The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [7]
“Time for us to part, my acorn-love. I’m sure my visa will come through soon…maybe if you put in a good word for me with the embassy. In the meantime, remember the rules, don’t go swimming for an hour after eating, and never tell anyone your true name.”
“My true name?”
“I came for you, September. Just you. I wish you the best that can be hoped for, and no worse than can be expected.”
He leaned in close and kissed her cheek, courtly, gentle, dry as desert wind. The Leopard licked her hand passionately.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered.
September did, and felt a warm, sunny wind on her face, full of the smells of green things: mint and grass and rosemary and fresh water, frogs and leaves and hay. It blew her dark hair back, and when she opened her eyes, the Green Wind and the Leopard of Little Breezes had gone. In her ear floated his last airy sigh: check your pockets, my chimney-child.
Betsy waved her hands in the air as if to disperse an unpleasant perfume. “He’s such a lot of bother. You’re better off--theatrical folk are nothing but a bundle of monologues and anxiety headaches.”
The Gnome pulled a little green leather book and a polished ruby-handled stamp from behind the podium. She opened the book and began stamping with a vicious delight.
“Temporary Visa, Type: Pomegranate. Housing Allotment: None. Alien Registry, Category: Human, Ravished, Non-Changeling. Size: Medium. Age: Eleven. Privileges: None, or, As Many As You Can Catch. Anything to declare?”
September shook her head. Betsy rolled her red-rimmed eyes.
“Customs Declaration: One shoe: Black. One dress: Orange. One smoking jacket: Not Yours.” The Gnome peered down from her podium. “One kiss: Extremely Green,” she finished emphatically, stamping the book hard and handing it down to September. “Off you go now, don’t hold up the line!”
Betsy Basilstalk grasped September by her lapels and hauled her off her feet, past the podium, towards a rooty, moldy, wormy hole in the back wall of the closet between worlds. At the last moment she stopped, spat out a Fairy curse like a wad of tobacco, and pulled a little black box out of her pocket. She slid a red rod out of it and the lid snapped open. It was filled with a vaguely golden jelly.
“Pan’s hangover, kid,” Betsy cursed again. “Old habits die hard.” She dug her greasy finger into the stuff and flung it at September’s eyes. It dripped down her face like yolk.
The gnome looked profoundly embarrassed. “Well,” she mumbled, looking at her toes, “What if Rupert fell down on the job and you got there and all you could see was sticks and grasshoppers and a lot of long, empty desert? It’s a long way to go for desert. Anyway I don’t have to explain myself. On your way, then!”
Betsy Basilstalk gave the girl a hard shove into the soft, leafy wall of the closet. With a wriggle, a squeeze, and a pop, September slid, backward, through to the other side.
#
Chapter III: Hello, Goodbye, and Manythanks
In which September Nearly Drowns, Meets Three Witches (One a Wairwulf), And Is Entrusted with the Quest for a Certain Spoon.
Salt water hit September like a wall. It roared foamily in her eyes, snatched at her hair, dragged at her feet with cold, purple-green hands. She gasped for air and got two lungs-ful of freezing, thick sea.
Now, September could swim quite well. She had even won second medal at a tournament in Lincoln. She had a trophy with a winged lady on it, though she had always wondered what use a flying girl would have for swimming. The lady should have had webbed feet, September was sure. But in all her after-school practices her coaches had never impressed upon her the importance of practicing her butterfly stroke while being dropped from a great height without any ceremony at all into an ocean. With Fairy ooze in one’s eyes. Really, September thought, how could they leave something like that out?
She floundered and dipped beneath the giant waves, only to bob up again, spluttering, gulping air. She kicked hard, struggling to get her legs properly under her and orient towards the