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

It circled closer, and September could see its shadow in the water. It did not seem huge, but certainly big enough. Perhaps it was a baby and would leave her alone.

It circled still closer. September scrunched up into the center of the raft, as far as she could get from water on all sides, which was not very far at all. Finally, it circled so close to the raft that it jostled the sceptres, and September cried out fearfully. She held the wrench ready to whack the shark as hard as she might, her knuckles white on the handle. If they all want to call it a sword, she thought, I’ll use it as one! She was quite wild with terror.

“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t eat me. I’m sorry I ate the fish.”

The shark swam lazily around the raft. It rolled up a little, showing its black belly—for the shark was all black, with a few wild golden stripes running down the side, and its eyes were golden, too, rolling up out of the water to stare mercilessly at September.

“Why are you sorry?” it said softly, its voice rasping and rough. “I eat fish. That’s what fish are for.”

“I daresay you think that’s what little girls are for, too.”

The shark blinked. “Some of them.”

“And who eats you?”

“Bigger fish.”

The shark kept swimming around the raft, rolling up toward the breaking surf to speak.

“Are you going to eat me?”

“You ought to stop talking about eating. It’s making me hungry.”

September shut her mouth with a little snap. “You’re making me dizzy with all your swimming in circles,” she whispered.

“I can’t stop,” the shark rasped. “If I stop, I shall sink and die. That’s the way I’m made. I have to keep going always, and even when I get where I’m going, I’ll have to keep on. That’s living.”

“Is it?”

“If you’re a shark.”

September rubbed at the blood on her knee. “Am I a shark?” she said faintly.

“You don’t look like one, but I’m not a scientist.”

“Am I dreaming? This feels like a dream.”

“I don’t think so. I could bite you, to see if it hurts.”

“No, thank you.” September looked out at the flat gray water, all severe and stark in the sunrise. “I have to keep going,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“I have to keep going, so that I can keep going after that, forever and ever.”

“Not forever.”

“Why haven’t you eaten me, shark? I ate the fish; I ought to be eaten.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“But you’re a shark. Eating is what you do.”

“No. I swim. I roar. I race. I sleep. I dream. I know what Fairyland looks like from underneath, all her dark places. And I have a daughter. Who might have died, but for a girl in an orange dress who traded away her shadow. A shadow who might have known not to mourn over fish.”

September stared. “The Pooka girl?”

The shark rolled over entirely in the water, her huge fin rearing up out of the waves and slicing down again. “We all just keep moving, September. We keep moving until we stop.” The shark broke off and plowed through a sudden, heavy swell that soaked September in its crashing. Just as she dove under the surf, September could see the great black tail shiver into legs, disappearing beneath the violet sea.