The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (10 page)

September had only had coffee once, when her Aunt Margaret had snuck her a sip while her mother wasn’t looking. It tasted bitter, but wild and strange. She rather wanted to taste it again. “Why do I have to be anything? It’s only a cup of tea. And I’m not the Princess of Nebraska, I’ll tell you that for certain.”

A-through-L laughed. It was almost the same laugh September remembered. A little darker, a little heavier. The shadow of a laugh. The Vicereine of Coffee sat daintily on the arm of the golden chaise.

“Did anyone ever read your tea leaves, back home where you live?” she asked. A green berry came loose from her hair and rolled lazily down to the shining floor where Kona picked it up and flicked it at one of his sisters.

“No,” September admitted. “Though my mother used to pretend she could do it. She put a scarf around her hair and peered at the cup and said I was destined to fly to the moon or be the captain of a beautiful golden sailing ship.” September blinked and laughed a little. “I suppose I was the captain of a sailing ship, if you look at it sideways!”

“That’s the only way to look at things, I always say,” propounded the Duke. “Slantways, sideways, and upside down.”

The Vicereine put her brown hand on September’s arm. “Tea leaves are nothing to the reading of coffee grounds, if you want the unvarnished truth. Coffee is a kind of magic you can drink.”

“My caffeinated bride! You malign me!” the Duke protested. “Tea is no less high enchantment! My family are all great and learned wizards of tea, and our children will carry on the family lore,” he assured September.

“They will sing the Carols of Wakeful Working!” insisted the Vicereine. “They will cast the Jittery Runes!”

“Not before the Glamours of Soothing Souls!” roared the Duke. “Not until they have mastered the Calm Crafts!”

Darjeeling kicked the carpet with a dainty foot. “I’m rotten at Turkish, you know,” she confessed.

Peaberry tossed her nutmeg curls. “Well, I
loathe
the Lemon Sabbat,” she sniffed at her sister.

“They will know both,” the Vicereine said, laughing and holding up her hands for peace. “You see how it all went so wrong! In the old days, the Robust Cavalry and the Chamomile Brigades tore each other to bits. We are Wet Magicians, all of us royal bodies. We are loyal to our bailiwicks. We’ve lived in Fairyland-Below since before they hung the stars up, and we’ll be here after they burn out. After all, coffee plants come up from under the ground, and yes—tea plants, too! We’re the ones who coax them along, who tell them who to be when they grow up strong. There’s loads of us down here. That’s Baron of Port.” She gestured to the man with the violet skin. “That is the Waldgrave of Milk with the horns and the pale hair, the Pharaoh of Beer with the wheaty hair, the Dauphin of Gin dancing up on his table. And the dark lady reclining with cacao seeds around her waist is the powerful and sought-after Chocolate Infanta. We practice our Wet Magic, deep and mystic and difficult, hard to hold in the hand but sweet in the belly. Coffee is the best of them, obviously. It’s a drink that’s a little bit alive—that’s how it makes
you
feel so alive and awake.”

Matcha tugged her mother’s shimmering skirt. “Tea is alive, too, Mummy. That’s why we have tea parties. So the teas can play together, and tell each other secrets.”

The Vicereine picked up her green-haired girl in her arms. “Yes, of course, my little leaf. And when you speak of tea or coffee or wine or any of our liquid spells, the drink must be matched perfectly with the drinker to get the best effect. If the match is a good one, the coffee will get to know you a little while you drink it, to know you and love you and cheer for your victories, lend you bravery and daring. The tea will want you to do well, will stand guard before your fear and sorrow. Afternoon tea is really a kind of séance. And at the end of it all, the grounds—or leaves!—left in the bottom of your little cup are not really prophecies but your teatime trying to talk to you, to tell you something secret and dear, just between the two of you. So my husband is being a bit boorish about it, because he is a Duke, and Dukes are the wild boars of the noble kingdom, but he only wants to know what tea is your tea.”

September thought about her pink-and-yellow teacups in the sink back home, and how she had hated them and their slimy clumps of leaves. She felt poorly on it now, thinking of tea as a thing alive, which wanted only the best for her.

“I don’t want to be a Princess,” she said finally. “You can’t make me be one.” She knew very well what became of Princesses, as Princesses often get books written about them. Either terrible things happened to them, such as kidnappings and curses and pricking fingers and getting poisoned and locked up in towers, or else they just waited around till the Prince finished with the story and got around to marrying her. Either way, September wanted nothing to do with Princessing. If you have to mess about with that sort of thing, she reasoned, it’s better to be a Queen, anyway. But the thought of a Queen made her think of Halloween, and her hand tightened on her cup.

“I suppose we could just call you September, Girl of the Topside. That doesn’t sound very grand, though.” The Duke scrunched up his long nose.

“What about a Knight?” suggested Ell shyly.

September brightened for a moment, but the memory of her shadow still hung in her mind, and she slumped again. “I used to be a Knight,” she said. “It’s true. But a whole year has passed. And I haven’t a sword anymore, not even a Spoon, and I haven’t a quest, except for a hope of fixing things that I broke myself, and questing is really about fixing things that other people break. I don’t know that I
am
a Knight any longer. A Knight should feel triumphant about their adventures, and I suppose I do, but I also feel strange and sorry because of all that happened after.”

“It doesn’t trouble me to tell you,” said the Vicereine, in the tone mothers use to talk children out of too-expensive toys, “Knights are a dreadful sort, when you get to know them. Oh, in storybooks it’s all shining armor and banners, but when it comes to it, they’re blunt weapons, and always wielded by someone else.”

“Perhaps.…” An odd idea was forming in September’s heart like tea slowly steeping. “Perhaps, if I am to look at everything slantways and sideways and upside down, as the Duke says, and I’m not a Knight any longer, I could be a Bishop instead. In chess, Bishops go diagonally. They’re surprise attackers, and you hardly ever see them coming.”

