Meggie looked at Elinor. She was standing there as if tongue-tied. Anyone could see she had a guilty conscience.
Capricorn merely nodded at Dustfinger's explanations. He tightened the belt of his dressing gown, clasped his hands behind his back, and came slowly over to Meggie. She did her best not to flinch, to look firmly and undaunted into those colorless eyes, but fear constricted her throat. What a coward she was after all! She tried to think of some hero out of one of her books, someone whose skin she could slip into, to make her feel stronger, bigger, braver. Why could she remember nothing but stories of frightened people when Capricorn looked at her? She usually found it so easy to escape somewhere else, to get right inside the minds of people and animals who existed only on paper, so why not now? Because she was afraid. "Because fear kills everything, " Mo had once told her. "Your mind, your heart, your imagination. "
Mo… where was he? Meggie bit her lip to stop herself from shaking, but she knew the fear showed in her eyes, and she knew that Capricorn saw it. She wished she had a heart of ice and a clever smile, not the trembling lips of a child whose father had been stolen away.
Now Capricorn was very close to her. He scrutinized her. No one had ever looked at her like that. She felt like a fly stuck to flypaper just waiting to die.
"How old is she?" Capricorn looked at Dustfinger as if he didn't trust Meggie to know the answer herself.
"Twelve!" she said in a loud voice. It wasn't easy to speak with her lips quivering so hard. "I'm twelve. And I want to know where my father is. "
Capricorn acted as if he hadn't heard the last sentence. "Twelve?" he repeated in the dark voice that weighed so heavily on Meggie's ears. "Three or four more years and she'll be a pretty little thing, useful to have around the place. We'll have to fatten her up a bit, though. " He felt her arm with his long fingers. He wore gold rings on them, three on each hand.
Meggie tried to pull away, but Capricorn was gripping her tightly as his pale eyes examined her. Just as he might have looked at a fish. A poor little fish wriggling on a hook.
"Let the girl go!" For the first time Meggie was glad Elinor's voice could sound so sharp. And Capricorn actually did let go of her arm.
Elinor stepped up behind Meggie and put her hands protectively on her shoulders. "I don't know what's going on here, " she snapped at Capricorn. "I don't know who you are, or what you and all these men with guns are doing in this god forsaken village, and l don't want to know either. I'm here to see that this girl gets her father back. We'll leave you the book you're so keen to have – although that's enough to give me heartache, but you'll get it as soon as Meggie's father is safe in my car. And if for any reason he wants to stay here we'd like to hear it from his own lips. "
Capricorn turned his back to her without a word. "Why did you bring this woman?" he asked Dustfinger. "Bring the girl and the book, l said. Why would I want the woman?"
Meggie looked at Dustfinger.
The girl and the book. The words kept repeating inside her head, like an echo. The girl and the book, I said. Meggie tried to look Dustfinger in the eye, but he avoided her gaze as if it would burn him. It hurt to feel so stupid. So terribly, terribly stupid.
Dustfinger perched on the edge of the table and pinched out one of the candles, gently and slowly as if waiting for the pain, the sharp little stab of the candle flame. "I've told Basta already: Our dear friend Elinor couldn't be persuaded to stay behind, " he said. "She didn't want to let the girl go with me alone, and she was very reluctant to give up the book. "
"And wasn't I right?" Elinor's voice rose to such a pitch that Meggie jumped. "Listen to him, Meggie, listen to that fork-tongued matchstick-eater! I ought to have called the police when he turned up again. He came back for the book; that was the only reason. "
And for me, thought Meggie. The girl and the book.
Dustfinger pretended to be preoccupied with pulling a loose thread from his coat sleeve. But his hands, usually so skillful, were shaking.
