第 44 页

help him. He should have gone searching for the book himself. How could he have endangered

her? "Have they shut her up somewhere? Tell me!"

The girl looked at something over his shoulders and took a step back. Dustfinger spun around to

see whatever she had seen — and found himself looking into Basta's face.

Dustfinger's mind raced. Why hadn't he heard anything? Basta was notorious for his silent tread,

but Flatnose, who was with him, was no master of the art of stalking. And Basta had brought

someone else, too: Mortola was standing beside him. So it wasn't just fresh air that she had been

enjoying last night. Or had Resa betrayed him to her? The idea hurt.

"I really didn't expect you to venture here again," purred Basta, pushing him against the grating

with the flat of his hand. Dustfinger felt the iron bars pressing into his back.

Flatnose was grinning as broadly as a child at Christmas. He always grinned like that when he

was allowed to put the fear of death into someone.

"And what have you to do with the lovely Resa?" Basta snapped his knife open, and Flatnose's

smile widened as fear brought out beads of sweat on Dustfinger's forehead. "I always said so!"

continued Basta as he slowly brought the tip of the knife closer to Dustfinger's chest. "The fire-

eater's in love with Resa, I said, he'd devour her with his eyes if he could, but the others wouldn't

believe me. All the same — to think of a lily-livered coward like you venturing here!"

"Ah, but he's in love," said Flatnose, laughing.

But Basta merely shook his head. "No, our dirty-fingered friend wouldn't have come here for

love, he's far too cold a fish. He's here for the book. Am I right? You're still homesick for those

fluttering fairies and stinking trolls." Almost tenderly, Basta ran the knife across Dustfinger's

throat.

Dustfinger forgot how to breathe. The trick of it seemed to have escaped him.

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"Back to your room!" the Magpie snapped at the girl behind him. "Why are you still standing

around?" Dustfinger heard the rustle of a dress, and a door closed abruptly.

Basta's knife was still at his throat, but just as the man was about to let the tip of it wander a

little higher the Magpie seized his arm. "That's enough!" she commanded. "You can stop your

little game now, Basta."

"That's right, the boss said we were to bring him in uninjured." Flatnose's voice made clear how

little he thought of this order.

Basta let the knife wander over Dustfinger's throat one last time. Then, with a swift movement,

he snapped it shut again.

"What a shame!" said Basta. Dustfinger felt the man's breath on his own skin. Basta's breath

smelled of mint, fresh and sharp. Apparently a girl he'd once wanted to kiss had told him he had

bad breath. The girl had regretted it, but ever since then Basta chewed peppermint leaves from

morning to night. "You've always given good sport, Dustfinger," he said as he stepped back, still

holding the closed switchblade.

"Take him to the church!" Mortola ordered. "I'll go and tell Capricorn."

"Did you know the boss is very angry with your mute girlfriend?" whispered Flatnose to

Dustfinger as he and Basta dragged him between them. "She was always quite a favorite of his."

For a split second Dustfinger felt almost happy.

So Resa hadn't given him away.

All the same, he never should have asked her for help. Never.

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Chapter 38 – A Quiet Voice

She liked his tears so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it.

Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it

out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in

fairies.

– J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Meggie did try her plan. As soon as it was dark she hammered on the door with her fist. Fenoglio

woke with a start, but before he could stop her Meggie had called to the guard outside the door

that she had to go to the toilet. The man who had relieved Flatnose was a short-legged fellow

with jug ears, who was amusing himself by swatting moths with a rolled-up newspaper. Over a

dozen insects were already smeared on the white wall when he let Meggie out into the corridor.

"I need to go, too!" cried Fenoglio, perhaps intending to dissuade Meggie from carrying out her

plan, but the guard closed the door in his face. "One at a time!" he grunted at the old man. "And if

you can't wait, you'll just have to pee out of the window."

Taking his newspaper with him as he escorted Meggie to the lavatory, he killed three more

moths and a butterfly that was fluttering helplessly from wall to bare wall. Finally, he pushed a

door open, the last door before the staircase to the ground floor. Just a few more steps, thought

Meggie. I'm sure I can run downstairs faster than he can.

"Please, Meggie, you must forget about running away!" Fenoglio had kept whispering in her ear.

"You'll get lost. There's nothing outside but wild country for miles! Your father would be furious

if he knew what you were planning."

Oh no, he wouldn't, Meggie had thought. But when she was in the little room, which contained

nothing but a sink and a bucket, her courage almost failed her. It was so dark outside, so terribly

dark. And it was still a long way to the door of Capricorn's house.

I must try, she whispered to herself before she opened the door. I must, I must!

The guard caught up with her on the fifth stair. He carried her back over his shoulder, like a sack

of potatoes. "And next time, I'll take you to the boss!" he said before pushing her back into the

room. "He'll think up a good punishment for you."

She cried for almost half an hour, while Fenoglio sat beside her staring unhappily into space.

"It's all right," he kept murmuring, but nothing was all right, nothing at all.

"We don't even have a light in here," she finally sobbed. "And they've taken my books away."

At that Fenoglio reached under his pillow and put a flashlight in her lap. "I found it under my

mattress," he whispered.

"With a few books, too. Who would have thought someone had hidden them there?"

Darius, the reader. Meggie could remember how the thin little man had come hurrying up the

nave of Capricorn's church with his pile of books. The flashlight must surely be his. How long

had Capricorn kept him prisoner in this bare little room?

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"There was a blanket in the cupboard as well," whispered Fenoglio. "I put it on the top bunk for

you. Can't get up there myself, I'm afraid — when I tried the whole thing swayed like a ship at

sea."

