Lye thought for a moment. “My mistress used to say that you couldn’t ever really be naked unless you wanted to be. She said, ‘Even if you’ve taken off every stitch of clothing, you still have your secrets, your history, your true name. It’s quite difficult to be really naked. You have to work hard at it. Just getting into a bath isn’t being naked, not really. It’s just showing skin. And foxes and bears have skin, too, so I shan’t be ashamed if they’re not.’”
“Did Mallow tell you her true name?” September asked.
Lye nodded slowly. “But I won’t tell you. It’s a secret. She told me and then cut her finger and mine and blood came out of her and liquid soap came out of me and they mingled and turned golden and she kissed the place where I’d been wounded and told me her name and not to tell, not ever. So I won’t. She already knew mine.” The soap golem pointed shyly to the word written on her forehead.
“The Green Wind told me not to tell anyone my true name. But I don’t know of any name truer than September, and if I didn’t tell anyone that was my name, what would they call me?”
“It cannot be your true name, or you would be in awful trouble, telling everyone like that. If you know someone’s true name, you can command them, like a doll.” Lye stopped uncomfortably, as though the subject caused her pain. “It’s very unpleasant.”
“Can’t you call Mallow back then, if you know her name?”
Lye sobbed a little, a terribly awkward noise at the back of her throat, like snapping a bar of soap in half. “I’ve tried! I’ve tried! I’ve called and called and she won’t come so she must be dead! And I don’t know what to do except keep the baths full.”
September took a step back from the force of the golem’s grief. She slowly pulled off her orange dress—which to tell the truth had become rather filthy—and her precious remaining shoe. In the cooling evening, she stood naked before the many-colored golem, uncomplaining. “The baths smell very nice,” she whispered. She only wanted the golem to stop being sad.
A breeze came sighing along the courtyard and picked up her clothes and her shoe, shaking them and soaking them in the fountain water to get the seawater and beach grime out. The green smoking jacket spluttered and wrinkled, most upset.
Lye lifted September up suddenly and put her down in the first tub, which was really more like an oak barrel, the kind you store wine in, if you need to store rather a lot of wine, for it was enormous. September’s head ducked immediately under the thick, bright gold water. When she bobbed up, the smell of it wrapped her up like a warm scarf: the scent of fireplaces crackling and warm cinnamon and autumn leaves crunching underfoot. She smelled cider and a rainstorm coming. The gold water clung to her in streaks and clumps, and she laughed. It tasted like butterscotch.
“This is the tub for washing your courage,” Lye said, her voice as even and calm as ever, performing her task, grief packed away for the duration of a bath.
“I didn’t know one’s courage needed washing!” gasped September as Lye poured a pitcher of water over her head. Or that one needs to be naked for that sort of washing, she thought to herself.
Lye poured a bucketful of golden water over September’s head. “When you are born,” the golem said softly, “your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you’re half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it’s so grunged up with living. So every once in a while, you have to scrub it up and get the works going or else you’ll never be brave again. Unfortunately, there are not so many facilities in your world that provide the kind of services we do. So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.”
Lye broke off one of her deep blue fingers and dropped it into the tub. Immediately, a creamy froth bubbled up, clinging to September’s skin and tickling.
“Your finger!” she cried.
“Don’t fear, little one. It doesn’t hurt. My mistress said: ‘Give of yourself, and it will return to you as new as new can be.’ And so my fin
gers do, when the bathers have gone.”
September looked inside herself to see if her courage was shining up. She didn’t feel any different, besides the pleasure of a hot bath and clean skin. A little lighter, maybe, but she could not be sure.
“Next tub!” said Lye, and lifted her up, still covered with golden foam, out of the oak barrel and into a shallow, sloping bronze tub, the kind noble ladies in films used. September loved the movies, though they could not afford to go often. In her most private moments, September thought her mother was prettier than any of the girls on the screen.
The water of the bronze tub gleamed icy and green, redolent of mint and forest nights and sweet cakes, hot tea and very cold starlight.
“This is for washing your wishes, September,” said Lye, breaking off another of her fingers with a thick snap. “For the wishes of one’s old life wither and shrivel like old leaves if they are not replaced with new wishes when the world changes. And the world always changes. Wishes get slimy, and their colors fade, and soon they are just mud, like all the rest of the mud, and not wishes at all, but regrets. The trouble is, not everyone can tell when they ought to launder their wishes. Even when one finds oneself in Fairyland and not at home at all, it is not always so easy to remember to catch the world in its changing and change with it.”
Lye dropped in her finger, which did not foam this time, but melted, like butter in a pan, over the surface of the green water. September sank under and held her breath, as she often did at home, practicing for a swimming meet. I used to wish my father would come home and my mother would let me come sleep with her like when I was a baby. I used to wish I had a friend at school who would play games and read books with me, and then we would talk about what wonderful things had happened to the children in the books. But all that seemed far away now. Now I wish … I wish the Marquess would leave everyone alone. And that I could be a … a paladin, like Lye said. A bold knight and true. And that I will not cry when I get afraid. And that Ell really is part library, even though I know he probably isn’t. And that my mother will not be angry when I get home.
September’s hair floated up above her head in drifting curls. Lye scrubbed her, even under the water, with a rough brush until her skin tingled. Abruptly, the soap golem lifted her up and dropped her into the next tub, a silver claw-foot filled with creamy hot milk. It smelled of vanilla and rum and maple syrup, just like Betsy Basilstalk’s cigarette. Lye stroked September’s hair in the new bath and lifted several pitchers of it over her head. She broke off her thumb and swirled it three times through the bath, counterclockwise. All traffic travels widdershins, September thought, giggling. The golem’s thumb fizzed and sparkled, showering the surface with blue sparks.
“Lastly,” Lye said, “we must wash your luck. When souls queue up to be born, they all leap up at just the last moment, touching the lintel of the world for luck. Some jump high and can seize a great measure of luck; some jump only a bit and snatch a few loose strands. Everyone manages to catch some. If one did not have at least a little luck, one would never survive childhood. But luck can be spent, like money; and lost, like a memory; and wasted, like a life. If you know how to look, you can examine the kneecaps of a human and tell how much luck they have left. No bath can replenish luck that has been spent on avoiding an early death by automobile accident or winning too many raffles in a row. No bath can restore luck lost through absentmindedness and overconfidence. But luck withered by conservative, tired, riskless living can be plumped up again—after all, it was only a bit thirsty for something to do.”
Lye pushed September down into the milk again. She shut her eyes and sank into the warm cream, enjoying it, flexing her aching toes. She did not know whether her luck was even then growing more robust, but she found she did not much care. Baths are marvelous whether or not, she thought, and Fairy baths best of all.
The soap golem pulled September at last from the luck-bath and began drying her with long, flat, stiff banana leaves, baked brown by the sun. She tousled her clean, wet hair. When September was beginning to feel quite dry and happy, the Wyverary ducked into the courtyard, shaking his scales like an indignant cat. He tried to shake out his wings, but the chain stopped him short, and he winced. September’s sceptre jangled against the padlock.
“Brrr!” he boomed. “I suppose I’m clean, if it matters. Books don’t judge one for being a touch well-traveled.”
The soap golem nodded. “And ready for the City to take you in.”
The little breeze returned September’s clothes, crisp and clean and dry, scented lightly with a bit of water from the baths of courage and wishing and luck. She could not be sure, but she thought the breeze might have purred a bit, rather like a Leopard.
“If you see her,” said Lye softly, almost whispering. “My mistress. If you see her, tell her I am still her friend, and there are ever so many more games to play…”