The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, Page 7

  Stars clotted the sky above, peeking out from behind gusts of confectioner’s snow. It streamed down in blazing ribbons of white and blue and green that made the Milky Way—or whatever Fairies might call the wild cord of starlight tying up the heavens—look rather like a scrap of old newspaper. And far below, where any fall from the high passes would abruptly end, roared a sea of cold turquoise fire, biting at the mountain’s feet and throwing little meteors of sugar-ice against the battered cliffs.

  The Blue Wind sang out in joy. She put back her head and howled and it was just the same sound as the awful winter wind screeching all around them. They were still rushing up, up, up, the speed incredible, the sugar-snow lashing September’s face with electric prickling pain. Sugar is not nearly so soft as snow and not nearly so nice as dessert. Every crystal bit into her skin and having found warmth in the wound, melted there with a tiny sting. September, once more, wanted to cry out in joy, to shout, nothing in particular, but the wordless hooray of relief and delight when one finally gets what one has looked forward to for so long. But when she opened her mouth to crow, the sugar-snow flew in and choked her.

  “Isn’t there anywhere we might get out of the storm?” September yelled over a shearing updraft that nearly upended the lot of them. A few spare puffins scrabbled against the blizzard, paddling their feet for purchase on the dark backseat.

  “Out?” hooted the Blue Wind, laughing. Her laugh sounded like icicles breaking all in a row. “Why would we want to get out? This is my favorite vacation destination! The most splendid spot in all of Fairyland! The balmy beaches! The luxurious yurts! The mashed-rice cocktails! How I have longed to lay out on the slopes of Mount Chiaroscuro and Moon-tan!”

  The Blue Wind hopped up on the seat, hardly able to contain herself. In one grand sweep of her arms, all of her lovely warm clothes vanished: her ice skates, her brocade coat, her spiked cap. She now wore a spangled cerulean bathing costume and a pair of large silver sunglasses—which September supposed were called moonglasses, if the Blue Wind meant to Moon-tan while wearing them. The Blue Wind flashed a dazzling robin’s-egg smile.

  “That’s better! Your bauble whisked you to a dreamy, exclusive spot, September! Ever so much better than a nasty old beach lousy with witches.” The Blue Wind flicked the silver Moon still hanging from Aroostook’s mirror. It rocked back and forth listlessly. Whatever it had done, it had done it and would now like very much to be left alone.

  A lump of sugar-ice rocketed out of the sea below and landed in September’s lap with a hard crackle and thump. September thought the witches were rather brilliant, and how she would have liked to have seen the wairwulf again, and tell him how she’d got on in the capital. She opened her mouth to say so—and could only cough in a cloud of stormsugar.

  “Oh, VERY WELL! No one appreciates a good squall anymore.” The Blue Wind turned up her face to the sky. “Shut it!” she hollered.

  And the sky did.

  The snow laid down on the ground like an obedient dog. The wind went suddenly, utterly silent. The cold fire sea still crashed and pounded below, but it only made a distant, hushing sound like radio-static. The Model A rounded a rill and rolled out onto the wide, flat table of the summit, a glassy dark shard of land mounded up with sweet, crystalline slush on all sides. September pushed her driving goggles up onto the black Criminal’s cap like an aviator. They had fogged and frozen so quickly she’d hardly been able to see until now—and now that she could, two extraordinary things showed themselves immediately.

  The first extraordinary thing was this: Without any warning at all, without any reason at all, the steering wheel of the Model A—of Aroostook—had turned into a bright green sunflower. The petals felt hard and sturdy under September’s hands. The green of them shone with oily swoops of purple. Aroostook’s body was no different than it had always been. The same peeling dark paint, the same cracked headlamps, the same piebald tires. Even the same half-deflated squeeze bulb of the horn still sported its pink rubber patch. It all still smelled of gasoline and rust. But inside, the green flower of the steering wheel glinted undeniably as it caught the light of the second extraordinary thing.

