Inkheart ti-1 Page 13

  "But you'll freeze. "

  "Nonsense. "

  "And where will you and Elinor sleep?" Meggie yawned again. She hadn't realized how tired she was.

  Elinor was still pacing from wall to wall. "What's all this about sleeping?" she said. "We're going to keep watch, of course."

  "All right, " murmured Meggie, burying her nose in Mo's sweater. He's back with me, she thought, as drowsiness weighed down her eyelids. Nothing else matters. And then she thought: Oh, if only I could read some more of that book. But Inkheart was in Capricorn's hands – and she didn't want to think of him now, or she would never get to sleep. Never…

  Later, she didn't know how long she had slept. Perhaps her cold feet woke her, or the itchy straw under her head. Her watch said four o'clock. There was nothing in the windowless room to tell her whether it was night or day, but Meggie couldn't imagine that the night was over yet. Mo was sitting near the door with Elinor. They both looked tired and anxious, and they were talking in low voices.

  "Yes, they still think I'm a magician, " Mo was saying. "They gave me that ridiculous name – Silvertongue. And Capricorn is firmly convinced l can repeat the trick anytime, with any book at all."

  "And… and can you?" asked Elinor. "You weren't telling us the whole story earlier, were you?"

  Mo didn't answer for a long time. "No, " he said at last.

  "Because I don't want Meggie thinking I'm some kind of a magician, too. "

  "So you've – well, read things out of a book quite often?"

  Mo nodded. "I always liked reading aloud, even as a boy, and one day, when I was reading Tom Sawyer to a friend, a dead cat suddenly appeared on the carpet, lying there stiff as a board. I only noticed later that one of my soft toys had vanished. I think both our hearts missed a beat, and my friend and I swore to each other, sealing the oath with blood like Tom and Huck, that we'd never tell anyone about the cat. After that, of course, I kept trying again in secret, without any witnesses, but it never seemed to happen when I wanted. In fact, there didn't seem to be any rules at all, except that it happened only with stories I liked. Of course I kept everything that came out of the books, except for the snozzcumber I got out of the book about the friendly giant. It stank too much. When Meggie was still very small, things sometimes came out of her picture books: a feather, a tiny shoe. We put them in her book box, without telling her where they came from, otherwise she'd never have picked up a book again for fear the giant serpent with a toothache or some other alarming creature might appear! But I'd never, never managed to bring anything living out of a book, Elinor. Until that night. " Mo looked at the palms of his hands, as if seeing there all the things his voice had lured out of books. "Why couldn't it have been some nice creature, if it had to happen? Something like – oh, Babar the elephant. Meggie would have been enchanted."

  Yes, I certainly would have been, thought Meggie. She remembered the little shoe, and the feather as well. It had been emerald green, like the plumage of Dr. Dolittle's parrot Polynesia.

  "Well, it could have been worse. " Typical Elinor! As if wasn't bad enough to be locked up in a tumbledown house far away from ordinary life, surrounded by black-clad men with faces like birds of prey and knives in their belts. But obviously Elinor really could imagine something worse, "Suppose Long John Silver had suddenly appeared in your living room, striking out with his wooden crutch?" she whispered, "I think I prefer this Capricorn after all. You know what? When we're home again – in my house, I mean – I'll give you a really nice book. Winnie the Pooh, for instance, or maybe Where the Wild Things Are. I wouldn't really mind one of those monsters. I'll sit you down in my most comfortable armchair, make you a cup of coffee, and then you can read aloud. How about it?"

  Mo laughed quietly, and for a moment his face didn't look quite so careworn. "No, Elinor, I will do no such thing. Although it sounds very tempting. But I swore never to read aloud again. Who knows who might disappear next time? And perhaps there's some unpleasant character we never noticed even in the Pooh books. Or suppose I read Pooh himself out of his book? What would he do here without his friends and the Hundred Acre Wood? His poor little heart would break, like Dustfinger's. "

  "Oh, for goodness sake!" Elinor impatiently dismissed this idea. "How often do I have to tell you that fool has no heart? Very well, then. Let me ask you another question, because I'd very much like to know the answer." Elinor lowered her voice, and Meggie had to strain her ears to make out what she was saying. "Who was this Capricorn in his own story? The villain of the piece, I suppose, but can you tell me more about him?"

