Inkheart ti-1 Read online

  He climbed up to the attic bedroom Elinor had given him and lay down on the narrow bed with the crates of books towering around it. But he could not sleep until morning came.

  12. GOING FARTHER SOUTH

  The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with weary feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.

  J. R. R. Tolkien,

  The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

  After breakfast the next morning Elinor spread a crumpled road map out on the kitchen table.

  "Right, three hundred kilometers south of here, " she said with a wary glance at Dustfinger. "So show us exactly where we have to look for Meggie's father. "

  Meggie looked at Dustfinger, her heart thudding. There were dark shadows around his eyes, as if he had slept very badly. Hesitantly, he came over to the table, rubbing his stubbly chin. He bent over the map, scrutinized it for what seemed an eternity, and finally pointed with his finger.

  "There, " he said. "Capricorn's village is right there. "

  Elinor looked over his shoulder. "Liguria, " she said. "Aha. And what is the name of this village, if I may ask? Capricornia?" She was examining Dustfinger's face as if tracing his scars with her eyes.

  "It doesn't have a name. " Dustfinger responded to her gaze with unconcealed dislike. "I expect it had one once, but the name was already forgotten before Capricorn settled there. You won't find it on this map, or any other either. To the rest of the world the village is just a collection of tumbledown houses along what can hardly be called a road. "

  "Hmm. " Elinor bent closer to the map. "I've never been in that region. I was in Genoa once. I bought a very fine edition of Alice in Wonderland there, in good condition and for half what it was worth. " She looked inquiringly at Meggie. "Do you like Alice in Wonderland?"

  "Not particularly, " said Meggie, staring at the map. Elinor shook her head at such childish folly and turned back to Dustfinger.

  "What does this Capricorn do when he's not stealing books and abducting people's fathers?" she asked. "If I understand Meggie correctly, you know him pretty well. "

  Dustfinger avoided her eyes and ran his finger along a blue river winding its way through the green and pale brown of the map. "We come from the same place, " he said. "But apart from that we don't have much in common. "

  Elinor looked at him so penetratingly that Meggie wouldn't have been surprised to see a hole suddenly appear in his fore head. "There's one thing that strikes me as strange, " Elinor said. "Meggie's father wanted to keep Inkheart safe from this Capricorn. So why bring the book here to me? He was practically running into Capricorn's arms!"

  Dustfinger shrugged his shoulders. "Well, perhaps he just thought your library would be the safest hiding place. "

  A memory stirred in Meggie's mind. At first, she couldn't identify it, but then it all came flooding back to her, perfectly clearly, as vivid as a picture in a book. She saw Dustfinger standing beside their camper van at the gate of the farmhouse, and it was almost as if she heard his voice again…

  She looked at him in horror. "You told Mo that Capricorn was in the north!" she said. "He specially asked, and you said you were sure of it. "

  Dustfinger examined his fingernails.

  "Well, yes… yes, that's right, " he admitted without looking at Meggie or Elinor. He just went on staring at his nails. Finally, he rubbed them on his sweater as if to remove an ugly mark. "You don't trust me, " he said hoarsely, still without looking at them. "Neither of you trust me. I – I can understand that, but I wasn't lying. Capricorn has two main headquarters and several smaller hideouts in case things get too hot for him, or one of his men needs to disappear for a while. He usually spends the summer months in the north and doesn't come south until October, but this year he's obviously spending the summer down in the south. How would I know why? Perhaps he had trouble with the police in the north. Perhaps he has business of some kind in the south and wants to see to it personally. " His voice sounded injured, like the voice of a child unjustly accused. "In any case, his men drove south with Meggie's father, I saw them go myself, and when Capricorn is in the south he always does anything of importance in that village. He feels safe in it, safer than anywhere else. He's never had any trouble with the police there, he can act like a king, as if the whole world belonged to him. He makes the laws, he decides what happens, he can do or not do anything he likes. His men take care of that. Believe you me, I understand these things. " Dustfinger smiled. It was a bitter smile. It seemed to be saying: If you only knew! But you don't know anything. You don't understand anything.

