The Boy Who Lost Fairyland

by Catherynne M. Valente

  But when he came to the book of stamps, the poor troll was quite overcome by the hundreds of lovely pictures pasted to the pages, some drawn in ink, some in gems, some in nothing more than scents that swirled into his mind, making gentle rectangle-shaped images of popcorn and sunshine and centaurs racing. He looked to Benjamin Franklin for help but found none. Hawthorn sighed. He supposed it mattered little. It was only a stamp. He peeled back one of the biggest and most lurid—a field of Knights with banners fluttering, and before them all a beautiful girl with long, dark hair dancing in an orange dress, holding them all back as they stared at her, fascinated, and the sun set behind them.

  “Well met and well done!” cried the Red Wind. She seized the edge of the paper and unfurled a great sail of wheels and snow and boats, spinning it round him before he could squeak. The troll could feel it squeezing him, pressing his skin, making him smaller, rubbing furiously at the jewels that show through a troll’s skin. She flung the ribbon over him in long loops and cinched them tight. And now Hawthorn’s insides huddled up into a strange little shape, making something different, something new, something not-quite-Hawthorn. His fingers were no longer thick and strong but slim, delicate, pink. He began to panic; the ribbons closed up his throat. But it was the Postmaster herself who lifted the stamp carefully from the book and placed it over his heart. It lay against him for a moment and then slowly, gently faded down into the paper and into his skin. He felt it sinking down inside him. It felt odd and hot, but not unpleasant. Like a new bone settling in.

  If there had been a mirror in the Post Office, our Hawthorn would have seen in it a small human child, with dark hair and huge dark frightened gray eyes like the stones at the bottom of an ancient well. Only a sort of green shadow around his fingernails and a nose too big for his face hinted that he had ever been a troll who lived underneath an old well and loved a toad.

  “Where will you take me?” he choked fearfully. The voice that came out did not sound like his at all.

  The Postmaster smoothed his hair. “All Postboxes are portals. You’ll see. Things vanish out of them and appear in them with no notice at all. They’re as good as wizards’ hats. You’ll get where you’re going, and just when you need to. The Post is never late. It is only On Time or Fashionably Early for Your Next Life. Didn’t I mention all Postmasters are time travelers? How else could we get all our work done? I live in the year Two Thousand and Five. It’s nice, if a little excitable for my taste.”

  “Wait, wait!” cried the Red Wind. “I’d almost forgotten! You must take this with you and keep it by your side. It’s a talisman.”

  Hawthorn tried to catch his breath. The wrapping paper had nearly crept over his face. “But you said talismans weren’t allowed!”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. I wasn’t born yesterday. I bribed three elves and a congressman. I wouldn’t leave you defenseless! You want this, trust me. In the human world, it’s a talisman of great power. It grants strength and manfulness and protection against the twin wights of boredom and bullies. Take it and keep it and guard it and love it or I shall be very cross with you. Hurry along, we’ve dawdled too long. Someone else is hurtling through the system as we sit around and jaw—you must get on your way.”

  And the Red Wind put a little pale thing with red patterns stitched round it into a sturdy knot of ribbon round Hawthorn’s waist. He did not know what it was, but if we peer between his thick, trollish fingers, you and I should know it right away, without a moment’s hesitation.

  It was a baseball.

  What price the Red Wind paid for Hawthorn’s postage he never saw. One can only know the weight and heft of the prices one pays oneself. The costs borne by others are their own, secret and deep and long. He knew only a sudden black rushing, which I shall tell you was the inside of a mailbag, and the trundling, grumbling sounds of a delivery truck crunching the long earth beneath it, and these sounds were as awful and wonderful and strange to our troll as any dragon hawking up fire. Only once in his headlong hurtling did Hawthorn see anything but the dark—off in the distance, so dim it might only have been a dream, he thought he saw a girl in a green coat soaring along even faster even than he, and in the other direction, her hair streaming out behind, riding upon the back of a bright, roaring Leopard.