“I feel a Bishop ought to have a Bishopric—that’s like a Duchy for priestly sorts. And a really spectacular hat.” The Duke of Teatime pointed out a small teapot from his daughter’s collection, a steel-blue one with etchings of clouds and winds upon it. “But you are closer to the Hollow Queen than any of us, and I expect that earns you the right to name yourself. September, Fairy Bishop of Nebraska, for you I steep the Crocodile’s Long Dream.”

“Nonsense,” snapped the Vicereine, who clearly felt she had been patient enough. She chose a deep-red pot from the lot, with roaring tigers engraved upon it. “She does not need sleepiness or gentleness! She needs to wake up, the brightest and hottest waking that has ever rubbed its eyes. For her, I brew the Elephant’s Fiery Heart!”

The Duke held his hand to his mouth as though he meant to blow a kiss, and blow he did, but instead of kisses, indigo- and holly-colored tea leaves spun up from his palm, dancing through the air toward September’s cup. The Vicereine made an outraged noise and snapped her fingers. Out of her hand whirled flaming rose- and tangerine-colored coffee beans, which ground themselves to powder in midair and outraced the tea to hover over the little cup, scorching the blue leaves as it shot by them. Matcha shrugged and decided for her mother, pouring scalding water from the red pot over the glowing grounds and offered cream or sugar. September took both. The coffee bloomed black with a crimson froth, and in its depths garnet flames flickered. The cream made strange pink clouds in the brew, and when it was done, a slim strand of silk spooled up and out of the coffee, as though it had really been tea all along, draping over the side of the cup and growing an exquisite parchment tag, which read:
WHAT GOES DOWN MUST COME UP.
The Duke smirked.

“The Sibyl had a teabag like this!” she exclaimed.

The Vicereine nodded. “Our blends go everywhere, even to Fairyland-Above.”

September drank. A huge, thundering warmth filled her from bottom to top. Even the roots of her hair went hot and seemed to crackle.

“You know, September,” said Ell, who seemed content to observe as her own Wyvern had rarely been in Fairyland-Above. He rested his enormous dark chin on her shoulder. “Bishop begins with B, and Chess begins with C, and I know a few things concerning the history of Bishops.…”

But Ell did not get a chance to tell her what he knew about it, for a great ruckus went up from one of the other tables, upsetting teacups and saucers. The various music that had tinked and plinked lazily burst out in a sparkling cloud of noise, then skittered about, looking for the rhythm again. The Ducal family, Ell, and September all turned to see what was the matter. All of them saw what September saw, but only September gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

The shadow of a Marid was dancing on one of the tables with the Dauphin of Gin, throwing his long, inky arms up in the air, kicking his smoky legs in a graceful pattern. His charcoal topknot came loose and flew wildly, whipping in time to the gnome’s quick cello and the Pharaoh of Beer’s clacking coffee spoons. Swirling electric-blue spirals moved over his skin, and September knew immediately that it was Saturday, her Marid, even as he leapt into the air and boldly spun three times as she could not imagine her Marid daring to try.

When he landed, Saturday’s shadow saw her. He leapt nimbly across the room, laughing, and spilled September’s tea onto the couch when he clapped her up into his arms and kissed her right on the lips. September felt as though she had suddenly fallen off a great cliff, and at the same time, just as she had when she tasted Fairy food for the first time. Something sweet and frightening and mysterious had happened, and she could not take it back even if she wanted to.

“Oh, September!” Saturday cried. “I knew you would come! I knew it! I have missed you so much!”

“Saturday!” said September, and it did not matter that he was a shadow; her heart was glad. But her heart also saw that he did not apologize for spilling her tea, did not even seem to notice that he’d done it. Her heart was bruised by the kiss, smashed and surprised and unsettled by it. September thought kisses were all nice, sweet things asked for gently and given gladly. It had happened so fast and sharp it had taken her breath. Perhaps she had done it wrong, somehow. She put the kiss away firmly to think about later. Instead, she smiled at him and pulled a carefree mask over her face.

“What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you are the Count of Something!”

“Don’t be silly! But I do love hot chocolate and spiced milk, loyal talk and music and dancing—but you are
here
! Who needs any of that rot now? We shall have
such
fun together!” Saturday’s shadow laughed, twining her hands in his beautiful sloe-black fingers. “The games and songs we will play! The tricks and riddles we shall make! Oh, I want to show you everything, everything—the Redcaps’ iron castle, the Goblin Market, the Mole Circus, the wild Hippogryphes’ hunting grounds! I will show you how to climb up to the bottle-trees atop the Grapelings’ vineyard towers and we will drink under the woolly, waxen light of our jeweled moon!”

“I don’t believe I have ever heard you put so many words together in one place,” said September, who felt a powerful shyness rise up in her, perhaps to replace the shyness Saturday’s shadow had left behind.

“It’s only because I have waited so long for you, September! I have been saving up exploits for us! Wait until the Revel—you’ll never want to leave.”

September put her shyness away and hugged him tight. He smelled just the same as she remembered, like cold sea and cold stones.

“I’m not here for the Revel, Saturday. I’m not here for castles or Hippogryphes—only they do sound wonderful, don’t they? I am here to bring the shadows back into Fairyland. Things are not at all well there. Magic is being rationed! People are so frightened and lost! I know you don’t want people to be frightened; I’m sure you just haven’t thought of how they must feel, that’s all.”

Saturday drew away from her. His expression fell into something more like what September knew—sad and sorry and hopeful, but not terribly hopeful.

“But we don’t want to go back to Fairyland. We like it here. We have new friends and have been doing ever so much now that we’re free.”

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!”