The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1)

by Catherynne M. Valente

Being careful and clever readers, you must now wonder if your woolgathering narrator has completely forgotten the jeweled key that so loyally followed September into Fairyland.

It landed unceremoniously on the shimmering jacket of a hobgoblin in transit from Brocéliande to Atlantis.

The Key, too, found the House Without Warning, long after a nicely scrubbed September had passed through. Under Lye’s gentle eye, the Key primly dropped into a tiny tub and soaked until it gleamed.

So it was that the Key boarded the ferry and passed into Pandemonium, three days after September had left the city behind.

It was only that the girl kept running, so far and so fast, almost as if she didn’t know that the Key was trying as hard as it could to keep up.

“September, queen among thieves, you will never get into Pandemonium this way. You must have a Purpose. You must have Business Here. Loiterers, Lackadaisicals, and other Menaces might do well in other cities, but they are allergic to Pandemonium, and it is allergic to them.

“It’s all right,” said Ell confidentially as they passed through the gate. “I know you didn’t mean it, about my being yours.” The great beast flicked his red tail. “But I can be. And you can be mine! And what lovely games we shall have!”

Pandemonium spread out around her, a city of cloth. Bright storefronts ran on ahead of them, built with violet crinoline and crimson organdy. Towers wound up in wobbly twists of stiff, shining brocade. Memorial statues wore felt helmets over bombazine faces. High, thin, fuzzy houses puffed out angora doors; fancy taffeta offices glimmered under the gaze of black-lace gargoyles.

And suddenly, without warning, the Marquess onscreen turned toward the camera, her hand still clutched in the bear’s paw. She cocked her head to one side like a curious bird. She blinked and leaned forward, looking directly out into the theatre—at September. “You,” said the Marquess in the announcer’s voice. The other patrons twisted to look at September, who froze in terror. “It’s you.”

“Hush. Listening is tiresome for me. September, if you do not come to the Briary right this very instant, I shall become cross with you. I am a very pleasant Marquess if you are tractable and sweet.”

“I can’t. I just can’t do what you want unless I know what it is. Everyone is afraid of you, and when folk are afraid of a person, it usually means the person is cruel in some way, and I think you are cruel, Miss Marquess, but please don’t punish me for saying it. I think you know you’re cruel. I think you like being cruel. I think calling you cruel is the same as calling someone else kind. And I don’t want to run errands for someone cruel.”

“No,” she squeaked. Blood beat against her brow. She felt dizzy. “I will do nothing in your name.” The Marquess shrugged. She bent and kissed the Panther’s ears. “Well, then I shall have your deluded, ridiculous cut-rate dragon rendered into glue and perfume.” “No!”

September suddenly realized that she had seen nothing at all of the house, knew nothing of the Marquess’s powers, knew little more than when she had arrived. She had been handled—and with ease.

“Of course. I can be so reasonable, when I am obeyed.” The Marquess stroked Iago again. The Panther arched his back, relishing her hand. She drew up a long wooden spoon, much stained, its handle wrapped in leather. September took it and stuck it through the sash of the green smoking jacket.

“And if you do not bring my sword in seven nights’ time, I shall have that Spoon back—and your head on a thorn in my garden.”

A-Through-L was gone—he hadn’t waited for her. Of course, he hadn’t waited. He had known she was weak, that she would give in as soon as the Marquess behaved kindly toward her. He had known her for a rotten, cowardly child. She cursed herself, that she was not braver, not more clever. What is a child brought to Fairyland for if not to thwart wicked rulers? Ell had known she wasn’t good enough. September yanked her hand from the cat’s mouth and knelt in the grass, staring through growing tears.

The Marquess gets what she wants, little girl. There’s no shame in being unable to defy her.” The Panther sniffed and scratched at his nose with a black paw. “And precious little satisfaction in denying her, well do I know.”

