The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home (31 page)

The tintype letter
S
hopped up onto September's hand like a parakeet. It danced a happy tinny dance. Its fellows, seeing
S
had got an in with the long-haired lady, came bouncing through the grass on the corners of their blocks: a wooden letter
T,
a bronze
B,
a silver
F,
a stone
Z,
and a gleaming golden
E
.

“You've got an infestation,” Blunderbuss said.

“What's wrong with them? What are they?” September chewed on her lip.
You oughtn't show your fear when strange beasts come round
. The letters
Y, K,
and
V
rolled up her arms under her hair.
I shan't be afraid of a bunch of letters! A Queen wouldn't be afraid of anything—oh, but if that's the size of it I shan't ever be Queen. But a great lot of letters are just words, and I like words. The bigger and longer the better. H, C,
and
M
clattered into her lap.

Hemlock chuckled. “They're an alphabet! They run wild round these parts, always have. Some grow enormous, up in the higher elevations. Ideograms and hieroglyphics as tall as a horse's shoulder. But here in Skaldtown we mostly get the wee ones. Italics and umlauts and the like. Aren't they precious? I found a little nest of Cyrillics in my rafters last week. Tufa, that's one of the three Primeval Trolls, hunted one down in the beginning of the world and taught it to turn into language. Nowadays they don't need to be taught—though you get more slang than proper sentence structure. Huh. It likes you. That's funny. I've only ever seen alphabets cuddle up to trolls before. Little traitors,” he added fondly. He narrowed his eyes. “What did you do? Did you use a big word or a lot of subclauses in your sentences?”

“
Velocipede
.” September shrugged. “I don't think that's
such
a big word.”

Suddenly, all the sound in Skaldtown snuffed out. September couldn't hear A-Through-L listing off his best words or Hemlock applauding, nor Blunderbuss snuffling at her crocheted foot, nor Saturday asking if someone couldn't please tell him what a velocipede was. It was on the tip of his tongue, only he felt so tired.

No, all September could see now was Ajax Oddson, the Dandy made of racing silks, floating in front of her.

“The Cantankerous Derby cordially requests the presence of September at a duel currently in progress! Get your judging wig on, my gallant girl, my shrew of shrewdness! It's time for…”

And September saw a glittering purple ocean spread out before her, lying over the grassy hills and stone bridges of Skaldtown like a movie projection. A glorious galleon at full sail sliced through the surf toward a sun-colored Roc named Wenceslas. Above them all, green fireworks shot into the air, exploding into the words:

A Duel Delights Forever!

Beneath the flickering image, September could see her friends leap up and call her name frantically—but their lips moved without a sound.

“I'm all right!” she yelled back, hoping that they could hear her. “I've got to judge a duel! Maybe it'll be quick…”

Ajax's voice rang all round her head like broken church bell. He sounded so excited, September had to laugh.
He really loves all this,
she thought.
This is the best day of his life.

“Today our swashbuckling scrappers are hashing it out on the Perverse and Perilous Sea! On the giant red bird we have Charles Crunchcrab the First! Looking resplendent on the Coblynow flagship, the H.M.S.
Chimbley's Revenge,
meet the Changeling Squad of Hawthorn and Tamburlaine! Oh, but I
do
think you've already met!”

September waved joyfully at Hawthorn and Tam. She could see them quite clearly if she turned toward their ship, as though she'd stood on the rail herself. They leapt about on the deck of the
Chimbley's Revenge,
wearing Cutty Soames's fabulously feathered tricorns and his best rapiers. Scratch danced out behind them, wearing his pirate's hat jauntily askew on his gramophone bell.

“I thought you left him behind!” called September.

Tamburlaine laughed and wound his crank. Scratch sang out in the voice of the siren who sang the greens back at the Briary:

Can't keep a good devil down, sweetheart

Can't keep a good devil down!

The more you try to make him frown

Clip his wings and take his crown

He'll roar right back and paint the town

No, you can't keep a good devil down, my love

You can't keep a good devil down!

