“All hail September!” whispered Saturday. “Queen of Fairyland!”
The Marquess’s eyes fluttered open. She held one graceful hand to her forehead and put the other to her great cat to steady herself. She looked all round at the many impossible things sharing her palace with her.
“What’s happening?” the Marquess gasped.
CHAPTER XX
THE BOY WHO WAS LOST,
THE GIRL WHO WAS FOUND
In Which Thomas Wakes Up
Gwendolyn and Nicholas Rood returned home from their rally late, tired circles round their eyes, coats slumped over their arms. The house was top full of quiet, almost as though it were holding its breath as hard as it could. Gwendolyn put her umbrella away—wasn’t the umbrella stand on the other side of the door when she left? Don’t be silly, Gwen, she thought. You’re just dead on your feet. A little sleep is all you need.
But she went to check on her son before she went chasing that little sleep, for no mother can rest until she knows that her child, if not her umbrella stand, is mostly how she left him. Gwendolyn pushed open the door of Thomas’s bedroom, trying not to make a peep. She looked to his bed for that familiar shape beneath the covers.
But Thomas was not there. He was standing in the middle of the room, dazed, as though he’d been sleepwalking. Moonlight trickled through the window. He must have been playing dress-up in his old costumes, for he was dressed, absurdly, as Robin Hood. He looked up at her, startled, as though he’d only just woken up. He seemed to drink up her face like water after years in the desert with only dew to treat his thirst.
“Hi, Mom,” he said, in the very smallest of voices.
And in another city, not so far away from Chicago, just over the prairie and down the rivers, another mother and another father sat in another living room. They rubbed their eyes and squeezed each other’s hands and made toast, because we’ve all got to eat something. The dusk glowed so very pink and red that strange night in Omaha, round Owen and Susan Jane’s wooden table. The shadows played in every corner. The moon was already out, in a hurry to get on the scene.
Once September’s father had fallen asleep on the sofa under his plaid blanket, their small dog curled up on his chest, Margaret drew her sister aside. They stood together in the kitchen, so very alike, as they had always been, even as children. The same dark hair and dark eyes and fierce set of their jaws. September’s eyes and hair and jaw, too. Margaret touched her sister’s cheek gently. She smiled, a smile that startled and teased and danced.
“Listen to me, Susie,” Aunt Margaret whispered, so that only they two could hear. “I know where September is. And I can take you there.”