  Meggie felt unease spread through her again. It was not caused by what Dustfinger said, but by what he wasn't saying. Nothing is more frightening than a fear you cannot name.

  Elinor seemed to be feeling the same. "For heaven's sake, don't make such a mystery of it!" She snapped, "I'm asking you again, what does this Capricorn do? How does he earn his money?"

  Dustfinger crossed his arms. "You won't get anymore information out of me. Ask him yourself. Even taking you to his village could cost me dearly, so am I going to tell you about Capricorn's business? Not likely!" He shook his head. "I warned Meggie's father. I advised him to bring Capricorn the book of his own free will, but he wouldn't listen. If I hadn't warned him, Capricorn's men would have found him much sooner. Ask Meggie! She was there when I warned him. OK, I didn't tell him everything I knew. So what? I talk about Capricorn as little as possible, I try not even to think of him, and you take my word for it, once you know him you'll feel the same. "

  Elinor wrinkled her nose as if such an idea were too ridiculous for her to waste a single word on it. "So I assume you can't tell me why he's so keen to get hold of this book?" she asked, folding up the road map. "Is he some kind of collector?"

  Dustfinger ran his finger along the edge of the table. "All I'm going to tell you is that he wants this book. And that's why you'd better give it to him. I once knew his men to stand outside a man's house for four nights running just because Capricorn took a fancy to the man's dog. "

  "Did he get the dog?" asked Meggie quietly.

  "Of course, " replied Dustfinger, looking at her thought fully. "Believe me, no one sleeps soundly with Capricorn's men standing outside the door looking up at their window – or their children's window. Capricorn usually gets what he wants within a couple of days, maximum. "

  "Disgusting!" said Elinor. "He wouldn't have got my dog. "

  Dustfinger examined his fingernails again, smiling.

  "Stop grinning like that!" snapped Elinor. And, turning to Meggie, she added, "You'd better pack a few things! We set off within the hour. It's about time you got your father back. Even if I don't like having to leave the book with this Capri-what's-his-name. I hate to see books fall into the wrong hands. "

  They were going in Elinor's car, although Dustfinger would have preferred to travel in Mo's camper van.

  "Nonsense, I've never driven anything like that, " said Elinor, dumping in Dustfinger's arms a cardboard box full of provisions for the journey. "Anyway, Mortimer's locked the van. "

  Meggie saw that Dustfinger had an answer on the tip of his tongue, but chose to keep it to himself. "Suppose we have to spend the night somewhere?" he asked, carrying the box over to Elinor's car.

  "Heavens above, who said anything about that? I intend to be back here tomorrow morning at the latest. I hate leaving my books on their own for more than a day. "

  Dustfinger rolled his eyes up at the sky, as if more sense might be expected there than in Elinor's head, and began clambering into the backseat, but Elinor stopped him. "No, wait, you'd better drive, " she said, handing him her car keys. "You're the one who knows where we're going. "

  But Dustfinger gave her back the keys. "I can't drive, " he said. "It's bad enough sitting in a car, never mind driving it. "

  Elinor got behind
the steering wheel, shaking her head. "Well, you're an oddity and no mistake!" she said as Meggie climbed into the passenger seat beside her. "And I hope you really do know where Meggie's father is, or you'll find out that this Capricorn of yours isn't the only person to be frightened of around here!"

  Meggie rolled down her window as Elinor started the engine. She looked back at Mo's van. It felt bad leaving it behind here, worse than leaving a house, even this one. Strange as a place might be, the camper van meant that Mo and she always had a bit of home with them. Now that was gone, too, and nothing was familiar anymore except the clothes in her traveling bag in the trunk of Elinor's car. She had also packed a few things for Mo – and two of her books.

  "Interesting choice!" Elinor had commented when she lent Meggie a bag for the books, an old-fashioned one made of dark leather that you could sling over your shoulder. "These stories about the ill-made knight and people with hairy feet going on a long journey to dark places. Have you read them both?"

