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perhaps I'll tell you sometime, but first the two of us have a date. Here at eleven o'clock tonight.

OK?"

Meggie looked up at a blackbird singing its heart out on Elinor's rooftop. "OK," she said. "Eleven

o'clock tonight." Then she went back to the house.

Elinor had suggested that Mo set up his workshop next door to the library. There was a little

room where she kept her collection of old books about animals and plants (for there seemed to

be no kind of book that Elinor didn't collect). She kept this collection on shelves of pale, honey-

colored wood. On some of the shelves the books were propping up glass display cases of beetles

pinned to cardboard, which only made Meggie dislike Elinor all the more. By the only window

was a handsome table with turned legs, but it was barely half as long as the one Mo had in his

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workshop at home. Perhaps that was why he was swearing quietly to himself when Meggie put

her head around the door.

"Look at this table!" he said. "You could sort a stamp collection on it but not bind books. This

whole room is too small. Where am I going to put the press and my tools? Last time I worked up

in the attics, but now they're filled with crates of books, too."

Meggie stroked the spines of the books crammed close together on the shelves. "Just tell her you

need a bigger table." Carefully, she took a book off the shelf. It contained pictures of the

strangest of insects: beetles with horns, beetles with proboscises—one even had a proper nose.

Meggie passed her forefinger over the pastel-colored pictures. "Mo, why haven't you ever read

aloud to me?"

Her father turned around so abruptly that the book almost fell from her hand. "Why do you ask

me that? You've been talking to Dustfinger, haven't you? What did he tell you?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all." Meggie herself didn't know why she was lying. She put the beetle book

back in its place. It felt almost as if someone were spinning a very fine web around the two of

them, a web of secrets and lies closing in on them all the time. "I think it's a good question,

though," she said as she took out another book. It was called Masters of Disguise. The creatures

in it looked like live twigs or dry leaves.

Mo turned his back to her again. He began laying out his implements on the table, even though it

was too small: his folding tool on the left, then the round-headed hammer he used to tap the

spines of books into shape, the sharp paper knife . . . He usually whistled under his breath as he

worked, but now he was perfectly quiet. Meggie sensed his thoughts were far away. But where?

Finally, he sat on the side of the table and looked at her. "I just don't like reading aloud," he said,

as if it was the most uninteresting subject in the world. "You know I don't. That's all."

"But why not? I mean, you make up stories. You tell wonderful stories. You can do all the voices

and make it exciting and then funny ..."

Mo crossed his arms over his chest as if hiding behind them.

"You could read me Tom Sawyer," suggested Meggie, "or How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin." That

was one of Mo's favorite stories. When she was smaller they sometimes played at having crumbs

in their clothes, like the crumbs in the rhino's skin.

"Yes, an excellent story," murmured Mo, turning his back to her again. He picked up the folder in

which he kept his endpapers and leafed absentmindedly through them. "Every book should

begin with attractive endpapers," he had once told Meggie. "Preferably in a dark color: dark red

or dark blue, depending on the binding. When you open the book it's like going to the theater.

First you see the curtain. Then it's pulled aside and the show begins."

"Meggie, I really do have to work now," he said without turning around. "The sooner I'm through

with Elinor's books the sooner we can go home again."

Meggie put the book about creatures who were masters of disguise back in its place. "Suppose

he didn't stick the horns on?" she asked.

"What?"

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"Gwin's horns. Suppose Dustfinger didn't stick them on?"

"Well, he did." Mo drew a chair up to the table that wasn't long enough for him. "By the way,

Elinor's gone shopping. If you feel faint with hunger before she gets back, just make yourself a

couple of pancakes, OK?"

"OK," murmured Meggie. For a moment she wondered whether to tell him about her date with

Dustfinger that night, hut then she decided against it. "Do you think I can take some of these

books to my room?" she asked instead.

"I'm sure you can. So long as they don't disappear into your box."

"Like that book thief you once told me about?" Meggie put three books under her left arm and

four under her right arm. "How many was it he stole? Thirty thousand?"

"Forty thousand," said Mo. "But at least he didn't kill the owners."

"No, that was the Spanish monk whose name I've forgotten." Meggie went over to the door and

opened it with her toe. "Dustfinger says Capricorn would kill you to get hold of that book." She

tried to make her voice sound casual. "Would he, Mo?"

"Meggie!" Mo turned around with the paper knife pretending to point it at her threateningly. "Go

and lie in the sun or bury your pretty nose in those books, but please let me get some work done.

And tell Dustfinger I will carve him into very thin slices with this knife if he goes on telling you

such nonsense."

"That wasn't a proper answer!" said Meggie, making her way out into the hallway with an armful

of books.

Once in her room, she spread the books out on the huge bed and began to read. She read about

beetles who moved into empty snail shells as we might move into an empty house, about frogs

shaped like leaves, and caterpillars with brightly colored spines on their backs, white-bearded

monkeys, striped anteaters, and cats that dig in the ground for sweet potatoes. There seemed to

be everything here, every creature Meggie could imagine, and even more that she could never

have dreamed existed at all. But none of Elinor's clever books said a word about martens with

horns.

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Chapter 6 – Fire And Stars

So along they came with dancing bears, dogs and goats, monkeys and marmots, walking

the tightrope, turning somersaults both backward and forwards, throwing daggers and

knives and suffering no injury when they fell on their points and blades, swallowing fire

and chewing stones, doing tricks with magic goblets and chains under cover of cloak and

hat, making puppets fence with each other, trilling like nightingales, screaming like

peacocks, calling like deer, wrestling and dancing to the sound of the double flute....

