Inkheart (16 page)

"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 background as she had looked in old photos: small, with plump legs, very fair hair (it had darkened a little since then), her little lingers 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
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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 —"

Mo stopped. He stared ahead of him as if lost in his own thoughts.

"What?" whispered Meggie. "What happened, Mo?"

Her father looked at her. "They came out," he said. "There they were, all of a sudden, standing in the doorway to the corridor outside the room, as if they'd just come in from outdoors. There was a crackling noise when they turned to us — like someone slowly unfolding a piece of paper. I still had their names on my lips: Basta, Dustfinger, Capricorn. Basta was holding Dustfinger by the collar, as if he were shaking a puppy for doing something forbidden. Capricorn liked to wear red even then, but he was nine years younger and not quite as gaunt as he is today. He wore a sword, something I'd never seen at close range before. Basta had one hanging from his belt, too, while Dustfinger . ." Here Mo shook his head. "Well, of course the poor fellow had nothing but the horned marten whose tricks earned him a living. I don't think any of the three of them realized what had happened. Indeed, I didn't understand it myself until much later. My voice had brought them slipping out of their story like a bookmark forgotten by some reader between the pages.

How could they understand what had happened? Basta pushed Dustfinger away so roughly that he fell down, then he tried to draw his sword, but his hands were white as paper and they obviously didn't yet have the strength for it. The sword slipped from his fingers and fell on the rug. Its blade looked as if there was dried blood on it, but perhaps it was only the reflection of the fire. Capricorn stood there, looking around. He seemed dizzy; he was staggering on the spot like a dancing bear that has been made to turn around too often. And that may well have saved us, or so Dustfinger has always claimed. If Basta and his master had been in full command of their powers, they'd probably have killed us outright, but they hadn't fully arrived in this world yet, and I picked up the terrible sword lying on the rug among my books. It was heavy, much heavier than I'd expected. I must have looked absolutely ridiculous holding the thing. I probably clutched it like a vacuum cleaner or a walking stick, but when Capricorn staggered toward me and I held the blade between us he stopped. I stammered something, tried to explain what had happened, not that I understood it myself, but Capricorn just stared at me with those pale eyes, the color of water, while Basta stood beside him with a hand on the hilt of his dagger. He seemed to be waiting for his master to tell him to cut all our throats."

'And what about Dustfinger?" Elinor's voice sounded hoarse, too.

"He was still where he'd fallen on the rug, sitting there as " paralyzed, not making a sound. I didn't stop to think about Dustfinger. If you open a basket and see two snakes and a lizard crawl out, you're going to deal with the snakes first, right?"

"What about my mother?" Meggie could only whisper. She wasn't used to saying that word.

Mo looked at her. "I couldn't see her anywhere. You were still kneeling among your books, staring wide-eyed at the strange men standing there with their heavy boots and their weapons. I was terrified for you, but to my relief both Basta and Capricorn ignored you. 'That's enough talk,'

Capricorn said finally as I became more and more entangled in my own words. 'Never mind how we arrived in this miserable place. Just send us back at once, you accursed magician, or Basta here will cut the talkative tongue out of your mouth.' Which didn't sound exactly reassuring, and
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I'd read enough about those two in the first chapters of the book to know that Capricorn meant what he said. I was so desperately wondering how to end the nightmare that I felt quite dizzy. I picked up the book. Perhaps if I read the same passage again, I thought. . I tried. I stumbled over the words while Capricorn glared at me and Basta drew the knife from his belt. Nothing happened. The two of them just stood there in my house, showing no sign of going back into their story. And suddenly I knew for certain that they meant to kill us. I put down the fatal book and picked up the sword I'd dropped on the rug. Basta tried to get to it before me, but I moved faster. I had to hold the wretched thing with both hands; I still remember how cold the hilt felt.

Don't ask me how I did it, but I managed to drive Basta and Capricorn out into the hallway.

