The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two(6)

The greyhound grabbed hold of the end of the long hook. He growled and hauled on it, and together with his mistress they worked free whatever had become stuck in the sky. The lady mopped light-sweat from her brow with a very plain checkered handkerchief. The pattern was nearly the same as September’s shirt.

“And a good morning to you, kid, though by my clock it’s midnight and by my mood it’s a nasty one.” She dug her massive diamond hand into her breastplate and tossed a bright bit of red light to her dog, who jumped to catch it and crunched happily away. “Too long before my shift’s done and too much Line left to spool. Isn’t that always the way?” She smiled a weary sort of smile. Her teeth flashed copper.

September simply could not think of anything to say. When that happened the thing she wanted to say but oughtn’t usually jumped out of her mouth and that’s just what it did.

“You’re not a Wind,” she said bluntly, and then felt rude and flushed.

“Got that right,” the lady said darkly, and guttered out again. September gritted her teeth with frustration. She looked around and scrambled back along the fence to where the electric lady was coming once more into focus. The hound gave a little yip and followed.

“What are you, then?” September said, not less bluntly. She took a deep breath and started again. “I do have manners, I promise. It’s only that when manners don’t let me say what I want to, I don’t have anything else. And what I want to say is, well, you are from Fairyland, aren’t you? You just have to be.”

The lady stuck her hook into the sky again, but this time, she hardly had to wriggle it twice before she seemed satisfied. She took out another lump of red light, put it into her own mouth like tobacco, and chewed thoughtfully. “Now, from’s a funny word for it. It’s a preposition and those are a jagged business. Am I from Fairyland? No, no, you couldn’t say it. You’d be wrong as a pen in a socket. Am I among Fairyland? That’s closer, but nope, still a bust. Am I out of Fairyland? Am I next to Fairyland? Am I regarding Fairyland? It’s no good! The trouble with prepositions is they want to stick pins in you. They want to say how you get on with things, where you are exactly in relation to this or that. Prepositions are the guardians of space and time—and if I use my manners, space and time and I had a row in school and we’re not what you’d call bosom buddies any longer. Prepositions want to put you in your place, the little sticklers. In my line of work—oh gracious, there’s me punning!—in my line of work you can’t let anything hold on to you, not even words. Words are the worst. Everything else runs on words. And there’s hordes of them, just running mad all over your business like ants. If you hold still long enough, they’ll get you good. So I don’t.”

She crackled blue and sizzled out again. The greyhound fixed his incandescent eyes on September.

“We are throughout Fairyland,” he said slowly. His voice was soft as falling ash.

The lady’s staticky voice returned before September could see the blue lamp of her heart blaze up in just the same place she’d left.

“You didn’t go anywhere!” September exclaimed.

“Well, sure I did,” the woman said. “I went a hundred thousand miles. Put a patch on the Line at the Spindle Substation. And now I’m putting a fuse in here at the Pomegranate Junction. Only it’s not here, see. I’m not here at all. S’what I mean about words. I’m on the other side of the rim. But the Line is so backed up here you can see bits of me coming through even though you shouldn’t.” Her blazing blue eyes narrowed and she bent down to September, shaking one gargantuan diamond finger at her. “Maybe you ought to just go to bed right now, young lady, without any supper. Spying on Heisenbergian mechanics through the keyhole. Kids today!” But then the electric lady laughed. “Don’t look so shocked. I’m just having my own little jokes. I don’t mind if you see me. Linemen don’t mind much.”

“What’s a Lineman?” breathed September, glad to have something in all of that to hold on to.

“I’m one. My name’s Boomer. My old boy there’s Beatrice. He’s a Cap. A Capacitor if you’re inviting him somewhere formal. Keeps me grounded, holds on to the Line while I work it.”

“That’s a girl’s name.”

Boomer shrugged. “He likes Beatrice. It’s not my business what a Cap wants to be called. Howdy, you are just bound and determined to make me talk, aren’t you? Use words like a person.” Boomer clattered and fizzed as she settled down onto the dirt beside the fence. “Well, I’ll try but I don’t have to like it. A Lineman works the Line. The line between the worlds. Like when you want to keep cows from wandering out and getting hamburgered by a train or busting ankles on oak roots. If there wasn’t a Line, anyone could just jump around between worlds like hopscotch. Toss their marker over the chalk and bounce right through, calling all her little friends after her in a row. Nothing but a mess and I’ve seen it happen, back when.”

“But people do jump,” said September shyly.

“Oh, they do! Boy, and how they do! That’s why I’ve got a job! The Line’s got weak spots. It’s old and I’ve got my suspicions about the morals of those what strung it in the first place. It has to be fixed nonstop. Just while I’ve been talking to you I’ve knit up fourteen frays, spackled a blown transformer, spooled up twenty slacks, replaced seven dark nodes, and netted a hole the size of Montana.” Boomer squinted one eye. “And I hope you’re smart enough to know those are just words, words you understand because you live in a world that has a Montana and transformers and capacitors. It’s not what they are.”