The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making (12 page)

He clung to her, shaking a little. September could not make herself let go of the long brass handlebars. Her grip tightened until she could hardly feel her hands, but she bent her head and rubbed her cheek against Saturday’s forehead, the way Ell had done with her when she was frightened. He seemed to calm a little. Yet still, the noise and dust was awful, all around them. Ell ran alongside, whooping and lolling and laughing as little velocipedes took him for a bull and tried to roll up to ride on his shoulders.

“Excellent save, chickie-dear!” came a hollering voice over the pounding bicycle herd. September looked around--and saw on a nearby highwheel a handsome woman with lovely dark brown skin and wild curly hair. She wore something like a leather bomber’s jacket, with a fleecy collar and a hat with big, flopping earflaps. She had on big goggles to keep the dust out of her eyes, and thick boots with dozens of buckles over the kind of funny riding pants September had only seen in movies, the kind that bow out on the sides and make one look like one has squirreled away watermelons in one’s pockets. Behind her were two delightful things: a little girl dressed just the same, and a pair of iridescent coppery-black wings bound up in a thin chain.

The woman deftly steered her velocipede in and out of the volery to come up alongside them.

“Calpurnia Farthing!” she hollered again over the din, “And that one’s my ward, Penny!” The little girl waved cheerfully. She was much younger than September, perhaps only four or five. Her blue-black hair stuck out in tangled pigtails, and she wore a necklace of several bicycle chains which left her neck quite greasy. She wore mary-janes like September’s old shoes, but the girl’s were golden-- dirty and muddy, but golden all the same.

“H…hello!” answered September, barely holding on.

“You’ll get used to it! Gets to be pretty natural, after awhile, the banging and bedlam! That’s quite a cow you’ve lashed there, she’s an alpha and no joking! I’d have tried for one of the milking calves my first time.”

“Beggars can’t be--”

“Oh, yes, I’m just congratulating, you know! She’s a beaut!”

“Erm, right now, you understand, Miss Farthing, it’s hard to carry on a conversation…”

“Oh, well, it would be, if you’re not accustomed!” Calpurnia Farthing held out her hand. Penny spat a wad of beech-sap gum into it. Calpurnia reached down and wedged the gunk into a broken spoke. Her highwheel screeched, possibly in relief, possibly in indignation at her particular brand of field medicine. “Well,” she yelled, “they do stop to drink at night! They’ve a powerful thirst, you know. Takes hours to slurp their fill!”

“Till then?” said September politely.

“Ayup!” And Calpurnia veered off wildly, with Penny laughing all the way.

The campfire crackled and sparked, sending up smoke into a starry sky. September had never seen so many stars, and Nebraska was never poor in stars. There were so many unfamiliar constellations, spangled with milky galaxies and the occasional wispy comet.

“That’s the Lamp,” whispered Saturday, poking the fire with a long stick. He seemed to be most comfortable whispering. “Up there, with the loopy bit of stars in a circle--that’s the handle.”

“Is not,” humphed Ell. “That’s the Wolf’s Egg.”

“Wolves don’t lay eggs,” said Saturday, staring into the fire.

September looked up in surprise--Saturday had never contradicted anyone yet.

“Well, there’s a
story
. I read it when I was a lizard. There’s a wolf, a banshee, and a bird of prophecy, and they all make a bet--”

“And the wolf says:
ain’t what’s strong, but what’s patient.
” Calpurnia tossed a palm frond into the fire. Penny tossed a clump of grass.

“No, he says:
give me that egg or I’ll eat your mother
,” huffed A-Through-L.

“Regional folkloric differences,” Calpurnia shrugged.

The highwheel pilot opened her jacket and pulled out several long strips of dark meat. She passed them around, along with a fancy oakwood flask. Penny gnawed her jerky contentedly.

“What…is it?” asked September dubiously.

“What do you think? Dried tire. I share and share alike with fellow velocipeders. Only fair; it’s a hard life. Don’t turn up your nose at it! It’s as good as any other meat. A little gamey, sure, but they’re wild. Not all fattened up like mutton. Go on, eat. And drink--that’s good axle grease in there. Just as nice as yak blood.”

