Free The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente Page A

breeze returned September’s clothes, crisp and clean and dry, scented lightly with a bit of water from the baths of courage, and wishing, and luck. She could not be sure, but she thought the breeze might have purred a bit, rather like a leopard.
    “If you see her,” said Lye softly, almost whispering. “My mistress. If you see her, tell her I am still her friend, and there are ever so many more games to play…”
    “I shall, Lye, I promise,” said September, and reached up suddenly to hug the golem, though she hadn’t meant to. Lye slowly enfolded her soap-arms around the child. But when September reached up to kiss the golem’s brow, Lye drew back sharply before her lips could touch the word written there.
    “Careful,” Lye said. “I am fragile.”
    “That’s all right,” said September suddenly, feeling the warm cinnamon courage of her bath bubble up inside her, fresh and bright. “I’m not.”
     
    The House Without Warning was possessed of a small door nestled up beside a marble statue of Pan blowing his horn--if only September knew that Pan is also a man, and not merely a prefix! Well, nevermind. But it was too late for warnings now, as the House well knew. The door straightened up and opened gallantly for the Wyverary and the girl. Seagulls cried from inside, and many voices jangled together, but all was dark within. Slowly, they stepped through into the black.
    “Ell,” said September as they crossed the threshold, “what sort of tubs did you wash in?”
    The Wyverary shook his great head and would not speak.
     
     
     
     
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Local Thunder

Chapter VI: Shadows In The Water
     
    In Which September Crosses a River, Receives a Lesson in Evolution, and Loses Something Precious, But Saves a Pooka.
     
    The Barleybroom River roared and splashed as September and the Wyverary stepped through the bath-house door onto a rich, wet, green bank. At least, September presumed it was the Barleybroom. Something colorful and hazy floated in the center of the river as it foamed along round it in a great circle. September almost tripped for gawking. Folk surrounded them, pushing, laughing, shouting, all laden with every kind of suitcase and traveling pack, from brass-banded steamer trunks to green handkerchiefs tied around knotty sticks of hawthorn. September tried to look as though she belonged there, back straight, eyes ahead. Black river mud squelched between toes of her one bare foot.
    Every sort of creature jostled for position, trying gamely to get to a long, pale pier first: centaurs and satyrs and brownies and will o’ the wisps, birds with girls’ legs and girls with birds’ legs, trolls with splendid epaulets and dwarves in velvet trousers and waistcoats, hobgoblins plying violins as they walked, mice taller than September, and a great number of human-seeming ladies and lords and children. September caught the eye of one of them, a little girl in a neat hazelnut-husk dress. She had red columbines tangled up in her blonde hair. She danced around her mother, teasing and pulling at her skirt. The girl clapped her gaze on September in mid-leap. She winked wickedly and shivered her shoulders--and suddenly the girl was a sleek black jackal pup, with a gold stripe down her back. Now, jackals are not the wicked creatures some irresponsible folklorists would have children believe. They are quite sweet and soft, and their ears are clever and enormous. Such a lovely creature the little girl had become. Only her narrow blue eyes were the same. Her great tall ears twitched and she continued on pestering her mother with yips and nips.
    “Did you know,” said the Wyverary happily, snuffling the fresh air with his huge nostrils, “that the Barleybroom used to be full of tea? There was an undertow of tea leaves, flowing in from some tributary. It used to be, oh, the color of brandy, with little bits of lemon peel floating in, and lumps of sugar like lily pads.”
    “It’s not tea now, at least,