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  Fenoglio looked disbelievingly at him. So it was really true? Dustfinger was -

  "Yes, he's back," said Meggie. "The women said Farid might find him at the house of the minstrel woman he once lived with. She has a farm up there on the hill."

  "Minstrel woman?" Fenoglio looked the way Meggie's finger was pointing. The hill she meant was only a black outline in the moonlit night. Of course! Roxane. He remembered her. Was she really as wonderful as he had described her?

  The boy was shifting impatiently from foot to foot. "I have to go," he told Meggie. "Where can I find you?"

  "In Cobblers' and Saddlers' Alley," replied Fenoglio, answering for Meggie. "Just ask for Minerva's house."

  Farid nodded. He went on looking at Meggie.

  "It's not a good idea to start a journey by night," said Fenoglio, although he had a feeling that this boy wasn't interested in his advice. "The roads here aren't what you'd call safe. Particularly not at night. There are robbers, vagabonds…"

  "I can look after myself." Farid took a knife from his belt. "Take care, Meggie." He reached for her hand, then turned abruptly and disappeared among the strolling players. It did not escape Fenoglio that Meggie turned to look back at him several times.

  "Heavens, poor lad!" he growled, shooing a couple of children out of the way as they came flocking up to beg him for a story again. "He's in love with you, am I right?"

  "Oh, don't!" Meggie let go of his hand, but he had made her smile.

  "All right, I'll hold my tongue! Does your father know you're here?"

  That was the wrong question. Her guilty conscience was plain to see in her face.

  "Dear me! Very well, you must tell me all about it. How you came here, what all this talk of Basta and Dustfinger means,

  everything! You've grown! Or have I shrunk? My God, Meggie, I'm so glad you're here! Now we can get this story back under control! With my words and your voice -"

  "Under control? What do you mean?" She suspiciously examined his face. She had often seen him look just like that in the past, when they were Capricorn's prisoners – his brow wrinkled, his eyes as clear as if they could look straight into your heart. But this wasn't the place for explanations.

  "Later!" whispered Fenoglio and drew her on. "Later, Meggie. There are too many ears here. Damn it, where's my torchbearer now?"

  15. STRANGE SOUNDS ON A STRANGE NIGHT

  How silent lies the world

  Within fair twilight furled,

  Bringing such sweet relief!

  A quiet room resembling,

  Where, without fear or trembling,

  You sleep away day's grief.

  Matthias Claudius, Evening Song

  Later, when Meggie tried to remember the way they went to Fenoglio's room, she could see only a few blurred pictures in her mind's eye – a guard who tried to bar their way with his spear, but sullenly let them pass when he recognized Fenoglio, dark alleys down which they followed a boy with a torch, then a steep flight of steps, creaking underfoot as it led them up the side of a gray wall. She felt so dizzy with weariness as she followed Fenoglio up these steps that he felt quite anxious and took her arm a couple of times.

  "I think we'd better wait until morning to tell each other what's happened since we last met," he said, propelling her into his room. "I'll ask Minerva to bring you up a straw mattress later, but you'll sleep in my bed tonight. Three days and nights in the Wayless Wood. Inky infernos, I'd probably have died of sheer fright!"

  "Farid had his knife," murmured Meggie. The knife had indeed been a comfort when they were sleeping in the treetops by night, and those growling, grating noises came up to them from below. Farid had always kept it ready at hand. "And when he saw ghosts," she said sleepily, as Fenoglio lit a lamp, "he made a fire."

  "Ghosts? There aren't any ghosts in this world, or at least none that I wrote into it. What did you eat all that time?"

  Meggie groped her way over to the bed. It looked very inviting, even if it was only a straw mattress and a couple of coarse blankets. "Berries," she murmured. "Lots of berries, and the bread we took with us from Elinor's kitchen – and rabbits, but Farid caught those."

  "Good heavens above!" Fenoglio shook his head, incredulous. It was really good to see his wrinkled face again, but right now all Meggie really wanted to do was sleep. She took off her boots, crept under the scratchy blankets, and stretched out her aching legs.

  "What gave you the crazy idea of reading yourself and Farid into the Wayless Wood? Why not arrive here? Dustfinger must have told the boy a few things about this world."