Oh, September. Such lonely, lost things you find on your way. It would be easier, if you were the only one lost. But lost children always find each other, in the dark, in the cold. It is as though they are magnetized and can only attract their like.

If you would only leave cages locked and turn away from unloved Wyverns, you could stay Heartless. But you are stubborn and do not listen to your elders.

“I wouldn’t even consider it if I were you. But then if I were you, I would not be me, and if I were not me, I would not be able to advise you, and if I were unable to advise you, you’d do as you like, so you might as well do as you like and have done with it.”

“Only I’m not,” said the boy. “I’m a Marid. Djinni are born in the air. They live in the air. They die in the air. They eat cloud cakes and storm roasts and drink lightning beer. Marids live in the sea. They’re born in the sea. They die in the sea. Inside them, the sea is always roaring. Always at high tide. Inside me. And, yes, we grant wishes. And so the Marquess loves us. She has her own burly magic, angry and old. But in the end, she knows she is safe even if her magic should fail, for she has her Marids. We can be made to parcel out her will in wishes.”

“Marids … are not like others. Our lives are deep, like the sea. We flow in all directions. Everything happens at once, all on top of each other, from the seafloor to the surface. My mother knew it was time to marry because her children had begun to appear, wandering about, grinning at the moon. It’s complicated.

Marid might meet her son when she is only twelve and he is twenty-four and spend years searching the deeps for the mate who looks like him, the right mate, the one who was always already her mate. My mother found Ghiyath because he had my eyes.”

It’s like a current: We have to go where we’re going. There are a great number of us, since we are all forever growing up together and also already grown. As many as sparkles in the sea.

Now, September might have left well enough alone if she did not feel so terribly guilty about accepting employment with the Marquess. If she were not already thinking of some way to tell the Wyverary (while not looking at his blistered skin under his chain) that they had to go and get a sword for the tyrant.

The boy took her hand, after all. It was heavier than she expected, as though he were made of sea stone. September was struck by how dark his eyes were, how wide in his thin face. It was like looking into the darkest possible sea, with strange fish at the bottom of it. He stared at her, silent, wild.

I should feel much better if no one could call me a coward. I don’t want to be a coward. It is not a nice thing to be.”

“Salt,” whispered the boy regretfully. “I need salt and stone.” “Is that what you eat?” September wrinkled her nose. Saturday drooped in shame. “It’s what the sea eats. When I have been starved, no other food will sustain me.

It’s the iron, she thought, Fairies are allergic.

And so I may tell you that the leaves began to turn red as September and her friends rushed through the suddenly cold air on their snorting, roaring highwheels, and you might believe me. But no red you have ever seen could touch the crimson bleed of the trees in that place. No oak gone gnarled and orange with October is half as bright as the boughs that bent over September’s head, dropping their hard, sweet acorns into her spinning spokes. But you must try as hard as you can. Squeeze your eyes closed, as tight as you can, and think of all your favorite autumns, crisp and perfect, all bound up together like a stack of cards. That is what it is like, the awful, wonderful brightness of Fairy colors.

Just remember that autumn is also called fall, and some falling places are so deep there’s no climbing out.”

“Oh, you were being serious!” He tried to look solemn. “This is Fairyland, girl! There is no dragon food or witch food or dryad food. There is only Fairy food—it’s all Fairy food. This is Fairy earth that bears it, Fairy hands that carve it and cook it and serve it. I daresay you have quite the bellyful of the stuff. If there’s damage to be got from it, I promise it’s quite done by now.”

“Your hair is turning red,” Saturday said softly, embarrassed to have all the attention suddenly on him. September looked down at her long, dark hair. One curl had indeed turned blazing scarlet, terribly bright against the rest of her. She touched it, amazed, and as her fingers brushed the red lock, it broke off and drifted off on an unseen wind, for all the world like an autumn leaf wafting away.

“It’s because I ate the food,” sniffed September miserably, hiding her face in the Wyverary’s chest. A-Through-L lay on the leafy ground like a Sphinx, nuzzling her hair with his nose. He stopped that right quick, though as more of it broke off and sailed away into the night.

