The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two (Fairyland 3)

“And what do you eat?”

“I eat their hunger. When a soul inside me longs for something, a bowl fills. As I make a hut or a streetlamp or a hippodrome or a cabaret, I drink up their need and am satisfied when they are satisfied. I am sustained by Being Necessary.”

“That’s very strange.”

Almanack’s deep green eyes shone. “Is it? Have you done a long, hard thing for the sake of someone you loved, so long and so hard that your body shook with the difficulty of it, that you were thirsty and aching and ravenous by the time it was done, but it did not matter, you did not even feel the thirst or the pain or the hunger, because you were doing what was Necessary?”

“Yes,” September whispered. She could feel the salt of the Perverse and Perilous Sea on her skin as if it still caked there. As if she were still sailing around Fairyland to save her friends.

“Then it is not so strange. Being Necessary is food no less than cabbages and strawberry pies. And surely if you have come all this way, you need something from me. Say it and I will do my best. I cannot do everything, but folk who can do everything are terrible bores.”

September’s heart sang out inside her: I need to find Saturday and A-Through-L, I need to touch them and see them and smell them and hear them and to not walk in Fairyland alone. I want a lovely adventure where no one carries a hurt around with them like a satchel or tries to force a country like a door. But she did not say it. She remembered her errand. You do your job and you mind your work. Besides, she did not live in Almanack. She was not one of its folk—it would not be right to go about bellowing demands, and selfish demands at that. September held her heart down while it trumpeted its desires and bit her cheek until she felt she could speak safely without blurting it out.

Oh, September! It is such hard work to keep your heart hidden! And worse, by the time you find it easy, it will be harder still to show it. It is a terrible magic in this world to ask for exactly the thing you want. Not least because to know exactly the thing you want and look it in the eye is a long, long labor. How I long to draw the curtain through this grotto, take September by the serious and stalwart shoulders and tell her the secret of growing up! But I cannot. It is against the rules. Even I am bound by some rules.

“A Wind asked me to bring this to you,” September said instead. “I don’t know what it is, but I came an awfully long way to give it to you.”

Almanack’s elfin face opened up in an expression of enormous delight and gratitude. “Thank you, child! How wonderfully thoughtful of you.” Using all six of its rosy hands, the Whelk of the Moon pried at the lid of the carved ivory box.

But it would not open.

Almanack explored the lock with several of its tendrils. It put its tongue between its teeth as it worked at the mechanism.

But it would not open.

Suddenly, the Whelk of the Moon thumped the box hard with its uppermost right fist. September laughed at the peaceful Whelk’s pummeling.

But it would not open.

“I am so deeply sorry, my small friend,” it said, holding out the four arms which did not still cradle the casket. September stepped into them, hardly knowing why. The Whelk of the Moon wrapped its arms around her. Its skin was warm. Shaking its head, it murmured finally into September’s hair:

“I fear you will have to take it to the Librarian.”

CHAPTER IX

THE CURSE

In Which September Meets an Old Friend Unexpectedly, Discharges Her Postal Duties, and Is Nearly Burnt to a Crisp

September rang a bell.

She brought her hand down on top of it again—a big glass buzzer-bell like the one in the principal’s office at school. This one did not buzz; it rang clear and high, shattering the silence of the Lopsided Library.

No one answered. A loud shush sounded from the depths of the stacks, but September could not see the shusher, even if she stood on tiptoes.

Whoever named this place got it in one, September thought to herself. It was a very lovely library, a great circular room with a high glass chair on a dais in the middle of it all, from which, when such a one was on duty, a Librarian might glare down most effectively at noisy nellies and book-swipers. Pale blue and green pillars studded with round moonstones separated the sections. Neat rows of green-black stone desks and black-green study lamps stood at the ready. Bright stained-glass stacks sparkle

d as they bore up books of every possible size and type, rising all the way up through several floors to a domed ceiling strung with round lanterns. But all the books seemed to have lurched to one side of the building, as though they had all gotten a good fright from whatever sort of beast haunts the night terrors of books. They piled up on top of each other, wedged in tight to bursting, and if there was an order or a logic to their arrangement it, too, had had a good scare and run off. The stacks on the other side stood nearly empty, stained glass dustless and forlorn, a few lonely tomes leaning over, falling down, huddled in twos and threes for warmth.

“Hello?” September called. Her voice bounced around the rotunda.

This time, an answer came.

It was a roar that was also a shout that was also a laugh that was also a screech that was also a deep, resounding haroom.

A huge ball of red scales, claws, and wings shot up out of the rear stacks and landed on the Librarian’s chair. The ball had bright turquoise eyes that danced and shone and long orange whiskers.

A-Through-L, the Wyverary, crouched on the great glass chair and grinned as wide as any Wyvern ever has.