  INTERLUDE

  HIC SUNT DRACONES

  In Which Apologies Are Begged and Explanations Offered

  Being patient and trusting readers, you must by now be awfully worried about the state of your addled narrator. I can hear you across the ineffable miles between my house and yours, twisting your thumbs and whispering: Yes, Miss, Trolls and Jungles and Postmasters are very nice and all, but have you hit your head on something very hard? This is not what we came to hear! We left September in such a state and you have said not one word about her in two whole chapters! And quite long ones! Won’t you please let her come out to play? And how kind of you to be so polite about it. I’m sure I have not half your manners when books vex me. I shall explain before we go a step further.

  A story is a map of the world. A gloriously colored and wonderful map, the sort one often sees framed and hanging on the wall in a study full of plush chairs and stained-glass lamps: painstakingly lettered, researched down to the last pebble and participle, drawn with dash and flair, with cloud-goddesses in the corners and giant squid squirming up out of the sea. The maker of such a map will have made it as accurate as she possibly could, for she knew folk would rely on it to travel through a strange country safely. But the troubles of cartography are many. One can never predict when a volcano will explode or a flood should change a coastline, when a silly layabout prince in one tale will suddenly be called to lead a terrible battle in another. Choices must be made: The map must show its splendid country and not another even though an equally splendid nation, just as dangerous and exciting, lies just off the edges, just beyond the borders.

  In the map of a story, one follows certain traditions so that mariners do not get confused and lost in a storm of metaphors. Heroes get big, splashy symbols, for they are the Capitals of their tales: circles with stars in the center, or magical swords, or a crown stuck all over with jewels. Villains likewise must be marked clearly with serpents biting their own tails or black hats or bold, uppercase letters which read Terra Pericolosa. This is a very old and fancy way of saying Wrong Way, Detour, Do Not Stop for Tea. Important Objects, Enchanted Houses, and Plot Twists will have pretty stamps and bear the label of Points of Interest. Companions, those stalwart souls who stand beside the Hero as she Does What Must Be Done, often manage only the unassuming dot of a Small Town or Shipwreck, even if they are quite as fascinating, as full of snaggle-streets and dark towers, as the Capital. In mapmaking, too, choices must be made. Paris takes up so much room that poor lovely Calais only gets a brief moment in the sun.

  But the truth of the matter is, there are more maps in the world than anyone can count. Every person draws a map that shows themselves at the center. But that does not mean that no other countries exist. Just because most of the maps show Europe in the middle does not make it so. A Capital in one map may be a distant, unknown, misty village in another. A terrible wasteland in one map may be a cozy home in another. It all depends on who is drawing the map, and where they begin.

  And in order to get to September, we must journey off the main road for a bit. Don’t be afraid. Let us wander in the frightful forests and uncharted islands. Let us find a path through the snow to those little pockets of story which happen while the Hero is off doing other things. The hidden, leafy places where life goes on, even if the Dramatis Personae are on the run and incognito and being very Dramatis indeed. Let us look, for just a moment, at a little troll lost. Let us stride right up to the part of the map which says in magnificent and mysterious letters: Hic Sunt Dracones. For in that same old and fancy way of speaking, those words mean: Here There Be Dragons.

  And, occasionally, humans.

  CHAPTER III

  TROLL TO BOY, BOY TO TROLL
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  In Which a Troll Named Hawthorn Becomes a Boy Named Thomas, Meets His Parents (One a Psychologist), and Hunts a Wild and Woolly Word

  Do you remember being born? Only a few can say they do and not be caught immediately in the lie, and most of them are wizards. I, of course, remember it perfectly. Certain benefits are granted to narrators as part of the hiring package, to compensate for our irregular hours and unsafe working conditions. As clear as waking, I remember your hands on the cover of the book, your bright eyes moving swiftly over the pages, the light of your reading lamp, your small laughs and occasional puzzlements. But it is against the rules for a human to recall the moment of their birth. If people did remember it, they would never agree to let it happen to them again, and to live in this world is to be born over and over and over again, every time a new thing happens to your heart, each time more frightening and more thrilling.