  A great road ran up out of the mountain. It began on the summit, its passage flanked by two silver streetlamps as tall as elm trees. On either side curled bony rails like briars, canted and corkscrewed at strange angles. Here and there on the bone briars, clusters of cool green berries bobbed and swung, glowing as brightly as lightbulbs. It ran so far and so high September got dizzy just trying to follow it—for the road did not run straight, either, but looped and spiraled and doubled back on itself, a long snarl of silk yarn thrown up into the sky. Ice glittered on the rails and the long lanes—and so did moonlight. For the road led far and high indeed, all the way up to the Moon, which hung above them in the sky, distant and beautiful, a giant crescent the size of a world. The last of the puffins bounced up out of the backseat and rose to meet the Moon, honking softly all the way.

  “What happened to Aroostook?” September stared at the improbable sunflower which should not, should not be there. Of course all manner of improbable things happened in Fairyland, but September herself had never changed. Her clothes stayed the same, her face, her hair, her shoes, whether she came wearing one or two.

  This was different.

  If September knew anything, she knew what happened to you when you jumped or ran or swam or fell or flew into Fairyland. She and the girl who had crawled out of the kitchen window two years ago were one and the same, that was certain. Yet she could not explain the sunflower. She felt her own skin with her hands; she seemed quite herself. Her essential September-ness had not turned into a strange flower.

  The Blue Wind ignored her quiet distress. She had somehow pulled a spyglass out of her bathing costume. It glittered, hollowed out of an icicle. Through it, she peered up at the road to the Moon. September followed that icy gaze with her own naked eye. She remembered what her friend Taiga, the reindeer-girl, had said in the glass forest: that the Moon was a rich and fertile place where all manner of folk lived. The road to the Moon dazzled her eyes and all the rest of her, too.

  The last time she’d come to Fairyland, she had seen trouble right away and no mistaking. From the moment her foot landed everything was wrong and required mending. And in that glass forest, the wrongness came from her own fault and by her own hand. Until this moment September had not realized how wound up her heart had got, how prepared she had been to see some other wretched consequence of her adventure come to bite her in the dark. But she was simply here, and could go somewhere, see something marvelous. She could spin around three times and dash off in whatever direction she faced, if she wanted to! And deliver the long, tooth-colored box, yes. But that was quickly done and quickly forgotten. Hand it off and find A-Through-L and Saturday and then—Anything Magic. Possible Magic. And how many other sorts she could not think of right now, in the delicious moment when it was all still in front of her and not in the midst nor behind. Boomer was wrong. What gladness dwelt in prepositions!

  September drank in the starry sky with a longing and a tugging and a sigh. All the way up, to that enormous crescent in the black.

  “You can see the prongs of Almanack from here. And the Sea of Restlessness all couched in dragonfly beaches! I shall have to remember to make off with a few of those marvelous cabanas come my next Moon twister.” She retracted her icy spyglass with a snap. “Well,” the Blue Wind said cheerfully, “that’s me then!”

  “You’re not coming?”

  When the Green Wind had taken September away, he had not been allowed to come with her. The Marquess had banned Harsh Airs from Fairyland. But no longer—the ban had vanished with the old regime. September had planned to ask the Blue Wind along. One does so like to be asked, she’d said. September wanted to be the kind of girl that would invite her, even if the Wind had been nasty to her and she still felt sore on it. The best way to be the kind of girl you want to be is to do what that girl would do. Truth
fully, September had been looking forward to showing off how gallant and gracious she could be.

  “I’m very busy,” sneered the Wind, who wore a sneer beautifully, dashingly, better than September ever could. She tossed her long blue hair as if it mattered not at all. “I’ve baskets of hail to deliver to Broceliande and a truly spectacular bout of thunder-snow overdue in Maine. And you! You’ve got work to do, my little postal service! You be sure to go straight to Almanack, now. No dawdling or stopping for strawberries on the side of the road. You’re on the clock.”

  “But I don’t know how to get there!”

  “Look, you sour gimlet of a girl. I think I’ve done more than my part. I don’t know why the other Winds make such a to-do over this hauling-off business. It seems very unsatisfying to me. And if it’s unsatisfying at the start, it’s sure to be unsatisfying at the stop. I don’t think we’d be the best of traveling companions, anyhow. I am certainly intrepid and splendid and sordid and strong; I can see why you’d want me! But I’m afraid I’ve left the kettle on or whatever it is people say when they’re bored.” The Blue Wind pushed her moonglasses up onto her head and winked one dazzling dark eye. “And while they do make a smashing cocktail, the Moon really is awfully provincial if you ask me, but you didn’t, so I do hope you all fall off of it. Ta!”

