroked September’s hair in the new bath and lifted several pitchers of it over her head. She broke off her thumb and swirled it three times through the bath, counterclockwise. All traffic travels widdershins, September thought, giggling. The golem’s thumb fizzed and sparkled, showering the surface with blue sparks.

  “Lastly,” Lye said, “we must wash your luck. When souls queue up to be born, they all leap up at just the last moment, touching the lintel of the world for luck. Some jump high and can seize a great measure of luck; some jump only a bit and snatch a few loose strands. Everyone manages to catch some. If one did not have at least a little luck, one would never survive childhood. But luck can be spent, like money; and lost, like a memory; and wasted, like a life. If you know how to look, you can examine the kneecaps of a human and tell how much luck they have left. No bath can replenish luck that has been spent on avoiding an early death by automobile accident or winning too many raffles in a row. No bath can restore luck lost through absentmindedness and overconfidence. But luck withered by conservative, tired, riskless living can be plumped up again—after all, it was only a bit thirsty for something to do.”

  Lye pushed September down into the milk again. She shut her eyes and sank into the warm cream, enjoying it, flexing her aching toes. She did not know whether her luck was even then growing more robust, but she found she did not much care. Baths are marvelous whether or not, she thought, and Fairy baths best of all.

  The soap golem pulled September at last from the luck-bath and began drying her with long, flat, stiff banana leaves, baked brown by the sun. She tousled her clean, wet hair. When September was beginning to feel quite dry and happy, the Wyverary ducked into the courtyard, shaking his scales like an indignant cat. He tried to shake out his wings, but the chain stopped him short, and he winced. September’s sceptre jangled against the padlock.

  “Brrr!” he boomed. “I suppose I’m clean, if it matters. Books don’t judge one for being a touch well-traveled.”

  The soap golem nodded. “And ready for the City to take you in.”

  The little breeze returned September’s clothes, crisp and clean and dry, scented lightly with a bit of water from the baths of courage and wishing and luck. She could not be sure, but she thought the breeze might have purred a bit, rather like a Leopard.

  “If you see her,” said Lye softly, almost whispering. “My mistress. If you see her, tell her I am still her friend, and there are ever so many more games to play…”

  “I shall, Lye, I promise,” said September, and reached up suddenly to hug the golem, though she hadn’t meant to. Lye slowly enfolded her soap-arms around the child. But when September reached up to kiss the golem’s brow, Lye drew back sharply before her lips could touch the word written there.

  “Careful,” Lye said. “I am fragile.”

  “That’s all right,” said September suddenly, feeling the warm cinnamon courage of her bath bubble up inside her, fresh and bright. “I’m not.”

  The House Without Warning was possessed of a small door nestled beside a marble statue of Pan blowing his horn—if only September knew that Pan is also a god, and not merely a prefix! Well, never mind. It was too late for warnings now, as the House well knew. The door straightened up and opened gallantly for the Wyverary and the girl. Seagulls cried from inside, and many voices jangled together, but all was dark within. Slowly, they stepped through into the black.

  “Ell,” said September as they crossed the threshold, “what sort of tubs did you wash in?”

  The Wyverary shook his great head and would not speak.

  CHAPTER VI

  SHADOWS IN THE WATER

  In Which September Crosses a River, Receives a Lesson in Evolution, and Loses Something Precious but Saves a Pooka

  The Barleybroom River roared and splashed as September and the Wyverary stepped through the bath-house door onto a rich, wet, green bank. At least, September presumed it was the Barleybroom. Something colorful and hazy floated in the center of the river as it foamed along around it in a great circle. September almost tripped for gawking. Folk surrounded them, pushing, laughing, shouting, all laden with every kind of suitcase and traveling pack, from brass-banded steamer trunks to green handkerchiefs tied around knotty sticks of hawthorn. September tried to look as though she belonged there, back straight, eyes ahead. Black river mud squelched between the toes of her one bare foot.

  Every sort of creature jostled for position, trying gamely to get to a long, pale pier first: Centaurs and Satyrs and Brownies and Will-o’-the-wisps, Birds with girls’ legs and girls with Birds’ legs, Trolls with splendid epaulets and Dwarves in velvet trousers and waistcoats, Hobgoblins plying violins as they walked, Mice taller than September, and a great number of human-seeming ladies and lords and children. September caught the eye of one of them, a little girl in a neat hazelnut-husk dress. She had red columbines tangled up in her blond hair. She danced around her mother, teasing and pulling at her skirt. The girl clapped her gaze on September in mid-leap. She winked wickedly and shivered her shoulders—and suddenly the girl was a sleek black jackal pup, with a gold stripe down her back. Now, jackals are not the wicked creatures some irresponsible folklorists would have children believe. They are quite sweet and soft, and their ears are clever and enormous. Such a lovely creature the little girl had become. Only her narrow blue eyes were the same. Her great tall ears twitched, and she continued on pestering her mother with yips and nips.

  “Did you know,” said the Wyverary happily, snuffling the fresh air with his huge nostrils, “that the Barleybroom used to be full
of tea? There was an undertow of tea leaves, flowing in from some tributary. It used to be, oh, the color of brandy, with little bits of lemon peel floating in it and lumps of sugar like lily pads.”

  “It’s not tea now, at least, I’ve never had tea colored indigo.”

  “Well, the Marquess said that sort of thing was silly. Everyone knows what a river looks like, she said. She got the Glashtyn to dam the tributary and drag along nets to catch all the leaves and eat up all the lemon peels and sugar cubes. They cried while they did it. But you see now, it’s a nice, normal blue color.” The Wyverary scowled. “Proper, I guess,” he sighed. The jackal-girl chased her tail.

  “What is that girl, Ell?”

  “Mmm? Oh, just a Pooka, I suspect. Starts with P. None of mine, you know.”

  Finally, the procession fanned out before a great, gnarled pier of driftwood and ropy yellow vines. A great barge tiered like a black cake moored there. Green paper lanterns swung from its ledges and arches; fell designs had been long ago carved into its wood. All along the top were old men leaning against monstrous poles. Ribbons and lily strands streamed from the pole-tips. The whole effect was very gay and festive, but the old men were haggard and salty and grim.

  “The Barleybroom ferry!” crowed the Wyverary. “Of course, never was a need for it before when a body could fly into Pandemonium as quick as you like. But progress is the goal of all good souls.”