– Herzt, Book of Minstrelsy

The day passed slowly. Meggie saw Mo only in the afternoon, when Elinor came back from doing

her shopping and half an hour later gave them spaghetti with some kind of premade sauce. "I'm

afraid I have no patience with toiling over a stove," she said as she put the dishes on the table.

Perhaps our friend with the furry animal can cook?"

Dustfinger merely shrugged his shoulders apologetically, sorry, I'm no use to you that way."

"Mo cooks very well," said Meggie, stirring the thin, watery sauce into her spaghetti.

"Mo's here to restore my books, not to cook for us," replied Elinor sharply. "What about you,

though?"

Meggie shrugged. "I can make pancakes," she said. "Why don't you get some cookbooks? You

have books of every other kind. I'm sure you'd find cookbooks a help."

Elinor didn't even deign to reply to this suggestion.

"And by the way, there's a rule for nighttime," she said, when they had all been eating in silence

for a while. "I won't have candlelight in my house. Fire makes me nervous. It's far too greedy for

paper."

Meggie gulped. She felt caught in the act, for of course she had brought candles with her. They

were on her bedside table upstairs, where Elinor must have seen them. However, Elinor was

looking not at Meggie but at Dustfinger, who was playing with a box of matches.

"I hope you'll take that rule to heart," she said to him. "Since we're obviously going to have the

pleasure of your company for another night."

"Yes, if I may impose on your hospitality a little longer. I'll be off first thing in the morning, I

promise." Dustfinger was still holding the matches. He didn't seem bothered by Elinor's

distrustful gaze. "I'd say someone here has the wrong idea about fire," he added. "It bites like a

fierce little animal, admittedly, but you can tame it." And with these words he took a match out

of the box, struck it, and popped the flame into his open mouth.

Meggie held her breath as his lips closed around the burning matchstick. Dustfinger opened his

mouth again, took out the spent match, smiled, and left it on his empty plate.

"You see, Elinor?" he said. "It didn't bite me. It's easier to tame than a kitten and almost as easy

as a dog."

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Elinor just wrinkled her nose, but Meggie was so amazed that she could hardly take her eyes off

Dustfinger's scarred face. She looked at Mo. The little trick with the burning match didn't seem

to have surprised him. He shot a warning glance at Dustfinger, who meekly put away the box of

matches in his pants pocket.

"But of course I'll keep the no candles rule," he was quick to say. "That's no problem. Really."

Elinor nodded. "Good," she said. "And one more thing: If you go out again as soon as it's dark this

evening, the way you did last night, you'd better not be back too late, because I switch on the

burglar alarm at nine-thirty on the dot."

"Ah, then I was in luck yesterday evening." Dustfinger slipped some spaghetti into his bag. Elinor

didn't notice, but Meggie did. "Yes, I do enjoy walking at night. The world's more to my liking

then, not so loud, not so fast, not so crowded, and a good deal more mysterious. But I wasn't

planning to walk this evening. I have other plans for tonight, and I'll have to ask you to switch

this wonderful system of yours on a little later than usual."

"Oh, indeed. And why, may I ask?"

Dustfinger winked at Meggie. "Well, I've promised to put on a little show for this young lady," he

said. "It begins about an hour before midnight."

"Oh yes?" Elinor dabbed some sauce off her lips with her napkin. "A little show. Why not in

daylight? After all, the young lady's only twelve years old. She should be in bed at eight o'clock."

Meggie tightened her lips. She hadn't been to bed as early as eight since her fifth birthday, but

she wasn't going to the trouble of explaining that to Elinor. Instead, she admired the casual way

Dustfinger reacted to Elinor's hostile gaze.

"Ah, but you see the tricks I want to show Meggie wouldn't look so good by day," he said, leaning

back in his chair. "I'm afraid I need the black cloak of night. Why don't you come and watch, too?

Then you'll understand why it all has to be done in the dark."

"Go on, accept his offer, Elinor!" said Mo. "You'll enjoy the show. And then perhaps you won't

think fire's so sinister."

"It's not that I think it's sinister. I don't like it, that's all," remarked Elinor, unmoved.

"He can juggle!" Meggie burst out. "With eight balls."

"Eleven," Dustfinger corrected her. "But juggling is more of a daylight skill."

Elinor retrieved a string of spaghetti from the tablecloth and glanced first at Meggie and then at

Mo. She looked cross. "Oh, very well. I don't want to be a spoilsport," she said. "I will go to bed

with a book at nine-thirty as usual and put the alarm on first, but when Meggie tells me she's

going out for this private performance I'll switch it off again for an hour. Will that be time

enough?"

"Ample time," said Dustfinger, bowing so low to her that the tip of his nose collided with the rim

of his plate.

Meggie bit back her laughter.

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It was five to eleven when she knocked at Elinor's bedroom door.

"Come in!" she heard Elinor call, and when she put her head around the door she saw her aunt

sitting up in bed, poring over a catalog as thick as a telephone directory. "Oh, too expensive, too

expensive!" she murmured. "Take my advice, Meggie Never develop a passion you can't afford.

It'll eat your heart away like a bookworm. Take this book here, for instance." Elinor tapped her

finger on the left-hand page of her catalog so hard that it wouldn't have surprised Meggie if she

had bored a hole in it. "What a fine edition — and in such good condition, too! I've been wanting