The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [10]
These hats were not Halloween witch-hats, made out of thin satin or construction paper and spangled with cheap glitter. They were leather, heavy and old, creased all over, their points slumped to one side, being too majestic and massive to be expected to stand up straight. Old, knotted silver buckles gleamed malevolently on their sides. The brims jutted out, sagging a little, the kind of brims you might expect cowboys to have, the kind that isn’t for show, but to keep out wind and rain and sun. The witches hunched a little under the weight of their hats.
“Hello?” September said, a little more politely--but only a little.
“What?” snapped one of the women, looking up from her muttering. She held a beaten black book in one hand, heavily dog-eared.
“I said ‘hello!’”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“What?” said September, confused.
“Are you very dull or a very deaf?” said the other woman, flinging an alarmed lizard into the cauldron.
“Oh!” cried the young man. “A little deaf child! How sweet! We should adopt her and teach her to write symphonies. She’ll be all the rage in town. I’ll buy her a powdered wig and a tricorn!”
“I’m not deaf,” said September, who was very cross when she was hungry. “Or dull. I said hello, and you said nothing sensible at all.”
“Manners, child,” said the woman with the book, her cruel witch’s smile curling up the corners of her lips. “If you haven’t got your manners, you might as well toss it all and become a witch.” She peered at the cauldron and after a moment’s disapproving stare, spat into it. “My name is Hello,” she continued as if nothing had happened. “So you see the confusion. This is my sister, Goodbye, and our husband, Manythanks.”
“He’s married to both of you? How odd!” Suddenly their eyes narrowed and they stood very straight. September hurried to correct herself. “I mean--my name is September. How do you do?”
“We do perfectly well,” said Goodbye coldly, pinching off one of the black pearl buttons at her throat and tossing it into the brew. “It all works out very nicely, really. My sister and I are very close, and very efficient, and when we were young it seemed like a great waste of time for us both to go through the tiresome nonsense of courtship and blushing behind curtains and love potions and marriage. So we went through it once, together. We estimate that we saved each other two full years of living. And besides, all witches must keep up a certain level of deviance in their personal lives, or we should be expelled from the union.”
Hello smiled as demurely as a witch can manage. “We chose Manythanks for his many virtues, and because, besides being a wonderful cook and a superb mathematician, he is also a wairwulf.”
“Really? A real werewolf? And you turn into a wolf when the moon is full?”
Manythanks grinned.
“No, dear,” said Hello, “a wairwulf.” She rolled her r a little, otherwise it seemed quite the same word to September. “It’s quite different. Twenty-seven days a month my love is a fine wolf, with a great powerful jaw and a thumping tail. During the full moon he becomes human, as he is now. My husband is the wolf, hers is the man.”
“That doesn’t seem quite fair,” said September. “She gets a lot more husband.”
“Oh, we agreed upon it long ago. I don’t like men to talk too much, and she doesn’t like them too much underfoot,” laughed Hello. Goodbye smiled at her husband with a deep fondness.
“Aren’t you…afraid of the wolf?” asked September, who secretly felt she might get over such fear, if the wolf would love her and guard her and not get mud on the covers.
“I’m quite civilized, I promise,” smiled Manythanks. “Wairwulves are cultured. We have choirs and charity races and rotary clubs. It’s when we’re human that you must take care.”
“Now what is it you want, child? As you can see, we’re quite busy.” Goodbye sniffed deeply at the pot.
Be bold, thought September. An ill-tempered child should be bold. “I…I hoped you might have something for me to eat. I’ve only just gotten here and…well, I’m not lost, because I haven’t any idea where