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

“Hello,” came a small voice.

September whirled around. Up on the stone gear, far above them, a small child stood, looking down, blinking in the rain. Her skin was blue, though not so blue as Saturday’s, and she had long, dark hair. She had a mole on her left cheek, and her feet were very large and ungainly. The child looked quite solemn—and then suddenly, she smiled.

“Now, we shall play hide-and-seek!” she yelled down at them.

Saturday’s eyes widened with understanding. He looked at September, dumbfounded.

Then, they both disappeared, quick as a thought.

CHAPTER XXI

DID YOU SEE HER?

In Which All Is Reasonably Well, but Time Is Short

The sun fell golden and warm onto a field of gleaming wheat—just a touch blue around the edges and rosy in the middle, as is the way with glowerwheat. Broad trees full of gleaming fruit shaded four bodies. They lay in the grass as though dreaming. A girl in a green smoking jacket with long, curling dark hair and a high, healthy blush in her cheeks rested with her hands closed over her chest. A boy with blue skin and rich, thick hair gathered up on top of his head slept curled next to her, with no bruises at all on his chest. A little ways away a great red Wyvern snored pleasantly, his red scales whole and unbroken.

Near his tail an orange lantern glowed dimly.

September rose up and stretched her arms, yawning. Then she touched her hair, and it all came back to her: the Marquess, the Lonely Gaol, the awful storm. She looked down at Saturday, sleeping sweetly. She moved over to him and lay very close, and then she cried, quietly, so that he couldn’t see. All the ache and horror of it, the sea and the fish and the sadness of Queen Mallow and Iago and all of them, poured out of her into the grass, into the day. Finally, she touched Saturday’s blue back ever so gently, with the tips of her fingers.

“Saturday,” she whispered, wiping her eyes. “It worked. I think it worked, anyway.”

His eyes slid open.

September pulled at her curls. “How did my hair grow back?”

Saturday rolled over in the long grass. “You wished for everyone to be whole and well again,” he said softly.

September crept over to Ell. She could hardly breathe for hope. Slowly, she touched his huge face, his broad cheeks, his soft nose.

“Oh, Ell, do wake up. Do be well.”

One great orange eye creaked open.

“Did I miss something?” A-Through-L yawned prodigiously.

September squealed delight and threw her arms around the Wyverary’s nose.

“And Gleam! Gleam, you’re back!”

Golden writing looped across her face:

Paper can be patched.

September hugged the lantern, though this was a bit of an awkward operation. Pale green arms reached up out of the paper and embraced September but vanished quickly, as though Gleam was embarrassed of her limbs, as if they were a secret, just between September and herself. Still, if she could have smiled, Gleam would have beamed like Christmas.

“Halllooooo!” came a bellowing, booming voice out of the sky. The four of them looked up to see a Leopard swooping and leaping down to them, and none on her back but the Green Wind, in his green jodhpurs and green snowshoes, his green-gold hair flying.

September thought she would burst. She lost count of the hugs and cat-lickings and tumbling about.

“But how can you be here? I thought you weren’t allowed!”

The Green Wind grinned broadly. “The Marquess’s ru

les are done with! No chain could keep me from you now, my little chestnut. And I have brought gifts!”

The Green Wind snapped off his green cape and lay it on the ground with a flourish. Immediately, it covered itself in every delightful green thing one can eat: pistachio ice cream and mint jelly and spinach pies and apples and olives and rich herby bread—and several huge, deep green radishes.