"And as for you!" said Elinor, jabbing Capricorn in the chest with her forefinger. Basta took a step forward, but Capricorn waved him away. "I've had a lot of experience with books. I myself have had a number of books stolen from me, and I can't claim that all the books on my shelves got there exactly as they should have done – perhaps you know the saying that all book collectors are vultures and hunters? But you really seem to be the craziest of us all. I'm surprised I've never heard of you before. Where's your collection?" She looked inquiringly around the big room. "I don't see a single book. "
Capricorn put his hands in his dressing-gown pockets and signed to Basta. Before Meggie knew what was happening, he had snatched the plastic bag from her hands. He opened it, peered inside suspiciously as if he thought it might contain a snake or something else that might bite, then reached in and brought out the book.
Capricorn took it from him. Meggie couldn't see on his face any of the tenderness with which Elinor and Mo looked at books. No, there was nothing but dislike on Capricorn's face – dislike and relief. That was all.
"These two know nothing?" Capricorn opened the book, leafed through it, and then closed it again. It was the right book. Meggie could tell from his face. It was exactly the book he had been looking for.
"No, they know nothing. Even the girl doesn't know. " Dustfinger was looking out of the window very intently, as if there was more to be seen there than the pitch dark. "Her father hasn't told her, so why should I?"
Capricorn nodded. "Take these two around behind the house, " he told Basta, who was still standing there holding the empty bag.
"What do you mean?" Elinor began, but Basta was already hauling her and Meggie away.
"It means we're going to shut you two pretty birds in one of our cages overnight, " said Basta, prodding them roughly in the back with his shotgun.
"Where's my father?" shouted Meggie. Her own voice was shrill in her ears. "You've got the book now! What more do you want with him?"
Capricorn strolled over to the candle that Dustfinger had pinched out, passed his forefinger over the wick, and looked at the soot on his fingertip. "What do I want with your father?" he said, without turning to look at Meggie. "I want to keep him here, what else? You don't seem to know about his extraordinary talent. Up until now he's been unwilling to use it in my service, hard as Basta has tried to persuade him. But now that Dustfinger has brought you here he'll do anything I want. I'm confident of that, "
Meggie tried to push Basta's hands away when he reached for her, but he took her by the back of the head like a chicken whose neck he was going to wring, Elinor tried coming to her aid, but he casually pointed the shotgun at her chest and forced Meggie over to the door.
When Meggie turned around again she saw Dustfinger still leaning against the big table. He was watching her, but this time he wasn't smiling. Forgive me, his eyes seemed to say. I had to do it. I can explain everything! But Meggie didn't want to know, and she certainly wasn't about to forgive him. "I hope you drop dead!" she screamed as Basta hauled her out of the room. "I hope you burn to death! I hope you suffocate in your own smoke!"
Basta laughed as he closed the door. "Just listen to this little wildcat!" he said. "I think I'll have to watch my step with you around!"
15. GOOD LUCK AND BAD LUCK
It was the middle of the night, and Bingo couldn't sleep. The ground was hard, but he was used to that… His blanket was dirty and smelled disgusting, but he was used to that too. A tune kept going through his head, and he couldn't get it out of his mind. It was the Wendels' victory song.
Michael de Larrabeiti, The Borribles Go for Broke
The cages, as Basta had called them, kept ready by Capricorn for unwelcome guests were behind the church, in a paved area where trash containers stood next to mountains of building rubble. There was a slight smell of gasoline in the air, and even the glowworms whirling aimlessly through the night didn't seem to know what had brought them to this place. A row of tumbledown houses stood behind the
garbage cans and the rubble. The windows were just holes in the gray walls, and a couple of rotten shutters hung from their hinges at such an angle they looked as if a sudden gust of wind would blow them right off. Only the doors on the ground floor had obviously been given a fresh coat of paint fairly recently, in a dull brown shade with numbers painted on them clumsily, as if by a child, one for each door. As far as Meggie could see in the dark the last door had a number 7 on it. Basta propelled her and Elinor toward number 4. For a moment Meggie was relieved that he hadn't really meant a cage, although the door in the blank wall looked anything but inviting.
"This is ridiculous!" said Elinor furiously as Basta unlocked and unbolted the door. He had brought reinforcements with him from the house in the form of a skinny lad who wore the same black uniform as the grown men in Capricorn's village, and who obviously liked to menace Elinor by pointing his gun at her whenever she opened her mouth. But that didn't keep her quiet for long.
