Oh no! thought September. What have I done? If my Death has grown so big surely I am doomed!
But Death moaned in her sleep, and September saw, glinting in her mouth, something bright and hard. Death opened her mouth, yawning in her sleep. Be bold, September told herself. An irascible child should be bold. Gently, she put her blackened, sappy fingers into Death’s mouth.
“No!” cried Death dreaming. September snatched her hand back. “She loved you all those years; it was only that you couldn’t see it!”
September tried again, just grazing the thing with her fingertips.
“No!” cried Death, dreaming. September snapped back. “If you had gone right instead of left, you would have met an old man in overalls, and he would have taught you blacksmithing!”
September tried one more time, sneaking her fingers past Death’s teeth.
“No!” cried Death, dreaming. September recoiled. “If you had only given your son pencils instead of swords!”
September stopped. She felt hot all over, and the hole in her cheek itched, as though there were leaves crinkling in at its edges. She breathed deeply. September smoothed Death’s hair with her ruined hand, which was sprouting new branches even now. She bent and kissed Death’s burning brow. And then she began to sing again, softly:
“Go to sleep, little skylark…” She caught the edge of the thing.
“Fly up to the moon…” It was slippery and sharp, like glass.
“In a biplane of paper and ink…” September pulled. Death groaned. Birds flew up from the night forest, spooked.
“Your wings creak and croon, borne up by balloons…” There was a terrible creaking, crooning sound as the thing in Death’s throat came free. Death’s mouth opened horribly wide, bending back and back and back, and her whole body folded strangely back around itself as the thing emerged, so that just as September pulled it out entirely, Death vanished with a little sound like the snapping of a twig.
“And your engine is singing for you,” September finished quietly, almost whispering. In her arms, she cradled a smoky glass casket, just the size of a child. It was hung with red silk ropes and bells, and on its face was a little gold plaque. It read,
WILL HILT TO HAND YET BE RESTORED?
TAKE ME UP, THY MOTHER’S SWORD.
September ran her hands over it. She did not understand. But given a magical box, no child will leave it shut. She fumbled with the knots and rang the bells a great many times with her twiggy hands, but finally, under all that blood-colored silk was a little glass latch. September wedged her woody thumb underneath it, and all the forest echoed as it popped free.
One by one, the mushrooms that made up the Lady’s face began to peel off and float away, until September was surrounded by a gentle whirlwind of delicate, lacy mushrooms and the last curls of her own hair, gone red as knots of silk. She lifted the casket lid.
Inside was a long, sturdy wrench.
CHAPTER XIII
AUTUMN IS THE KINGDOM WHERE EVERYTHING CHANGES
In Which Our Heroine Succumbs to Autumn, Saturday and the Wyverary are Abducted, and September Has a Rather Odd Dream
September ran.
The sky behind her had gone an icy, lemony-cream color, pushing the deep blue night aside. Dew and frost sparkled on the Worsted Wood, clinging to the silken puffs like stitched diamonds. Her breath fogged. Leaves crushed and rustled beneath her feet. She ran so fast, so terribly fast-but she feared not fast enough. With every step, she could feel her legs getting skinnier and harder, like the trunks of saplings. With every step, she thought they might break. In the Marquess’s shoes, her toes rasped and cracked. She had no hair left, and though she could not see it, she knew her skull was turning into a thatch of bare, autumnal branches. Like Death’s skull. She had so little time.
When they are in a great hurry, little girls rarely look behind them. Especially those who are even a little heartless, though we may be quite certain by now that September’s heart had grown heavier than she’d expected when she climbed out of her window that long-ago morning. Because she did not look behind, September did not see the smoky-glass casket close itself primly up again. She did not see it bend in half until it cracked and Death hop up again, quite well, quite awake, and quite small once more. She certainly did not see Death stand on her tiptoes and blow a kiss after her, a kiss that rushed through all the frosted leaves of the autumnal forest but could not quite catch a child running as fast as she could. As all mothers know, children travel faster than kisses. The speed of kisses is, in fact, what Doctor Fallow would call a cosmic constant. The speed of children has no limits.
Up ahead of her, September could see Mercurio, the spriggans’ village, nestled in the flaming orange trees, loaf chimneys smoking cozily, the smell of breakfast, pumpkin flapjacks, and chestnut tea floating over the forest to her shriveled nose. September tried to call out. Red leaves burst from her mouth in a scarlet puff and drifted away. She gasped, something between a sob and an exhausted wracking cough. I’ve lost my voice after all, she thought. She clutched the wrench to her chest, hooking it through her twiggy elbow, which had grown soft sticky buds, like rosehips. The wrench gleamed in the dawn, burnished copper, its head shaped and carved into a graceful hand, ready to clutch a bolt in its grip. Everything shimmered with morning wetness.
A-Through-L yawned in the town square, his huge neck shining as he stretched it up and out. As September burst into the square, she saw the Wyverary playing some kind of checkers with Saturday, using raisiny cupcakes for pieces. Doctor Fallow sat back in a rich, padded chair, smoking a churchwarden pipe with satisfaction. They looked up joyfully to greet her. She tried to smile and open up her arms to hug them. But September could not fault them for the shock and dismay on their faces as they saw her ruined body stumble onto the bread bricks. She wondered if she still had her eyes left. If they were still brown and warm or dried up seedpods. September could hardly breathe. Branches poked and stabbed at her as she gasped after her breath. The green smoking jacket despaired. If it had hands, it would have wrung them; if a mouth, it would have wept. It cinched itself closer to her waist-only a cluster of maple branches now-trying to stay close to her.
“September!” cried A-Through-L. Saturday leapt to his feet, upsetting the cupcake checkers.
Saturday gasped, “Oh, no, no… are you all right?”
September sank to her knees, shaking her head. Saturday put his thin blue arms around her. He was not sure it was allowed, but he could not bear not to. He held her, gingerly, much as she had held Death. Saturday had never had anyone to cradle and protect before, either.
Saturday, September tried to say, I understand now. But red leaves puffed from her mouth, branches ground on branches in her throat, and no words came. Rubedo and Citrinitas peeked out of one of the low, round houses, clucking piteously. Rubedo stroked his wan crimson face. Citrinitas nervously tied knots in her golden hair. But Doctor Fallow kept smoking his pipe, smacking his lips and blowing rings.
Ell! The Marquess needed me because of my mother! Golden leaves dribbled onto the square. Saturday stroked September’s brow, and she had a moment, only a moment, to be amazed that he did not think her ugly, that he was not afraid to touch her.
Because she fixes engines, Ell. So this is her sword. Do you understand? If it had been anyone else, it would have been something else. Like, for you, it might have been a book. For Saturday, a raincloud. If only I knew what she needed a magic wrench for! I am sure if we think hard on it, all three of us, we shall be able to figure it out. A torrent of orange leaves vomited up from her dry brown mouth. September laughed. More leaves flew. She was probably the only girl in all of Fairyland who could have pulled a wrench, of all the ridiculous things, out of that casket. Whose mother here could have wielded such a weapon? The Wyverary and the Marid exchanged miserable looks.