“September,” said Saturday gently, “let me buy it for you. I’ve tears enough for it, I’m sure.”
“This dress costs much more than tears, my lad,” Groof said sadly, shaking her great green jeweled head. “More than kisses and hours. And no haggling-you haven’t the time. Listen!” And they could hear, like a train whistle in the distance, a low, sweet melancholy moan. “The Eel’s coming into the station.”
All around the Market, blue lamps lit up out of the dark mist. A bell tolled softly. A hanging, swaying sign swung into sight: FEVER-ROOT STATION.
Glasswort Groof planted her large, thorny feet. “I told you about the Firstborns. We’re swimming in them! They’re not a bad lot, but I never wanted children. Let my brothers handle that; they love bonnets and bassinets! My bairns keep the Market up all hours with their whining for home. Take one off me and the dress is yours. It’s worth it, trust me-it may seem a pretty, useless bauble, but that’s what they say about upsider boys and girls, and they have some good uses all the same. Aubergine, get out here!”
The bell chimed louder. From behind the stall, a shy thing emerged, quite tall, taller than Saturday, but not by much, with great, sad, dark eyes and a long, thick, curving beak.
“Aubergine’s a Night-Dodo,” Groof said quickly. “Nothing like them for hiding and sneaking about. She’s too old to fob off on a troll who doesn’t know better, and I’ve got two others to feed besides.” The Night-Dodo’s feathers shone a piercing shade of purple, with dark emerald underdown and a showy fall of black tail feathers like a dark fountain. Her legs looked strong, gray as old stone.
“Goblins always hold back the best trick for last!” said Ell.
“I’m not a trick,” said Aubergine softly. Her voice thrummed deep and echoey.
“You take your wares and you take your chances,” Groof shrugged. “I didn’t rhyme once when I offered her, if that’s worth a thing. Why should I cheat? I have a good sterling Hour in my sack! My Market’s starting to perk up already!” The wood of the stall smoothed and polished itself, looking as proud as wood can look.
“Oh, Ell, she’s just a poor lost thing!” said September, and held out her hand to the bird. September had no natural defense against lost things, being one herself. She could not quite have put it into words, but she felt profoundly, at the bottom of her new, shining heart, that she could find lost things. She could make them un-lost if she were brave enough. After all, if enough lost things band together, even in the darkest depths, they aren’t really lost at all anymore. “Even for nothing, I’d take her along as far as the capital,” September said finally, and the Night-Dodo, ever so lightly and briefly, pressed her big beak into her palm.
Saturday kicked the earth. Perhaps he did not want company, either.
“I’d have bought the dress.” He sighed. “I could’ve. He never bought you anything, but I could.”
Aubergine nosed September’s shoulder with her great dark beak, and suddenly the Watchful Dress hung snug and soft on September’s body, as though it had been made for her and her alone. The wine-colored coat wrinkled with distaste, most perturbed at suddenly being draped over an obvious intruder. The coat immediately puffed out and grew long to hide the dress, cinching tight.
Four tickets rested snugly in its pocket.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NIGHT-DODO’S QUIET TALE
In Which Our Motley Gang Travels to the City by Eel, Meets Someone They Do Not Expect, and Hears a Sad Tale Involving Guns, Dodo Racing, and Goblin Bargains
The Market and Glasswort Groof disappeared in a pop of smoke and spangle.
The four of them stood on a station platform, railroad bells ringing madly around them. A kind of wet thunder shook the planks of the station. They did not even get a chance to say a proper word to each other before a great, salty, steaming rush of water splashed and surged across the black ground below the platform. It flowed indigo and frothing, a narrow, sudden river-and on the river rode high the Weeping Eel. He slowed to a perfect, graceful stop.
He was, quite clearly, an Electrick Eel. Longer and taller than a train, his livid lavender flesh lit up with hundreds of balls of crackling peacock-colored electricity floating like balloons on his flanks. Wafting, delicate pale fins floated out on either side beneath the electricks, fully as long as his body. His enormous, gentle, smooth face bore stout whiskers that glowed with light, blinking on and off to signal that he had docked at the station. His immense translucent eyes, half covered by heavy, bruise-colored lids, overflowed with indigo tears, spilling onto the earth to make his own watery tracks.
His name was Bertram.
All along his endless back folk crowded with suitcases and valises, laughing and drinking and discussing what seemed to be very important subjects with much gesturing. Tea-and-luncheon carts rolled back and forth, and various brownies and selkies and bluecaps hollered for service. They seemed to all be having a lovely picnic on the Eel’s back as he traveled along.
And on the head of the Weeping Eel, a beautiful orange lamp floated, pale green legs descending from her base and pale green arms extending out of the crown of the lantern. A green tassel hung down around her knees. If in the history of anything, a lamp ever smiled, this one did, and in the soft, fleshy side of the Eel, a little staircase formed to let them up.
“Gleam!” September cried, and fell into the green arms of her friend. Several passengers burst into applause, though they were not sure why, really; it just seemed like a good time for it, while they were having such a jolly afternoon. Among the nixies and nymphs, however, glowered one or two boys with dark horses’ heads, and they watched September with baleful eyes, neither clapping nor speaking.
“But you’re not a shadow!” September said finally, when the hugging had worn itself out, and Ell and Saturday had had their turns. Aubergine hung back shyly. With a choked sob, the Weeping Eel began to move again, smoothly sailing down the track of its own tears.
Elegant, golden writing spooled across the face of the orange lantern.
I don’t have a shadow anymore.
“Whyever not? Did you trade it away like I did? It hurts dreadfully, doesn’t it?”
I died.
“Oh.” September colored. She had actually forgotten.
My light went out. You can’t have a shadow without light.
“But you’re all right now!” said Ell. “Remember, we went to see the Trifle-Wights in Cockaigne together. We did just as you asked, September: We took her to see the world. Or some of it. The world is very big.”
Yes. Big and wide and wild.
But my light was out. I could not be a lamp without my light.
And the shadows kept falling into the ground.
So I followed them.
Wherever they were going, that was the place for me.
Where no one needed light.
“Poor Gleam!” September exclaimed. “I’m so sorry, it’s only that it took so long to get back, and everything was so terribly complicated once I got here…”
The golden writing interrupted her, streaming around the skin of the lamp with excitement.
No!
I am happy, September!
I met the Weeping Eel, and he was so lonely,
without a conductor
to talk to him and tell him stories.
Everyone just uses him the way they used to use me,