  Meggie would have liked to know more about Capricorn, too, but Mo was suddenly not very forthcoming. All he would say was, "The less you know about him the better." Then he fell silent. Elinor kept at him for a while, but Mo evaded all her questions. He simply did not seem to want to talk about

  Capricorn. Meggie could see from his face that his thoughts were somewhere else entirely. At some point Elinor nodded off, curled up on the cold floor as if trying to keep herself warm with her own body. But Mo went on sitting there with his back against the wall.

  As Meggie felt herself drift off to sleep again, Mo's face stayed with her in her slumber. It emerged in her dreams like a dark moon with figures leaping from its mouth, living creatures – fat, thin, large, small, they hopped out and ran away in a long line. A woman, scarcely more than a shadow, was dancing on the moon's nose – and suddenly the moon smiled.

  17. THE BETRAYER BETRAYED

  It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed… He wanted… to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls, and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.

  Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

  Sometime near daybreak the feeble light from the electric bulb that had helped them through the night flickered out. Mo and Elinor were asleep near the locked door, but Meggie lay in the dark with her eyes open, feeling fear ooze out of the cold walls. She listened to Elinor's breathing, and her father's, and more than anything wished for a candle – and a book to keep the fear away. It seemed to be everywhere, a malicious, disembodied creature that had just been waiting for the light to go out so it could steal close to her in the darkness and take her in its cold arms. Meggie sat up, fought for breath, and crawled over to Mo on all fours. She curled up in a ball beside him the way she used to when she was little, and waited forthe light of dawn to come in under the door.

  With the light came two of Capricorn's men. Mo had only just sat up, wearily, and Elinor was rubbing her aching back and muttering crossly when they heard the footsteps.

  They weren't Basta's footsteps. One of the two men, a great tall beanpole, looked as if a giant had pressed his face flat with his thumb. The other was small and thin, with a goatee beard on his receding chin. He kept fiddling with his shotgun and glowered unpleasantly at the three of them as if he felt like shooting them on the spot.

  "Come on, then. Get a move on!" he snapped as they stumbled out into the bright light of day, blinking. Meggie tried to remember whether his voice was one of those she had heard in Elinor's library, but she wasn't sure. Capricorn had many men.

  It was a fine, warm morning. The sky arched blue and cloudless above Capricorn's village, and a couple of finches were twittering in a rosebush growing wild among the old houses, as if there were no danger in the world but a hungry cat or two. Mo took Meggie's arm as they stepped outside. Elinor had to get her shoes on first, and when the man with the goatee tried hauling her roughly out because she didn't move fast enough for him, she pushed his hands away and fired a volley of bad language at him. That simply made the two men laugh, whereupon Elinor tightened her lips and confined herself to hostile glances.

  Capricorn's men were in a hurry. They led Mo, Meggie and Elinor back the way Basta had brought them the night before. The flat-faced man went ahead of them and th
e man with the goatee brought up the rear, shotgun at the ready. He dragged one leg as he walked, but nonetheless he kept urging them on, as if to prove he could move faster than they could even though he limped.

  Even by day Capricorn's village appeared curiously deserted, and not just because of the many empty houses, which looked even more dismal in the sunlight. There was hardly anyone to be seen in the narrow alleys, only a few of the Black Jackets, as Meggie had secretly dubbed them, with skinny boys following them like puppies. Meggie only twice saw a woman passing in a hurry. She could see no children playing or running after their mothers, only cats: black, white, ginger, tortoiseshell, tabby cats, lying in the warm sun on top of walls, in doorways, on lintels. It was deathly quiet among the houses of Capricorn's village, and everything that went on seemed to be done in secret. Only the men with the guns didn't hide. They hung around together in gateways and at the corners of buildings, leaning lovingly on their weapons as they talked. There were no flowers outside the houses like the flowers Meggie had seen in the towns and villages all along the coast; instead roofs had fallen in and wild bushes were in bloom, growing out through glassless windows. Some shrubs were so heavy with scent that they made Meggie feel dizzy.