  The Blue Wind put her fingers in her mouth and whistled as high and sharp as metal tearing. A great puffin, bigger than any of the others but encased in the icy, thorny Spanish armor, soared into view. The black comet of his body hurtled down to the Wind’s side. She gave a little pirouette on the ice of the summit, leapt into the air, turned a double flip, and landed on the puffin’s back. In half a moment they had become no more than another blue star against the black.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE ROAD TO THE MOON

  In Which September Suffers the Following: An Ascent into the Heavens, the Attentions of a Somewhat Surly Otter, a Lack of Fuel, and a Sudden Earthquake Which Is Not an Earthquake

  Ice ground like glass under Aroostook’s wheels. September felt sure they would spring a flat at any moment, but somehow the Model A soldiered on. The long, blue-white highway soared up ahead of them, arching and falling, a diamond roller coaster tick-tick-ticking up into the night. Soft shadows flickered on the corkscrewing rails.

  The road to the Moon ran on quietly except for September and Aroostook. The Model A made her old, familiar, frightful noises. She wasn’t about to stop now, just because she had sprung a sunflower. After a little while, September began to see creatures traveling in the other direction, back down to Fairyland proper. Which, she supposed, was Fairyland-Below from where she stood now. A motley troupe clattered by in a covered wagon—but the cover was all of stained glass and the wagon floated in the air on a thatch of ragwort stalks puffing green pollen behind it. September thought she saw a witch with her face pressed to the glass. At least the face behind the ruby-colored pane wore a great pointy leather hat with a buckle on it. An enormous, upside-down paper umbrella drifted by, pasted together from the funny pages of some very expensive newspaper, for ever so many more than four colors gleamed on the umbrella tines. A family of bright red raccoons peered out from the bowl of the umbrella, their striped tails quite on fire and quivering like rattlesnakes. The papers did not seem to be any worse for it. They must have brought along drums on their journey, for September could hear a wobbling beat grow nearer and then pass them by as the umbrella slipped down the slope of the road, eight pairs of bandit eyes regarding her suspiciously.

  But for long, luxurious stretches, September had the road to herself. The giant crescent Moon sailed closer steadily but slowly, for it is a very long way from earth to the Moon. She looked nervously backward at the long, white box in the backseat. What could be in it? How she would have loved to crack that carved lid and look inside! But it was locked good and tight. She had brought parcels from one farm to another so many times. Aroostook’s seats were quite accustomed to boxes and baskets and barrels. And though she knew she oughtn’t, she always peeked inside. Just pulled up a bit of the paper so she could see what Mrs. Tucker had ordered from Sears and Roebuck. Perhaps, if everyone meant to call her a Criminal, she ought to learn to pick a lock. September was reaching back to see if she could work her fingers under the ivory corner of the box when a clatter of bells and moaning startled her out of it—a Spriggan in a sturdy suit of blue clovers was driving his cow herd down the road from the Moon. The cows’ hides shone clear as glass—and inside, September saw moonshine stills bubbling away where their guts ought to be. The cattle lowed, begging for milking. The Spriggan touched the side of his long, skinny nose in greeting as Aroostook stopped to let them pass.

  “I should have thought there would be a fearsome traffic jam all the way there and back!” exclaimed September. The hard green sunflower of Aroostook’s steering wheel turned gently under her hands, keeping them in their glowing lane. She patted the dash, talking to the car as she often had. But now she felt as though she ought to wait for an answer, which was out of the question, of course. She hurried on. “Who would not want to visit the Moon? I believe if anyone back home had a choice between California and the Moon for visiting, they would choose the Moon every time!”

  A great black road sign reared up, blazing with silver letters: FALLING FORTUNES: EXPECT DELAYS.