“He stowed away, the rascal!” Hawthorn cried. He looked happier than September had ever seen him, his cheeks whipped red by the wind, his hair tangled and mussed, his eyes glistening and giddy. “We've been doing fantastically, how about you? We beat Piebald
and
the Knight Quotidian—he was dreadful, you'd never believe it. The soul of a scrub-brush and the mind of a to-do list!”

“Well, you won't beat me, you little turncoats,” groused Charlie Crunchcrab.

The old ferryman wore his old thick goggles and his wild thick hair billowed over his barnacled ram's horns. He still wore his name tag. Hawthorn's own handwriting, reading
Charles Q. Crunchcrab
. The former King of Fairyland glowered at her from the back of his Roc, clearly airsick and homesick and competition-sick, which Ajax would call a terminal illness. “You were meant to work for me! My personal spies—and now you dare aim those cannons at your King?”

“Well,” said Tam. “You're not our King. She is.” The fetch pointed one long wooden finger at September. “For now.”

“And you hired us to find a way to make you not-King anymore. Which I think we did smashingly! Go us!” Hawthorn grinned.

“I was wrong,” Crunchcrab said simply. “One minute, everyone looked at me like I mattered more than their own mothers. The next, no one looked at me at all. You try taking that drop with a smile and a curtsy! I will be looked at! I will be seen! I will
matter
!”

Ajax Oddson's voice chimed in her ear like a boxing bell. “Choose weapons quickly—time is shortening its reins! The endgame approaches!”

“I'm sorry, he says I've got to choose weapons,” September called to the
Chimbley's Revenge
.

“You better choose fair, missy girl,” Crunchcrab scowled. “No stacking it for your friends!”

September turned on him, her heart blazing in her chest. “You know what, Charlie? I have had enough of you. You were only ever nice when you had your wings locked down and your family all turned into pitchforks and typewriters. What's fair? Handing over Changelings to Tanaquill? Letting Fairies run roughshod over everyone's faces again just because they could? Making me a Criminal when my biggest heist ended up turning you into a King? You were a
rotten
King and you oughtn't be in charge of anything bigger than a gumdrop. You only want the throne because somebody came and took your toy away and, even though you were quite done playing with it, now you're pitching a fit. I used to think Fairies would be wonderful, glittering miracles but you're really just the worst lot of brats I've ever met. I'll choose what weapons I like! And do you know what I like? A troll gave me the idea. It's awfully good. I choose—State Capitals!”

And September laughed in the Fairy King's face, for she knew quite well that Hawthorn and Tamburlaine had gone a long way through the Chicago Public School system, and would be able to swing a Springfield without batting an eye.
It's only this once,
she told herself.
I'll play fair forever after. But just this once I want to pull out somebody's rug like they're always pulling out mine.

It was over so fast September choked on her own breath. Her duels had gone on and on, round after round. She'd thought they all would.

Tam rubbed her hands together. “Phoenix, Arizona!” she screamed, and at the same moment, Hawthorn hollered: “Baton Rouge, Louisiana!”

Crunchcrab sputtered and stuttered, trying to remember that the capital of Cockaigne was Blancmange or that the Buyan courthouse was in sunny Kvass or even that the Queen of Fairyland-Below ruled from Tain. But Charlie had never traveled much in his life nor wanted to. Travel only got you blisters. All he could think of was his home.

“Pandemonium!” he yelled with what he hoped was gusto.

The waves chopped and rose between the Roc and the galleon. A mad minstrel spun up from the surf, the bells on her hat jangling, her doublet and hose flashing dark rainbow colors, juggling fire and knives. Her hair flew wild—and September stared, for she could see all at once that the minstrel was made of a million tiny Fairies and sprites and pixies, all jumbled together into a writhing, glittering minstrel-shape. She remembered A-Through-L telling her about Pandemonium the day they met—
Population is itinerant, but Summer estimates hover around ten thousand
daimonia
—that means spirits …

“And
pan
means all,” September breathed, just as she had then.

The mad minstrel burst into flames.

