“What others call you, you become,” said September softly, remembering the words a Yeti had once spoken to her.

“Oh yes. If you were to choose Lady Brightbat, for instance, I daresay you’d find your vampire teeth half grown in by bedtime. If you wrap Warlord round your shoulders, soldiers a thousand miles away will wake up with a start.”

September considered. She had been a Knight and a Bishop and a Criminal and a Spinster—so many titles for a girl from Nebraska with the smell of chicken feed and dish soap still on her! But she never stayed in any of them long, always running out of one name and into another. Would she really transform into whatever she called herself? Perhaps it should be something big and powerful, then. The Gryphon or the Valkyrie or the Giantess. But if she became a Giantess, she would have a devil of a time explaining to her parents why she suddenly needed a horse-acre bed instead of her sweet old pillow. And now that she was free, she would go home when her hourglass ran out, wouldn’t she? Those were the rules. Even being Queen did not change them. The Marquess knew that and so did she. Would her parents know her at home, if she came back a Giantess? Something not so grand as a Gryphon, then. And thinking of home, September’s heart ran ahead in front of her mind, and before she knew it, she had decided.

“Could I … could I be the Engineer? My mother’s one, you see. And for a long while I didn’t think much about anything except Fairyland—getting here and being here and staying here. But I haven’t seen my mother since before I went up to the Moon and I miss her. I miss her so much. And she fixes things. Mends things. Makes them good and sound and flyable again. Even if I’m only Queen for a little while, that’s the sort of Queen I’d like to be.”

“Done,” said Jacquard, and drew a great length of sturdy grass-green suede from the drawer. “Next, you must select your Royal Scepter. You will use it to make Decrees, which is a jumped-up way of saying Get Your Own Way at Once.” Jacquard pointed at the crowded umbrella stands. Ivory-handled canes glimmered, as well as golden staves topped with opals and tiger’s eyes, shoehorns and fireplace pokers and rapiers and bullwhips and parasols. “A Royal Scepter is not quite so blunt as a sword, nor quite so fancified as a magic wand—though of course you could choose a sword or a magic wand if you wanted to bore me half to tears. You might have seen Royal Scepters and never known what you were looking at. Your predecessor used a crab hammer.”

“What did the Marquess use?” September said quietly. If she had to be Queen, the most important thing was to be nothing like the Marquess, she felt.

“She lost hers. She replaced it with a Spoon, I believe. I should mention, in the event of loss of any regalia, you must provide your own replacement. The Royal Closet is not responsible for articles lost or damaged in the process of monarchy or other shenanigans.”

A thought occurred to September. “Could I … could I have my old wrench? The one I pulled out of the casket in the Autumn Provinces.”

The wrought-iron lady rummaged through the umbrella stands, pushing aside raccoon caps and woolly scarves and sealskin kirtles. Finally, she produced, from a blown-glass stand half squashed beneath a pirate’s chest full of spare buttons, the long, sturdy wrench September had won from the Worsted Wood so long ago.

“Everything ends up here, sooner or later. At least, it ends up here if it’s any good. Many of the gowns and suits and winter coats and waistcoats and shoes you see in the Royal Closet belonged to some King or Queen once upon a time, was worn and loved and twirled about in.”

“What about the rest?”

“I made the rest. I am a Mantelet. I must make something, or I will die. Mantelets were one of the first beasts to crawl out of the cauldron when Fairyland was new and could not yet sleep through the night. We looked around us and saw trees, rivers, deserts, fields, even the Perverse and Perilous Sea—all the things that grew and lived according to their own cantankerous nature. But nothing made. Nothing woven or hammered or erected or distilled or sculpted or painted. We yearned to be the ones to weave and hammer and erect and distill and sculpt and paint. We saw visions of a Made World alongside the Wild World. I was born in the Houppelande Hills before the calendar learned to count to thirty-one. My father was a printing press with kind letter-block eyes. My mother was a blacksmith’s forge with warm, molten arms. But I? I loved to sew. Every kind of stitch looked like scripture to me, scripture and starlight! Anything I could get my hands on I put under my needle—until I became so skilled that I didn’t need anything under my needle to make a pair of seven-league boots, or a dress of fondest hopes, or Groangyre Tower with its silk balloon. The Elegant Emperor asked me to come and live at the Briary long ago. No one can touch me, on account of my iron, but I touch everything that touches them. Between fittings—which is what a Mantelet calls a coronation—I make the regalia of the future. A thousand skirts for a thousand Queens to come. I even made the Marquess’s hat.” Jacquard smiled modestly. “There is nothing here that is powerless. I’ve soaked even the smallest lace ruffle and fleece lining in magic, in every kind of magic. This kimono??

