The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [92]
“Saturday,” she whispered, wiping her eyes. “It worked. I think it worked, anyway.”
His eyes slid open.
September pulled at her curls. “How did my hair grow back?”
Saturday rolled over in the long grass. “You wished for everyone to be whole and well again,” he said softly.
September crept over to Ell. She could hardly breathe for hope. Slowly, she touched his huge face, his broad cheeks, his soft nose.
“Oh, Ell, do wake up. Do be well.”
One great turquoise eye creaked open.
“Did I miss something?” A-Through-L yawned prodigiously.
September squealed delight and threw her arms around the Wyverary’s nose.
“And Gleam! Gleam, you’re back!”
Golden writing looped across her face:
Paper can be patched.
September hugged the lantern, though this was a bit of an awkward operation. Pale green arms reached up out of the paper and embraced September--but vanished quickly, as though Gleam was embarrassed of her limbs, as if they were a secret, just between September and herself. Still, if she could have smiled, Gleam would have beamed like Christmas.
“Halllooooo!” came a bellowing, booming voice out of the sky. The four of them looked up to see a Leopard swooping and leaping down to them, and none on her back but the Green Wind, in his green jodhpurs and green snowshoes, his green-gold hair flying.
September thought she would burst. She lost count of the hugs and cat-lickings and tumbling about.
“But how can you be here? I thought you weren’t allowed!”
The Green Wind grinned broadly. “The Marquess’s rules are done with! No chain could keep me from you now, my little chestnut. And I have brought gifts!”
The Green Wind snapped off his green cape and lay it on the ground with a flourish. Immediately, it covered itself in every delightful green thing one can eat: pistachio ice cream and mint jelly and spinach pies and apples and olives and rich herby bread--and several huge, deep green radishes.
The Leopard paced nervously, however.
“Has my brother come with you?” she growled. “I do not see him.”
September’s face fell.
“You did not wish for him,” Saturday whispered fretfully.
The Leopard gave a little cry, quite like a kitten who has lost her litter-mate. “It is all right. He would have gone back for her. I’m sure of it. For that which was Mallow still, who we both loved. And he was always good in a storm.”
“She is only sleeping, Green,” said September slowly. “Might she come back someday?”
“One can never be sure,” the Green Wind sighed. “There is always the danger of kisses where sleeping maids are concerned. But you are safe now, and for awhile yet, and why worry about a thing that may never come to pass? Do not ruin today with mourning tomorrow.”
September looked at her hands. She did not know quite how to ask what she needed to know.
“Green,” she said, her voice trembling. “I know it was not my clock the Marquess showed me. But…where is my clock? How much time do I have left?”
The Green Wind laughed. A few fruit fell from the trees with the boom of it. “You don’t have one, love! The Marquess knew it, too, which is why she tried to trick you with hers. The Stumbled have clocks. It is their tragedy. But no one has quite the same tragedy. Changelings can’t leave without help. And the Ravished…” The Green Wind pulled an hourglass from his coat. It was filled with deep red sand, the color of wine. On its ebony base was a little brass plaque. It read:
September Morning Bell
The upper bell of the hourglass was almost empty.
“That’s still a clock,” Saturday pointed out.
“True. But the Ravished have their own miseries. The Stumbled cannot stay--the Ravished cannot leave.”
“What?” cried September.
“September, do you remember your big orange book that you like so much, full of old stories and tales? And do you remember a certain girl in that book, who went underground and spent the whole