September rolled back the sleeve of the green smoking jacket, which was terribly chagrined and tried to keep covering her to protect her, but in the end, she wrestled the sleeve up to her elbow and waved her hand for the doctor to see. The skin there, once the same warm brown as her father’s, had gone hoary and rough, tinged with gray and green, like bark.

We must be adaptable. Autumn is the kingdom where everything changes. When you leave, it’ll be all right, probably. If you haven’t put down roots yet.”

“No, I shall go alone. I always thought I would be going alone. I shall be back presently, I promise. Say you’ll wait for me, you and Saturday, that you won’t go anywhere without me, that when I come out of those woods I shall see a red face and a blue one smiling!”

“What is this?” said September, confused. “It’s … a favor,” answered Saturday. “My favor. In battle … knights oughtn’t be without one.”

As September walked through the starry, misty night, trying not to look at her ruined hand, she realized that she had not traveled alone in days. She missed Ell immediately, who would be telling her all sorts of things to keep her from being afraid, and Saturday, who would be quiet and steadfast and dear at her side.

A tiny brown creature stood at her feet, barely a finger high. She was brown all over, the color of a nut-husk. Only her lips were red.

“I am Death,” said the creature. “I thought that was obvious.” “But you’re so small!” “Only because you are small. You are young and far from your Death, September, so I seem as anything would seem if you saw it from a long way off—very small, very harmless. But I am always closer than I appear. As you grow, I shall grow with you, until at the end, I shall loom huge and dark over your bed, and you will shut your eyes so as not to see me.”

“Is that why the Worsted Wood is forbidden? Because Death lives here?” “And also Hamadryads. They are very boring to listen to.”

“It’s very brave of you to admit that. Most knightly folk I happen by bluster and force me to play chess with them. I don’t even like chess! For strategy Wrackglummer and even Go are much superior. And it’s the wrong metaphor entirely. Death is not a checkmate … it is more like a carnival trick. You cannot win, no matter how you move your Queen.”

“September, if you do not pay attention, you will never get out of this wood! You are closer than you think, human girl. I guard the casket.” Death’s tiny eyes wrinkled kindly. “All caskets are within my power. Of course they are.”

I take off my skin and lay it nicely on my armoire. I take off my bones and hang them up on the hat stand. I set my scythe to washing on the old stove. I eat a nice supper of mouse-and-myrrh soup. Some nights, I drink off a nice red wine. White does not agree with me. I lay myself down on a bed of lilies, and still, I cannot sleep.”

cannot sleep because I have nightmares. I dream all the things the dead wish they had done differently. It is dreadful! Do all creatures dream so?”

Death curled, small and feral, on her knee, her cloak of barkish hair wrapping her like a blanket.

September gathered up her Death and laid it in the crook of her arm. She did not quite know what to do. September had never had a brother or a sister to rock to sleep. She could only remember how her mother had sung to her. She felt as though she were in a dream. But she brushed Death’s hair gently from her face and sang from memory, softly, hoarsely, for her throat had gone rough and dry:

Go to sleep, little skylark, Fly up to the moon In a biplane of paper and ink. Your wings creak and croon, borne aloft by balloons, And your engine is singing for you. Go to sleep, little skylark, do. Go to sleep, little skylark, Fly up past the stars In a biplane of sunshine and ice, Past comets and cars, past Neptune and Mars Still your engine is singing for you. Go to sleep, little skylark, do. Go to sleep, little skylark, Drift down through the night In your biplane of silver and sighs, Slip under the light, come down from the heights For your mother is singing for you. Go to sleep, little skylark, do.

When September got to the part about Neptune and Mars again, Death relaxed in her arms, her bark-brown hair falling delicately over September’s elbow. She kept singing, though it hurt her, her throat was so shriveled and sore. And as she sang, an extraordinary thing happened: Death grew.