? She pulled a glittering white-and-black robe free of its cousins. “This kimono can call down the snow no matter how hot and high the sun rides. My chartreuse tuxedo can turn you into a lightning-breathing bird of paradise. This purple petticoat forces the wearer to tell the truth no matter how much they may wish to lie, while the black one compels them to sing a song for everything they do. I must have a little fun, after all. You may choose your Royal Costume from anything you see, or I will make you something new out of your name and your scepter and your longings and your needings. And perhaps … perhaps I can make you something to help with the Cantankerous Derby. Something swift and armored and full of tricks.”

September did not need to look through the racks of beautiful clothes. She had been thinking hard all the while the Mantelet spoke and knew already what she wanted.

“Jacquard, I do not want anything in this wardrobe. It’s all more wonderful than anyone could ask for—Cinderella would take one look in here and lose her entire mind, I think. And perhaps I ought to think practically and let you sew me a Racing Suit that would let me cross the world in two steps. But what I want, what I really want, isn’t here. I want everything back, Miss Jack. Everything I’ve had and lost—my wrench and the Witch’s Spoon and my Watchful Dress and my emerald-green smoking jacket. The Red Wind took her coat back and I suppose that’s her right, so I can do without as I only borrowed it. For my steed, I want Aroostook with its ratty old potato bag over the spare tire and its sunflower steering wheel, and for my shoes I want my old mary janes, both of them, on both my feet. I want all my things back again and in one piece, for when I have them, I shall be all one piece!”

The Archbishop of the Closet blinked her wrought-iron eyelids over her silver eyes. “Queens never listen,” she said. “I’ve told you: Everything that’s any good is here. You must understand, September. Today is not your coronation day. It is more like your wedding day. A Queen weds Fairyland, and though Fairyland is a tempestuous spouse, she keeps a very fine house.” Jacquard wrapped the length of green ribbon round September’s finger like a ring—and in a moment it had become one, a cuff of plain, rough, green stone clutching her finger. The stone felt warm and alive. “And if it is your wedding day, you ought to have your own dress.”

Jacquard opened up her black rib cage into a sewing machine once more. The needle whirred to life, pounding the presser foot furiously. But there was no fabric beneath it, no silk, no goldcloth, no wool, no linen. Just air. For a moment the needle pattered against nothing. And then—a scrap of orange appeared against the Mantelet’s black heart like the first crocus of Spring.

It all came roaring out of her in a rush: the orange explosion of her own Watchful Dress, stitched with droplets of gold, garnets hanging from its familiar neckline, its skirts dimpled with black rosettes, its green silk rope circling the waist, even the twin pocket watches dangling from the bustle. The warm wooden handle of the Witch’s Spoon, the gleaming patent leather of her dear old mary janes, somewhat larger now, for she no longer had twelve-year-old feet. Hello, shoe! September has missed you so! And finally, a green velvet cuff shot free of Jacquard’s chest. The emerald smoking jacket flew off the needle joyfully, flinging itself toward September and wrapping her up safe in its plush arms, tying its sash round her waist with a great sense of personal satisfaction.

Somewhere far away from the Royal Closet and far below the towers of the Briary, September could hear a horn honking.

“Thank you! Oh, thank you, Jack!” cried September, hugging herself tight so as to hug the smoking jacket. For the first time since she fell off the Moon, she felt quite herself again. Such feelings rarely last long, for the meaning of oneself changes as quick as clouds skipping. We ought to let our girl roll around in it while she can, don’t you think?

* * *

When she had quite recovered, September went to Jacquard and held out her hand. “I am a human girl. I am not allergic to you.”

The Mantelet took her hand, hesitantly, as though she expected the Queen to yank it away at any moment. Though September could not know it, no one had touched Jacquard in two thousand years. So you understand why, without either of them understanding how it happened, the handshake turned, as if by magic, into a long embrace.

“Are you quite certain you don’t want to be Queen?” Jacquard whispered into the jeweled crown of the one girl in all the world who could hug her and live.

Just then, September was not certain at all.

* * *

September closed the birch-trunk door of the Royal Closet. She looked round for the Stoat of Arms, but the crotchety old menagerie seemed to have abandoned her.

In its place stood a man with a neat green beard, wearing a green carriage-driver’s cloak and green jodhpurs, and smart green winklepicker boots. Beside him, a large and handsome Leopard sat on her haunches, licking one paw with casual interest and purring loudly.

The Green Wind had found his moment. A Wind always looks for his moment, knowing it will come and the whole of the world will be better for his having waited. Hamlet arrives on his cue, and not a moment before. The Green Wind leaned casually against the wall of the Briary, green out of green, shining from his shoes to his cap, as though he’d been there for a hundred years.

“You seem an ill-tempered and irascible enough child,” he said with a grin. “How would you like to be stuck in the middle of a hopping grand mess?”

Tags: Catherynne M. Valente Fairyland Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net