“A Wind asked me to bring this to you,” September said instead. “I don’t know what it is, but I came an awfully long way to give it to you.”
Almanack’s elfin face opened up in an expression of enormous delight and gratitude. “Thank you, child! How wonderfully thoughtful of you.” Using all six of its rosy hands, the Whelk of the Moon pried at the lid of the carved ivory box.
But it would not open.
Almanack explored the lock with several of its tendrils. It put its tongue between its teeth as it worked at the mechanism.
But it would not open.
Suddenly, the Whelk of the Moon thumped the box hard with its uppermost right fist. September laughed at the peaceful Whelk’s pummeling.
But it would not open.
“I am so deeply sorry, my small friend,” it said, holding out the four arms which did not still cradle the casket. September stepped into them, hardly knowing why. The Whelk of the Moon wrapped its arms around her. Its skin was warm. Shaking its head, it murmured finally into September’s hair:
“I fear you will have to take it to the Librarian.”
CHAPTER IX
THE CURSE
In Which September Meets an Old Friend Unexpectedly, Discharges Her Postal Duties, and Is Nearly Burnt to a Crisp
September rang a bell.
She brought her hand down on top of it again-a big glass buzzer-bell like the one in the principal’s office at school. This one did not buzz; it rang clear and high, shattering the silence of the Lopsided Library.
No one answered. A loud shush sounded from the depths of the stacks, but September could not see the shusher, even if she stood on tiptoes.
Whoever named this place got it in one, September thought to herself. It was a very lovely library, a great circular room with a high glass chair on a dais in the middle of it all, from which, when such a one was on duty, a Librarian might glare down most effectively at noisy nellies and book-swipers. Pale blue and green pillars studded with round moonstones separated the sections. Neat rows of green-black stone desks and black-green study lamps stood at the ready. Bright stained-glass stacks sparkled as they bore up books of every possible size and type, rising all the way up through several floors to a domed ceiling strung with round lanterns. But all the books seemed to have lurched to one side of the building, as though they had all gotten a good fright from whatever sort of beast haunts the night terrors of books. They piled up on top of each other, wedged in tight to bursting, and if there was an order or a logic to their arrangement it, too, had had a good scare and run off. The stacks on the other side stood nearly empty, stained glass dustless and forlorn, a few lonely tomes leaning over, falling down, huddled in twos and threes for warmth.
“Hello?” September called. Her voice bounced around the rotunda.
This time, an answer came.
It was a roar that was also a shout that was also a laugh that was also a screech that was also a deep, resounding haroom.
A huge ball of red scales, claws, and wings shot up out of the rear stacks and landed on the Librarian’s chair. The ball had bright turquoise eyes that danced and shone and long orange whiskers.
A-Through-L, the Wyverary, crouched on the great glass chair and grinned as wide as any Wyvern ever has.
“September!” he trumpeted-and before September could answer him by vaulting over the circulation counter into his welcoming wings, a strange and awful thing happened.
A plume of indigo fire erupted from the Wyverary’s throat. He threw back his head toward the domed ceiling. The flame flowed thick and oily through the air, coiling and sizzling as it rose. Several lanterns burst into purple sparks and charred chunks, raining back down onto the books. The roof blackened-but it could not get much blacker than the black blast-stars which already scarred it. Finally, the flame sputtered out, leaving A-Through-L looking mortified. He hid his head in one scarlet claw.
And then, without warning, he shrank.
September was sure she saw it: One moment he was as gargantuan as always, towering, a great red beast who could eat two barns for lunch and still have room for tea. The next, he had dropped a foot or two, and cinched in a foot or two, and even lost a foot or two of tail.
But September could not make the time to worry about that. She cried out in joy, finally, a mighty whoop swelling up in her and bursting out at last, a popped bubble, a cut rope. Fairyland at last, even if it was the Moon, and her friend, impossibly, brassy and bright as ever, nothing lost, and not one fig given whether or not she had grown up a little. She laughed and reached up her arms to the Librarian’s chair. Ell looped his tail around her and hauled her up, nuzzling her face and blushing furiously. She who blushes first loses, September thought. But her own face flushed anyhow and she was not sorry.
“I’m very well, thank you,” snapped a little piping voice. A final glop of indigo flame hissed from Ell’s mouth, landing on the glass chair and sizzling away into lavender steam. A puffball festooned with ribbons yelped and stamped at a smoking book some falling nugget of lantern had stove in. “Oh, why shouldn’t you take on a Wyvern, Abby? Everyone deserves a claw in the door. He’ll be aces at shelving, with those wings!”
“September,” said A-Through-L with deep embarrassment, “may I present Abecedaria, the Catalogue Imp. Who is really very nice when there are patrons underfoot…”
The puffball hopped over the cairns of books and perched on a stack of periodicals. Abecedaria was a large powdered wig. Her curls and tiers were as splendid as any of the Founding Fathers or French Kings September had read about in her history books, fastened with black velvet ribbons and little black rosettes. She had no head beneath the wig; several of those sausage curls and corkscrews and puffs formed themselves into waggling eyebrows and a noble nose and a mouth. Two fat poodle-puffs made for legs, which ended in tiny black slippers.
“But what do you see?” the wig wailed in despair. “Do you see patrons?”
“She’s a Periwig,” Ell whispered. “Aldermanic Order, from the Foxtail Haberdashery. Very crispable, but a wonder with figures and sorting and classification and fiddly things that take patience that people’s heads just don’t have. Periwig begins with P, but she begins with A and we know each other quite well anyhow by now. Oh, I am so happy to see you!”
“An empty Library!” cried Abecedaria. “A silent Library! Can you imagine anything more miserable?”
September blinked. “I thought Librarians liked silence! I’m sure someone shushed me on the way in!”
“I can’t help that I make shushing noises when I walk! It’s a far sight better than squeaking loafers! You poor girl, what sort of aged, unfriendly Libraries have you met in your short life? A silent Library is a sad Library. A Library without patrons on whom to pile books and tales and knowing and magazines full of up-to-the-minute politickal fashions and atlases and plays in pentameter! A Library should be full of exclamations! Shouts of delight and horror as the wonders of the world are discovered or the lies of the heavens uncovered or the wild adventures of devil-knows-who sent romping out of the pages. A Library should be full of now-just-a-minutes and that-can’t-be-rights and scientifick folk running skelter to prove somebody wrong. It should positively vibrate with laughing at comedies and sobbing at tragedies, it should echo with gasps as decent ladies glimpse indecent things and indecent ladies stumble upon secret and scandalous decencies! A Library should not shush; it should roar! And that is why I did think a Wyvern would be a perfectly boisterous and bombastic Librarian. I have only myself to blame.”