  "Orpheus's words." Meggie couldn't help yawning. "We only had Orpheus's words, and Dustfinger had gotten Orpheus to read him into the forest."

  "Of course. Sounds just like him." She felt Fenoglio pulling the blankets up to her chin. "I'd better not ask you who this Orpheus is. We'll talk again tomorrow. Sleep well. And welcome to my world!"

  Meggie just managed to open her eyes once more. "Where are you going to sleep?"

  "Don't worry about me. A few of Minerva's relations come in every night to share the family's beds downstairs, and one more won't make much difference. You soon get used to a little less comfort, I assure you. I only hope her husband doesn't snore as loud as she says."

  Then he closed the door behind him, and Meggie heard him laboriously making his way down the steep wooden staircase, cursing quietly to himself. Mice scurried through the rafters over her head (at least, she hoped they were mice) and the voices of the sentries guarding the nearby city wall drifted in through the only window. Meggie closed her eyes. Her feet hurt, and the music from the strolling players' camp was still ringing in her ears. The Black Prince, she thought, I've seen the Black Prince… and the city gate of Ombra… and I've heard the trees whispering to one another in the Wayless Wood. If she could only have told Resa all about it. Or Elinor. Or Mo. But more than likely Mo never wanted to hear another word about the Inkworld.

  Meggie rubbed her tired eyes. Fairies' nests clung to the beams in the roof above the bed, just as Fenoglio had always wanted, but nothing moved behind the dark entrance holes where the fairies flew into them. Fenoglio's attic room was a good deal larger than the one where he and Meggie had been kept prisoner by Capricorn. As well as the bed he had so generously let her have, there was a wooden chest, a bench, and a writing desk made of dark wood, gleaming and adorned with carvings. It did not go with the rest of the furniture: the roughly made bench, the simple chest. You might have thought it had strayed here out of another story, just like Meggie herself. An earthenware jug stood on it, containing a whole set of quill pens, there were two inkwells…

  Fenoglio was looking happy. He really was.

  Meggie passed her arm over her tired face. The dress Resa had made her still smelled of her mother, but now it smelled of the Wayless Wood, too. She put her hand inside the leather bag that she had almost lost twice in the forest and took out the notebook Mo had given her. The marbled binding was a mixture of deep blue and peacock green – Mo's favorite colors. It was good to have your books with you in strange places. Mo had told her that so often, but did he mean places like this? On their second day in the forest Meggie had tried to read the book she had brought with her, while Farid went hunting for a rabbit. She couldn't get past the first page, and finally she had forgotten the book and left it lying as she sat beside a stream with swarms of blue fairies hovering over it. Did your hunger for stories die down when you were in one yourself? Or had she just been too exhausted? I should at least write down what's happened so far, she thought, stroking the cover of her notebook again, but weariness was like cotton wool in her head and her limbs. Tomorrow, she thought. And tomorrow I'll tell Fenoglio that he must write me back home, too. I've seen the fairies, I've even seen the fire-elves, and the Wayless Wood and Ombra. Yes. Because, after all, it will take him a few days to find the right words…

  Something rustled in one of the fairies' nests above her. But no blue face looked out.

 
It was chilly in this room, and everything was strange – so strange. Meggie was used to strange places; after all, Mo had always taken her with him when he had to go away to cure sick books. But she could rely on one thing in all those places: She knew he was with her. Always. Meggie pressed her cheek against the rough straw mattress. She missed her mother and Elinor and Darius, but most of all she missed Mo. It was like an ache tugging at her heart. Love and a guilty conscience didn't mix. If only he had come, too! He'd shown her so much of her own world, how she would have loved to show him this one! She knew he'd have liked it all: the fire-elves, the whispering trees, the camp of the strolling players…

  Oh, she did miss Mo.

