“I can’t,” she said softly. “Though I am sure you are a good robber.”
The small September made a grimacing face. “Grown-ups are the worst people I know,” she said confidentially. “And you have something on your face.” September’s hands were almost gone now, lightless lumps at the ends of her wrists. She began to feel very thin and hot all over.
The child looked at Saturday with big black eyes. “Hullo,” she said shyly. The Marid smiled at her, ear to ear and not an inch less.
“This is what it’s like,” he said excitedly. “Looking at yourself, your younger self. I’ve done it. All Marids do. It makes you dizzy at first, that’s normal, don’t worry. But what you’re feeling now is what the other Saturday felt when he looked at me, or what I feel when I come upon a tiny me running around the shoreline laughing at the werewhales.” September frowned. Saturday spread his hands. “Just look at her. Look at her,” he begged.
A great shape flickered up behind the child September. A-Through-L stared, dumbfounded. He began to rock from side to side and September knew his flame would come before it did—forking out in hot white bursts, not truly fire but flashbulbs popping away.
Little September had a Wyvern, too.
Her scales shone dark and silver in graceful patterns; her chest the color of pearl, her wings black as fireplace pokers. All along her back, great plates bristled like a stegosaurus—and that is how one knows a female Wyvern from a male. Her great silver eyes danced and her claws scratched like paper tearing. Small September giggled and put up her arms; the Wyvern nuzzled her with her broad gray nose.
“Hullo, Tem!” The other Wyvern haroomed, and nuzzled the child with her enormous long muzzle.
A-Through-L looked up at both Septembers. He was the size of a strong, lithe fox—but even the strongest and lithest of foxes is not very big. Terrible dark holes opened up in his little wings, glowing at the edges like holes in film.
“I found her in a picture that said Fantastic Lizards from Around Fairyland Gather for Annual Picnic!” recited the younger September carefully. “Her name is Errata. Isn’t that a funny name?”
“It begins with E,” whispered A-Through-L. His voice was so awfully small and high now—nothing at all like the big deep voice September so loved. She couldn’t help it—September gathered A-Through-L up in her arms and snuggled him close, as she’d done with her small and amiable dog at home when a thunderstorm came and it was feared. But her blackened, sizzling hands went right through his splotched, scorched ribs, and she had to balance him on her forearms.
“You can’t stay,” the Tyguerrotype said. “You’ll burn away to nothing.” He opened his paw, which still held the squeezebulb of his camera.
“No wait!” squeaked Ell. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had my picture taken, so there won’t be any of me in here, but there’s her and I so rarely meet other Wyverns…”
“There’s quite a few in Country,” Errata said. Her voice thrummed deep and heavy. “People do like to snap photos of themselves standing in front of us, though I’m sure I have no i
dea why.”
“But there will be one of me here, when the picture’s done taking itself?” Ell said breathlessly.
Errata’s scales blushed a darker shade of charcoal. “I’d be happy to show him the Negative Gardens,” she said. “You have a very nice flame, though you’re quite small—but I don’t judge. It’s not my way.”
“I have a curse,” Ell sighed.
“Mating season can often feel that way,” agreed Errata, her silver tail coiling and uncoiling.
“Mating season?”
“Of course! Didn’t you know?”
“I was raised by a Library,” Ell squeaked, by way of apology.
The lady-Wyvern shrugged her massive shoulders. “Fire is always within us, but when the time comes for eggs and dancing, it isn’t content to roast our hearts. It must out.”
“We must out,” begged Saturday. His face had gone indistinct, his nose and eyes and cheeks swallowed up in a cloud of inky darkness.
“Not yet!” cried Ell. His tail shriveled into darkness. “How long does it last?”
Errata flicked her thick tail back and forth. “As long as it takes to find a mate. That’s what the Annual Picnic is for, of course. Lizards are solitary sorts, by and large. Always sulking in lairs or brooding on hoards. Wyverns are quite the most social of the genus. Oh, we make our beds of bones but have you ever known one not to have radishes for company or a comfortable vertebra for lonesome travelers? No, and you never will. I met a very fine gentleman at the Picnic—bright gold with a blaze of green! He read me poetry, couplets like strong hind legs. And I knocked a tree down with my tail to impress him. But he fell asleep in the briars by the time the photograph was taken, and he isn’t here at all. But the rest of us have a nice time in Country, when those spoilsports feel they can leave their hoards to their own devices for the afternoon.”
September’s parents were getting closer. She could almost see them clearly now, moving through the layers of film like mist.
“Mom!” she cried. “Dad!” And waved her arms, which had started to sizzle away into silver fumes. Her father walked so straight. Her mother held his hand.
But little Tem was already skipping away through the photographic fields, laughing heartlessly as she burst through the blurred and motionless Yetis, beckoning the pale Wyvern behind her. September watched as her younger self leapt up into her parents’ arms, laughing as though she had never heard the words war or shift or hospital. Errata looked back and forth between the two Septembers. Her whiskers flicked and quivered—but she went with her girl, as any beast would. She waved her tail at Ell as she skipped after her Tem—and September saw her own mother, out of focus and black and white though she was, reach up to pat a Wyvern’s neck fondly. She saw her father lift her child self up onto his shoulders as he used to. Tem screamed with giggling and kissed Errata’s offered nose. Like a needle in her chest, September saw their ease, their smiles, and all of her leaned toward them, as if by wanting it she could be Tem again.
I have missed Saturday and I have missed Ell and I have missed Fairyland—but how can I miss myself? September clenched her fist against tears that longed to well up and spill out. Instead, drops of searing, mercurial fluid dripped down her face, burning her skin away as they fell.