"What do you think you're playing at?" she said angrily, without taking her eyes off the muzzle of the gun. "I've heard that these mountains were always a paradise for robbers, but for heaven's sake, we're living in the twenty-first century! These days people don't go pushing visitors around at gun point – certainly not a youngster like him. "
"As far as I'm aware people in this fine century of yours still do exactly as they always did, " replied Basta. "And that youngster is just the right age to be apprenticed to us. I was even younger when I joined. " He pushed the door open. The darkness inside was blacker than night itself. Basta shoved first Meggie, then Elinor in, and slammed the door behind them.
Meggie heard the key turn in the lock, then Basta saying something that made the boy laugh, and the sound of their footsteps retreating. She reached her hands out until her fingertips touched a wall. Her eyes were useless; she might as well have been blind, she couldn't even see where Elinor was. But she heard her muttering, letting off steam somewhere over to her left.
"Isn't there at least a bloody light switch somewhere in this hole? Oh, to hell with it, I feel as if I've fallen into some farfetched adventure story where the villains wear black eye patches and throw knives. Damn, damn, damn!" Meggie had already noticed that Elinor swore a lot, and the more upset she was the worse her language became.
"Elinor?" The voice came from somewhere in the darkness, and that one word expressed delight, horror, and surprise.
Meggie spun around so suddenly she almost fell over her own feet. "Mo?"
"Oh no! Meggie, not you, too! How did you get here?"
"Mo!" Meggie stumbled through the darkness toward Mo's voice. A hand took her arm and fingers felt her face.
"Ah, at last!" A naked electric lightbulb hanging from the ceiling came on, and Elinor, looking pleased with herself, took her finger off a dusty switch. "Electric light is a wonderful invention!" she said. "That at least is an improvement on past centuries, don't you agree?"
"What are you two doing here, Elinor?" demanded Mo, holding Meggie very close. "I trusted you to look after her at least as well as your books! How could you let them bring her here?"
"How could I let them?" Elinor's indignant voice almost cracked. "I never asked to baby-sit your daughter! I know how to look after books, but children are something else, damn it! And she was worried about you – wanted to go looking for you. So what does stupid Elinor do instead of staying comfortably at home? I mean, I couldn't let the child go off on her own, I told myself. And what do I get for my noble conduct? Insults, a gun held to my chest, and now I'm here in this hole with you carrying on at me, too!"
"All right, all right!" Mo held Meggie at arm's length and looked her up and down.
"I'm fine, Mo!" said Meggie, although her voice shook just a little. "Honestly. "
Mo nodded and glanced at Elinor. "You brought Capricorn the book?"
"Of course! You'd have given it to him yourself if I hadn't…," said Elinor, turning red and looking down at her dusty shoes.
"If you hadn't swapped them. " Meggie ended her sentence for her. She reached for Mo's hand and held it very tightly. She couldn't believe he was back with her, apparently perfectly all right except for the scratch on his forehead, almost hidden by his dark hair. "Did they hit you?" She felt the dried blood anxiously with her forefinger.
Mo had to smile, although he couldn't have been feeling much like it. "That's nothing. I'm fine, too. Don't worry. "
Meggie didn't think that was really much of an answer, but she asked no more questions.
"So how did you come here?" asked Mo. "Did Capricorn send his men back again?"
Elinor shook her head. "No need for that, " she said bitterly. "Your slimy-tongued friend fixed it. A nice kind of snake you brought to my house, I must say. First, he gives you away, then he serves up the book and your daughter to this man Capricorn. 'Bring the girl and the book.' We heard Capricorn say so himself. That was our little matchstick-eater's mission, and he carried it out to his master's complete satisfaction. "
Meggie put Mo's arm around her shoulders and buried her face against him.
