“How can you see all that? I can’t even see his hat!” Saturday whispered.
“I listen,” whispered Aubergine, even more softly. “That, too, is part of Quiet Physicks. A very difficult part, which I studied under the Great Grammophone of Baritone Gulch while my Goblin mistress sold him a pelican. If you can learn to listen deeply and completely, listen not only to words and sounds but also to the pneumo-dynamicks of hearts and light, the partickles of sorrow and gladness, the subtle fluid dynamicks of regret, there is nothing you cannot uncover. I listened to the stars reflecting, the Wimble turning, the shadow falling, and the slow, steady breath of the Alleyman. He weeps as he turns the Wimble, you know. He weeps as the shadows seep through. He thinks no one hears, but I hear. The Alleyman is a Lutin, a kind of invisible hobgoblin whose red hat is like his heart. It is his strength and his self, the only part of him he wears where anyone can see it. And a Lutin weeping is the quietest weeping of all. Invisible tears from an invisible man.”
The ladder receded, sliding back into the truck, and the red hat came with it. Somewhere off behind him, a black wisp floated off to its destiny. All around, September saw folk clutching their bodies, their bellies and backs, sweating and trying desperately to remain silent. The shadows looked unconcerned and impatient, but the rest of Tain trembled. The red hat paused at the cab of his bony black truck, as if appraising them all. No one breathed. Then, it lowered into the driver’s seat, and on those acorn-squash wheels the Alleyman trundled, slowly, away.
“Surely,” said September as shaking breaths sucked in all round and nervous laughter wriggled out over the street, “surely, he cannot hurt anyone down here. He’s taking shadows from Fairyland-Above and that is terrible. It must be stopped, but who could he harm in Tain?”
A-Through-L stared at her, a little shamefaced and a little defiant, his tail whipping back and forth like a cat’s. “Well, you know, there’s plenty who live here who aren’t shadows. Like any place. The Duke of Teatime and Aubergine and Glasswort Groof and all of them. The Glashtyn. Nunos. And sometimes, just sometimes, not terribly often, you know? The Alleyman takes their shadows, too.”
“They want to keep their magic,” mumbled Saturday. “You can’t blame them. But when the Alleyman comes, it’s better just to hold still until it’s over.”
September thought this a sad, rotten thing to say. She remembered the awful sawing that cut her own shadow from her, and she might have dwelt on that terrible pain and what it cost her, had not the Revelers struck up their singing and laughing and talking and dancing once more. They shouted and whooped even louder than before, dancing as if to erase the memory of the Alleyman and his great dark wheels.
Aubergine, feather by feather, reappeared, her solemn dark eyes shining.
CHAPTER X
THE REVEL
In Which September Learns a Great Deal, the Queen Engages, a Feast Is Demolished, and the Wild Revel Finally Begins, but Not Necessarily in that Order
I find it reasonable to suppose that some of you, dear readers, have been to a party or two in your young lives. Perhaps you were given a sparkly hat and a bag full of little toys. Perhaps cake was served, and ice cream, too. If you went to especially good parties, you might have played games and won prizes, or watched a fellow in funny clothes pull doves out of his sleeves or make a puppet dance or even play a song on a banjo or guitar or accordion. No doubt you had far too much to eat and drink and needed a good nap after the whole affair.
But you have never been to a Revel.
A Revel is to a party-even that very best party with the doves and the puppets and the accordion-as a tiny, gentle green lizard licking his eyeball on a hot stone is to the Queen of Dragons in full flight, wings out, breath ignited, singing the songs of her nation.
And before every Revel comes a Feast.
