"Those are no stories, Silvertongue, it's the truth! Don't you recognize the truth when you meet it anymore? The truth's not pretty, of course. No one likes to look it in the face. " Dustfinger stepped back from the door and bowed. "After you. I've picked the lock, you can bring him out. " Even with his burnt fingers it hadn't taken him long.
"You go in," Mo whispered to Meggie. "He'll be less afraid of you. "
It was pitch dark on the other side of the door, but Meggie heard a rustle as she stepped into the room, as if an animal were moving somewhere in the straw. Dustfinger put his arm through the doorway and handed her a flashlight. When Meggie switched it on, the beam of light fell on the boy's dark face. The straw they had given him seemed even moldier than the pile on which Meggie had slept, but the boy looked as if he hadn't closed his eyes since Flatnose had locked him in any way. His arms were tightly clasped around his legs, as if they were all he could rely on. Perhaps he was still waiting for his nightmare to end.
"Come with us!" whispered Meggie, reaching out a hand to him. "We want to help you! We'll take you away from here!"
He didn't move, just stared at her, his eyes narrow with distrust.
"Hurry up, Meggie!" breathed Mo through the door.
The boy glanced at him and retreated until his back was right up against the wall.
"Please!" whispered Meggie. "You must come! The people here will do bad things to you. "
He was still looking at her. Then he stood up, cautiously, never taking his eyes off her. He was taller than she was by almost a hand's breadth. Suddenly, he leaped forward, making for the open door. He pushed Meggie aside so roughly that she fell over, but he couldn't get past Mo.
"Here, take it easy!" Mo said under his breath. "We really do want to help you, but you must do as we say, understand?"
The boy glared at him with dislike. "You're all devils!" he whispered. "Devils or demons!" So he did understand their language, and why not? His own story was told in every language in the world.
Meggie got up and rubbed her knee. She must have grazed it on the stone floor. "If you want to see some real devils then all you have to do is stay here!" she hissed at the boy as she pushed her way past him. He flinched away as if she were a witch.
Mo drew the boy to his side. "See that man on watch up there?" he whispered, pointing to the church tower. "If he sees us they'll kill us. "
The boy looked up at the man on guard.
Dustfinger went over to him. "Hurry up, will you!" he said quietly. "If the lad doesn't want to go with us then he can just stay here. And the rest of you take your shoes off, " he added, glancing at the boy's bare feet, "or you'll make more noise than a flock of goats."
Elinor grumbled something in a cross voice, but she obeyed, and the boy did follow them, if hesitantly. Dustfinger hurried on ahead as if trying to outstrip his own shadow. The alley down which he led them sloped so steeply that Meggie kept stumbling, and every time Elinor stubbed her toes on the bumpy cobblestones she uttered a quiet curse. It was dark between the close-set houses. Masonry arches stretched from one side of the street to the other, as if to prevent the walls from collapsing. The rusty streetlights cast ghostly shadows. Every noise sounded threatening, every cat scurrying out of a doorway made Meggie jump. But Capricorn's village was asleep. They passed only one guard, leaning on the wall in a side street and smoking. Two tomcats were fighting somewhere on the rooftops, and the guard bent to pick up a stone to throw at them. Dustfinger took advantage of the moment. Meggie was very glad he had made them take off their shoes. They slipped soundlessly past the guard, whose back was still turned, but Meggie dared not breathe again until they were around the next corner. Once again, she noticed the many empty houses, the blank windows, the dilapidated doors. What had wrecked these homes? Just the course of time? Had the people who once lived here run away from Capricorn, or was the village already abandoned before he and his men took up residence? Hadn't Dustfinger said something like that?
He had stopped. He raised his hand in a warning gesture and put a finger to his lips. They had reached the outskirts of the village. Only the parking lot still lay ahead. Two street lights illuminated the surface of the cracked asphalt, and a tall wire-netting fence rose to their left. "The arena for Capricorn's ceremonies and festivities is on the other side of that fence, " whispered Dustfinger. "I suppose the village children once played football there, but these days it's the scene of Capricorn's diabolical celebrations: bonfires, brandy, a few shots fired into the air, fireworks, blackened faces – that's their idea of fun."