  How about Fenoglio? Wasn't there anyone he missed? Didn't he feel at all homesick for the village where he used to live, for his children, his friends, and neighbors? What about his grandchildren? Meggie had often raced around his house with them! "I'll show you everything tomorrow!" Fenoglio had whispered to her as they hurried after the boy ahead of them, carrying the torch that had almost burned down, and his voice had sounded as if he were a prince informing his guest that he would show him around the palace the next day. "The guards don't like people roaming the streets by night," he had added, and it was indeed very quiet among the close-crammed houses. They reminded Meggie of Capricorn's village so much that she half expected to see one of the Black Jackets around some corner, leaning against the wall with a rifle in his hand. But all they met were a few pigs grunting as they wandered in the steep alleys, and a ragged man sweeping up the garbage that lay among the houses and shoveling it into a handcart. "You'll get used to the smell in time!" Fenoglio had whispered, as Meggie put her hand over her nose. "Think yourself lucky I'm not lodging with a dyer, or over there with the tanners. Even I haven't gotten used to the stink of their trades."

  No, Meggie felt sure that Fenoglio didn't miss anything. Why would he? This was his world, born from his brain, as familiar to him as his own thoughts.

  Meggie listened to the night. There was another sound as well as the rustle of the scurrying mice – a faint snoring. It seemed to come from the desk. Pushing back her blanket, she made her way cautiously over to it. A glass man was sleeping beside the jug of quill pens, his head on a tiny cushion. His transparent limbs were spattered with ink. Presumably he sharpened the pens, dipped them in the bulbous inkwells, sprinkled sand over the wet ink… just as Fenoglio had always wanted. And did the fairies' nests above his bed really bring good luck and sweet dreams? Meggie thought she saw a trace of fairy dust on the desk. Thoughtfully, she ran her finger over it, looked at the glittering dust left clinging to her fingertip, and rubbed it on her forehead. Did fairy dust cure homesickness?

  For she was still homesick. All this beauty around her, yet she kept thinking of Elinor's house and Mo's workshop… Her heart was so stupid! Hadn't it always beat faster when Resa told her about the Inkworld? And now that she was here, really here, it didn't seem to know just what it ought to feel. It's because the others aren't here, too, something inside her whispered, as if her heart were trying to defend itself. Because they're none of them here.

  If only Farid at least had stayed with her… How she envied him the way he had slipped from one world to another as if he were just changing his shirt! The only longing he seemed to know was for the sight of Dustfinger's scarred face.

  Meggie went to the window. There was only a piece of fabric tacked over it. Meggie pushed it aside and looked down into the narrow alley. The ragged refuse collector was just pushing his cart past with its heavy, stinking load. It nearly got stuck between the buildings. The windows above it were almost all dark; a candle burned behind only one of them, and a child's crying drifted out into the night. Roof stood next to roof like the scales of a fir cone, and the walls and towers of the castle rose dark above them to the starry sky.

  The Laughing Prince's castle. Resa had described it well. The moon stood pale above the gray battlements, outlining them in silver, them and the guards pacing up and down on the walls. It seemed to be the same as the moon that rose and set over the mountains behind Elinor's house. "The prince is holding festivities for his spoiled grandson," Fenoglio had told Meggie, "and I'm supposed to go up to the castle with a new song. I'll take you with me. We'll have to find you a clean dress, but Minerva has three daughters. They're sure to have a dress among them to fit you."

  Meggie took one last look at the sleeping glass man and went back to the bed under the fairies' nests. After the celebrations, she thought as she pulled off her dirty dress over her head and slipped under the coarse blanket again, first thing after the celebrations I'll ask Fenoglio to write me home. As she closed her eyes, she once again saw the swarms of fairies who had swirled around her in the green twilight of the Wayless Wood, pulling her hair until Farid threw fir cones at them. She heard the trees whispering in voices that seemed to be half earth, half air, she remembered the scaly faces she had seen in the water of dark pools, and the Black Prince, too, and his bear…

  There was a rustling under the bed, and something crawled over her arm. Meggie sleepily brushed it off. I hope Mo isn't too angry was the last thing she thought before she fell asleep and dreamed of Elinor's garden. Or was it the Wayless Wood?

  16. ONLY A LIE

  The blanket was there, but it was the boy's embrace that covered and warmed him.