  When they reached the square outside the church, Meggie thought the two men were taking them to Capricorn's house again, but they passed it on their left and went straight to the big church door. The tower of the church looked as if wind and weather had been wearing the masonry down for a dangerously long time. A rusty bell hung under the pointed roof, and barely a meter lower down a seed carried by the wind had grown into a stunted tree that now clung to the sand-colored stone.

  There were eyes painted on the church door, narrow red eyes, and ugly stone demons the height of a man stood on either side of the entrance, their teeth bared like savage dogs.

  "Welcome to the devil's house!" said the bearded man with a mocking bow before opening the heavy door.

  "Don't do that, Cockerell!" the flat-faced man snapped at him, spitting three times on the dusty paving stones at his feet. "It's bad luck. "

  The man with the goatee just laughed and patted the fat belly of one of the stone figures. "Oh, come on, Flatnose. You're almost as bad as Basta. Carry on like this and you'll be hanging a stinking rabbit's foot around your own neck, too. "

  "I like to be on the safe side, " growled Flatnose. "You hear strange tales. "

  "Yes, and who made them up? We did, you fool. "

  "Some of them date from before our time. "

  "Whatever happens, " Mo whispered to Elinor and Meggie as the two men argued, "leave the talking to me. A sharp tongue can be dangerous here, believe me. Basta is quick to draw his knife, and he'll use it, too. "

  "Basta's not the only one here with a knife, Silvertongue!" said Cockerell, pushing Mo into the dark church. Meggie hurried after him.

  It was dim and chilly inside the church. The morning light made its way in only through a few windows, painting pale patches high up on the walls and columns. No doubt these had once been gray like the flagstones on the floor, but now there was only one color in Capricorn's church. Everything was red. The walls, the columns, even the ceiling, were vermilion, the color of raw meat or dried blood. For a moment, Meggie felt as if she had stepped into the belly of some monster.

  In a corner near the entrance stood the statue of an angel. A wing was broken off, and the black jacket of one of Capricorn's men had been hung over the other wing while someone had stuck a pair of fancy-dress horns on her head, the kind children wear to parties. Her halo was still there between them. The angel had probably once stood on the stone plinth in front of the first column; now she had had to give way to another statue, whose gaunt, waxen face seemed to look down at Meggie with a supercilious expression. Whoever had carved it wasn't very good at his trade; its features were painted like the face of a plastic doll, with oddly red lips and blue eyes that held none of the cold detachment that the colorless eyes of the real Capricorn turned on the world. But, to make up for that, the statue was at least twice the height of its living model, and all who passed it had to tilt back their heads to look up at its pale face.

  "Is that allowed, Mo?" asked Meggie quietly. "Putting up a statue of yourself in a church?"

  "Oh, it's a very old custom!" Elinor whispered back. "Statues in churches aren't often the statues of saints. Most saints couldn't have paid the sculptor. In the cathedral of -"

  Cockerell prodded her in the back so roughly that she stumbled forward. "Get a move on!" he growled. "And bow next time you pass him, understand?"

  "Bow!" Elinor was going to stand her ground, but Mo quickly made her go on. "Who on earth can take this circus seriously?" she said crossly.

  "If you don't keep your mouth shut, " Mo told her in a whisper, "you'll soon find out how seriously they take everything here. "

  Elinor looked at the scratch on his forehead and said no more.

  Capricorn's church contained no pews of the kind Meggiehad seen in other churches, just two long wooden tables with benches, one on each side of the nave. There were dirty plates on them, coffee-stained mugs, wooden boards where cheese rinds lay, knives, sausages, empty bread baskets. Several women were busy clearing all this away. Without pausing in their work, they glanced up as Cockerell and Flatnose passed with their three captives. Meggie thought they looked like birds hunching their heads down beneath their wings in case someone might knock them off.

  Not only were the pews missing from Capricorn's church, but the altar had gone, too. In its place there now stood a massive chair, upholstered in red and with designs carved thickly into its legs and arms. Leading up to it were four shallow steps, carpeted in black. Meggie wasn't sure why she counted them. And, crouching on the top step just a few paces away from the chair, his sandy hair ruffled as usual, was Dustfinger, apparently lost in thought as he let Gwin run up and down his outstretched arm.