They put on their shoes before following Dustfinger into the parking lot. Meggie kept looking at the wire fence. Diabolical celebrations. She could almost see the bonfires, the blackened faces… "Come on, Meggie!" urged Mo, leading her on. The sound of rushing water could be heard somewhere in the darkness, and Meggie remembered the bridge they had crossed on the way here. Suppose a guard was stationed there this time?
There were several cars in the lot, including Elinor's, which was parked a little way from the others. They all kept looking around anxiously as they ran toward it. Behind them the church tower rose high above the rooftops, and there was nothing now to shield them from the sentry's eyes. Meggie couldn't see him at this distance, but she was sure he was still there. From such a height they must look like black beetles crawling over a table. Did he have a pair of binoculars?
"Come on, Elinor!" whispered Mo. It seemed to be taking her forever to unlock the car door.
"All right, all right!" she growled back. "I just don't have such nimble hands as our light-fingered friend. "
Mo put his arm around Meggie's shoulders as he looked around, but apart from a few stray cats he could see nothing moving in the parking lot or among the houses. Reassured, he made Meggie get into the backseat. The boy hesitated for a moment, examining the car as if it were some strange animal and he couldn't be sure whether it was kindly disposed or would swallow him alive, but finally he got in, too. Meggie scowled at him and moved as far away from him as possible. Her knee still hurt.
"Where's the matchstick-eater?" whispered Elinor. "Damn it, don't tell me the man's disappeared again. "
Meggie was the first to spot him. He was stealing over to the other cars. Elinor clutched the steering wheel as if resisting only with difficulty the temptation to drive off without him. "What's he up to this time?" she hissed.
None of them knew the answer. Dustfinger was gone for an excruciatingly long time, and when he came back he was closing a switchblade.
"What was the idea of that?" Elinor snapped when he squeezed into the backseat next to the boy. "Didn't you say we must hurry? And what were you doing with that knife? Not cutting someone open, I hope!"
"Is my name Basta?" inquired Dustfinger, annoyed, as he forced his legs in behind the driver's seat. "I was slitting their tires, that's all. Just to be on the safe side. " He was still holding the knife.
Meggie looked at it uneasily. "That's Basta's knife, " she said.
Dustfinger smiled as he put it in his pants pocket. "Not anymore. I'd like to have stolen his silly amulet, too, but he wears it around his neck even at night, and that would have been too dangerous."
Somewhere a dog began to bark. Mo wound down his window and put his head out, looking concerned.
"Believe it or not, it's only toads making all that racket, " said Elinor. But what Meggie suddenly heard echoing through the night was nothing like the croaking of toads, and when she looked in alarm through the back window a man was climbing out of one of the parked vehicles, a dusty, dirty-white delivery van. It was one of Capricorn's men. Meggie had seen him in the church. He looked around him with a face still dazed by sleep.
Before Meggie could stop her, Elinor started the engine, and the man snatched a shotgun from his back and stumbled toward the car. For a moment Meggie almost felt sorry for him – he looked so sleepy and baffled. What would Capricorn do to a guard who fell asleep on duty? But then he aimed the gun and fire
d it. Meggie ducked her head well below the back of the seat, and Elinor pressed her foot down hard on the accelerator.
"Damn it all!" she shouted at Dustfinger. "Didn't you see that man when you were slinking around between the cars?"
"No, I didn't!" Dustfinger shouted back. "Now, drive! Not that way! It's over there. We must get to the road!"
Elinor wrenched the steering wheel around. The boy was huddled down beside Meggie. At every shot he had closed his eyes tight and put his hands over his ears. Were there any guns in his story? Probably not, no more than there were cars. His and Meggie's heads knocked together as Elinor's car bumped over the stony track. When it finally reached the road things weren't much better.
"This isn't the road we came along!" cried Elinor. Capricorn's village loomed over them like a fortress. The houses simply refused to get any smaller.
"Oh yes, it is! But Basta met us farther down when we arrived. " Dustfinger was clinging to the seat with one hand and to his backpack with the other. A furious chattering came from the bag, and the boy cast it a terrified glance.