The central boulevard of Tain, which A-Through-L could have told them was called Fool’s Silver, erupted with long tables full of the delights of a dozen cuisines. Goblin tarts and Nuno honey in rock-crystal jars, steaming Spriggan pies of heartberry and blisspeach and pumpkin and moonkin that got bigger and smaller as you grasped for them, green and healthful Gnome soups overflowing with hexweed, passionpoppy leaves, thrallbulbs, memory-mums, and ropes of good, sweet basil and sage. Glashtyn oatcakes and hay-muffins with golden crusts, Dryad rain-stews and sunnydaise sauces, braided flame-bread for Ifrits and seastone pastries for Marids, genuine cloud-roasts and piles of grilled dunkel-fish and the Järlhoppes’ special feverblossom coffee. The Scotch-wights had been saving their best Pining Peat for the occasion-and of course the Wyverns’ beloved radishes scattered here and there on the tables like drops of blood, among charm-tortes shaped just exactly like old books, brown and buttered and crackling.
September saw on the table nearest her a great orange-chiffon pumpkin soup with candied almonds, orange sauce in a moat around a castle of carrots and sweet potatoes, and a chocolate cake so rich and dense and moist it shone black and wet the crimson doily beneath it, and the pale plate. It shamed her mother’s cake and September blushed. The frosting sparkled in rosettes and ribbons. And all around the plate was written in very nice handwriting indeed: Everything Must Be Paid For, Sooner Or Later. September ran her fingers over the letters. Was it the same hand as the Duke’s tea-tag? She could not tell.
To say they ate well is to gloss over the hunger and glee with which the whole of Tain devoured their favorites and new delectables, not minding the mess they made, pitching crusts and rinds at one another, toasting everything they could think of. “Here’s to the life of a Gnome!” from one table, “Cheers for my Goblin love!” from another, “Hurrah for the health of all shadows!” from still a third. “So long as they don’t crowd my bogs!” bellowed back a teetering Scotch-wight. And from every table, every cup, “Long Live the Hollow Queen, All Hallow’s Girl!”
Mischief, too, was on the menu. The watery shadow of a Naiad touched the red clay cup belonging to the bald, golden-scaled girl next to her with the tip of her rippling finger. Blue sparks fountained out, and the wine foamed over, each bubble tipped with a tiny sapphire. The scaly maid yelped, giggled, and then drank it down in one gulp, whereupon her face vanished and blossomed into an elephant’s huge, trunked head-though still covered in golden scales, and her eyes flashed garnet flames. She trumpeted, and marigold petals flew from her trunk, becoming tiny scarlet sparrows as they fell onto the shoulders of the crowd. The sparrows sang riotously and disappeared altogether with a loud crash of unseen cymbals. The Revelers burst into applause, and the Naiad’s shadow blushed a pearly gray.
“Oh, I want to try!” cried Saturday.
“I’ve turned her into a Wyvern already,” said A-Through-L’s shadow, not without pride.
“I should have known,” said the Marid, his eyes large and sad. “You have always had the better part of the fun without me, even before. You met her first; you let her ride you-I came along too late to play, and everything went dark and awful so fast!”
“Not I,” said the Wyverary gently. “Never I myself, Saturday. I would never cut the line in front of you. And you came right quick anyhow! Don’t forget the velocipedes!” He nudged the shadowy Marid with his great head. “Go on, now! It’s a Revel! Anything is allowed!”
“Wait!” cried September. “Stop talking about me like I’m a toy you’ve got to share! I have work to do, I don’t want to be-”
But it was too late. Saturday was grinning like he knew a secret, and he had grabbed up both her hands. He kissed them-once, twice, three times. And there’s four kisses I’ve got in a day, thought September, who was not at all sure what to make of kissing and at that moment would be granted no time to consider it. Quite without warning, she felt something open up inside her like a balloon suddenly swelling up shiny and bright. She found herself floating lightly above her chair, her wine-colored coat and Goblin’s dress gone. September wore instead a delicate gown of grasshopper wings and the smallest spiderwebs, hazelnut shells, and lacy mushrooms, oak leaves and crow feathers and cornsilk, beaded with fireflies and raindrops. Her feet hung bare above her plush seat, and she felt two long, satiny wings beat slowly at her back, as natural as lifting her arms.