The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [22]
“A girl with green eyes, perhaps?”
“Well, no, a Spoon.” September suddenly felt her lovely quest was a bit small and shabby. But it was hers. “Do you know how far it is from here to Pandemonium?”
“What an odd question,” said Lye.
“I’m not from these parts, you see,” demurred September, who was beginning to feel she ought to have that stitched on her jacket.
“Wherever you are, child, the House Without Warning lies between you and Pandemonium. However you turn, you cannot get to the City without passing through the House, without being cleaned and prepared, without having the road washed from you and your feet made soft and your spirit thoroughly scrubbed. I thought all cities were like that. How could they bear to have a great lot of filthy, exhausted folk milling around inside them, grumpy and nervy and dingy?” The soap golem extended her long, stiff arm, her skin a spiral of buttery greens. September took it. “When you leave this place, human child, you will find Pandemonium. The two are tied together, like a ship and a pier. Like my mistress and I, once, years and years ago.”
The soap golem led them to the center of the House Without Warning, which was not really a house at all but many small rooms connected by long tiled halls and courtyards which would once have been charming, but were now covered in slime and green with age, falling apart, morose. Lye thoughtfully led A-Through-L to a great waterfall whose pool would accommodate him, but drew September further into the depths of the House. The soft smacking sounds of her soapy heels against the floor were pleasant, lulling. No one else seemed to be about. Everything was quiet, but not frighteningly so. The place seemed to be, well, napping. Finally, they entered the largest courtyard yet. In the midst of copper statues and fountains cluttered with verdigris rested three huge bath-tubs. The floor showed two winged hippocamps rampant in cobalt and emerald. The tubs covered their hooves like great horseshoes.
Lye pulled at September’s jacket and she wriggled out of it--but when the golem tugged at her orange dress as well, September quailed.
“What's wrong?”
“I…don’t like to be naked. In front of strangers.”
Lye thought for a moment. “My mistress used to say that you couldn’t ever really be naked unless you wanted to be. She said: even if you’ve taken off every stitch of clothing, you still have your secrets, your history, your true name. It’s quite difficult to be really naked. You have to work hard at it. Just getting into a bath isn’t being naked, not really. It’s just showing skin. And foxes and bears have skin too, so I shan’t be ashamed if they’re not.”
“Did Mallow tell you her true name?”
Lye nodded slowly. “But I won’t tell you. It’s a secret. She told me and then cut her finger and mine and blood came out of her and liquid soap came out of me and they mingled and turned golden and she kissed the place where I’d been wounded and told me her name and not to tell, not ever. So I won’t. She already knew mine.” The soap golem pointed shyly to the word written on her forehead.
“The Green Wind told me not to tell anyone my true name. But I don’t know of any name truer than September, and if I didn’t tell anyone that was my name, what would they call me?”
“It cannot be your true name, or you would be in awful trouble, telling everyone like that. If you know someone’s true name, you can command them, like a doll.” Lye stopped uncomfortably, as though the subject caused her pain. “It’s very unpleasant.”
“Can’t you call Mallow back then, if you know her name?”
Lye sobbed a little, a terribly awkward noise at the back of her throat, like snapping a bar of soap in half. “I’ve tried! I’ve tried! I’ve called and called and she won’t come so she must be dead! And I don’t know what to do except keep the baths full.”
September took a step back from the force of the golem’s grief. She slowly pulled off her orange dress--which to tell the truth had become rather filthy--and her precious remaining shoe. In the cooling evening, she stood naked before the impassive