  Meggie had nodded. "Lots of times. " She smiled at Elinor's descriptions, stroking the bindings before she put the books in the bag. She could remember every detail of the day when Mo had rebound them.

  "Oh dear, don't look so dismal!" Elinor had said, looking at her with concern. "You just wait – our journey isn't going to be half as bad as those hairy-footed people's quest. It will be much shorter, too. "

  Meggie would have been glad to feel as sure of that herself. The book that was the reason for their own journey was in the trunk, under the spare tire. Elinor had put it in a plastic bag. "Don't let Dustfinger see where it is!" she urged Meggie, before putting it into her hands. "I still don't trust him. "

  But Meggie had decided to trust Dustfinger. She wanted to trust him. She needed to trust him. Who else could lead her to Mo?

  13. CAPRICORN'S VILLAGE

  "But to the last question, " Zelig replied, "he probably flew to beyond the Dark Regions, where people don't go and cattle don't stray, where the sky is copper, the earth iron, and where the evil forces live under roofs of petrified toad stools and in tunnels abandoned by moles. "

  Isaac Bashevis Singer, Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus

  The sun was already high in the cloudless sky when they set off. Soon the air was so hot and muggy in Elinor's car that Meggie's T-shirt was sticking to her skin with sweat. Elinor opened her window and passed a bottle of water around. She herself was wearing a knitted jacket buttoned up to her chin, and when Meggie wasn't thinking of Mo or Capricorn she wondered whether Elinor might melt away inside it.

  Dustfinger sat in the backseat, so silent you could almost have forgotten he was there. He had put Gwin on his lap. The marten slept while Dustfinger's hands restlessly stroked his fur, passing over it again and again. Now and then Meggie turned to look at him. He was usually gazing out of the window indifferently, as if he were looking straight through the mountains and trees, houses and rocky slopes passing by outside. His expression seemed perfectly empty, as if he were thinking of something far away, and once, when Meggie glanced around, there was such sadness on his scarred face that she quickly turned to look out of the windshield ahead of her.

  She would have liked to have an animal on her own lap during this long, long journey. Perhaps it would have driven away the dark thoughts that insisted on coming into her mind. Outside, the world was a place of gently unfolding mountains rising higher and higher. Sometimes it seemed as if they would crush the road between their gray and rocky sides. But worse than the mountains were the tunnels. Pictures seemed to lurk in them that not even Gwin's warm body could have kept at bay. They seemed to be hiding there in the darkness, waiting for Meggie: pictures of Mo in some grim, cold place, and of Capricorn… Meggie knew it must be Capricorn, although his face was different every time.

  She tried reading for a while, but soon noticed that she wasn't taking in a word of what she read, so she gave it up and stared out of the window like Dustfinger. Elinor chose minor roads without much traffic on them. "Otherwise the driving gets so boring, " she said. It made no difference to Meggie. She just wanted to arrive. She looked impatiently at the mountains and the houses where other people lived. Sometimes, through the window of a car coming the other way, she caught a glimpse of a stranger's face, then it was gone, like a book you open then close at once. When they were driving through one village she saw a man by the roadside sticking a Band-Aid on the grazed knee of a tearful little girl. He was stroking her hair comfortingly, and Meggie couldn't help remembering how often Mo had done that for her, how he sometimes chased all around the house, cursing when he couldn't find a Band-Aid in time. The memory brought tears to her eyes.

  "Heavens above, it's quieter in here than a pharaoh's burial chamber!" said Elinor at some point. (Meggie thought she said "Heavens above" quite a lot.) "Couldn't one of you at least say something now and then? 'Oh, what a lovely landscape!' for instance, or, 'That's a very fine castle!' If you keep as deathly quiet as this I'll be falling asleep at the wheel any minute now. " She still hadn't undone a single button of her knitted jacket.

