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 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 realise 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 torch 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 rucksack 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 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 into her mind 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 torch 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 round the room, very fast, faster than a glow-worm 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 glow-worm?’
Meggie went back to the bed without taking her eyes off the fairy, who was darting faster and faster round 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.
‘I didn’t mean to do it!’ whispered Meggie. ‘Really I didn’t.’
The fairy kept colliding with the window again and again.
‘No!’ Meggie hurried over to her. ‘You mustn’t go out! You don’t understand.’ It was a fairy, no longer than your hand, but still growing. It was a girl called Tinker Bell, exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf.
‘Someone’s coming!’ Fenoglio sat up in such a hurry that he hit his head on the top bunk. He was right. Out in the corridor footsteps were approaching, rapid, firm footsteps. Meggie retreated to the window. What did it mean? It was the middle of the night. Perhaps Mo’s arrived, she thought, Mo is here. Although she didn’t want to feel glad of it, her heart leaped with joy.
‘Hide her!’ whispered Fenoglio. ‘Quick, hide her!’
Meggie looked at him, confused. Of course. The fairy. They mustn’t find her. Meggie tried to catch Tinker Bell, but the fairy slipped through her fingers and whirred up to the ceiling, where she hovered like a light made of invisible glass.
The footsteps were very close now. ‘Call that keeping watch?’ It was Basta’s voice. Meggie heard a hollow groan; he had probably woken the guard with a kick. ‘Unlock that door, and get a move on. I don’t have forever.’
Someone put a key in the lock. ‘That’s the wrong one, you dozy idiot! Capricorn wants to see the girl, and I shall tell him why he’s had to wait so long.’
Meggie climbed up on her bed. The bunk swayed alarmingly as she stood on it. ‘Tinker Bell!’ she whispered. ‘Please! Come here!’ But as she reached out her hand, the fairy flew back to the window – and Basta opened the door.
‘Hey, where did that come from?’ he asked, standing in the doorway. ‘It’s years since I saw one of those fluttery things.’
Meggie and Fenoglio said nothing – what was there to say?
‘You needn’t think you can wriggle out of telling me!’ Basta took off his jacket and went slowly over to the window, holding it in his left hand. ‘You stand in the doorway in case it gets away from me!’ he told the guard. ‘And if you let it get past you I shall slice off your ears.’
‘Leave her alone!’ Meggie slid hastily down from the bed again, but Basta moved faster. He threw his jacket. Tinker Bell’s light disappeared, snuffed out like a candle. There was a faint twitching under the jacket as it fell to the floor. Basta picked it up carefully, holding it together like a sack, went over to Meggie and stopped in front of her. ‘Well, sweetheart, let’s hear your story,’ he said in a menacingly quiet voice.
‘Where did that fairy come from?’
‘I don’t know!’ uttered Meggie without looking at him. ‘She – she was just suddenly here.’
Basta looked at the guard. ‘Ever seen anything like a fairy in these parts?’ he asked.
The guard raised the newspaper, to which a couple of dusty moth wings were still clinging, and slapped the door frame with it, smiling broadly. ‘No, but if I did I’d know what to do about it!’ he said.
‘You’re right, those little creatures are as troublesome as midges. But they’re supposed to bring luck.’ Basta turned back to Meggie. ‘Now then, out with it! Where did she come from? I’m not asking you again.’
Meggie couldn’t help it: her eyes strayed to the book that Fenoglio had dropped. Basta followed her glance, and picked it up.
‘Well, fancy that!’ he murmured as he looked at the picture on the cover. The artist had produced a good likeness of Tinker Bell. In real life she was a little paler and a little smaller than the picture suggested, but of course Basta still recognised her. He whistled softly through his teeth, then held the book close to Meggie’s face. ‘Don’t try telling me the old man read her out of this!’ he said. ‘You did it. I’ll bet my knife you did it. Did your father teach you how, or have you just inherited the knack from him? Well, it comes to the same thing.’ He stuck the book in his waistband and grasped Meggie’s arm. ‘Come along, we’re going to tell Capricorn about this. I was really supposed to fetch you just to meet an old acquaintance, but I’m sure Capricorn will have no objection to hearing such interesting news.’
‘Has my father come?’ Meggie did not resist as he forced her out of the door.
Basta shook his head and looked ironically at her. ‘Him? No, he hasn’t turned up yet,’ he said. ‘Obviously he thinks more of his own skin than yours. I wouldn’t be best pleased with him if I were you.’
Meggie felt two emotions at once – disappointment as sharp as a prickle, and relief.
‘I’ll admit I’m rather disappointed in him,’ Basta continued. ‘I swore he’d come looking for you, but I guess we don’t need him any more. Right?’ He shook his jacket, and Meggie thought she heard a quiet, desperate tinkling.
