to each other 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 rather 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 favourite colours. 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 neighbours? 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 which had almost burned down, and his voice had sounded as if he were a prince informing his guest that he would show him round the palace 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 rubbish that lay among the houses and shovelling 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 got 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 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 grey 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 spoilt grandson,’ Fenoglio had told Meggie, ‘and I’m 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 her dirty dress off 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 grey 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, sulphur 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 he 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 towards 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 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.
‘Well, you seem to be the same as ever!’ said Dustfinger at last. ‘A skinny dark-eyed little devil. But wait – you’re so quiet! It didn’t cost you your voice, did it?’
Farid smiled. ‘No, I’m all right!’ he said, glancing quickly at the woman, who was still standing behind Dustfinger. ‘But it wasn’t Cheeseface who brought me here. He simply stopped reading the moment you were gone! Meggie read me here, using Cheeseface’s words.’
‘Meggie? Silvertongue’s daughter?’
‘Yes, but what about you? You’re all right, aren’t you?’
Dustfinger’s mouth twisted into the wry smile that Farid knew so well. ‘As you can see, the scars are still there. But there’s no more damage done, if that’s what you mean.’ He turned round and looked at the woman in a way that Farid didn’t like at all.
Her hair was black, and her eyes were almost as dark as his own. She really was very beautiful, even if she was old – well, much older than Farid – but he didn’t like her. He didn’t like either her or the boy. After all, he hadn’t followed Dustfinger to his own world just to share him.
The woman came up beside Dustfinger and placed her hand on his shoulder. ‘Who’s this?’ she asked, sizing Farid up in much the same way as he had looked at her. ‘One of your many secrets? A son I don’t know about?’
Farid felt the blood rise to his face. Dustfinger’s son. He liked the idea. Unobtrusively, he stole a look at the strange boy. Who was his father?
‘My son?’ Dustfinger affectionately caressed her face. ‘What an idea! No, Farid’s a fire-eater. He was my apprentice for a while, and now he thinks I can’t manage without him. Indeed, he’s so sure of it that he follows me everywhere, however far he has to go.’
‘Oh, stop it!’ Farid’s voice sounded angrier than he had intended. ‘I’m here to warn you! But I can go away again if you like.’
‘Take it easy!’ Dustfinger held him firmly by the arm as he turned to go. ‘Heavens above, I forgot how quickly you take offence. Warn me? Warn me of what?’
‘Basta.’
The woman’s hand flew to her mouth when he said that name – and Farid began to tell his story, describing everything that had happened since Dustfinger disappeared from that remote road in the mountains as if he had never existed. When he had finished, Dustfinger asked just one question. ‘So Basta has the book?’
Farid dug his toes into the hard earth and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he muttered ruefully. ‘He put his knife to my throat. What was I to do?’
‘Basta?’ The woman reached for Dustfinger’s hand. ‘He’s still alive, then?’
Dustfinger just nodded. Then he looked at Farid again. ‘Do you believe he’s here now? Do you think Orpheus has read him here?’
Farid shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know! When I got away from him he shouted after me that he’d be revenged on Silvertongue too. But Silvertongue doesn’t believe it, he says Basta was just in a rage …’
Dustfinger looked at the gate, which was still standing open. ‘Yes, Basta says a lot of things when he’s in a rage,’ he murmured. Then he sighed, and trod out a few sparks that were still glowing on the ground in front of him.
‘Bad news,’ he said softly. ‘Nothing but bad news. All we need now is for you to have brought Gwin with you.’
Thank heaven it was dark. Lies weren’t nearly as easily spotted in the dark as by day. Farid did his best to sound as surprised as possible. ‘Gwin? Oh no! No, I didn’t bring him with me. You said he
was to stay there. And Meggie said so too – she said I mustn’t bring him.’
‘Clever girl!’ Dustfinger’s sigh of relief went to Farid’s heart.
‘You left the marten behind?’ The woman shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe it. ‘I always thought you loved that little monster more than any other living creature.’
‘Oh, you know my faithless heart!’ replied Dustfinger, but his light-hearted tone of voice couldn’t deceive even Farid. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked the boy. ‘How long have you been here?’
Farid cleared his throat; his lie about Gwin was like a splinter lodged in it. ‘For four days,’ he managed to say. ‘The strolling players gave us something to eat, but I’m still hungry, all the same …’
‘Us?’ Dustfinger’s voice suddenly sounded distrustful.
‘Silvertongue’s daughter. Meggie. She came with me.’
‘She’s here?’ Dustfinger looked at him in astonishment. Then he groaned, and pushed the hair back from his forehead. ‘Oh, how pleased her father will be! Not to mention her mother. Did you by any chance bring anyone else too?’
Farid shook his head.
‘Where is she now?’
‘With the old man.’ Farid jerked his head back the way he had come. ‘He’s living near the castle. We met him in the strolling players’ camp. Meggie was very glad to see him. She was going to look for him anyway, to get him to take her back. I think she’s homesick …’
‘What old man? Who the devil are you talking about now?’
‘Well, that writer! The one with the face like a tortoise – you remember, you ran away from him back then in—’
‘Yes, yes, all right!’ Dustfinger put his hand over Farid’s mouth as if he didn’t want to hear another word, and stared towards the place where, somewhere in the darkness, the walls of Ombra lay hidden. ‘Heavens above, what next?’ he murmured.
‘Is that … is it more bad news?’ Farid hardly dared to ask.
Dustfinger looked away, but all the same Farid had seen his smile. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose there never was a boy who brought so much bad news all at once. And in the middle of the night too. What do we do with bearers of bad tidings, Roxane?’
Roxane. So that was her name. For a moment Farid thought she would suggest sending him away. But then she shrugged. ‘We feed them, what else?’ she said. ‘Even if this one doesn’t look too starved.’
17
A Present for Capricorn
‘If he has been my father’s enemy, I like him still less!’ exclaimed the now really anxious girl. ‘Will you not speak to him, Major Heyward, that I may hear his tones? Foolish though it may be, you have often heard me avow my faith in the tones of the human voice!’
J. Fenimore Cooper,
The Last of the Mohicans
Evening drew on, night fell, and no one came to unlock Elinor’s cellar. They sat there in silence among tubes of tomato purée, cans of ravioli and all the other provisions stacked on the shelves around them – trying not to see the fear on each other’s faces.
‘My house isn’t all that large!’ said Elinor once, breaking the silence. ‘By now even that fool Basta should have realized that Meggie really isn’t here.’