The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [91]
“Are you all right?”
The Marid raked her face with his claws, his eyes gone narrow and dark with the strength of the wish in him, trying desperately not to get out. September grasped him around the waist and hurled him back with all her strength. They grappled, breathing hard and shoving each other, gaining an inch here, an inch there. September knew that if he were well, she would be no match. She bit him cruelly on the neck and he recoiled, knocking into a half-shattered wall and sprawling out onto the stone floor of one of the Gears of the World that the Marquess prized so. Rain poured over him. September threw herself against him once more, and they tumbled back over the stone.
Just a little further, she thought. Just a little more.
She no longer even tried to hit him, though his great blows landed on her shoulders, her ribs. Blood trickled into her eye. Relentlessly, she threw herself against his body again and again, pushing him back, further and further, until suddenly, it happened.
Saturday fell off of the stone gear of Fairyland, and onto the iron gear of her own world. He landed on his back and immediately howled agony. Sores rose up on his arms as he touched the poisonous iron. Saturday wept and thrashed. September climbed down to him. She sat astride the sobbing Marid. She wanted to stop and hold him and make him well. Instead, she pinned his arms down and hit him again.
“Yield!” she screamed over the storm.
Saturday screeched rage and defeat. September nearly let him go to clap hands over her ears, so piercing was the sound. But she held on. And Saturday went slack beneath her. Something had passed out of him and he was quiet again.
“I yield to you, September.”
September collapsed against him, rain pounding at her, blood mingling between them. He gave a tiny sob, and shut his eyes against her skin.
“I wish that we were all of us away from here,” she whispered in his ear, “somewhere safe and warm and bright, and that Ell and Gleam were both well and whole, and no one dead.”
She let him up then, holding out her hand to help him. He took it. They stood together in the storm, smiling.
“Hello,” came a small voice.
September whirled around. Up on the stone gear, far above them, a small child stood, looking down, blinking in the rain. Her skin was blue, though not so blue as Saturday’s, and she had long, dark hair. She had a mole on her left cheek, and he feet were very large and ungainly. The child looked quite solemn—and then suddenly, she smiled.
“Now, we shall play hide and seek!” she yelled down at them.
Saturday’s eyes widened with understanding. He looked at September, dumbfounded.
Then, they both disappeared, quick as a thought.
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Chapter XXI: Did You See Her?
In Which All is Reasonably Well, But Time Is Short
The sun fell golden and warm onto a field of gleaming wheat--just a touch blue around the edges , and rosy in the middle, as is the way with glowerwheat. Broad trees full of gleaming fruit shaded four bodies. They lay in the grass as though dreaming. A girl in a green smoking jacket with long, curling dark hair and a high, healthy blush in her cheeks rested with her hands closed over her chest. A boy with blue skin and rich, thick hair gathered up on top of his head slept curled next to her, with no bruises at all on his chest. A little ways away a great red wyvern snored pleasantly, his red scales whole and unbroken.
Near his tail an orange lantern glowed, dimly.
September rose up and stretched her arms, yawning. Then she touched her hair and it all came back, the Marquess, the Lonely Gaol, the awful storm. She looked down at Saturday, sleeping sweetly. She moved over to him and lay very close, and then she cried, quietly, so that he couldn’t see. All the ache and horror