‘Lock the old man in,’ Basta told the guard. ‘And if you’re snoring again when I get back it will be the worse for you!’
Then he hauled Meggie down the corridor.
39
The Punishment for Traitors
‘What about you?’ enquired Lobosch. ‘You’re not afraid, are you, Krabat?’
‘More than you guess,’ said Krabat. ‘And not for myself alone.’
Otfried Preussler,
The Satanic Mill
Meggie’s shadow followed her like an evil spirit as she and Basta crossed the square outside the church. The glaring floodlights made the moon look faded.
It was not so bright inside the church. Capricorn’s statue, looking down on them in the gloom, was pale and half swallowed up by the shadows. Between the columns it was as dark as if night had fled there to escape the floodlights. Only the place where Capricorn sat, leaning back in his armchair with a contemptuous expression and wrapped in a silk dressing gown that shimmered like peacock feathers, was illuminated by a single lamp. The Magpie stood behind him, appearing little more than a washed-out face above a black dress in the dim light. A fire was burning in one of the braziers at the foot of the steps. The smoke stung Meggie’s eyes, and the flickering firelight danced on the red walls and columns as if the whole church were ablaze.
‘Hang the rags outside his children’s window as a final warning.’ Capricorn’s voice echoed in Meggie’s ears, although he kept it lowered. ‘And soak them with petrol until it’s seeping out,’ he told Cockerell, who was standing at the foot of the steps with two other men. ‘When that smell reaches the fool’s nostrils first thing in the morning, perhaps he’ll finally realise that my patience is at an end.’
Cockerell received the order with a brief nod, turned on his heel and signalled to the other two to follow him. Their faces were blackened with soot, and each of the three wore a red rooster’s feather in his buttonhole. ‘Ah, Silvertongue’s daughter!’ growled Cockerell sarcastically as he limped past Meggie. ‘Well, well, hasn’t your father come for you yet? Doesn’t seem very keen to see you, does he?’ The other two laughed, and Meggie couldn’t help the hot blood rising to her face.
‘At last!’ cried Capricorn, as Basta stopped at the foot of the steps with his prisoner. ‘What kept you so long?’ Something like a smile passed over the Magpie’s face. She had pushed her lower lip out slightly, which gave her thin face a look of great satisfaction. It troubled Meggie much more than Capricorn’s mother’s usual dark looks.
‘The guard couldn’t find the right key,’ replied Basta irritably. ‘And then – well, I had to catch something.’ The fairy began moving again as he held up his jacket, and its fabric bulged with her frenzied attempts to struggle free.
‘What’s that?’ Capricorn’s voice sounded impatient. ‘Have you taken to catching bats these days?’
Basta’s lips quivered with annoyance, but he bit back his reply and, without a word, put his hand under the black cloth. Suppressing a curse, he produced the fairy. ‘Devil take these flickery little things!’ he said angrily. ‘I’d quite forgotten how hard they can bite!’
One of Tinker Bell’s wings was fluttering frantically, the other was held between Basta’s fingers. Meggie couldn’t watch. She was terribly ashamed of herself for luring this fragile little creature out of her book.
Capricorn looked at the fairy with an expression of distaste. ‘Where did that come from? And what kind is it? I never saw one with wings like that before.’
Basta took Peter Pan out of his waistband and put the book down on the steps. ‘I think it comes out of here,’ he said. ‘Look at the picture on the cover. There are more pictures of her inside. And guess who read her out of it.’ He squeezed Tinker Bell so hard that she gulped silently for air, while he laid his other hand on Meggie’s shoulder. She tried to shake his fingers off, but Basta merely tightened his grip.
‘The girl?’ Capricorn sounded incredulous.
‘Yes, and it seems as though she’s as good at it as her father. Look at this fairy.’ Basta grabbed Tinker Bell’s slender legs and dangled her up in the air. ‘Seems perfectly all right, doesn’t she? She can fly and scold and make tinkling sounds, all the things those stupid fairies do.’
‘Interesting. Yes, very interesting indeed.’ Capricorn rose from his chair, tightened the belt of his dressing gown and came down the steps. He stopped beside the book that Basta had put down on them. ‘So it runs in the family!’ he murmured as he bent to pick it up. Frowning, he looked at the cover. ‘Peter Pan,’ he read. ‘Why, that’s one of the books my old reader Darius particularly liked. Yes, now I remember. He once read to me from it. The idea was to lure out one of those pirates, but he failed miserably. He fetched a load of stinking fish and a rusty grappling iron into my bedroom instead. Didn’t we punish him by making him eat the fish?’
Basta laughed. ‘Yes, but he was even more upset that you had his books taken away. He must have hidden this one.’