Meggie thought she recognized the place where Basta had met them when they drove past it – it was the hill from which she had seen the village for the first time. Then the houses suddenly disappeared, engulfed by the night, as if Capricorn's village had never existed.
There was no guard posted on the bridge, nor at the rusty barrier across the road cutting off the way to the village. Meggie looked back at it until the darkness had swallowed it up. It's over, she thought. It really is all over.
The night was clear. Meggie had never seen so many stars. The sky stretched above the black hills like a cloth embroidered with tiny beads. The whole world seemed to consist of hills, like a cat arching its back at the face of the night – no human beings, no houses. No fear.
Mo turned around and stroked the hair back from Meggie's forehead. "Everything all right?" he asked.
She nodded and closed her eyes. Suddenly, all Meggie wanted to do was sleep – if only the pounding of her heart would let her.
"It's a dream, " murmured a toneless voice beside her "Only a dream. It's just a dream. What else can it be?"
Meggie turned to the boy, who wasn't looking at her. "It has to be a dream!" he repeated, nodding vigorously as if toencourage himself. "Everything looks wrong, false, weird, like in dreams, and now, " he murmured, turning his head to indicate the surroundings outside, "now we're flying. Or the night is flying past us. Or something."
Meggie could almost have smiled. She wanted to tell him it wasn't a dream, but she was just too tired to explain the whole complicated story. She looked at Dustfinger. He was patting the fabric of his pack, probably trying to soothe his angry marten.
"Don't look at me like that!" he said, when he saw Meggie watching him. "You can't expect me to explain. Your father will have to do that. After all, the poor lad's nightmare is his fault, "
Mo's guilty conscience showed clearly on his face when he turned to the boy, "What's your name?" he asked. "It wasn't in the -" But there he broke off.
The boy looked at him suspiciously, then bowed his head, "Farid, " he said dully, "My name is Farid, but I believe it's unlucky to speak in a dream. You never find your way back if you do, " He shut his mouth tightly and stared straight ahead, as if to avoid looking at anyone, and said no more. Did he have a mother and father in his story? Meggie couldn't remember. It had just mentioned a boy, a boy without a name who served a band of thieves.
"It's a dream, " he whispered again. "Only a dream. The sun will rise and it will all disappear. That's what it'll do. "
Mo looked at him, unhappy and at a loss, like someone who has handled a young bird, knowing it can never return to the nest. Poor Mo, thought Meggie. Poor Farid. But she was thinking of something else, too, and she was ashamed of herself for it. Ever since she had seen the lizard crawl out of the golden coins in Capricorn's church she couldn't help thinking about it. I wish I could do that, her thoughts had kept saying to her, very quietly. The wish had settled like a cuckoo in the nest of her heart, where it kept fluffing up its plumage and making itself at home, no matter how hard she tried to throw it out. I wish I could do that, it whispered. I'd like to bring them out of books, touch them, all those characters, all those wonderful characters. I want them to come out of the pages and sit beside me, I want them to smile at me, I want, I want, I want…
Outside, it was still as dark as if morning would never come.
"I'm going to drive straight on, " said Elinor, "until we reach my house."
Far behind them, headlights showed, like fingers probing the night.
20. SNAKES AND THORNS
"None of that matters now, " said Twilight. "Look behind you. "
The Borribles did and there, just a little beyond the rim of the bridge, they saw a halo of harsh whiteness reflected on the underneath of the dark sky. It was the beam of a car's headlights as it got into position on the north side of the bridge, the side the runaways had left only moments before.
Michael de Larrabeiti, The Borribles Go for Broke
Behind them the headlights were getting closer, no matter how fast Elinor drove. "It could be just any old car, " said Meggie, but she knew that was unlikely. There was only one village on the bumpy, potholed road they had been following for almost an hour, and that was Capricorn's. Their pursuers could only have come from there.
"Now what?" asked Elinor. She was in such a state the car was weaving all over the road. "I'm not letting them lock me up in that hole again. No. No. No. " At each "No" she struck the steering wheel with the palm of her hand. "Didn't you say you'd slit their tires?" she snapped at Dustfinger.
