“I shall, Lye, I promise,” said September, and reached up suddenly to hug the golem, though she hadn’t meant to. Lye slowly enfolded her soap-arms around the child. But when September reached up to kiss the golem’s brow, Lye drew back sharply before her lips could touch the word written there.
“Careful,” Lye said. “I am fragile.”
“That’s all right,” said September suddenly, feeling the warm cinnamon courage of her bath bubble up inside her, fresh and bright. “I’m not.”
The House Without Warning was possessed of a small door nestled beside a marble statue of Pan blowing his horn—if only September knew that Pan is also a god, and not merely a prefix! Well, never mind. It was too late for warnings now, as the House well knew. The door straightened up and opened gallantly for the Wyverary and the girl. Seagulls cried from inside, and many voices jangled together, but all was dark within. Slowly, they stepped through into the black.
“Ell,” said September as they crossed the threshold, “what sort of tubs did you wash in?”
The Wyverary shook his great head and would not speak.
CHAPTER VI
SHADOWS IN THE WATER
In Which September Crosses a River, Receives a Lesson in Evolution, and Loses Something Precious but Saves a Pooka
The Barleybroom River roared and splashed as September and the Wyverary stepped through the bath-house door onto a rich, wet, green bank. At least, September presumed it was the Barleybroom. Something colorful and hazy floated in the center of the river as it foamed along around it in a great circle. September almost tripped for gawking. Folk surrounded them, pushing, laughing, shouting, all laden with every kind of suitcase and traveling pack, from brass-banded steamer trunks to green handkerchiefs tied around knotty sticks of hawthorn. September tried to look as though she belonged there, back straight, eyes ahead. Black river mud squelched between the toes of her one bare foot.
Every sort of creature jostled for position, trying gamely to get to a long, pale pier first: Centaurs and Satyrs and Brownies and Will-o’-the-wisps, Birds with girls’ legs and girls with Birds’ legs, Trolls with splendid epaulets and Dwarves in velvet trousers and waistcoats, Hobgoblins plying violins as they walked, Mice taller than September, and a great number of human-seeming ladies and lords and children. September caught the eye of one of them, a little girl in a neat hazelnut-husk dress. She had red columbines tangled up in her blond hair. She danced around her mother, teasing and pulling at her skirt. The girl clapped her gaze on September in mid-leap. She winked wickedly and shivered her shoulders—and suddenly the girl was a sleek black jackal pup, with a gold stripe down her back. Now, jackals are not the wicked creatures some irresponsible folklorists would have children believe. They are quite sweet and soft, and their ears are clever and enormous. Such a lovely creature the little girl had become. Only her narrow blue eyes were the same. Her great tall ears twitched, and she continued on pestering her mother with yips and nips.
“Did you know,” said the Wyverary happily, snuffling the fresh air with his huge nostrils, “that the Barleybroom used to be full
of tea? There was an undertow of tea leaves, flowing in from some tributary. It used to be, oh, the color of brandy, with little bits of lemon peel floating in it and lumps of sugar like lily pads.”
“It’s not tea now, at least, I’ve never had tea colored indigo.”
“Well, the Marquess said that sort of thing was silly. Everyone knows what a river looks like, she said. She got the Glashtyn to dam the tributary and drag along nets to catch all the leaves and eat up all the lemon peels and sugar cubes. They cried while they did it. But you see now, it’s a nice, normal blue color.” The Wyverary scowled. “Proper, I guess,” he sighed. The jackal-girl chased her tail.
“What is that girl, Ell?”
“Mmm? Oh, just a Pooka, I suspect. Starts with P. None of mine, you know.”
Finally, the procession fanned out before a great, gnarled pier of driftwood and ropy yellow vines. A great barge tiered like a black cake moored there. Green paper lanterns swung from its ledges and arches; fell designs had been long ago carved into its wood. All along the top were old men leaning against monstrous poles. Ribbons and lily strands streamed from the pole-tips. The whole effect was very gay and festive, but the old men were haggard and salty and grim.
“The Barleybroom ferry!” crowed the Wyverary. “Of course, never was a need for it before when a body could fly into Pandemonium as quick as you like. But progress is the goal of all good souls.”
September stared openmouthed as they slowly inched nearer to the gangplank. She tugged at the tip of A-Through-L’s wing.
“It’s a Fairy,” she whispered.
“Of course, it is, girl! What did I just say?”
“No, not a ferry, a Fairy.”
The toll man was ancient and hunched, his gray hair caught up in several wild pigtails around two barnacled goat horns. He had rheumy eyes and glasses as thick as beer-mug bottoms and three gold hoops in one ear. He wore a thick Navy peacoat with brass buttons and sailcloth trousers—and two iridescent wings jutted out of the back of his tailored coat, rimmed in gold, glittering as the sunlight made spinning violet prisms inside them. They were bound with a delicate iron chain, thin but enough to keep them flat and useless against the old ferryman’s back.
“Fare,” he growled as their turn came.
The Wyverary cleared his prodigious throat. September started. “Oh!” she cried. “I suppose I’m the one with the purse strings.” She pulled her sceptre from the links in Ell’s chain. I knew I might need such a thing! September felt quite pleased with herself for displaying such excellent foresight. With the end of one of Ell’s claws, she chipped two rubies from the bulb of the sceptre and held them out proudly.
“’E’s too big,” sniffed the ferryman. “Have to pay double for Excessive Baggage.”
“I am not baggage,” gasped the Wyverary.
“Dunno. She keeps her shiny whatnot on ya. Might be Baggage. Sure, and you’re Excessive. Double fare, anyhow.”
“It’s fine!” hushed September, and chipped a third gleaming red stone from the sceptre. All three glittered on her palm like pricks of blood. “Easy come, easy go. I certainly shan’t be going without you!”