Ell chomped his and swallowed it right quick. September chewed slowly. This could hardly qualify as food at all, let alone Fairy food. But it wasn’t awful, not nearly. And not rubbery in the least. It was as though someone had found an extremely skinny, tough old turkey and burnt it thoroughly in the oven. The flask smelled rich and salty, and when she drank she came near to spitting it out--or throwing it up--for it was indeed the closest thing to raw blood she had ever tasted. But she felt strength in her afterward, sinewy and springy and warm. Saturday ventured a little tire and a sip of grease, but could not stomach it. He nursed a bit of stone he had dug up from the earth instead. Penny stuck out her tongue in disgust.

“That’s not nice, love,” admonished Calpurnia. “Changelings, you know? No manners at all.”

“Is she? Really?”

Penny picked at her golden shoes.
All changelings must wear identifying footwear
, September remembered, as though from a hundred years ago. “Didn’t like the ‘chestra,” Penny mumbled. “Can’t play nothin’.”

“She’s right. I went to a recital and the poor thing was playing her grummellphone upside-down. Fortunate-like, I keep my pockets full of oilcan-candy in case I’m in need of bait. I offered her a handful and she jumped right into my arms. Took to the velos much better--practically born to it, you might say!”

“But a changeling,” said September, “that’s when a Fairy takes a baby and leaves a Fairy in the crib.”

“It’s more like…a cultural exchange program,” Calpurnia said, ripping off a chunk of tire in her teeth. Her eyes were wild and golden, and the starlight was all caught up in her wings. September tried not to stare. “Well, unless they leave a poppet. That’s just a bit of a joke. But usually, we swap them out again when they grow up, and everyone’s the wiser for solid communication between realms. It’s nice. Well, not nice, but fun. I’m not having that for my Penny, though! Princess of the Highwheels, I’ll have her up to be!”

“I talk to the little velos,” whispered the child. “They say:
Penny, where’s your seat?
”

“I don’t approve of the changeling orchestra. It’s not pretty, it’s just a zoo, really. For rich fairies who are in good with Miss Fancy-Curls herself to peer at. Couldn’t bear that for such a sweet thing as Penny. Time was, changelings were the toast of the town, fed with biscuits and new cream and got to dance at the Thistleballs in the spring, dance until their shoes wore through and then dance some more--”

“That doesn’t sound quite nice either…” said September uncertainly.

“Well, it’s a certain sight better than being strapped to a grummellphone until your spine grows W-shaped!”

“Grum’phone sounds like a cow chucking, anyway,” Penny groused.

“That’s right, chickie-love. And you never have to play one again. Anyway, I don’t approve of chamber music in general. It’s stuck-up on itself. Much prefer the velo horns.”

“What was her name before?” asked September.

“That’s private, no one needs to know that but her.”

“Molly!” piped Penny. “I was a Molly! And I had a Sarah and a Donald, and they were a sister and a brother. And I had a velo of my own! Only it wasn’t wild, and it didn’t talk. It was pink, and it had a little bell, and three wheels instead of two. But I didn’t have a Calpurnia, so I must have been sad. I don’t remember, really.”

They were all silent for awhile, staring into the fire as those not possessing tires and spokes have done since the dawn of the world. The Wyverary drifted helplessly to sleep, sitting up. He snored lightly. It sounded like pages turning. Calpurnia scratched under her hat.

“Where are you lot off to, then? You’ll pardon, you don’t seem like the lifestyle type. Short-term transport, am I right?”

“The Autumn Provinces,” answered Saturday, his voice echoing low among the snorting, snuffling highwheels as they teemed around their watering hole and spun their spokes in antique mating dances.

September found she did not want to say why they were going. She wrapped the sash of the smoking jacket around her recovered Spoon delicately. Calpurnia whistled.

“Ayup, that’s a respectable haul! We ought to make that in a week or two. Hope you brought comestibles of your own!”

“A week or two!” cried September. “But that’s not fast enough! We need to get there and back in seven days.”