‘So he must.’ Capricorn went over to Meggie, looking thoughtful. She would have liked to bite his fingers when he put his hand under her chin, turning her face so that she had to look straight into his lifeless eyes. ‘See how she looks at me, Basta?’ he remarked mockingly. ‘Just as obstinate as her father always was. Better save that look for him, sweetheart. You’re very angry with your father, I’m sure. But I couldn’t care less where he is. Because from now on I have you, my new, my wonderfully talented reader – whereas you, well, you must hate him for abandoning you, right? Don’t be ashamed of it. Hatred can be very inspiring. I never liked my own father either.’
Meggie turned her head aside when Capricorn finally let go of her chin. Her face was burning with shame and fury, and she could still feel his fingers as if they had left marks on her skin.
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‘Did Basta tell you why he was to bring you here so late at night?’
‘To meet someone.’ Meggie tried to make her voice sound bold and unafraid, but she didn’t succeed. The sobs in her throat would let only a whisper emerge.
‘That’s right!’ Capricorn gave the Magpie a signal. She came down the steps and disappeared into the dark beyond the columns. A little later there was a creaking sound above Meggie’s head, and when she looked up to the roof in alarm she saw something being lowered from the darkness: a net, no, two nets such as she had seen in fishing boats. They stopped and hung there about five metres above the floor, just over Meggie’s head, and only then did she see human figures caught in the coarse ropes – like birds entangled in the netting over a fruit tree. Meggie was feeling dizzy just from looking up. What must it be like to be dangling there, held only by a few cords?
‘Well, don’t you recognise your old friend?’ Capricorn put his hands in his dressing-gown pockets. Tinker Bell was still held in Basta’s fingers like a broken doll. Her faint tinkling was the only sound to be heard. ‘Yes, I see you do!’ There was no mistaking the satisfaction in Capricorn’s voice. ‘That’s what happens to filthy little traitors who steal keys and set prisoners free.’
Meggie refused to look at Capricorn. She had eyes only for Dustfinger.
‘Hello, Meggie! You look rather pale!’ he called down. He was trying very hard to sound light-hearted, but Meggie heard the terror in his voice. She knew what voices meant. ‘I’m to give you love from your father! He’ll come for you soon, he says, and he won’t come alone.’
‘You’ll make a teller of fairy tales yet if you carry on like that, fire-eater!’ Basta called up. ‘But even the girl here doesn’t believe that tale. You’ll have to think up something better!’
Meggie stared up at Dustfinger. She so wanted to believe him.
‘Basta, let go of that poor fairy!’ he called to his old enemy. ‘Send her up to me. It’s far too long since I saw one of those.’
‘Oh, I bet you’d like that. No, I’m keeping her for myself!’ replied Basta, flicking Tinker Bell’s tiny nose with his finger. ‘I’ve heard that fairies keep bad luck away if you keep them in your house. I’ll put her in one of those big glass wine jugs. You were always so keen on fairies – what do they eat? Do I feed her flies, or what?’
Tinker Bell braced her arms against his fingers and tried desperately to free her second wing. She managed it too, but Basta had a strong grip on her legs, and hard as she fluttered she couldn’t break free. At last, with a quiet tinkle, she gave up. Her light was hardly any brighter now than a candle flickering out.
‘Do you know why I had the girl brought here, Dustfinger?’ Capricorn called up to his prisoner. ‘She was to persuade you to tell us something about her father and where he is – if you really know anything, which I begin to doubt. But now I don’t need the information any more. The daughter can take her father’s place, and just at the right time too! For I’ve decided that we must think up something really special for your punishment. Something impressive, something memorable! After all, that’s only right for a traitor, isn’t it? Can you guess what my idea is? No? Then let me give you a clue. In your honour, my new reader will read aloud to us from Inkheart. It’s your favourite book, after all, even though I know you’re not very fond of the character I want her to bring out of it. Her father would have fetched that old friend for me long ago if you hadn’t helped him to escape, but now his daughter will do it. Can you guess who it is I mean?’
Dustfinger laid his scarred cheek against the net. ‘Oh yes, indeed I can. How could I ever forget him?’ he said, so quietly that Meggie could hardly make out the words.
‘Why are you talking only about the fire-eater’s punishment?’ The Magpie had appeared between the columns again. ‘Have you forgotten our little mute pigeon Resa? Her treachery was at least as bad as his.’ She looked up at the second net with a disdainful expression.
‘Yes, to be sure!’ There was something almost like regret in Capricorn’s voice. ‘Ah, what a waste – but there’s nothing else for it.’
Meggie couldn’t see the face of the woman dangling in the second net just beyond Dustfinger. She saw only the dark blonde hair, a blue dress, and slender hands clinging to the ropes.
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