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“Well, you’re wrong,” snapped the brass ball. A bit of the green verdigris on his forehead crumbled off. “Isn’t it fun to be wrong? No, it is not. But it is fun to watch someone else be wrong.”
But the Reference Desk looked up at Ell with its large, innocent green lamp shining. It closed the Oxtongue Fairyish Dictionary with a heavy thunk. When it opened the ponderous book again, it was no longer a dictionary of any sort, but something called The History of Fairyland: A How-To Guide. It looked very old but very well cared for, the kind of book that would spend most of its time asleep in a glass case.
“Oh, you vicious little flirt!” breathed Greenwich Mean Time. “They don’t even have gloves on! You put that back.” The Reference Desk straightened its legs, refusing to be shamed. “Young lady, if you so much as dream of putting a bare finger on one page of that volume I shall have the book bears on you before you can footnote!”
“What are book bears?” said September irritably. “You seem to be very fond of them.”
“No one is fond of them,” groaned Ell. “When I worked in the Lopsided Library I learned to be vigilant! Once, I stayed up for three days and three nights, armed only with my flame and my claws, to keep them out. All the while I could hear them scratching at the door, fiddling with the window locks, trying to scrabble down the chimneys! I roasted one just as he was ruining a thesaurus.”
“But what are they, you great red slowpoke?” growled Blunderbuss.
The Wyverary lowered his head so that his dancing orange eyes could get right up close to September. “September, have you ever been reading along in a lovely book, impatient to get to the next exciting bit, when out of nowhere you noticed that some word or other was spelled entirely wrong? Or the quotation marks faced the wrong way? Or came across a scene where a fellow’s eyes were suddenly blue, when they’d been green up till now? Or perhaps you wanted very much to know what happened to the lady in plaid from Chapter Three, but the author seemed to have forgotten all about her and you never found out?”
“I suppose,” September answered slowly.
“Well, that’s all the book bears’ fault! All books are born perfect, you see. Sometimes they stay perfect, but really, rather more often than anyone would like, the book bears get to them. They’re tiny bears the color of pages with a million teeth and clever claws. They sneak in at night and chew through the pages of a book, gnawing and munching and gulping. They nibble a letter or two out of words and leave behind…” Ell shuddered. “Typos. They dig into the paragraphs and mix up details so that the fellow with green eyes wakes up one day with blue ones. They chew through plots until the story doesn’t hang together quite right anymore. They’re a menace! And once a bear has gotten to one copy of a book, they can just tunnel right through to all the other copies, leaving their messes all over the place for poor copy editors to clean up! All Librarians gird themselves against book bears like doctors wear masks to keep out the plague. I’ve had nightmares! I dream I’m covered in them, and they keep chomping off the letters in my name until I’m C-Through-J and I don’t even know what the Barleybroom’s called anymore!”
Greenwich Mean Time nodded approvingly. “Quite right! But the Great Grand Library came to a truce with the bears long ago, and now the bears of Meridian only devour our enemies—the untidy, the tardy, and the careless! At one word from me they will swarm over you, gobbling up your continuity, carving up your history, scrambling up the letters of you until you forget how to spell your own soul! I’ve got a cave full of them in the Satire Cellar and they’re very hungry.”
“We’ll be careful,” said Saturday, and bent to The History of Fairyland: A How-To Guide. “Could we see the H section, please?” he asked the Reference Desk politely. The pages flew. “Hags, Various. Hats, Notable. Hallowmere, Halloween—look, September! You’re in here!” September leaned over to see a beautiful illustration of her shadow in the deepest of black inks, dancing on the fields of Fairyland-Below. She blushed, feeling both proud and caught in the act of dabbling with history, which surely carried some penalty, somewhere along the way. “Happenstance, Harrowing, Hart, White. Hart, Black. Hart, Red. Hart, Motley. There are a lot of harts in here. I thought they were extinct. Ah. Heart.”