Penny laughed. “Can’t do it!” she giggled.

But Calpurnia was thinking. She scratched her chin with three long brown fingers, then licked them and held them up to the wind. “Aye but we might…if you think you can handle your alpha. I don’t like to do it, but I’m not so dense as to miss that you’re running hard, and that almost always means there’s a beast behind you.”

September nodded miserably.

“Well, a velo is a lazy thing, in the end. They don’t like to go as fast as they can go. It suits them just as well to roll along leisurely-like. This is the Great Migration--they’re all homebound, to the spoke-nests, to mate and die. Some of them feel the mating drive stronger than others. Some only feel the dying drive. Makes them lag. But if you and I apply a bit of encouragement, they’ll bear down on the road like it’s dinner. And by encouragement I mean whipping of course and I know it’s not civilized and I cringe to think of it but sometimes with steeds it’s all you can do.”

“Don’t want to whip my velos,” Penny whimpered.

“They forget, chickie. They’ll all forget.”

“No they won’t! They’ll whisper:
that Penny, she’s naughty and nasty
!”

“Penny, you don’t have to do a thing,” said Saturday gently, who knew a thing or two about whipping.

“But Saturday, we’ve so little time…”

Saturday looked at September for a moment, his expression, as always, unreadable. Then he leaned over and rubbed his cheek against her forehead just as she had done to him. The Marid got up and walked away from the fire, into the dark and the wavering grass and the volery of snorting, spinning. velocipedes.

“Is he yours, then?” Calpurnia asked, draining her wooden flask with relish. She spat into her goggles and rubbed them clean with her fingers.

“Mine? No, he’s his own. “

Calpurnia grunted doubtfully and squinted at the dark.

“Miss Farthing, may I ask you a question?”

“How can a deny such a nicely-wrapped request?”

“Are you helping us because you want to? Because you like us, because you’re friendly and good-hearted? Or because the Marquess wants you to be nice? Because she’ll Greenlist you if you don’t?”

Calpurnia Farthing looked long and deep into September’s eyes. The young girl felt as though she was naked again, in the bath-house. Her golden gaze seemed heavy and hot.

“What makes you think I’m not already Greenlisted, girl? Do you think taking a changeling out of the orchestra comes at no price at all?” She tugged on the flaps of her hat. “If it will make you feel better I can lead you to a pit in the forest or steal your breath or whatever it is I might--and I’m not admitting to anything--have done in my profligate youth. These days, I have my highwheels and my girl to look after. Hardly time to go spoiling the barley for beer. Maybe when I retire, I’ll go back to it. But if it pleases the Marquess to think that her hoofing List is all that’s keeping me in my place, then let her think it. Mainly, I’ll help you because lost little human girls are a hobby of mine.” Penny snuggled up to Calpurnia and laid her head on her lap. The Fairy-woman stroked the changeling’s matted hair. September smiled. She liked them. She felt safe with them near.

Out of the dark, Saturday returned amid much grinding and crushing noises, leading two huge highwheels behind him. They rolled along docilely, leaning in to nuzzle the other’s handlebars occasionally.

“They’ll take us, as fast as they can, faster, even,” said Saturday firmly. “They’re ready to go home, they don’t want to wait. They’ll leave right now if we want, they’ve drunk their fill.”

“Hey! Only I talk to them!” said Penny, hands on her little hips.

Saturday shook his head and crouched next to her, his wild blue hair catching the firelight and blazing orange. “There’s not a creature living that doesn’t have wishes, Penny. And I can always hear wishing, even the very quietest kind.” The Marid stood up. “No whipping,” he said softly, almost embarrassed. “Not ever. Not even if the whipping would make them do your will as fast as blinking. Especially if.”

Calpurnia Farthing held out her hand. Saturday shook it, thought better, and then kissed it in a very courtly way. “I said I didn’t like to. They’d have forgiven me. Probably not you, but me, they would have loved again.”

“I know.”

“Let’s off, then. I’ll see you to the edge of the equinox. Leastaways I can do, for such raw wheelers as you and yours.”