  Because he will very soon forget it, I shall tell you how a curious boy was born in winter, at night, in a city called Chicago, which is four thousand miles from London, something like a million nautical leagues plus a feral furlong, a shake of the leg, and a stone’s throw from Fairyland, but not so very far from Omaha, Nebraska. Chicago at the time owned a lake the size of a sea, several advertising firms, at least six tribes of marauding criminals, healthy herds of sailors grazing free, the first Ferris wheel in all the world, and more wind than it could care for. The boy was called Thomas Rood, or at least he shall be called that shortly. If you squint, you can see him hurtling through the snowy air at the speed of story. At the moment, he is still called Hawthorn. The faster you go, the brighter you get, and Hawthorn glowed so hot the clouds went up in smoke when he touched them.

  If you have ever seen a falling star, you have seen a Changeling arriving.

  The parcel box outside the home of Gwendolyn and Nicholas Rood, 3 Racine Avenue, received one troll, slightly singed, with a soft sound like an envelope sealing. The Roods were very much alarmed in the morning to find their little boy sitting on the doorstep with snow in his hair, blinking up at them as though he had never seen them before—which, of course, he hadn’t, because only a moment ago he had been a troll called Hawthorn. If they’d investigated later, they might have missed him. He just couldn’t abide that cramped little box another second and had gotten busy with his escape.

  Neither Gwen nor Nicky guessed that their own child was, even then, as they gasped and worried on the front stoop, being bundled into certain red arms, on his way to another world and a much later chapter. How should they guess? The boy on the doorstep with snow in his hair looked just like their Thomas. He made the same gurgling noises and had the same moles and the same round, uncertain gray eyes. Indeed, far from being suspicious, the Roods were secretly a bit proud, as parents often are when their children do something awfully dangerous and at the same time awfully clever. Only a year old and already able to open the front door! What a firebrand our Tommy is! What have you got there, lad? A baseball! A sporting ace in the making! That’s our boy!

  But this child knew very well that he was called Hawthorn and not Thomas, and was a troll on the inside, not a baby human. It was only that he could not tell anyone—his human mouth was so small and soft! He could not make any words come out of it at all. When he finally managed it, they were just the simplest and plainest ones, none of which were big enough to hold his trollness, or that he had once spoken to a giant Panther, or the wonderful, terrible, burning flight through the clouds. He could not ask anyone about anything, or understand any of the bizarre objects that surrounded him. He could only grab hold of them, and shake them, or put them in his mouth and try to taste what they were. He did not turn his head when Gwendolyn sang out, Thomas! Thomas, where have you gone, my love? Because he could not remember that he was meant to be called Thomas now.

  Whenever Hawthorn picked up a wooden block or a spoon or a ball, he dropped it at once. He could not seem to keep hold of anything. When one is a troll, one has a fearsome grip, and must handle everything very delicately if one does not wish to pulverize it immediately. Hawthorn’s hands still thought they could crush stone by waving hello at it. They still wanted to treat the world as gently as they could. But his new hands couldn’t pulverize so much as the corner of his blanket, and when he picked anything up with his careful troll-manners, they slipped right through and clattered to the floor.

  His parents began to fear that he had suffered some strange injury during his adventure on the doorstep. Their once-sleepy Thomas suddenly barreled headlong round the house, whacking into walls and chairs and babbling to the chandelier. They did not understand that Hawthorn had been promised an adventure by a very convincing Wind, and intended to have it. He loved the feeling of the silver paisley wallpaper in the dining room when he banged into it. He loved the sound of glass breaking. He loved cutlery, and all the things it could cutler. He loved the way the light jumped and jingled inside the chandelier like will-o’-the-wisps. He was not in the least babbling at it. Rather, Hawthorn had begun a concentrated campaign to coax the wisps out of their crystal cottage and down to play with him. He had discovered that though his funny little soft pink mouth could not make human words yet, it could manage some troll-tongue, which is a language rounded like stones at the bottom of a river, slushy as snow melting, warm as an open door. Every morning he stood beneath the chandelier and called up to the wisps he knew must be inside—or else where could all that wonderful light come from? He called up to them in troll-tongue:

  “Will-o’-the-wisp! If you come out today I shall give you my whole breakfast pancake!”

  “Will-o’-the-wisp! If you come out today I shall give you my brand-new wooden racing car with purple stripes on it!”

  “Will-o’-the-wisp! If you come out today I shall give you my mother’s wedding ring!”

  But the chandelier said nothing. The will-o’-the-wisp did not emerge. No matter—Hawthorn knew it would, one day.