"Yes, and so I did!" he replied angrily. "Obviously they've thought of that kind of thing. Ever heard of spare tires? Go on, step on it! There ought to be a village quite soon. It can't be far away now. If we can make it that far…"
"If, yes. If is the question, " said Elinor, tapping the fuel gauge. "I've got enough gas for about another ten kilometers, twenty at the most."
But they never got that far. As they swerved around a sharp bend one of the front tires blew out. Elinor only just managed to wrench the steering wheel around before the car skidded off the road. Meggie screamed, burying her face in her hands. For a terrible moment she thought they were going to plunge down the steep slope to their left, the bottom of which disappeared in the darkness, but the car skidded to the right, scraped its fender against the low stone wall on the other side of the road, gave a last gasp, and came to a halt under the low branches of a chestnut oak that leaned over the road.
"Oh hell, hell, bloody hell!" swore Elinor, undoing her seat belt. "Everyone all right?"
"Now I know why I've never trusted cars, " muttered Dustfinger, opening his door.
Meggie sat there trembling all over. Mo pulled her out of the car and looked anxiously at her face. "Are you all right?"
Meggie nodded.
Farid climbed out on Dustfinger's side. Did he still think he was dreaming?
Dustfinger stood in the road, backpack over his shoulder, listening. The unmistakable sound of an engine came piercing through the night from far away.
"We must get the car off the road!" he said.
"What?" Elinor looked at him in horror.
"We'll have to push it down the slope."
"My car!" Elinor was almost screaming.
"He's right, Elinor, " said Mo. "Perhaps we can shake them off that way. We'll push the car down the slope – they may not notice it in the dark, and even if they do, they'll think we went off the road. Then we can climb up the hill on the other side and hide among the trees."
Elinor cast a doubtful glance at the hill on their right. "But it's much too steep! And what about the snakes?"
"I'm sure Basta has a new knife by now, " Dustfinger reminded her.
Elinor gave him her darkest look and, without another word, went around to the back of her car to check inside the trunk. "Where's our luggage?" she asked.
Dustfinger looked at her with amusement. "I expect Basta's divided it out among Capricorn's maids. He likes to ingratiate himself with them."
Elinor looked at him as if she didn't believe a word of it, but then quickly closed the trunk, braced her arms against the car, and began to push.
They couldn't do it.
Hard as they pushed and shoved, Elinor's car only rolled off the road but would not slide more than a few meters down the slope. Then it stopped with its hood stuck in the under growth and refused to go any farther. Meanwhile, the sound of an engine, so curiously out of place in this desolate wilderness, was getting alarmingly loud. Dustfinger gave the obstinate car a final kick, and they all clambered back up to the road, sweating. After climbing over an ancient wall on the other side they struggled on up the slope. Anything to get away from the road itself. Mo hauled Meggie along behind him whenever she got stuck, and Dustfinger helped Farid. Elinor had her work cut out getting herself up the hillside, which was crisscrossed with low walls that had been built in a laborious attempt to wrest narrow fields and orchards from the poor soil, somewhere to grow a few olive trees and grapevines, anything that would bear fruit here. But the trees had run wild, and the ground was covered with fruit that was no longer harvested, for the people who once lived here had long since left to find an easier life elsewhere.
"Keep your heads down!" gasped Dustfinger, ducking behind one of the ruined walls. "They're coming!" Mo pulled Meggie down under the nearest tree. The tangled thornbushes growing among its gnarled roots were just tall enough to hide them.
"What about the snakes?" Elinor whispered as she stumbled after them.
"Too cold for snakes at the moment!" whispered Dustfinger from his hiding place. "Haven't you learned anything from all those clever books of yours?"
Elinor was about to snap back an answer, but Mo had quickly put a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. The vehicle appeared on the road below them. It was the white delivery van in which the guard had been sleeping. Without slowing down it drove past the place where they had pushed Elinor's car over the slope and disappeared around the next bend. Relieved, Meggie was about to raise her head above the thornbushes when Mo pushed her down again. "Not yet!" he muttered, straining his ears.
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