June 2016

Chapter 2 - The closet between Worlds

In Which September Passes Between Worlds, Asks Four Questions and Receives Twelve Answers, and Is Inspected by a Customs Officer

By the time a lady reaches the grand, golden evening of her life, she has accumulated a great number of things. You know this – when you visited your grandmother on the lake that summer you were surprised to see how many portraits of people you didn't recognize hung on the walls and how many porcelain ducks and copper pans and books and collectible spoons and old mirrors and scrap wood and half-finished knitting and board games and fireplace pokers she had stuffed away in the corners of her house. You couldn't think what use a person would have for all that junk, why they would keep it around for all this time, slowly fading in the sun and turning the same shade of parchment brown. You thought your grandmother was a bit crazy, to have such a collection of glass owls and china sugar bowls.

That is what the space between Fairyland and our world looks like. It is Grandmother's big, dark closet, her shed out the back, her basement, cluttered with the stuff and nonsense of millennia. The world didn't really know where else to put it, you see. The earth is frugal; she doesn't toss out perfect good bronze helmets or spinning wheels or water clocks. She might need them one day. As for all the portraiture: When you've lived as long as she has, you'll need help remembering your grandchildren, too.

September marvelled as the heaps of oddities in the closet between worlds. The ceiling was very low, with roots coming through, and everything had a genteel fade to it, the old lace and code-breaking machines, the anchors and heavy picture frames, the dinosaur bones and orreries. As the Leopard proceeded through the dimly lit passageway, September looked into the painted eyes of pharaohs and blind poets, chemists and serene philosophers because they had on drapery clothes, like curtains. But most of the portraits were just people, wearing whatever they had liked to wear when they were living, raking hay or writing diaries or breaking bread.

'Sir Wind,' September said, when she had recovered herself and her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, 'I want to ask you a question, and I want you to answer me seriously and not call me any pretty names or tease me.'

'Of course, my ... September. And you can call me Green. I feel we're becoming very well acquainted.'

'Why did you take me out of Omaha? Do you take very many girls? Are they all from Nebraska? Why are you being so nice to me?'

September could not be sure, but she thought the Leopard of Little Breezes laughed. It might have been a snort.

'That's rather more than one question. Therefore, I think it's only fair I give you rather more than one set of answers.' He cleared his throat dramatically. 'One: Omaha is no place for anybody. Two: No, my schedule keeps me quite busy enough. Three: See above. Four: So that you will like me and not be afraid.'

Up ahead, there was a line of folk in long colourful coats moving slowly, checking watches, smoothing hair under hats. The Leopard slowed.

'I said no teasing,' said September.

'One: I was lonely. Two: I have been known to spirit away a child or two away; I shan't lie. It is the nature of winds to Snatch and Grasp at things and Blow Them Away. Three: Nebraska does not grow many of the kinds of girls who ought to go to Fairyland. Four: If I were not nice, and did not know the way to Fairyland, and did not know the way to Fairyland, and did not have a rather spectacular cat, you would not smile at me or say amusing things. You would not tell me politely that you like teacups and small dogs and to please be on my way.'

They came up short and took their place in line. Everyone towered above September – the line might have been long or short; she could not tell. September leapt off the Leopard and onto the dry, compact dirt of the closest between worlds. The Green Wind hopped lightly down beside her.