  Perhaps you have read stories in which trolls are slow and stupid and made primarily of the same sort of stuff as a sidewalk. While it is true that the difference between a troll and a stone is much like the difference between a human and an orangutan, a stone is not stupid. It is millions of years old, and has more memories and opinions and stories with no endings and fewer breaks for lemonade than even the oldest of your grandparents. Thus, for a troll, learning to talk is as natural as cuddling. Trolls are the best talkers in Fairyland—they make words and sentences and speeches like cobblers make shoes, and with more bells and ribbons and laces and leathers than the wildest dreams of the maddest shoemaker.

  But Hawthorn was not a troll anymore. At least, his ears and his mouth were not troll-ears or a troll-mouth. He tried all the tricks a troll has to get his tongue back. He sidled up to English, and petted it, and called it a good language, and a pretty language, and wouldn’t it like to come and play with him? But English was not Troll. English loves to stay out all night dancing with other languages, all decked out in sparkling prepositions and irregular verbs. It is unruly and will not obey—just when you think you have it in hand, it lets down its hair along with a hundred nonsensical exceptions.

  What a human child must have to get hold of Talk, Hawthorn reasoned, was to go on a Quest. To hunt it down like a pink-horned musk ox. You had to creep along on all fours, hidden in the underbrush, looking for the little words, the weak ones that could be separated from the pack. Then pounce! And quickly, for words were fast and slippery and could get away if you got lazy and unwatchful. Mummy and Daddy were easy, soft little crunchable creatures he could snap up in his jaws. But Gwendolyn and Nicholas weren’t his Mummy and Daddy, and he still knew that, no matter what his name was supposed to be now. So he devoured Mummy and Daddy quietly in the shadows, told no one what he’d done, and waited for better prey.

  It was an important decision: Among troll-kind a child’s first word is a kind of spell cast over the rest of his life. Parents hover over their newborn, ready to catch the glittery little th
ing as soon as it springs free. A boy who said book before any other word would surely be a great scholar or monk or journalist. A girl who said bird would be a zeppelin pilot or a dodo rider or perhaps an opera singer. Hawthorn the troll’s first word had been: Go! And this had also been his second and third word. Go! Go! Go! But now he had to start all over again.

  Hawthorn followed Gwendolyn all round their vast apartment, snatching at the words she used, trying to get them by the tail or the ear. She had a pretty voice and she spoke to him all the time. It sounded to him like the comforting sounds cows and dragons made to their calves. It was a mothering sound. Gwendolyn talked so much and so sweetly that all the words seemed to run together and become a thing more like singing than talking. He understood her well enough, but he just could not make his mouth do the things hers did. He longed to ask her what he considered extremely important questions about this new world he was stuck in: Why is up up and down down? Why does Father wear that checkered snake round his neck? Why does it keep raining when we all wish it would stop so we can go play in the grass? Why don’t leprechauns come out of the church bells when they ring on Sundays? Why do they only ring on Sundays? Why can’t anybody fly? What is the point of mathematics when no one likes them? Why is the sky blue? Why won’t the stove talk to me? Why won’t the teapot talk to me? Why won’t the wardrobe talk to me? Why do we use matches to light candles? Why can’t we just explain to the candle how much better it is to be lit? Why won’t you teach me your magic? Why do I have to sleep? Why are all the trees green when there are so many other colors to be? But when he tried to ask in troll-tongue, she only gurgled and babbled back at him, imitating his heartfelt noises. Hawthorn made a face whenever she did it—her accent was terrible.

  It was not only Gwendolyn’s talking which fascinated him: She could also find lost things when he knew, he knew they were gone forever and the time had come to weep. She could make music come out of a great brass thing in the parlor that looked like a horn of plenty but wasn’t one. She could make blue fire roar out of the stovetop anytime she pleased. She could make hot milk or cocoa or caramel or porridge appear inside a silver saucepan—he never knew which it would be. When his trollmother wanted porridge, she simply went out to the fields and talked to the oats. Gwendolyn was different. Hawthorn had begun to suspect she was a witch, which deeply excited him. Wherever she went, extraordinary things seemed to happen, and she wore beautiful clothes and had beautiful auburn hair and Hawthorn had only met a witch once but she was beautiful because they all were.