  September laughed a little. It had seemed harder and longer to get into Fairyland this time. Like a door that has always swung smoothly suddenly sticking. Perhaps Boomer and Beatrice had got the Line sturdy again. Another sign drifted by: CAUTION: YETI CROSSING. This alarmed September, and she held tighter to the green sunflower of the wheel. She could not tell if she was doing the driving or Aroostook or the road itself, but she held on anyhow.

  “I hope we won’t find the Moon empty when we get there. I met a whole family of reindeer-girls and reindeer-boys who said they’d once lived on the Moon. The way they talked about it, it seemed like the most wonderful place—but I suppose it was frightening, too. They had to leave, after all.”

  The pair of them, car and girl, came up over a rise in the road. A long straightaway opened up before them, miles and miles before curving off and up sharply, the last turnoff to the Moon. Aroostook opened up her throttle and roared out onto the thoroughfare—and sputtered, choked, coughed, and promptly went silent. September caught the wheel before it spun wild. They rolled on a little farther as there was no wind to slow them down, but the engine stayed stubbornly mute.

  “What’s happened, Aroostook?” And this was the first time she had used the Model A’s name out loud, if that was her name. “Whether or not you’re alive, you do seem to be acting very strangely, and until I know why, I shall tread very lightly on your feelings—should you have any.”

  September clambered out of the car onto the silver paving stones. There was no sound at all on the road to the Moon. The dark air wrapped her head like cold wool. Even when she spoke, the sound seemed to fall apart as soon as it left her lips. The starlight shone down as strong as party lanterns.

  “Poor Aroostook, what’s troubling you?”

  September opened the hood of the Model A. Bits of paint and rust flaked off and fell, winking, into the blackness below the road. She had been over every cog and pat of grease in that engine with her mother. It was as familiar to her as her own bed. She tugged on her black cap to keep out the cold and tapped her finger on the gas tank. It bonged out a desolate clang.

  September sighed heavily. There was a pack of tools in the trunk for fixing just about anything but this. “I expect we used up the whole tank coming across,” she exclaimed. “I know I’m starving! Eating’s always the first trouble in Fairyland.” She patted the Model A’s head-lamp in sympathy. “It feels like you’ve never eaten before and will never get the chance again when you set foot—or wheel!—here. And if I’m hungry, you must have been running on fumes all this while! Well, there’s nothing for it but waiting. Someone else will come along presently—where there’s folk,
there’s always more!”

  And so they did. September settled down beside the forlorn Model A, drawing pictures with her fingers in the frost that coated the road. She pulled a few of the pale green fruits from the briar-rails to satisfy her own stomach. She bit slowly, in case they tasted foul. Their pulp glowed oozily—not foul but not sweet, rather like a very juicy onion that had once met a heap of black pepper and had a grand time. Her Criminal’s silks slid against her like hands rubbing her skin to warm it up. September squeezed Aroostook’s horn. Perhaps someone would hear it and put some speed on. The horn wheezed like a throat clearing. It oompahed bravely, but the sound died just a breath beyond the bell of the horn, just as her voice had. It was no longer entirely an oompah, either. The horn sounded hard and urgent, almost like a real voice, but the space ate up all the sound the horn could feed it.

  Finally, at last, thankfully, a shape approached, creeping toward the stranded car with incredible slowness down the long crystal straightaway. As it drew nearer, September saw that it was a ship. A real sailing ship, with lines trailing everywhere and a tall, squarish black sail crossed by white poles like bones. Nearer still and it was not so much a galleon or a schooner but a merchant’s barge, flat and broad, its prow a great pair of scissors sticking out point-first. It cut through the still dark air, not sailing but flying, scissor blades lazily opening and closing, eating up the miles. Barnacles of every color crusted the bottom of the boat: honey and lilac and cherry and bottle-green, tiny as pen-points, huge as beer barrels. Holes honeycombed the rudder; striped ultramarine fish with long, fine fins like a girl’s hair swam slowly in and out of them. Even nearer and a mariner, the captain, perhaps, held up a hand in greeting, throwing lines over and wrangling the wheel to come around. The fish in the rudder all darted into their hiding places at once and the sailing barge stopped abruptly, neatly parked alongside them. The mariner peered over the rail. Light from a tall sign crackling with violet sparks scrubbed them all in shine: B.D.’S MOONDOCK SALVAGATION.