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the strange creatures crowding into the arena outside Capricorn's village as if they had always

been there. Darius followed them. He had finally let go of the Magpie, who was now standing

with her bony hands gripping the back of the chair where Meggie had been sitting. She was

weeping soundlessly, her face crumpled, as if her whole being were made of tears.

A tiny, blue-skinned fairy apologized profusely when it fluttered into Meggie's hair as she and

Mo went toward the cage containing her mother and Elinor. Then a shaggy creature who looked

half-human, half-animal stumbled across her path, and finally she almost stepped on a tiny little

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man who seemed to be made entirely of glass. Capricorn's village had acquired some strange

new inhabitants.

Farid was still trying to get the lock open when they reached the cage. He was picking at it,

looking angry, and muttering something to the effect that Dustfinger had shown him just how to

do it and this must be a very special sort of lock.

"Oh, wonderful!" said Elinor sarcastically, pressing her face to the bars from inside. "So that

Shadow didn't eat us after all, but we'll be left to starve in a cage. Well, well! What do you think

of your daughter, Mo? Isn't she a brave little thing? I couldn't have uttered a word myself, not a

single word. My God, my heart almost stopped when that old woman tried to get the book away

from her."

Mo put his hand on Meggie's shoulder and smiled, but he was looking at someone else. Nine

years is a long, long time.

"I've done it! I've done it!" cried Farid, pulling the door of the cage open. But before the two

women could take a step, a figure rose in the darkest corner of their prison, leaped toward them,

and seized the first person he could lay his hands on — Meggie's mother.

"Wait!" spat Basta. "Stop, stop, not so fast. Where are you off to, then, Resa? To join your beloved

family? You think I didn't understand all that whispering down in the crypt? Well, I did."

"Let go of her!" cried Meggie. "Let go of her!" Why hadn't she noticed the dark heap lying so still

in the corner? She just assumed Basta was as dead as Capricorn. And indeed, why wasn't he?

Why hadn't he disappeared like Flatnose and Cockerell and all the others?

"Let her go, Basta!" Mo spoke very quietly as if he had no strength for anything else. "You won't

get out of here, even by using her as a shield. No one will help you. They're all gone."

"Oh, I'll get out!" replied Basta unpleasantly. "I will choke her if you don't let me pass. I'll break

her scrawny neck. Did you know she can't talk? She can't make a sound because that useless

Darius read her out of the book. She's as silent as a fish, a pretty, mute fish. But if I know you,

you'll want her back all the same, am I right?"

Mo made no reply, and Basta laughed.

"Why aren't you dead?" Elinor shouted at him. "Why didn't you fall down dead like your master,

or vanish? Why not?"

Basta merely shrugged. "How should I know?" he growled, keeping his hand around Resa's neck.

She tried to kick him, but he only tightened his grip. "After all, the Magpie's still here, too, but she

always made other people do her dirty work for her, and as for me — perhaps I'm one of the

good characters in the story now because they put me in the cage? Perhaps I'm still here because

it's been a long time since I set fire to anything, and Flatnose got much more fun out of killing

people? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps . . . but anyway here I am, so let me pass, you old bookbag!"

But Elinor did not budge.

"No," she said. "You don't get out of here until you let her go! I'd never have expected this story

to have a happy ending, but it has — and a creature like you isn't going to spoil that at the last

moment, as sure as my name's Elinor Loredan!" Looking very determined, she placed herself in

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front of the cage door. "You don't have your knife with you this time," she went on in a

dangerously soft voice. "You have nothing but your filthy tongue, and believe you me, that'll be

no use to you now. Poke your fingers into his eyes, Teresa! Kick him, bite him, the beast!"

But before Teresa could do as she said Basta thrust her away from him so violently that she fell

against Elinor and brought her down — her and Mo, for both of them had been coming to her

aid. As for Basta, he raced for the open door of the cage, pushed the startled Farid and Meggie

aside — and ran away past all the people and creatures still wandering like sleepwalkers around

the scene of Capricorn's festivities. Before Farid or Mo could give chase he had disappeared.

"Oh, great!" muttered Elinor, stumbling out of the cage with Teresa. "Now that wretched fellow

will haunt me in my dreams, and every time I hear something rustling out in my garden at night

I will feel his knife at my throat."

Not only had Basta gone, but the Magpie also disappeared without a trace that night. And when,

wearily, they set off to find a vehicle of some kind to get them away from Capricorn's village,

they found all the cars had gone, too. Not a single one was left in the parking lot, which was dark

now.

"Oh no, tell me it isn't true!" groaned Elinor. "Does this mean we have to go the whole wretched

way on foot again?"

"Unless you happen to have a cell phone with you," said Mo. He had not moved from Teresa's

side since Basta had made his escape. He had looked with concern at her neck, where the red

marks left by Basta's fingers were still visible, and he had run a strand of her hair through his

fingers and said he almost liked it better now that it was darker. But nine years is a long time,

and Meggie saw how careful they were with each other, like people on a narrow bridge crossing

a wide, wide void.

Of course Elinor did not have her cell phone. Capricorn had had it taken away from her, and

although Farid immediately offered to go and search Capricorn's fire-blackened house for it, it

did not turn up. So they finally decided to spend one last night in the village, along with all the

creatures that Fenoglio had brought back to life. It was still a beautiful, mild night, and sleeping

under the trees would be quite comfortable. Meggie and Mo found plenty of blankets in the now-

deserted houses. But they did not go back into Capricorn's house. Meggie never wanted to set

foot inside it again, not because of the acrid smell of burning seeping out of its windows, or the

charred doors, but because of the memories that leaped out at her like fierce animals at the mere

sight of the place.