  Jerry Spinelli,Maniac Magee

  Farid soon realized that Fenoglio was right. It had been stupid just to go off like that in the middle of the night. It was true that no robber leaped out at him from the darkness, and not even a fox crossed his path as he climbed the moonlit hill that the strolling players had pointed out to him, but which of the run-down farms lying among the black nocturnal trees was the right one? They all looked the same: a gray stone house, not much bigger than a hut, surrounded by olive trees, a well, sometimes a cowshed, a few narrow fields. Nothing stirred in the farmhouses. Their inhabitants were asleep, exhausted by hard work, and with every wall and every gate that he crept past Farid's hopes dwindled. Suddenly, and for the first time, he felt lost in this strange world, and he was about to curl up and go to sleep under a tree when he saw the fire.

  It was burning brightly high up on the slope of the hill, red as

  a hibiscus flower opening and then fading even as it unfurls. Farid quickened his pace and hurried up the slope, his gaze fixed on the place where he had seen the blossoming flames. Dustfinger! It shone among the trees again, sulfur yellow this time, bright as sunlight. It must be Dustfinger! Who else would make fire dance by night?

  Farid went faster, so fast that he was soon struggling for breath. He came upon a path winding uphill, past the stumps of trees that had been felled only recently. The path was stony and wet with dew, but his bare feet were glad to be spared the prickly thyme for a while. There, another red flower blossoming in the darkness! Above him, a house emerged from the night. Beyond it the hill climbed on, terraced fields rose up the slope like steps, with stones piled up along their edges. The house itself looked as poor and plain as all the others. The path ended at a simple gateway and a wall of flat stones just high enough to reach Farid's chest. As he stood at the gate a goose went for him, flapping her wings and hissing like a snake, but Farid took no notice of her. He had found the man he was looking for.

  Dustfinger was standing in the yard, making flowers of flame blossom in the air. They opened at a snap of his fingers, spread their fiery petals, faded, put out stems of burning gold, and burst into flower yet again. The fire seemed to come out of nowhere; Dustfinger had only to call it with his hands or his voice, he fanned the flames with nothing but his breath – no torches now, no bottle from which he filled his mouth – Farid could see none of the aids he had needed in the other world. He just stood there setting the night ablaze. More and more flowers swirled around him in their wild dance, spitting sparks at his feet like golden seed corn, until lie stood there bathed in liquid fire.

  Farid had noticed often enough how peaceful
Dustfinger's face became when he was playing with fire, but he had never seen him look so happy before. Just plain happy. The goose was still cackling, but Dustfinger seemed not to hear her. Only when Farid opened the gate did she scold so shrilly that he turned – and the fiery flowers went out as if night had crushed them in black fingers. The happiness in Dustfinger's face was extinguished, too.

  At the door of the house, a woman stood up; she had probably been sitting on the doorstep. There was a boy there, too; Farid hadn't noticed him before. The boy's gaze followed Farid as he crossed the yard, but Dustfinger still hadn't moved from the spot where he was standing. He just looked at Farid as the sparks went out at his feet, leaving nothing but a faint red glow behind.

  Farid sought that familiar face for any welcome, any hint of a smile, but it showed only bewilderment. At last Farid's courage failed him, and he just stood there, with his heart trembling in his breast as if it were freezing cold. "Farid?"

  Dustfinger was coming toward him. The woman followed. She was very beautiful, but Farid ignored her. Dustfinger was wearing the clothes he always carried with him in the other world but had never worn. Black and red… Farid dared not look at him when he stopped a pace away. He just stood there with his head bent, staring at his toes. Perhaps Dustfinger had never meant to take him along at all, perhaps he'd fixed it from the start that Cheeseface wouldn't read those final sentences, and now he was angry because Farid had followed him from one world to another all the same… Would he beat him? He'd never beaten him yet, although he'd come close to it once when Farid accidentally set fire to Gwin's tail.

  "How could I ever have believed that anything would stop you from chasing after me?" Farid felt Dustfinger's hand raise his chin, and when he looked up, he saw at last what he had been hoping for in Dustfinger's eyes: joy. "Where have you been hiding? I called you at least a dozen times, I looked for you… The fire-elves must have thought me crazy!" He was scrutinizing Farid's face anxiously, as if he wasn't sure whether there was some change in it. It was so good to feel his concern. Farid could have danced for joy, the way the fire had danced for Dustfinger just now.