“All my house… just sleeping until their birthdays?” September bit her lip and looked out at the lonely grass. “That’s strange and sad. I often lose things, and break them, long before they turn one hundred. But… why haven’t you any houses of your own? Or a village?”
We spent a century closed up within four walls and a roof.
We are claustrophobic.
We prefer the sun and the wind and the sea,
though it bites some of us,
who are made of metal, and tears papery hearts.
“How old are you?” snorted Hannibal, the pair of straw sandals.
“I’m twelve, Sir.”
A great consternation went up: kettles shrieked, swords rattled, shoes stomped.
“Well, that’s no good at all!” Hannibal yelled. “Never trust anyone under one hundred!” The throng of Tsukumogami rustled agreement. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave. Folk under one hundred can’t be borne-they’re not mature enough. Not seasoned. They haven’t seen grandchildren come and go or been left to gather dust in the winter while their family swans off to the sea for holiday! They’re unpredictable! They could go off at any second! All caught up in walking around and doing things!”
“Twelve!” sniffed the spurs. “Why, that’s barely fifty!”
“It’s not fifty at all,” snapped a silk screen. “It’s not even twenty. She might be a revolutionary! Young people go in for that sort of thing.”
The orange lantern flashed:
If she were a revolutionary,
I think she would have a rifle…
No one paid the lantern any attention.
“I certainly don’t want to be a bother,” demurred September. “I’ll go, I will. Only, I wonder if you might have something I could eat? It is a harsh life at sea.”
“No!” snapped Hannibal, snapping his straps. “Get out! Young cretin!”
September knew when she was not wanted. At least, when someone hollered at her to get out, she could guess as much. But she was wounded-so many folk had been so kind to her in Fairyland. Her cheeks burned under the gaze of the cast-off furniture. But then, perhaps, in the hinterlands, in the wild islands, the Marquess had not yet had a chance to force niceness upon them. She turned to go-and oh, she oughtn’t to have turned her back on them! But perhaps it was not her fault. Perhaps it was the sudden trouble-making breeze that came along and drew aside the tall grass, just far enough that the flash of September’s black shoes shone through the blades.
Several broken bells clanged an alarm, and Hannibal stomped after her like a musk ox. He tackled her, the soft smack of straw sandals slapping her back and knocking her forward.
“Shoes!” he crowed from atop September’s body. “Black shoes, ahoy!”
“Get off me!” yelled September, struggling under the sandals and trying to grab at them.
“Told you, told you! Even ninety-niners are suspect. Twelve? Why, that’s as good as saying, ‘wicked and up to no good!’”
“I’m not up to no good! I’m trying to rescue my friends!”
“Don’t care, don’t care!” howled the sandals. “Grab her, Swords! Don’t be too careful with your blades, either! Down the well she goes!”
Cold, sharp hands grabbed her arms. Kettle steam scalded her feet until she screamed, scrambling to get up. The swords’ grip cut into her arms. They hauled her over the grass while Hannibal giggled and sang along with his compatriots.
“She’ll reward us, you’ll see!” he assured them. “We’ll have our own young kettles for tea and not have to brew up the Earl Grey in Mildred anymore!”
“She?” cried September. “Who told you to do this? Was it the Marquess?”
“We don’t share state secrets with youngsters!”
The throng stopped suddenly short as a black hole opened up in the earth. It was lined with stone, all the way down. September could not see its bottom, but she thought she could hear the sea down there, splashing darkly.
“No!” she wept, trying to tear away from that terrible darkness. The swords cut deeper, and pain flooded her vision. Her skin was slippery with blood.
The orange lantern bobbed in front of her, just over the pit. The lovely handwriting flowed over its face.
The Marquess said to look for a girl
wearing beautiful black shoes. I’m sorry.
“And do what?” shrieked September.
Kill her.
The swords threw September down into the black.
She fell a long way.
At first, September was not sure she was awake. She saw no difference, whether she opened her eyes or not. Slowly, she felt the cold wetness of sitting in several inches of seawater. Her bleeding, she thought, had stopped, at least, mostly stopped. But she could not move her arms, and she suspected her leg was broken. It surely was not supposed to bend that way beneath her. The cold water numbed her all over, and softly, quietly, September cried in the dark.
“I want to go home,” she said shakily to the dark. And she meant it, for the first time. Not as the lie that had gotten her into Fairyland, but the real and honest truth. Her lips trembled. Her teeth chattered. “It’s all so scary here, Mom,” she whispered. “I miss you.”
September put her cheek to the cold stone wall. It was fuzzy and wet with slime. She tried to think of Saturday, pressing his cheek against a dire wall like this one, waiting for her, believing she would come for him and smash his cage as she had before. She tried to think of Ell’s warm bulk, curled against her in the dark.
“Help!” she yelled hoarsely. “Oh, help…”
But no help came. September saw the day come pale and blue over the rim of the well. It seemed very far away. But the thin sunlight gave some courage. She tried to fill her mind with the scent of Lye’s golden bath, fireplaces crackling and warm cinnamon and autumn leaves crunching underfoot. She put all of her weight onto her good leg, and pushed up out of the water-only her body buckled underneath her, and she fell back down, gasping for air.
Some time later, a soft thing brushed her face. September could not tell time at the bottom of the well, but it must have been night, because she could not see what it was. Blindly, she reached out. Orange light flooded the well. Sinking down to her came the lantern, beautiful and round as a pumpkin. Its tassel hung down below it and tied to the tassel was a huge green fruit. September snatched at it and tore it open with her teeth, slurping the pink juice and devouring the meat. She did not say thank you-she was quite beyond manners. The lantern watched her eat. When she had finished, September panted with the exertion of eating, looking wildly about.
Very slowly and gingerly, as though it was afraid to be caught at the deed, a slim hand rose up out of the top of the lantern. And then another. The pale greenish hands clutched the lantern sides and pulled up the orange globe-so that two girls’ legs could stretch out beneath it. September waited, but no head came.
“Please help me get out,” whispered September.
Golden writing spooled out across the surface of the lamp.
I cannot.
They would tear me in half.
But the orange lantern wrapped her arms around September, and her legs, too, and held the little girl in the dark, stroking her hair. If September had looked up, she might have seen a gentle lullaby writing itself across the Tsukumogami’s face.
Go to sleep, little firefly,
Float down to the earth…
But she did not look up, and very soon, September was asleep.
When she woke, the lantern had gone. The seawater had risen slightly. No day peeped through the top of the well. September screamed in frustration, kicking the wall with her good leg.