“Shall I serve?” said Saturday. He sat primly across from her, dressed in a fine Sunday suit, with a high collar and cuff links. His hair was neatly combed; his face, scrubbed clean. The Marid took up one of the gears and scraped it with a butter knife. He handed it back to September.
“It’s getting very late, November,” said a young man. He sat very near to her and held her hand. September felt certain she had never seen him before. He had dark red hair and oddly golden skin. His eyes were big and blue. They swam with turquoise tears.
“My name is September…,” she said softly. Her voice was weak, as it often is in dreams.
“Of course, October,” said the young man. “You must speak twice as loudly just to be heard in the land of dreams. It is something to do with physicks. But then, what isn’t? Dreams begin with D, and therefore, I can help you. To be heard.”
“Ell? Where is your tail? Your wings?”
“It is mating season,” the Wyverary said, straightening his lapels. “We must all look our best, January.”
“She wouldn’t know a thing about that,” said Saturday reproachfully. September saw suddenly that Saturday had a purring cat in his lap. The cat’s fur was blue, and in his bushy tail was a single, glowing star. “Such a lazy girl. Lax in her studies. If only she’d kept up with her physicks homework, we’d all be safe and sound and eating pound cake.”
“I’m not lazy! I tried!” September looked down at the buttered gear in her hand. It was smeared with Marid blood, like seawater.
“Mary, Mary, Morning Bell,” sang a third voice. September turned to see a little girl sitting next to her, swinging her legs under her chair. The girl looked terribly familiar, but September could not think where she could have met her before. She had dull blondish hair bobbed shor
t around her chin, and her face was a bit muddy. She had on a farmer’s daughter kind of dress, gray and dusty, with a yellowish lace at the hem. She rubbed at her nose.
“All praise and glory to the Marquess,” said Saturday reverentially, passing a thick iron gear to the girl. The child accepted it and allowed him to kiss her dusty hand.
“Dances in her garden dell!” she sang. The blond child giggled and swung her legs harder.
“Please, oh, please, start making sense!” cried September.
“I always make perfect sense, December,” said Ell, smoothing pomade into his hair. “You know that.”
The dream-Saturday held up his hands. They were chained in ivory manacles. “Did it mean me, do you think?” he said. “When it said you’d lose your heart?”
“But when the night comes rushing on,” sang the girl, laughing uncontrollably. She took a bite out of her iron bolt. It crumbled like cake in her mouth. “Down falls Mary, dead and gone!” The girl smiled. Her teeth were full of black oil.
And for a moment, just a moment, September saw them all: Saturday, Ell, and the strange blond girl, bound and bolted and chained in a dreary, wet cell, sleeping, skeletal, dead.
CHAPTER XIV
IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING
In Which September Leaves Autumn for Winter, Meets a Certain Gentleman of Means, and Considers the Problem of Nautical Engineering
September woke to the sound of the snow falling. Hoarowls cried overhead: “Hoomaroo! Hoomaroo!” The sun burned white and soft behind long clouds. A cold, piney wind blew over her skin.
She opened her eyes—and she had eyes! She had skin! She could even shiver! September lay on a makeshift stretcher, a piece of piebald hide stretched between long poles. Her hands—and she had hands!—were folded neatly over her chest, and her hair flowed over her shoulders and down to the sash of the exultant green smoking jacket, dark brown and familiar and dry and clean. She was well again and whole.
And alone. It all came rushing back to her: the sleeping blue lions, Saturday and A-Through-L, all of it. And the dream, too, still clinging to her like old clothes.
Mary, Mary, Morning Bell.
In a panic, she reached for her sword—and felt the copper wrench safely beside her on the piebald hide. The Spoon still rested snugly in her sash. Saturday’s favor was gone, though, lost to the woods. September sat up, her head heavy and sick. A wood spread out around her, and it appeared long past autumn, the trees black and stark, snow glittering on everything, softening every edge to exquisite, perfect white. The green smoking jacket busily puffed up to keep out the gently blowing snow.
“You see? You’re quite well again. I promised you would be.” Citrinitas sat a little ways away, as though afraid to come too near. The little spriggan clutched her three-fingered hands together miserably. She scratched her long yellow nose and pulled up a great yellow hood over her head. She snapped her fingers, and a little golden fire burned before her, floating above the snow. Citrinitas sheepishly fished a marshmallow out of her pocket and speared it on her thumbnail to roast.
“Where are my friends?” September demanded, happy to find she had her voice back, strong and loud, echoing in the empty wood.
“I didn’t have to bring you out, you know. I could have left you there, and it would have been a good bit less trouble than dragging you out across the Winter Treaty. So close to Spring! It doesn’t sit right with the stomach. Rubedo didn’t even want to come. And he so longs to travel! Doctor Fallow is a bit of a coward—he hid when the lions came. Eventually, we’ll find him, though. I think he’s angry with you—you might have at least matriculated before turning all … tree-ish. And now I’ve missed our wedding, thank you very much.”
“You’ll have another tomorrow! And, anyway, if it’s so much bother, why didn’t you just grow and cover the distance in three steps?”
“Well,” Citrinitas blushed deep ochre, “I did. But that’s not the point. The point is gratitude, and how you ought to have it.”