  As Meggie came down the nave with Mo and Elinor, Dustfinger raised his head briefly. Gwin climbed up to his shoulder, baring his tiny teeth, sharp as splinters of glass, as if he had recognized the hatred in Meggie's eyes as they rested on his master. Now she knew why the marten had horns, and why his twin was shown on the page of a book. She under stood it all: why Dustfinger thought the world was too fast and too noisy; why he didn't understand cars and often looked as if he were somewhere else entirely. But she felt none of the sympathy Mo had shown for him. His scarred face only reminded her of the lies he had told to lure her out to him, like the Pied

  Piper in the story. He had played with her as he played with fire, with his brightly colored juggler's balls: Come along, Meggie; this way, Meggie; trust me, Meggie. She felt like running up the steps and striking his lying mouth.

  Dustfinger must have guessed her thoughts and was avoiding her eyes. Not looking at Mo and Elinor either, he put a hand in his pants pocket and brought out a matchbox. As if unconscious of what he was doing, he took out a match, lit it, and gazed at the flame, lost in thought as he passed a finger through it almost caressingly until it singed his fingertip.

  Meggie looked away. She didn't want to see him; she wanted to forget he was there. To her left, at the foot of the steps, stood two drum-shaped iron braziers, rusty brown, with wood heaped up in them: pale, freshly cut firewood, log upon log. Meggie was just wondering what the wood was for when more steps echoed through the church. Basta was walking down the nave with a gas can in his hand. Reluctantly, Cockerell and Flatnose gave way as he pushed past them.

  "Ah, so Dustfinger's playing with his best friend again, " he sneered as he climbed the shallow steps. Dustfinger lowered the matchstick and straightened up. "Here you are, " said Basta, putting the gas can down at his feet. "Another toy for you. Light us a fire; that's what you like best. "

  Dustfinger threw away the spent match and lit another. "So how about you?" he asked quietly, raising the burning match to Basta's face. "Still afraid of fire, are you?"

  Basta knocked the match out of his
hand.

  "Oh, you shouldn't do that!" said Dustfinger. "It means bad luck. You know how quickly fire takes offense."

  For a moment Meggie thought Basta was going to hit him, and she wasn't the only one. All eyes were turned on the two men. But something seemed to protect Dustfinger. Perhaps it really was the fire.

  "You're lucky I just cleaned my knife!" spat Basta. "One more trick like that, though, and I'll carve a few nice new patterns on your ugly face. And make myself a fur collar out of your marten."

  Gwin uttered a soft, threatening snarl and wrapped himself around Dustfinger's neck. Dustfinger bent, picked up the spent matches, and put them back in the matchbox. "Yes, I'm sure you'd enjoy that," he said, still without looking at Basta. "But why would I want to light a fire just now, I wonder?"

  "Never you mind that, just do it. Then the rest of us can keep it fed. But make sure it's a large, hungry blaze, not one of the tame little fires you like to play with. "

  Dustfinger picked up the gas can and slowly climbed down the steps. He was standing beside the rusty braziers when the church door opened for the second time.

  Meggie turned at the sound of the heavy wooden door creaking and saw Capricorn appear between the red columns. He glanced at his statue, as if to make sure it still gave a flattering enough image of him, then strode quickly down the nave. He was wearing a suit as red as the church walls. Only the shirt beneath it was black, and he had a black feather in his buttonhole. A good half-dozen of his men were following him, like crows following a peacock. Their steps seemed to echo all the way up to the ceiling. Meggie reached for Mo's hand.

  "Ah, so our guests are here already, " said Capricorn, stop ping in front of them. "Did you sleep well, Silvertongue?" He had curiously soft, curving, almost feminine lips, and as he spoke he kept running his little finger along them as if to retrace them. They were as bloodless as the rest of his face. "Wasn't it kind of me to reunite you with your little girl last night? At first I meant it to be a surprise present for you today, but then I thought: Capricorn, you really owe that child something for bringing you what you've wanted so long, and of her own free will, too. "