The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There(32)

Aubergine’s tears finally fell, spilling onto the lilac skin of the Weeping Eel and trickling off to join his own tears on the great salt track below.

“Walghvogel,” she whispered. “I have described it to you—but I have never been there. Glasswort had it in one of her booths—the only booth—when the others scattered and left her knowing she had the only thing we truly needed. It sat in miniature on her violet velvet pillow: the tambalacoque trees, the mountain full of caves, the sweet grass, the freshwater ponds. And all in the midst of the Forgetful Sea, so that anyone who did find it would forget it by the time she reached shore again. It was perfect. A place to rest. But how,” the Night-Dodo’s gaze turned back where they had come, toward the Goblin and the stalls that had long vanished in the Eel’s rushing progress. “How could we pay for it? Those were heady days, the days of the Bustard’s Market (the Bull and the Bear are nothing to the mad prosperity of a Bustard), and Groof didn’t want kisses, she didn’t want time, and, oh, we had tears to enrich the lowliest sprite, but, no. She wanted a Firstborn. A Firstborn female, of course. No one in Fairyland yet knew the secret of the egg, but the Goblins knew others wanted it, so it must be valuable. Groof would have it first of all Goblins, and there was no dissuading her. You cannot blame anyone for what happened next. For Walghvogel, anything would have been a bargain.

“All the Dodonas brought their firstborn squabs for Groof to choose from. My mother tried to hide me, to give me a great long tail so I would look like a Dodono, but Groof is a canny buyer, and she was not fooled. She looked at me and only me. We both stood very still.”

September and Saturday and Ell sat very still, too, holding their breath, even though they knew how the story must end. The passengers behind them craned forward to hear.

“Well, the trouble is, you’re right, September. Sometimes you know what you are when you are very young. Not always—don’t worry yourself, kind sunny-girl! But sometimes. And I was even then a prodigy of Quiet Physicks. I stood very still, and this was a mistake, for when I stand very still—not only very still but the stillest it is possible to stand—strange things occur. Sometimes I vanish. Sometimes I become a statue of black marble. Sometimes I glow with a terrible light that freezes all it touches, so that those things become as still as I. A true Master may control it and do so much more. In my time with my Goblin mistress, I have become a Journeyman only, though no Quiet Quorum would acclaim me. I vanished, and Glasswort crowed delight.

“Groof raised me as her own. She stayed up all night and drank pennywine and stole stamps from any poor postman she came across—but she wasn’t cruel. She named me for her favorite vegetable, along with Parsnip the Ouphe-lad and Endive the Greencap-girl, who she’d got in other bargains. She taught me to count currency and follow the speculations and futures Markets and her own Loud Magic—which I was always hopeless at. You cannot go against your nature. This was, naturally, before the Market crashed and we Firstborns lost all our value.

“In the end, Groof chose me, my flock got Walghvogel and a fleet, sleek Goblin Schooner to take them there without suffering the effects of the Forgetful Sea. I turned to my mother who was also named Wuff. I said good-bye. Quietly.”





CHAPTER IX


THE WOEFUL WIMBLE

In Which a Friend Bids Farewell, the Capital City Is Explored, an Enemy Is Sighted, and September Has a Lesson in Both Underworld Geography and Quiet Physicks

Folk flowed off of the Eel as if in a single body. Bells and guitars struck up; a chorus or three rose then died as the revelers’ hearts lifted and they descended upon the city in a colorful, delighted cloud. Nearly everyone pulled a mask down over their features as soon as their feet hit the road. When the gates of Tain opened, a wave of music boomed out, so sweet and dark and strange it caught September’s breath and tied it in a bow.

“Come with us, Gleam,” she said finally, looking back up at the lavender wall of Bertram the Weeping Eel and the crackling light of his electric globes. The orange lantern hanging near his great sad eyes looped her golden writing once more.

I cannot.

I am happy.

I have my Eel and the whole world to see yet.

One day I shall turn two hundred.

And what adventures then!

Do well, September.

You always have.

Don’t let them tell you you haven’t.


September knuckled tears out of her eyes. She missed her friend, who had once held her in the dark. Who would hold her now? Her new friends carried darkness with them, and she had hoped—oh, she had hoped for a little light. But one of them, at least, should know where she stood in the world, and that was enough.

Oh, September! It is so soon for you to lose your friends to good work and strange loves and high ambitions. The sadness of that is too grown-up for you. Like whiskey and voting, it is a dangerous and heady business, as heavy as years. If I could keep your little tribe together forever, I would. I do so want to be generous. But some stories sprout bright vines that tendril off beyond our sight, carrying the folk we love best with them, and if I knew how to accept that with grace, I would share the secret. Perhaps this will help, if we whisper it to our September, as she watches her friend dwindle in the gloamy lilac breeze, borne away on a track of quicksilver tears: “So much light, sweet girl, begins in the dark.”

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