September didn’t know what she’d hoped to find. A full-color illustration, along with a map, a train schedule, and a packed lunch? Maybe a note congratulating them for being so clever as to look it up in the Library rather than skipping all over deserts and fens prying up rocks to peer under. But the ancient book offered none of these. The entry was short. It had no pictures. Saturday read it out loud:
“Once upon a time, there was a young and beautiful world called Fairyland. Fairyland lived all alone and liked it that way, for it meant she got to go to stay out dancing with the galaxies as long as she liked, eat any travelers she wanted to without cleaning up after herself, and leave the magic on night and day and no one could tell her otherwise. But though Fairyland lived alone, she had many friends: the Sun and the M
oon and the Stars, the many Winds, the Four Directions and their cousins the Seasons, Time and the Sea and Fate and Death and Chaos and Physicks and Luck. Each and every one of these loved to get dressed up in their finest costumes and come round for visits. The Sun would sit on the sofa devouring seed cake. Chaos would drink up all the milk while East and West and North and South played cards. The Moon would dance with the Sea and whisper in her ear, and the Winds would dance with Physicks and Death and Fate would argue until their arguing started to look like dancing, too. Time would always try to behave himself, but Luck always got him to laugh. In this way, Fairyland lived happily for eons upon eons, and all she ever worried about was whether or not she had made enough biscuits for all.
“But one evening, Fate brought a guest to meet Fairyland—another world, like herself, but not very like herself at all. The new world was a good guest, and brought presents: a beautiful basket with Change inside. All night long, Fairyland talked to her new friend, asked if his cup needed filling, impressed him with her wild ways and her rough manners and her clever schemes. They danced together on a carpet of snow. Everyone watched, and everyone worried for Fairyland, for this new world was surely a bit of a rake, or else Fate would not have made friends with him. But they felt silly the next morning. For a long while yet, all went along as it always had. Fairyland lived more freely and lushly and joyfully than ever. The new world visited her often, always with gifts, and whenever Fairyland saw her suitor, she smiled and the whole of heaven and earth burst into flame and flower.
“After an epoch or two, however, the new world began to visit less often. When he did come, he was sullen and sorrowful. Finally, Fairyland asked what could be the matter. And he answered:
“‘Must you keep your gravity so untidy? It’s all rumpled and uneven. Every day I see folk flying about who should walk on the ground! Anyone could shoot up into the air or dive down through the earth at any time, and there’s no rhyme or reason to it!’
“‘I like my untidiness and rumpledness and unevenness!’ replied Fairyland, and would not discuss it further. After another era had passed, the new world sighed and said:
“‘Must you allow Physicks to run rampant the way you do? It’s a ruffian, I tell you, a delinquent! It does what it pleases and obeys no sensible law!’
“Fairyland drew herself up proudly. ‘Physicks is my friend, and I love to watch him play. If he vandalizes a thermodynamic or two, what’s the harm? They’re prettier when he’s done with them, anyhow.’
“The new world shook his head and tried to eat his seed cake, but he had lost all his appetite. At last, after a long age in which many things happened, including dinosaurs, Atlantis, and several uninvited comets, the new world tried to coax Fairyland round to his way of thinking once more.
“‘Oh, what is it now?’ said Fairyland crossly.
“‘It’s your biology, I’m afraid. I can’t bear to see it lying about in lumps and tatters! You’ve got people with the bodies of horses or dragonfly wings. You’ve got folk who can grow to great heights and shrink down to nothing anytime they need to reach something from the top shelf. You’ve got talking rocks and underwater horses and lions with eagle wings. It’s unseemly! Please, you must make it listen to reason.’
“Fairyland grew so angry that six new volcanoes twisted up out of her northern reaches.
“‘You are a rake and a rascal and a boring old dunce. How can a world as young as you have such a fusty mind? You cannot order my darling gravity, my beloved biology, or my dear dashing Physicks to do as you say. Have it your own way in your own home, and let me have it my own way in mine. I shall never listen to you on these matters. Go away and never come back!’
“And so the new world slunk away and tried to forget about Fairyland. But he couldn’t. He spent most of his time collecting pictures that reminded him of her and telling stories of their adventures to any folklorist who would listen. Nor could Fairyland, proud as she was, forget her old friend. She missed his funny, stick-in-the-mud ways and the way he danced when the harvest came in and all seemed golden and good. As the ages turned ancient between them, Fairyland began to sneak out at night to spy upon that other world. Occasionally, she would steal a rose from his garden or a nail from his door or even, every now and again, a sunny-faced child who wandered too far from the gate. And in their sleep, each world would sometimes turn over and reach for the other’s hand, interlacing their fingers like two sets of forever-turning gears. But when they woke, their hands were always empty once more.
“Fairyland lives happily, but she has never lived quite alone again. This is the sorrow of the human world and the Fairy world, who cannot get along, but cannot part.”
Saturday finished and stood back.
“What does all that mean?” asked Blunderbuss.
“It means Fairyland’s Heart is broken,” came a cool, crisp, disapproving voice.