"I'd rather sleep in the top bunk anyway," murmured Meggie, rubbing her sleeve over her face.

She didn't want to cry anymore. It was no good anyway.

Fenoglio had put some of Darius's books on the bunk along with the blanket for her. Meggie

carefully laid them out side by side. They were almost all books for grown-ups: a well-worn

thriller, a book about snakes, another about Alexander the Great, the Odyssey. The only books for

children were a collection of fairy tales and Peter Pan — and she had read Peter Pan at least half

a dozen times already.

Outside, the guard struck out with his newspaper again, and below her Fenoglio tossed and

turned restlessly on the narrow bunk. Meggie knew she wouldn't be able to sleep, so there was

no point in even trying. Once again she looked at the strange books. Closed doors, all of them.

Which should she open? Behind which of them would she forget all of this, Basta and Capricorn,

Inkheart, herself, everything? She put aside the thriller and the book about Alexander the Great,

hesitated — and picked up the Odyssey. It was a worn little volume; Darius must have liked it

very much. He had even underlined some passages, one of them so hard that his pencil had

almost gone through the paper: But hard as he tried, he could not save his friends. Undecidedly,

Meggie leafed through the worn pages, then closed the book and put it down. No. She knew the

story well enough to realize that she was almost as afraid of the Greek heroes as she was of

Capricorn's men. She wiped a lingering tear away from her cheek and let her hand hover over

the other books. Fairy tales. She wasn't particularly fond of fairy tales, but the book looked

attractive. The pages rustled as Meggie browsed through them. They were thin as tracing paper

and covered with tiny print. There were wonderful illustrations of dwarves and fairies, and the

stories told tales of mighty beings tall as giants, strong as bears, even immortal, but they were all

malignant: The giants ate human beings, the dwarves were greedy for gold, the fairies were

malicious and bore a grudge. No. Meggie turned the light on the last book. Peter Pan.

The fairy in that book wasn't very nice either, but at least Meggie knew the world awaiting her

between its covers very well. Perhaps it was just the thing for such a dark night. An owl

screeched outside, but otherwise all was still in Capricorn's village. Fenoglio murmured

something in his sleep and began to snore. Meggie snuggled down under the scratchy blanket,

took Mo's sweater out of her backpack, and put it under her head.

"Please," she whispered as she opened the book, "please get me out of here just for an hour or

so, please take me far, far away." Outside, the guard muttered something to himself. He was

probably bored to death. The floorboards creaked under his tread as he paced up and down

outside the locked door.

"Take me away from here," whispered Meggie, "please take me away from here."

She let her finger run along the lines, over the rough, sandy paper, while her eyes followed the

letters to another, colder place, in another time, to a house without locked doors and black-

jacketed thugs. A moment after the fairy's entrance the window was blown open, whispered

Meggie, hearing the sound of the window creaking as it opened, blown open by the breathing of

the little stars, and Peter dropped in. He had carried Tinker Bell part of the way, and his hand was

still messy with the fairy dust. Fairies, thought Meggie. I can see why Dustfinger misses the fairies.

No, that was not allowed. She mustn't think of Dustfinger, only of Tinker Bell and Peter Pan, and

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Wendy lying in her bed, knowing nothing yet of the strange boy who had flown into her room

dressed in leaves and cobwebs. "Tinker Bell," he called softly, after making sure that the children

were asleep. "Tink, where are you?" She was in a jug for the moment, and liking it extremely; she

had never been in a jug before. Tinker Bell. Meggie whispered the name twice; she had always

liked the sound of it—you clicked your tongue against your teeth, and then there was the soft B

sound slipping out of your lips like a kiss. "Oh, do come out of that jug, and tell me, do you know

where they put my shadow?" The loveliest tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It is the fairy

language. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if you were to hear it you would know that

you had heard it once before. If I could fly like Tinker Bell, thought Meggie, I could simply climb

out on the windowsill and fly away. I wouldn't have to worry about the snakes, and I'd find Mo

before he gets here. He must have lost the way. Yes, that must be it. But suppose something had

happened to him. . . . Meggie shook her head as if to drive away the bad thoughts that had

wormed their way in yet again. Tink said that the shadow was in the big box, she whispered.

She meant the chest of drawers, and Peter jumped at the drawers, scattering their contents to the

ground with both hands. . . .

Meggie stopped. There was something bright in the room. She switched the flashlight off, but the

light was still there, a thousand times brighter than the night-lights , . . and when it came to rest

for a second, whispered Meggie,you saw it was a ... She did not speak the word aloud. She just

followed the light with her eyes as it flew around the room, very fast, faster than a glowworm

and much larger.

"Fenoglio!" She couldn't hear any sound from the guard outside the door. Perhaps he'd gone to

sleep. Meggie leaned over the side of the bunk until she could touch Fenoglio's shoulder.

"Fenoglio, look!" She shook him until he finally opened his eyes. Suppose the little creature flew

out of the window?

Meggie slid down from the top bunk and shut the window so quickly that she almost caught one

of the shimmering wings in it. The fairy, alarmed, whirred away. Meggie thought she heard an

indignant chirrup.

Fenoglio stared at the shining little creature, his eyes heavy with sleep. "What is it?" he asked

hoarsely. "A mutated glowworm?"

Meggie went back to the bed without taking her eyes off the fairy, who was darting faster and

faster around the little room like a lost butterfly, up to the ceiling, back to the door, over to the

window again. She kept returning to the window. Meggie put the book on Fenoglio's lap.

"Peter Pan." He looked at the book, then at the fairy, then at the book again.