A great phoenix swooped down from the clouds, its body all one burning ember from beak to tail feather, glowing black and red as a December hearth. In its charcoal talons the bird-inferno carried a long red spear hewn from a bayou cypress—for that is what
baton rouge
means in French. The phoenix hurled his spear directly between the eyes of the mad minstrel of Pandemonium, who exploded into a million burning sprites raining down into the steaming sea. The phoenix cawed triumphantly and beat his wings against the sky.

Hawthorn and Tamburlaine lost no time. “Lansing, Michigan!” fired the troll. The fetch put her lovely flowering head to one side and laughed. September knew that laugh, for she had made it herself, when she'd thought of a wild and winning play. Tam squared her shoulders. “Darwin, Northern Territory! Australia!” she added quickly, in case whatever magic made a duel got confused between the countries.

Charlie Crunchcrab tried to think.
Tanaquill told me. So did the Stoat of Arms. The old Stoat made up a song so I could remember. But whoever needed to know such a stupid thing? They always treated me like a schoolboy. They were
my
states, they'd have whatever capital I told them to have! How does it go?
Charlie sang under his breath.

“Old Brocéliande is a lady fine, her foot's a shady forest and her head is … Myrtlewine!”

But it was far too little and late. Useless myrtle flowers spread dumbly over the sea while Charlie howled and a man mounted the flaming phoenix. The man had bushy brown muttonchops with the gray just coming in and a sad, but wise, look in his eye. He wore a velvet coat and a cream-colored cravat and carried a book under one arm. In the other, he hoisted a long tortoiseshell lance fletched with songbird feathers. The man had worn-out boots and sea-worn hands and his name was Charlie Darwin, all sudden-true. The phoenix soared up with one stroke of his wonderful wings, then shot down toward Charlie Crunchcrab. Charles Darwin's eyes grew keen as he threw his lance.

“It's the survival of them that's best at nicking things, my boy!” the great scientist thundered, and his lance took the Fairy King in the chest.

“Well, if that doesn't just top the tart,” Charlie said with a sigh.

Charles Crunchcrab I looked down. He shivered. And an extraordinary thing happened. A dragonfly buzzed out of his fine peacoat. Then a little brown nightingale flew out of his trouser leg. Then Crunchcrab the Fairy wriggled and writhed and vanished. A pile of peacoat and flying cloak and the most delicate and lovely shoes you ever saw lay on the broad back of Wenceslas the Roc—as well as a cow, an antelope, a goat, and a very confused-looking ifrit with a smoky tail. All the creatures Fairies had evolved from, which is to say all the creatures they had stolen the best bits from, just as Charlie had told September so long ago.
Wings from dragonflies and faces from people and hearts from birds and horns from various goats and antelope-ish things and souls from ifrits and tails from cows and we evolved, over a million million minutes.

Wenceslas grumbled over the extra weight of a sudden cow, but he persevered. He would get them to shore—the Roc could see it in the distance, a beach full of golden scepters and crowns and jewels and necklaces. Inside the left sleeve of Crunchcrab's peacoat hid a very handsome frog. The frog's name was Charlie and he knew if he came out from his sleeve the other creatures would be very angry with him. So he stayed where he was. Where he was felt good and safe and, most important, easy. No one would ask him to rule the sleeve or know its capital. No one would tell him he was sleeving wrong. No one would bother him at all. And I will tell you the truth: That frog looked happier than any ferryman ever born.

“Jolly good!” Ajax Oddson congratulated all of them. Hawthorn and Tamburlaine hugged each other while Scratch danced a pirate jig on the upper deck, singing into the wind. But the Racemaster had not finished. “Now, it's come to my attention that certain rules have been broken! Certain bad behavior has gone without punishment! Certain cheaters have prospered! Is this so? Not on my watch! Queen September, I sentence you to Lose A Turn! To the Penalty Box with all cheaters, rogues, and silly little girls!”

September banged on the edges of the frame as they went up around her like steam. “What are you talking about? I didn't cheat!”

The Perverse and Perilous Sea grew cloudy and dark in September's vision—and so did Skaldtown, still sunny and bright beneath the image of the distant dueling ground. So did Ell and Blunderbuss and Saturday and Hemlock the troll.