The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (Fairyland 2)

The Duke broke off from wrangling his brood into a rough luncheon of dark-purple frosted cupcakes and sugar-dusted scones to say, “They come in waves these days, but they do seem to be a jolly lot, just cracking with magic and savagely hungry for everything. Fairyland-Below has been a going kingdom for half an eternity, and all us Dukes and Ladies and trolls and bats and sleeping dreamworms and long-nosed tengus have tended our gardens and replaced burned-out stars since forever. The shadows are nouveau riche, of course, but we don’t turn anyone away.” His voice had gone oddly quick and nervous, as if he meant to prove something.

“I thought about it,” mumbled Saturday, looking up at her with deep black eyes. “How they must feel. How…the other Saturday must feel. Confused, I suppose, and upset, and helpless. But I always felt helpless when I couldn’t do anything on my own and had to forever follow him and do everything he did. Sit in that lobster cage with him, even though on my own I could have just slipped through the bars and been free. Be quiet and shy all the time because he was, even though I didn’t feel shy at all! Wrestle you even though I didn’t want to. Maybe it’s his turn to be helpless and have no magic of his own! You don’t have to wrestle for wishes down here. Everything is easy—it just happens. And!” He took September’s hands again, breathless with excitement. “The best part is that I have you down here with me, and he doesn’t! The other Saturday doesn’t even know you’ve come back! I can hold your hands and kiss you just as he always wanted to and never had the courage. I have so much courage, September! Oh, I shall never go back! I shall be a free shadow forever and dance at every Revel, and you, you will dance with me!”

September did not know what to think. A bashful Ell and a madcap Saturday—everything truly had turned upside down and slantwise. She did not know yet how sometimes people keep parts of themselves hidden and secret, sometimes wicked and unkind parts, but often brave or wild or colorful parts, cunning or powerful or even marvelous, beautiful parts, just locked up away at the bottom of their hearts. They do this because they are afraid of the world and of being stared at, or relied upon to do feats of bravery or boldness. And all of those brave and wild and cunning and marvelous and beautiful parts they hid away and left in the dark to grow strange mushrooms—and yes, sometimes those wicked and unkind parts, too—end up in their shadow.

September, of course, didn’t have a shadow anymore. But she had worn most of her bravery and cunning on the outside. Her wildness though, her powerful colors, perhaps those she had not taken out often enough, to breathe in the sun. And though she did, very much, want to accomplish her great deed, she had missed Saturday so much, and somehow just being among the fay, dancing shadows made her skin prickle and her blood beat faster.

“Well, I suppose I could have just a little look at a Hippogryphe,” she said finally, “I don’t have the first idea how to find Halloween, anyway, or what to do when I do find her.”

“I do!” said the Littlest Earl, his mouth still half full of cupcake.

September startled.

“Don’t meddle in Politicks with your mouth full, dear,” said the Vicereine gently.

“But I do know!” The Littlest Earl, his black-leaf hair bouncing, jumped up and put his hand over his heart, as if reciting poetry. “You’ve got to stick yourself back together with her. Girl and shadow!” He smacked his little hand against his chest.

Saturday looked down at her teacup. She had guessed that much. She wasn’t a fool. But how do you stick a dancing, reveling shadow to yourself and hope to have her stay put?

Scarlet-black grounds clumped and drifted on the bottom of her cup. They moved into a shape, growing sharper and deeper as the specks of coffee swirled and drifted. Finally, they formed a face, a sweet, gentle face September did not recognize. The leaves glowed with a dim, wet fire. The face was deeply asleep, its coffee-eyes shut.

The Vicereine looked into the cup and gasped, her hand fluttering to the black bean at her throat. She seized September’s arm and turned her deftly away from the others. The lady inclined her head and her face grew dark, fear clouding in like cream. She whispered: “You mustn’t show anyone what your cup wanted to tell you. Especially shadows. We’re all Royalists here—we’re loyal! You see how we have parties and dance and sing just as the Queen likes it.”

“Who is it?” September asked. “I’ve never seen that face before.”

“That is Myrrh, the Sleeping Prince, who might have been King of the Underneath, but that he never wakes. He dreams at the bottom of the world, in an unopenable box in an unbreakable bower. You mustn’t speak of him, or think of him—Halloween is our Queen and we love her, we do. She says History is just a Rule ripe for breaking. We believe that, truly!”

September trembled a little. The force of the Vicereine’s whispers made her do it, and she did not like it at all.

The Vicereine leaned even further in, so that no one might possibly hear her. The music had struck up again, and Saturday was tugging Ell out of his couch to dance. “And now that we’ve taken you in and

given you back your friend and made you a nice coffee—made you a Fairy Bishop to top it all!—you’ll put in a good word for us with the Queen, won’t you?”

“I hardly think I have any influence!” protested September.

“You do though. You must. You are her, really, even if you don’t think so. Even if she doesn’t think so. You must vouch for us.” The Lady’s hand grew tighter and tighter on September’s arm. “Tell her we’re loyal. Tell her we make Baroque magic and throw Rococo fetes. That we were so good to you. Tell her to keep the Alleyman away from us, please, September. Please.”

INTERLUDE

TWO CROWS

In Which Two Crows Called Wit and Study Leave Our World for the More Thrilling Climes of Fairyland

Perhaps, being hungry for exciting tales of the underside of Fairyland, you have forgotten by now about the two curious crows who chased September into Fairyland. That is certainly forgivable! They seemed so ordinary, and who gives crows a second thought? But I have not forgotten them, and it is by far time to tell you what befell those two brazen birds who have broken into our story as if it were an unlocked house.

Firstly, their names were Wit and Study. These might seem quite fanciful names for a pair of common crows, but those are the sort of names all crows have. All modern crows are descended from their royal Scandinavian progenitors, Thought and Memory, who got to fly about with a very fine fellow indeed and sit on his shoulders and tell him their opinions about everything. Most people would never listen to a crow who sat on their shoulder—they wouldn’t even know how. Still, those are the very highest and most respectful names a crow can earn, even today. All crows set aside a berry or a scrap of grasshopper for Auntie Thought and Auntie Memory at their suppers. It’s the family thing to do.

Like all crows, Wit and Study found themselves drawn irresistibly to the glittering and glowing, and on the day September tumbled over the low stone wall in the glass forest, they glimpsed the tiny tear in the world that tripped her up. Nothing they had ever known had glittered or glowed or shone or shimmered the way that tiny tear did. First, they saw the rowboat with the man in the black slicker and the silver lady in it vanish through the tear, and then they saw the little girl disappear slightly less gracefully, and within two caws, they knew this was the thing for them. Wit and Study folded their wings in tight and darted through just as the world righted itself and the wheat resumed waving gently in the deepening twilight.

Even birds long for adventure. Even birds who have gotten nicely fat on farmers’ seeds long for the world to be made of more than things to eat and things to nest on.

“Where do you suppose we’re headed, Wit?” cawed Study to her brother in the secret language of crows.

“I don’t know, Study! Isn’t it something?” keened Wit to his sister.

They flew faster.

And when they finally burst through the borders in a puff of feathers and slightly frostbitten beaks, they found themselves not in the glass forest in which September was even then trying so hard to make a fire, but in a peculiar city made of clouds. This suited them just fine, being creatures of the air. Cloud bridges and cloud houses and cloud roads puffed and blossomed around them. The two crows took turns somersaulting through garlands of cloud roses and seeing how many cloudhips they could fit into their feathery cheeks at once.