The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [2]
“The puzzle is not unlike those rings,” said the Green Wind, tipping his gaze over his green spectacles. “We are going to unlock the earth and lock it up again, and when we have done it we shall be in another ring, which is to say Fairyland. It won’t be long now.”
And indeed, in the icy blue clouds above the world, a great number of rooftops began to coalesce. They were all very tall and very rickety: cathedral towers made of nailed boards, cupolas of rusted metal, obelisks of tattered leaves and little more, huge domes like the ones September had seen in books about Italy, but with many of their bricks punched out, broken, turned to dust. Just the sorts of buildings where wind howls hardest, whistles loudest, screams highest. The tips and tops of everything were frozen--including the folk that flew and flittered through the town, bundled up tight much like the Green Wind himself, their jodhpurs and jackets black or rosy or yellow, their cheeks puffed out and round, like the cherubs blowing at the corners of old maps.
“Welcome, September, to the city of Westerly, my home, where live all the Six Winds in nothing at all like harmony.”
“It’s…very nice. And very cold. And I seem to have lost one of my shoes.”
The Green Wind looked down at September's toes, which were beginning to turn slightly purple. Being at least a bit of a gentleman, he shuffled off his smoking jacket and guided her arms into it. The sleeves were far too big, but the jacket had learned a drop or two of manners in its many travels, and adjusted itself around September’s little body, puffing up and drawing in until it was quite like her own skin.
“I think I look a little like a pumpkin,” whispered September, secretly delighted. “I’m all green and orange.”
She looked down. On her wide, emerald velvet lapel, the jacket had grown a little orange brooch for her, a jeweled key. It sparkled as though made out of the sun itself. The jacket warmed slightly with bashfulness, and with hoping she’d be pleased.
“The shoe is a very great loss, I won’t lie,” clucked the Green Wind. “But one must make sacrifices if one is to enter Fairyland.” His voice dropped confidentially. “Westerly is a border town, and the Red Wind is awfully covetous. Terribly likely your shoe would have been stolen eventually, anyway.”
The Green Wind and September entered Westerly smoothly, the Leopard of Little Breezes being extra careful not to jostle the landing. They strode down the Squamish Thoroughfare, where big-cheeked Blue and Golden Winds went about their grocery shopping, piling their arms with tumbleweeds for rich, thorny salads. Clouds spun and blew down the street the way old paper blows in the cities you and I have seen. They were heading for two spindly pillars at the end of the Thoroughfare, so enormous that September could not see right away that they were people, incredibly tall and thin, their faces huge and long. She could not tell if they were men or women, but they were hardly thicker than a pencil, and taller than any of the belltowers and high platforms of Westerly. Their feet went straight down through the clouds, disappearing in a puff of cumulus. They both wore long, thin glasses, darkened to keep out the bright Westerly sun.
“Who are they?” whispered September.
“That’s Latitude, with the yellow belt, and Longitude, with the paisley cravat. We can’t get very far without them, so be polite.”
“I thought latitude and longitude were just lines on maps.”
“They don’t like to have their pictures taken. That’s how it is with famous folk. Everyone wants to click, click, click away at you. It’s very annoying. They made a bargain with the Cartographer’s Guild several hundred years ago--symbolic representations only, out of respect, you understand.”
September felt very quiet in front of Latitude and Longitude. Being young, she was used to most people being taller than she was. But this was on another order entirely, and she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and