The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland 1)

Onscreen, a young girl vigorously shook hands with a large bear. She was tall, but she could not have been a day older than September herself. She wore an ornate suit made for her small frame, an embroidered jacket over a fringed bustle. At her neck was a thin dark tie, like September’s father once wore. The girl’s hair shone thick and s

ilver in the flickering film, falling to her shoulders in great sausage curls. Most of all, however, September noticed her hat. It was black—or some color that appeared black in the old-fashioned film. It looked a bit like a cake that had fallen over to one side under the weight of peacock and pheasant feathers and chains of jewels that cascaded down from a silk rosette on its flat top. Ribbons, bows, and satin ropes made delicate tiers like icing on its body, and the brim was so crisp and perfect it seemed deathly sharp.

The bear wrinkled his muzzle. He did not look pleased.

September trembled a little. The Marquess seemed so awfully real. She smiled broadly at the bear and laughed silently as the announcer nattered on about the treaty.

And suddenly, without warning, the Marquess onscreen turned toward the camera, her hand still clutched in the bear’s paw. She cocked her head to one side like a curious bird. She blinked and leaned forward, looking directly out into the theatre—at September.

“You,” said the Marquess in the announcer’s voice. The other patrons twisted to look at September, who froze in terror. “It’s you.”

Ell moved his claw around September’s seat protectively.

“September,” said the movie Marquess slowly, as if pulling each letter from a stubborn cabinet. “You shouldn’t be sitting in a theatre on such a lovely day. Why don’t you go out and play?”

“I…”

“Hush. Listening is tiresome for me. September, if you do not come to the Briary right this very instant, I shall become cross with you. I am a very pleasant Marquess if you are tractable and sweet.”

September could not move. Her hand clutched the bag of pomegranate seeds so tightly they began to spill out of the top. She felt as though she had been caught doing something awful and black. But she hadn’t done anything! Not yet! How could the Marquess know her? Where could she hide?

“Right now,” snarled the Marquess, “you wicked little thief.” She beckoned horribly with her ringed finger. The screen crackled and flicked. Silver sparks flew for a moment, and then the Marquess’s face disappeared in a little burnt ring, and the theatre went suddenly dark.

CHAPTER VIII

AN AUDIENCE WITH THE MARQUESS

In Which September Meets the Marquess at Last, Argues Several Valid Points but Is Pressed into Royal Service Anyway, Being Consoled Only by the Acquisition of a Spoon and a New Pair of Shoes

Somewhere, under all those brambles, there was probably a building.

A palace even. Certainly September could make out towers, a portcullis, even a moat of floating golden flowers. Not golden in the darling little way folk in our world call buttercups or certain girls’ hair golden: These flowers were genuinely gold, burnished, glowing, deep. Yet they were soft. A pleasant wind crinkled their petals as they drifted along on a lazy current, spinning and gently colliding. But the briars tangled up everything else, great vines—thicker than September herself—whose thorns were awfully sharp and angry looking. They braided each other, ran up and down the walls, snarled in great knots. Here and there were clutches of pale gold berries, their skin so thin that September could see the juice sloshing inside them. But neither she nor the Wyverary could glimpse even an inch of masonry. It was as though the Briary had just grown that way and had never been any different.

No guards flanked the door—if it were a door. Large flowers bloomed aggressively through an arch in the brambles in a sort of door-like fashion. Their centers were clotted with glistening pollen. September reached out her hand to touch one, and A-Through-L cried out a wordless warning! But the flower simply soaked her hand in pollen and closed its petals over her fingers, searching and suckling with its silken blossom. Satisfied, it wrinkled away and aside to allow September to duck into a hall hung with dim, sun-dappled shadows.

The flowers drew closed again sharply, keeping the Wyverary outside. A-Through-L bellowed, and the bellowing of any Wyvern is terrible to hear. He struck the flower; it remained, tough and unyielding as bronze. The brambles writhed a little as if in silent, viny laughter.

September walked through the grand hall, trying not to make noise on the beautiful polished floor. A giant, heart-shaped double staircase ran up to a bank of windows. There was a neat rack on which to place one’s shoes and umbrellas. A kind of light drifted in between the bramble-vines, falling on a grandiosely framed painting of a tall, lovely woman with long golden hair tied back with a velvet bow. Her hand rested on a Leopard’s head, and in her other, she held a simple wooden hunter’s bow. She wore an ivory crown and a smile so wide and kind September felt she could love that lady all the days of her life and never feel cheated, even if the lady never looked twice at such a poor, shabby soul as September. In the painting, she seemed to glow. That is what a grown-up looks like, thought September. Not like the grown-ups in my world who look sad and disappointed and grimy with work and bored with everything. What do the storybooks say?

“In the fullness of her strength.”

“Did you come all the way here with only one shoe?” came a sweet, wondering voice.

September whirled away from the painting. In the center of the heart-shaped staircase sat a little girl, holding her chin in her hands. She had thick cherry-purple hair that hung in old-fashioned sausage curls to her shoulders and that magnificent, terrible hat poised on her head like a cake tipping to one side. The hat was black, September could see now, as she had guessed when this child had shaken hands with the bear on-screen. The feathers shone blue and green and red and cream-colored. The jewels glittered dark and violet. Next to her, a huge Panther purred languidly and watched September out of one green eye.

“That must have been just awfully painful,” the child simpered. “How brave of you!”

The Marquess ran one hand luxuriously along the Panther’s spine, winding her fingers in his fur—and drew up a pair of exquisite black shoes, like September’s, if September’s shoe had grown up, gone to a great many balls and theatrical to-dos, and found a dashing mate. They had little heels and black crystal lilies on the toes, with bits of ribbon looping and whorling all around, speckled with garnets and tiny black pearls. She held them out to September, whose bare foot, truthfully, ached and throbbed with cold and blisters. She wanted to take them, she did, but taking gifts from wicked Queens, even if they are called Marquesses, even if they are very pretty children not big enough to hurt anyone, is a dangerous business, and September knew it.

She shook her head with much sadness. The shoes were so beautiful.

“I am only trying to help you, child,” said the little girl. She set the shoes gently on the gleaming floor and ran her hand along the cat’s spine again. This time, the Marquess drew up a silver plate piled high with wet red cherries, a wedge of black cake crusted with sugar, swollen raspberries and strawberries, several lumps of dark, dusty chocolate, and a tall goblet of steaming hot cider.

“You must be so hungry. You’ve come so far!”

September swallowed. Her throat was dry, her stomach empty. But this was certainly Fairy food. The worst kind, the kind that never let you go if you even taste it once. “Is that Queen Mallow?” she said instead, nodding toward the portrait and forcing her voice to be friendly.

The Marquess looked up at the great painting and scowled. Her curls shivered and went deep blue, the color of the sea. She sighed and snapped her fingers. The rich plate disappeared.