  "I don't see any castle," muttered Meggie, but it wasn't long before Elinor spotted one. "Sixteenth century," she announced as the ruined walls appeared on a mountainside. "Tragic story. Forbidden love, pursuit, death, grief, and pain." And as they passed between the strong and silent rock walls Elinor told the tale of a battle that had raged in this very place over six hundred years ago. "To this day, if you dig among the stones you'll still find bones and dented helmets. " She seemed to know a story about every church tower. Some were so unlikely that Meggie wrinkled her brow in disbelief, and Elinor, without taking her eyes off the road, always responded, "No, really, that's just what happened!" She seemed to be particularly fond of bloodthirsty stories: tales of the beheading of unhappy lovers, or princes walled up alive. "Yes, everything looks very peaceful now, " she remarked when Meggie turned a little pale at one of these stories. "But I can tell you there's always a sad story somewhere. Ah, well, times were more exciting a few hundred years ago. "

  Meggie didn't know what was so exciting about times when, if Elinor was to be believed, your only choice was between dying of the plague or getting slaughtered by invading soldiers. But Elinor's cheeks glowed pink with excitement at the sight of some burnt-out old castle, and whenever she told tales of the warrior princes and greedy bishops who had once spread terror and death abroad in the very mountains through which they were now driving on modern paved roads, a romantic gleam lit her usually chilly pebble eyes.

  "My dear Elinor, you were obviously born into the wrong story, " said Dustfinger at last. These were the first words he had spoken since they set out.

  "The wrong story? The wrong period, you mean. Yes, I've often thought so myself. "

  "Call it what you like, " said Dustfinger. "Anyway, you should get along well with Capricorn. He likes the same kinds of stories as you. "

  "Is that supposed to be an insult?" asked Elinor, offended. The comparison seemed to trouble her, for after that she kept quiet for almost an hour, which left Meggie with nothing to distract her from her miserable thoughts and the frightening pictures they conjured up for her in every tunnel.

  Twilight was beginning to fall when the mountains drew back from the road and the sea suddenly appeared beyond green hills, a sea as wide as another sky. The sinking sun made it glisten like the skin of a beautiful snake. It was a long time since Meggie had seen the sea, and then it had been a cold sea, slate gray and pale from the wind. This sea looked different, very different.

  It warmed Meggie's heart just to see it, but all too often it disappeared behind the tall, ugly buildings covering the narrow strip of land that lay between the water and the encroaching

  hills. Sometimes, the hills reached all the way down to the sea, and in the light of the setting sun they looked like giant waves that had rolled up onto the land.

  As they followed the winding coastal road Elinor began telling stories again: tales of the Romans who,
she said, had built the road they were on, and how they feared the savage inhabitants of this narrow strip of land. Meggie was only half listening. Palm trees grew beside the road, their fronds dusty and sharp-edged. Giant agaves flowered among the palms, looking like spiders squatting there with their long spiny leaves. The light behind them turned pink and lemon yellow as the sun sank farther down toward the sea, and dark blue trickled down from the sky like ink flowing into water. It was so beautiful a sight that it almost hurt to look at it. Meggie had thought the place where Capricorn lived would be quite different. Beauty and fear make uneasy companions.

  They drove through a small town, past houses as bright as if a child had painted them. They were color-washed orange and pink, red and yellow. A great many were yellow: pale yellow, brownish yellow, sandy yellow, dirty yellow, and they had green shutters and red-brown roofs. Even the gathering twilight couldn't drain them of their brightness.

  "It doesn't seem so very dangerous here, " remarked Meggie as they drove past another pink house.

  "That's because you keeping looking to your left, " said Dustfinger behind her. "But there's always a light side and a dark side. Look to your right for a change. "

  Meggie did as he said. At first she saw nothing but the brightly colored houses there, too. They crowded close to the roadside, leaning against each other as if they were arm in arm. But then the houses were suddenly left behind, and steep hills with the night already settling among their folds lined the road instead. Yes, Dustfinger was right. It looked sinister over there, and the few houses left seemed to be drowning in the gathering dusk.

  It quickly grew darker, for night falls fast in the south, and Meggie was glad that Elinor was driving along the well-lit coastal road. But all too soon Dustfinger told her to turn off along a minor road leading away from the coast, away from the sea and the brightly colored houses, and into the dark.