"The girl and the book?" Mo held Meggie close again. "Of course. Now Capricorn can be sure I'll do what he wants. " He turned around and went over to the pile of straw lying on the floor in a corner of the room. Sighing, he sat down on it, leaned his back against the wall, and closed his eyes for a moment. "Well, now we're quits, Dustfinger and I, " he said. "Although I wonder how Capricorn is going to pay him for his treachery. Because what Dustfinger wants is something Capricorn can't give him. "
"Quits? What do you mean?" Meggie sat down beside him. "And what are you supposed to do for Capricorn? What does he want you for, Mo?" The straw was damp, not a good place to sleep, but still better than the bare stone floor.
Mo said nothing for what seemed an eternity. He stared at the bare walls, the locked door, the dirty floor.
"I think it's time I told you the whole story, " he said at last. "Although I would rather not have had to tell you in a grim place like this, and not until you're a little older. "
"Mo, I'm twelve!" Why do grown-ups think it's easier for children to bear secrets than the truth? Don't they know about the horror stories we imagine to explain the secrets? "Sit down, Elinor, " said Mo, making room. "It's quite a long story. "
Elinor sighed and sat down unceremoniously on the damp straw. "This can't be happening!" she murmured. "This really can't be happening!"
"That's what I thought for nine years, Elinor, " said Mo. And then he began his story.
16. ONCE UPON A TIME
He held up the book then. "I'm reading it to you for relax. " "Has it got any sports in it?"
"Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders… Pain. Death. Brave men. Cowardly men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles. "
"Sounds okay, " I said, and I kind of closed my eyes.
William Goldman, The Princess Bride
"You were just three years old, Meggie, " Mo began. "I remember how we celebrated your birthday. We gave you a picture book – you know, the one about the sea serpent with a toothache winding itself around the lighthouse…"
Meggie nodded. It was still in her book box – Mo had twice given it a new dress. "We?" she asked.
"Your mother and I… " Mo picked some straw off his pants. "I could never pass by a bookshop. The house where we lived was very small – we called it our shoe box, our mouse hole, we had all sorts of names for it – and that very day I'd bought yet another crate full of books from a secondhand bookseller. Elinor would have liked some of them, " he added, glancing at her and smiling. "Capricorn's book was there, too. "
"You mean it belonged to him?" Meggie looked at Mo in surprise, but he shook his head.
"No, but… well, let's take it all in order. Your mother sighed when she saw all those new books and asked where we were going to put them, but then of course she helped me to unpack the
crate. I always used to read aloud to her in the evenings -"
"You? You read aloud?"
"Yes, every evening. Your mother enjoyed it. That evening she chose Inkheart. She always did like tales of adventure – stories full of brightness and darkness. She could tell you the names of all King Arthur's knights, and she knew everything about Beowulf and Grendel, the ancient gods and the not-quite-so-ancient heroes. She liked pirate stories, too, but most of all she loved books that had at least a knight or a dragon or a fairy in them. She was always on the dragon's side, by the way. There didn't seem to be any of them in Inkheart, but there was any amount of brightness and darkness, fairies and goblins. Your mother liked goblins as well: hobgoblins, bugaboos, the Fenoderee, the folletti with their butterfly wings, she knew them all. So we gave you a pile of picture books, sat down on the rug beside you, and I began to read. "
Meggie leaned her head against Mo's shoulder and stared at the blank wall. She saw herself against its dirty white back ground as she had looked in old photos: small, with plump legs, very fair hair (it had darkened a little since then), her little fingers turning the pages of big picture books.
"We enjoyed the story, " her father went on. "It was exciting, well written, and full of all sorts of amazing creatures. Your mother loved a book to lead her into an unknown land, and the world into which Inkheart led her was exactly what she liked. Sometimes the story took a very dark turn, and whenever the suspense got too much, your mother put a finger to her lips, and I read more quietly, although we were sure you were too busy with your own books to listen to a sinister story that you wouldn't have understood anyway. I remember it as if it were yesterday: Night had fallen long ago; it was autumn, with drafts coming in through the windows. We had lit a fire – there was no central heating in our shoe box of a house, but it had a stove in every room – and I began reading the seventh chapter. That's when it happened -"
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