The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [37]
Could she mean my Leopard? Thought September. The Leopard of Little Breezes? She did not like to think of the Marquess riding her Leopard, even for a little while.
“Cats are temperamental,” offered September softly. “I have heard you have lions, too.”
“Too true!” cried the Marquess, her hair wholly silver now, gleaming like true metal. “On both counts! Lions sleep a great deal, for it is from their dreams that their strength chiefly comes. They are closeted in their chambers, snoozing away on lacy coverlets. Now, I believe you wanted to steal a Spoon from me?”
September bit the inside of her lip. This was not precisely how she had thought her adventure would go. How could she be brave for the sake of the witch Goodbye if she was found out before she could even try?
“Don’t be ashamed, my love. I would not be a very good Marquess if I could not tell when troublesome little Ravished children are incoming with poor intentions towards me and my belongings. After all, the Ravished are always trouble. Any ruler of Fairyland must learn to watch out for them particularly, as they have a nasty habit of dethroning one, and undoing decades of hard work.”
“But…Miss Marquess. The Spoon is not one of your belongings. You took it from the witch Goodbye. That’s stealing. So it’s not really very wicked of me at all to want to steal it back--stealing things back is hardly stealing at all.”
The Marquess cocked her head to one side and smiled. Somehow her smile was worse than her frown. The Panther licked his black paws nonchalantly. “Is that what she told you? That I stole it? What a dreadful misunderstanding! I shall have her to tea immediately to apologize. You must appreciate my position, September, I was under the impression that all things in my realm belong to me, and Goodbye was under the impression that Good Queen Mallow would arrive at any moment to save her. You can see how things got terribly confused!”
“Where…” September cleared her throat. He hands shook. “Where I come from, if a person has a Spoon, no one can come and take it just because they’re the governor or something.”
“I think that’s very naive of you, September.” The Marquess put her finger on her delicate chin as if an extraordinary idea had just occurred to her. “Tell me, what does your father do?”
September felt her face flush. “Well, he was a teacher. But now he’s a soldier.”
“Oh! Iago, did you hear that? You mean to say that one day the governor or something came and took your father even though you were quite sure he was yours and yours alone? Well, that is certainly different. A Father is nowhere near so valuable as a Spoon! I can see why you prefer your sensible, logical world.”
“Well, they didn’t kill anyone in the process!”
“No, September. They wait until little girls like you are out of sight first. War must always be done out of sight, or it shocks people and they stop immediately.” The Marquess’s hair slowly deepened to the color of blood.
September squeezed back tears. “Why did you kill Goodbye and Hello’s brothers?” she cried wretchedly.
“Because, child. They were not nice. They defied me. But I do not wish to talk about them, or anyone else dead and therefore not useful. We were speaking of your parents. I do wish children could pay attention!” Her voice got very hard all of the sudden, no longer bright and full of tea-time conversation, but keen and deadly interested. “What about your mother, September?”
“She…she builds engines.” September did not think she ought to mention airplanes in Fairyland--visions of fleets of bombers belonging to the Marquess flooded her mind.
The Marquess stood suddenly. She was wearing a short blackberry-colored dress with violet stockings, all lace and stiff black petticoats. She rushed down the stairs to stare September directly in the eye--they were precisely the same height. The Marquess’s blue