The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [41]
“Well,” September said slowly, burning to defy the Marquess in something, anything, and make up for her weakness in the Briary. “This Spoon belonged to her too, until a few minutes ago.”
“I’m different. I’m a Marid.”
September looked blank. The boy sighed, his tattooed shoulders slumping as if he always suspected the world would be a disappointment.
“Do you know what djinni are?” sighed Iago dramatically, as if he could not begin to hear her ignorance.
September shook her head.
“Like genies,” piped up the Wyverary, delighted that he could be helpful, as djinni began with D. “They grant wishes. And wreck things, but mostly grant wishes.”
“Well, he’s like a djinn, which is like a…genie, like he said.”
“Only I’m not,” said the boy. “I’m a Marid. Djinni are born in the air. They live in the air. They die in the air. They eat cloud-cakes and storm-roasts and drink lightning-beer. Marids live in the sea. They’re born in the sea. They die in the sea. Inside them, the sea is always roaring. Always at high tide. Inside me. And yes, we grant wishes. And so the Marquess loves us. She has her own burly magic, angry and old. But in the end she knows she is safe, even if her magic should fail, for she has her Marids. We can be made to parcel out her will in wishes.”
“Why don’t you just wish your way out of the cage?” asked September, very sensibly.
“It doesn’t work like that. I can only grant wishes if I am defeated in battle, if I am hurt nearly to death. I cannot change the rules. When she needs one of us, she beckons. She gives us wooden swords; she is at least sporting.”
“Oh, that’s ghastly,” breathed September.
“She sends the black cat after us, to the far north where we live. He pounced on my mother Rabab and held her still while her fishermen closed me up in a cage. I was small. I could not help her. I wished as hard as I could, but I cannot wrestle myself. I owned a scimitar of frozen salt, and I slashed at the cat with it, but he seized it in his jaws and splintered it, and I shall never see it again, or my mother, or my sisters, or my beautiful, lonely sea, which is so far off I cannot even hear her breathing.”
Iago licked his paw and looked mildly at September. Go on, little human, his gaze seemed to say, tell me I am wicked.
“But I’ve heard of Rabab!” said September suddenly. “I saw her on the newsreel! But she’s so young! She’s just been married!”
The boy fidgeted. “Marids…are not like others. Our lives are deep, like the sea. We flow in all directions. Everything happens at once, all on top of each other, from the seafloor to the surface. My mother knew it was time to marry because her children had begun to appear, wandering about, grinning at the moon. It’s complicated. A Marid might meet her son when she is only eleven and he is twenty-four, and spend years searching the deeps for the mate who looks like him, the right mate, the one who was always already her mate. My mother found Ghiyath because he had my eyes.”
“That sounds confusing.”
“Only if you’re not a Marid. I knew Rabab as soon as I saw her. She had my nose and her hair was just the same shade of black as mine. She was walking on the shore; a cloud of mist followed her like a dog. I brought her a flower, a dune-daisy. I held it out to her, and we stared at each other for a long time. She said: ‘Is it time, then?’ I said: ‘Now, we shall play hide and seek.’ And I ran off down the strand. She still has to have me, of course. It’s like a current, we have to go where where we’re going. There are a great number of us, since we are all forever growing up together and also already grown. As many as sparkles in the sea. We are solitary, though. So as to avoid awkward social situations. But it does mean the Marquess can wrestle us and still have us whole and healthy. We are her cake, and her having it. I think my older self is already dead.”
“Does that mean you’ll never have children or a mate then, if