The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [76]
“No. I swim. I roar. I race. I sleep. I dream. I know what Fairyland looks like from underneath, all her dark places. And I have a daughter. Who might have died, but for a girl in an orange dress who traded away her shadow. A shadow who might have known not to mourn over fish.”
September stared. “The Pooka girl?”
The shark rolled over entirely in the water, her huge fins rearing up out of the waves and slicing down again.
“We all just keep moving, September. We keep moving until we stop.”
The shark broke off and plowed through a sudden, heavy swell that soaked September in its crashing. Just as she dove under the surf, September could see the great black tail shiver into legs, disappearing beneath the violet sea.
#
Chapter XVII: One Hundred Years Old
In Which September Discovers a Great Amount of Old Furniture and Finds Herself in a Very Dark Place, With Only a Little Light
This time, September saw the island coming. It glimmered on the edge of the horizon, fitfully green and golden. In the evening of her fifth day at sea, September steered her raft towards it. She longed to feel land beneath her again, to drink real water, to eat bread. She fell gratefully onto warm sand, rolling in it like a puppy, for pleasure. She found several coconuts strewn over the beach and cracked one in a single blow against a stone.
The sea makes a girl strong, you know.
Slurping the watery milk and crunching the meat of it, September dismantled her raft and dressed, making sure to tie the sash of the smoking jacket tight around her waist. She began to walk inland in hopes of better food. Surely she was near the Lonely Gaol by now. Surely she could spare a moment for lunch, if it meant not having to go through the dreadful ordeal of fishing again.
But there was no village in the interior of that grassy little island. No sweet houses, their chimneys smoking away. No herald’s square, no ringing churchbell. All she found was junk.
The beach-sand gave way to long, whispering sea-grass, and in that long meadow lay a tremendous number of odd things, as though it were a garbage-yard. Old sandals, tea kettles, broken umbrellas, clay jars, torn silk screens, cowboy’s spurs, smashed clocks, lanterns, rosaries, rusted swords.
“Hello?” September called. The wind answered, buffeting the grass, but no one else.
“What a lonely place! I believe someone has forgotten to clean up after himself…for a good while, I suppose. Ah, well, perhaps I shall find a new pair of shoes…”
“I think not!”
September jumped half out of her skin, quite ready to run back to her raft and never make eyes at an island again. But her curiosity defeated her good sense. She peered over the grass to see who the voice might belong to. All she could see was an old pair of straw sandals with a bit of leather wrapped around the sole.
As she tiptoed over to get a better look, two old yellow eyes opened in the heels of the shoes.
“Who said you could have me? Not me and I say whose feet I have to smush up against all day, I should rightly think!”
“I…I beg your pardon! I didn’t know you were alive!”
“Well that’s folk with feet for you. Always thinking of themselves.”
Some of the other bits of junk crept closer to September: the swords unfolded long steely arms and the jars sprouted thick, muscled feet. The silk screens accordioned their way to her, the tea kettles turned their spouts toward the earth and spat steam until they popped upward. A great orange lantern floated on the wind, glowing slightly, and from beneath it a green tassel hung, fluttering. A great clatter sounded as the garbage gathered around.
“Mr. Shoes…”
“My name is Hannibal, if you don’t mind.”
“Hannibal…I have read a great many books, and I have met spriggans and pooka and even a Wyverary, but I cannot begin to imagine what you are!”
“WHO!” bellowed the shoes, hopping upright, straps flapping in indignation. “'What' is an indirect dative reserved for things. I am alive! I am a WHO. Or a whom, if you must. And we are Tsukumogami.”
September smiled uncertainly. The word