The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [62]
Ell! The Marquess needed me! Because of my mother! Golden leaves dribbled onto the square. Saturday stroked her brow, and September had a moment, only a moment, to be amazed that he did not think her ugly, that he was not afraid to touch her.
Because she fixes engines, Ell. So this is her sword. Do you understand? If it had been anyone else, it would have been something else. Like, for you it might have been a book. For Saturday, a raincloud. If only I knew what she needed a magic wrench for! I am sure if we think hard on it, all three of us, we shall be able to figure it out. A torrent of orange leaves vomited up from her dry brown mouth. September laughed. More leaves flew. She was probably the only girl in all of Fairyland who could have pulled a wrench, of all the ridiculous things, out of that casket. Whose mother here could have wielded such a weapon? The Wyverary and the Marid exchanged miserable looks.
“We must get her out,” Citrinitas said. “How could this have happened so fast?”
“Does it happen often?” snapped Saturday, quite beside himself. A-Through-L’s eyes rimmed slowly with turquoise tears. One fell with a plop onto September’s poor bald head.
“Well, no…but then, we don’t have many human visitors…” Rubedo swallowed wretchedly.
“Autumn,” said Doctor Fallow, the Satrap, the Department Head, “changes everything. If she could only relax, she could be happy. She might even bear fruit, given a few years’ careful pruning. One must accept the way of the world, for it will always have its way, one way or another.”
“But everything doesn’t change,” said A-Through-L. “They have their wedding, every night, just the same. Because every day is harvest and feasting! I may not know Winter or Spring or Summer, but I know my Autumn, I know my Fall, that’s A and that’s F, Doctor Fallow! September is the only thing changing here! Winter never comes. It will never snow. The leaves never die and fall off, they stay red and golden forever. Why not her? Why must she wither all up? What have you done? We only have a few days left to get back to the Marquess…”
Saturday was shaking his head back and forth like a little bull. His face darkened, as though clouds moved beneath his skin. “Did the Marquess tell you to do this to her?” he said coldly.
“Oh, no!” cried Citrinitas. “No, it’s only that she’s Ravished and human and it’s all so unpredictable, the chymical processes that occur in Autumn…”
“But she probably knew,” mumbled Rubedo. “She could have guessed, what might happen. She could have hoped.”
Doctor Fallow smoked his pipe and sat back, his expression unreadable.
A terrible sound broke through the morning, like a tuba being crushed with iron hammers. The sound shook Doctor Fallow from his chair. Saturday laughed cruelly at him, but his laughter caught itself and crawled away as the sound grew only louder. September found she could not get up, her knees had locked into sapling-trunks. They no longer moved at all. Rubedo and Citrinitas shrieked together and dashed into their house, bolting the door. The three of them were left alone, clinging to each other, Ell trying to shelter the little ones with his bound wings, when the lions came.
They pounced with a horrible silence, their paws landing softly. There were two of them, each nearly as big as the Wyverary. Their fur shone deep blue, deeper than Saturday’s skin, the color of the loneliest winter night, and all in their manes and tails silver stars shone, burned. They roared together, and the terrible tuba-sound blared once more. Saturday screamed, and if she could have put out an arm to comfort him, September would have. But it all happened faster than she could understand. One lion snatched up Saturday