Sitting between Mo and her mother under one of the old oaks surrounding the parking lot,

Meggie thought for a moment of Dustfinger, and wondered whether perhaps Capricorn had been

telling the truth after all, maybe he really was dead and buried somewhere in the hills. I may

never find out what's happened to him, she thought, as one of the blue fairies rocked back and

forth on a twig above her, its face bland and happy.

The whole village seemed to be enchanted that night. The air was full of buzzing and

murmuring, and the figures wandering around the parking lot looked as if they had escaped

from the dreams of children and not the words of an old man. That was something else Meggie

kept asking herself during the night: Where was Fenoglio now, and did he like it in his own

story? She so much hoped so. But she knew he would miss his grandchildren and their games of

hide-and-seek in his kitchen cupboard.

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Before Meggie's eyes closed, she saw Elinor walking around among the trolls and fairies, looking

happier than she had ever seen her. And her own parents were sitting to the left and right of

Meggie, and her mother was writing and writing, on leaves from the trees, on the fabric of her

dress, in the sand. There were so many words, so many tales to tell.

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Chapter 58 – Homesickness

Yet Bastian knew he couldn't leave without the book. It was clear to him that he had only

come to the shop because of this book. It had called him in some mysterious way, because

it wanted to be his, because it had somehow always belonged to him.

– Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

Dustfinger watched it all from a rooftop far enough from the scene of Capricorn's festivities for

him to feel safe from the Shadow, but close enough for him to see everything through the

binoculars he had found in Basta's house. At first, he had meant to stay in hiding. He had seen

the Shadow kill too often already. Yet, a strange feeling, as irrational as Basta's good-luck

charms, had driven him out: a feeling that he could protect the book just by his presence. When

he slipped into the alley he felt something else, too. He didn't like to admit it to himself, but he

wanted to see Basta die through the same binoculars Basta himself had so often turned on his

future victims.

So he sat on the tiles of a dilapidated roof, his back against the cold chimney, his face blackened

with soot (for the face is treacherously pale by night), and watched smoke rise into the sky from

Capricorn's house. He saw Flatnose set out with several men to extinguish the fire. He saw the

Shadow emerge from the ground, he saw the old man disappear with an expression of infinite

amazement on his face, and he saw Capricorn die the death Fenoglio himself had summoned.

Unfortunately, Basta did not die, which was really annoying. Dustfinger saw him running away.

And he saw the Magpie follow him.

He, Dustfinger the spectator, saw it all.

He had often been just a spectator, and this was not his story. What were they to him,

Silvertongue and his daughter, the boy, the bookworm, and the woman who was another man's

wife once more? She could have escaped with him, but she had stayed in the crypt with her

daughter, so he had thrust her out of his heart as he always did with anyone who tried to stay

there too long. He was glad that the Shadow hadn't taken them all, but they were none of his

business anymore. From now on Resa would be telling Silvertongue all the wonderful stories

that drove away loneliness and homesickness and fear again. Why should it bother him?

But what about the fairies and the goblins suddenly stumbling around the scene of Capricorn's

festivities? They were as out of place in this world as he was — and they, too, wouldn't let him

forget that he was still here for only one reason. He was interested only in the book, nothing but

the book, and when he saw Silvertongue hide it under his jacket he decided to get it back. The

book at least would be his. It must be his. He would stroke the pages, and if he closed his eyes at

the same time he would be home again.

The old man was there now, the old man with the wrinkled face. Crazy. If only you hadn't been

so afraid, Dustfinger, he thought bitterly. But you're a coward and you always will be. Why

wasn't ityou standing beside Capricorn? Why didn't you venture down? Then perhapsyou

would have disappeared back into the book instead of the old man.

The fairy with the butterfly wings and milky white face had flown after him. She was a vain little

thing. Whenever she caught sight of her reflection in a window she lingered, smiling in front of

it, oblivious to all else. She turned and preened in the air, ran her fingers through her hair, and

examined herself as if delighted by her own beauty all over again. The fairies he had known had

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not been particularly vain. On the contrary, sometimes they positively enjoyed smearing their

tiny faces with mud or pollen, and then asked him, giggling, to guess which of them it was behind

all the muck.

Perhaps I ought to catch myself one, thought Dustfinger. They could make me invisible. It would

be wonderful to be invisible now and then. Or a troll — I could make him part of my show.

Everyone would think he was just a little human being in a furry suit. No one can stand on his

head as long as a troll, no one can make faces so well either, and those funny little dances they

do — yes, why not?

When the moon had traveled halfway across the sky and Dustfinger was still sitting on the roof,

the fairy with the butterfly wings grew impatient. Her tinkling sounded shrill and angry as she

flew around him. What did she want? Did she want him to take her back where she came from,

back to the place where all fairies had butterfly wings and people understood their language?

"You've picked the wrong man here," he told her quietly.

"See that girl down there, and the man beside the woman with the dark blond hair? They're

what you need, but I might as well warn you: They're very good at luring people into their world

and not so good at sending them home again. Still, you can try! Maybe you'll have better luck

than me."

The fairy turned in the air, looked down, cast him a final injured glance, and flew away.

Dustfinger saw her brightness mingle with the light of the other fairies flying around and

chasing one another through the branches of the trees. They were so forgetful. No grief or