Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, The by Valente Catherynne M

Author:Valente, Catherynne M. [Valente, Catherynne M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Constable Robinson
Published: 2012-10-02T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI

QUESTING PHYSICKS

In Which September Hatches a Plan of Her Own, Sees a Girl About a Prince, Hears a Lecture Concerning a Most Unusual Science, and Learns What Everyone Knows

The crystal moon beamed a ghostly VII down onto the sleeping ramparts of Tain. Shadows slept in fountains and draped over statues of namelessly ancient Kings and Queens of the Fairyland-Below. In the Floatstone Pavilion stood a serene-looking man of green marble, holding a pair of scales in one hand, with a feather resting on one copper plate and the shadows of several hobgoblins and peris in the other. A centaur maid, her four legs tucked up underneath her, snoozed beneath the imploring alabaster gesture of a grieving young man with a lyre on his back. Balloons still floated ghostly through the streets, chasing their own exploits. The air smelled of spent fireworks, and bits of the marvelous feast dripped or slowly slid off the tables, pushed by the cool wind blowing from the twinned rivers.

September herself lay snugly in a marble basket held up by a statue of dark stone—a sly-eyed, canny lady with huge pomegranates tumbling through her thick hair. Saturday slept curled next to her; Aubergine roosted at the statue’s bare feet. A-Through-L had wrapped his body and tail about the whole business.

September woke before anyone. The whole city snored. She lay awake, looking up at the dim stars and the teetering tops of towers. Nothing had quite gone to plan. Perhaps if she hadn’t felt so sorry for her shadow, the Wanting Magic would have worked. But now . . . now she would have to do something else. Something slantways and sideways and upside down, like the Duke had said. September looked at Saturday as he slept, and at the great bulk of shadowy A-Through-L. Were they her friends, or Halloween’s? Her Saturday would stand between her and the world, but the shadows were strangers, really. New people with the same shapes and names. Her Saturday would never have stolen her first kiss without so much as a thank-you. Would never have turned her into a Fairy when she’d told him not to. But did she know that for certain? Some part of this Saturday must live in the other one, just as she saw flashes of her kind, gentle friend in the trickster child sleeping next to her.

September felt suddenly very secretive. The wine-colored coat approved. It closed in tight as if to say, Yes, tell no one anything. It isn’t safe out there. She must protect herself. There would be no one to do it for her. A plan started to prick up its ears inside her, slowly, but getting stronger.

September quietly pulled herself up out of the basket without waking the Marid. Careful not to wake anyone, she climbed up and out of the basket and scrambled down from the statue, stepping lightly on a hovering shard of frosted rosy-orange rock in the Floatstone Pavilion. Other shards floated here and there about her,

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