“But, September,” said Citrinitas sadly, “these sorts of things, well… they’re always guarded, aren’t they? It might be best to enroll with us now and worry about the casket when you’ve progressed in your studies a bit.”
“I can’t! I haven’t time. I must open the casket tomorrow, or I shan’t have time to get back before the Marquess has my head!”
“September,” whispered Saturday.
“Perhaps you’d like to decide on your class schedule now, then? I have room in my morning Hermetics lecture, and I expect Citrinitas will be happy to get you up to speed in Elemental Affinities.”
“September!” Saturday said, more loudly, but the spriggans were exclaiming and pulling at her, and she could not hear him.
“We’ve even a free space on the squash team! How fortunate!” cried Rubedo, clapping his ruddy hands.
“September!” wailed Saturday, tugging at her sleeve. Finally, she turned to him, flustered by all the yelling.
“What?” she said, shaken.
“Your hair is turning red,” Saturday said softly, embarrassed to have all the attention suddenly on him.
September looked down at her long, dark hair. One curl had indeed turned blazing scarlet, terribly bright against the rest of her. She touched it, amazed, and as her fingers brushed the red lock, it broke off and drifted off on an unseen wind, for all the world like an autumn leaf wafting away.
CHAPTER XII
THY MOTHER’S SWORD
In Which September Enters the Worsted Wood, Loses All Her Hair, Meets Her Death, and Sings It to Sleep
“It’s because I ate the food,” sniffed September miserably, hiding her face in the Wyverary’s chest. A-Through-L lay on the leafy ground like a Sphinx, nuzzling her hair with his nose. He stopped that right quick, though as more of it broke off and sailed away into the night.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “We ate it, too!”
“What’s happening to me?” September wept.
Her hair shone, bright red, curling up at the edges in pretty shapes. She had already lost much of it. The spriggans looked discomfited but they tried to be cheery.
“I think it’s rather nice!” chirped Doctor Fallow. “An improvement, I declare!”
“You do match me, now,” said Ell, trying to be helpful and optimistic.
September rolled back the sleeve of the green smoking jacket, which was terribly chagrined and tried to keep covering her to protect her, but in the end, she wrestled the sleeve up to her elbow and waved her hand for the doctor to see. The skin there, once the same warm brown as her father’s, had gone hoary and rough, tinged with gray and green, like bark.
“Is this an improvement?” she cried.
“Well, this sort of thing happens. We must be adaptable. Autumn is the kingdom where everything changes. When you leave, it’ll be all right, probably. If you haven’t put down roots yet.”
“Still, about my syllabus…,” insisted Rubedo. Citrinitas elbowed him roughly.
September rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands-which had begun to grow a healthy bit of silver moss. “Fine,” she said shortly. “Fine. I shall go now, then, to the woods, and get this awful business over with before I turn into an elm.”
“I think you’re a bit more birch-y,” said Doctor Fallow contemplatively.
“Not helping!” snapped Ell. “You could help if you had some medicine for her in your weird, ugly tower.”
“Medicine’s not our business,” said Citrinitas helplessly. “And besides… change is the blessing of Autumn. She should feel lucky.”
Ell, as September had never seen him do before, spat a lick of fire at her. Not enough to scorch, but enough to singe her hair. Citrinitas yelped and leapt back, batting at her curls. The Wyverary curled closer around September.
“Well, you can’t go with her, so you might as well stop smothering,” huffed Doctor Fallow. “This is strictly a lone-knight situation.”
“Then she isn’t going! I shan’t let her go anywhere without something large and fire-breathing and double smart behind her! Since I don’t see a flaming burp between the three of you, I suggest you leave us alone!”
“Ell, if that’s how it’s done, you can’t bellow it into doing it differently,” sighed September. She stood up and disentangled herself from her friend. Blazing curls of her hair fluttered to the ground.
“I can try!” Ell insisted.
“No, I shall go alone. I always thought I would be going alone. I shall be back presently, I promise. Say you’ll wait for me, you and Saturday, that you won’t go anywhere without me, that when I come out of those woods I shall see a red face and a blue one smiling!”
Ell’s eyes filled with panicked turquoise tears. He promised, his wings jangling his chains fretfully.
Saturday did not say anything. He bent and tore the cuff from one leg of his trousers. The cuff was blue and ragged and not a bit muddy with velocipede-grease. The Marid tied it around September’s arm. His fingers trembled a bit. The green jacket introduced itself politely but coolly to the cuff. Just so long as the cuff knew who came first.
“What is this?” said September, confused.
“It’s… a favor,” answered Saturday. “My favor. In battle… knights oughtn’t be without one.”
September reached up and touched his face gently to thank him. Her fingers grazed his cheek. They had shriveled into thin, bare, dry branches, bundled together at the wrist.
As September walked through the starry, misty night, trying not to look at her ruined hand, she realized that she had not traveled alone in days. She missed Ell immediately, who would be telling her all sorts of things to keep her from being afraid, and Saturday, who would be quiet and steadfast and dear at her side.
She shivered and whispered to herself to keep from shivering: “Bathtub, Bathysphere, Barometer, Bear, Bliss, Bandit…”
Gradually, the trees turned from wood and leaf to something altogether stranger: tall black distaffs wound around with fuzzy silk and wool and fleeces September could not name. They were all colored as autumn woods are colored, red and gold and brown and pale white. They crowded close together, fat and full, shaped more or less like pine trees. She could just see the sharp distaff jutting out of the wispy top of one great red beast of a tree. This must be where they get the stuff to build Pandemonium! September thought suddenly. Instead of cutting down a forest, they weave it!
The moon peeked out of the clouds, too shy to show herself fully. September came, by and by, to a little clearing where several parchment-colored distaffs had left their fibers all over the forest floor like pine needles. In the corner of the clearing sat a lady. September brought her hand to her mouth, so surprised and shaken was she, forgetting that her fingers were only branches now.
The lady sat on a throne of mushrooms. Chanterelles and portobellos and oysters and wild crimson forest mushrooms piled up high around her, fanning out around her head-for the lady, too, was primarily made of mushrooms, lovely cream-yellow ones opening up like a dress collar around her brown face, lacy bits of fungus trailing from her every finger and toe. She looked off into the distance, her pale eyes a pair of tiny button mushrooms.
“Good evening, my lady,” said September, curtsying as best she knew how.
The mushroom queen said nothing. Her expression did not change.
“I have come for the casket in the wood.”
A little wind picked up, ruffling the shiitakes at the lady’s feet.
“I do hope I’ve not offended, it’s only that I haven’t much time, and I seem to be coming all over tree.”
The lady’s jaw sagged open. Bits of dirt fell out.
“Don’t mind her,” came a tiny, breathy voice behind her. September whirled.