There were several breakages because I was brandishing the sword so clumsily. You began to cry, and I wanted to turn around and tell you it all just a bad dream, but I was fully occupied with keeping Basta's knife away from me with Capricorn's sword. So it's happened, I kept thinking, you're in the middle of a story exactly as you've always wanted, and it's horrible. Fear tastes quite different when you're not just reading about it, Meggie, and playing hero wasn't half as much fun as I'd expected. The two of them would certainly have killed me if they hadn't still been rather weak at the knees. Capricorn cursed me, his eyes almost bursting out of his head in fury. Basta swore and threatened, giving me a nasty cut on my upper arm, but then, suddenly, the front door was thrown open and they both disappeared into the night, still reeling like drunks. My hands were trembling so much I could hardly manage to bolt the door. I leaned against it and listened for sounds outside, but all I heard was my own racing heart. Then I heard you crying in the living room, and remembered that there had been a third man. I staggered back, still holding the sword, and there stood Dustfinger in the middle of the room. He had no weapon, just the marten sitting on his shoulders. He flinched, face white as a sheet, when I came toward him. I must have been a terrible sight with the blood running down my arm, and I was shaking all over, whether from fear or anger I couldn't have said. 'Please,' he kept whispering,

'don't kill me! I have nothing to do with those two. I'm only a juggler, just a harmless fire-eater. I can show you.' And I said, 'Yes, yes, all right, I know who you are, you're Dustfinger — I even know your name, you see.' At which he cowered in awe before me — a magician, he thought, who seemed to know all about him and who had plucked him out of his world as easily as picking an apple °if a tree. The marten scampered along his arm, jumped down on the carpet, and ran toward you. You stopped crying and put out your hand. 'Careful, he bites,' said Dustfinger, shooing him away from you. I took no notice. I suddenly realized how quiet the room was, that was all. How quiet and how empty. I saw the book lying open on the carpet where I had dropped it, and I saw the cushion where your mother had been sitting. And she wasn't there.

Where was she? I called her name again and again; I ran from room to room. But she had gone."

Elinor was sitting bolt upright, staring at him in horror. "For heaven's sake, Mortimer, what are you saying?" she cried. "You told me she went away on some stupid adventure holiday and never came back!"

Mo leaned his head against the wall. "I had to think up something, Elinor," he said. "I mean, I could hardly tell the truth, could I?"

Meggie stroked his arm where his shirt hid the long, pale scar. "You always told me you'd cut your arm climbing through a broken window."

"Yes, I know. The truth would have sounded too crazy, don't you think?"

Meggie nodded. He was right; she would just have thought it was another of his stories. "So she never came back?" she whispered, although she knew the answer already.

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"No," replied Mo softly. "Basta, Capricorn, and Dustfinger came out of the book and she went into it, along with our two cats who were curled up on her lap as usual while I read aloud. I expect some creature from here changed places with Gwin, too, maybe a spider or a fly or a bird that happened to be flying around the house. Oh, I don't know. .. " Mo fell silent.

Sometimes, when he had made up such a good story that Meggie thought it was true, he would suddenly smile and say, "You fell for that one, Meggie!" Like the time on her seventh birthday when he'd told her he'd seen fairies among the crocuses in the garden. But the smile didn't come this time.

"I searched the whole house for your mother. No sign of her," he went on. "And when I came back to the living room, Dustfinger had vanished and so had his friend with the horns. But the sword was still there, and it felt so real that I decided not to doubt my sanity. I put you to bed —

I think I told you your mother had already gone to sleep — then I began reading
Inkheart
out loud again. I read the whole damn book until I was hoarse and the sun was rising, but nothing came out of it except a bat and a silken cloak, which I used later to line your book box. I tried again and again during the days and nights that followed, until my eyes were burning and the letters danced drunkenly on the page. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, I kept making up different stories for you to explain where your mother was, and I took good care you were never in the room with me when I was reading aloud, in case you disappeared, too. I wasn't worried about myself. Oddly enough, I had a feeling that the person reading the book ran no risk of slipping into its pages. I still don't know whether I was right." Mo flicked a midge off his hand. "I read until I couldn't hear my own voice anymore," he went on, "but your mother didn't come back, Meggie. Instead, a strange little man as transparent as if he were made of glass appeared in my living room on the fifth day, and the mailman disappeared just as he was putting the mail into our mailbox. I found his bike out in the yard. After that I knew that neither walls nor locked doors would keep you safe — you or anybody else. So I decided never to read aloud from a book again. Not from
Inkheart
nor from any other book."

'What happened to the little glass man?" asked Meggie.

Mo sighed. "He broke into pieces only a few days later when a heavy truck drove past the house.

Obviously, very few creatures move easily from one world to another. We both know what fun it can be to get right into a book and live there for a while, but falling out of a story and suddenly finding yourself in this world doesn't seem to
be
much fun at all. It broke Dustfinger's heart."

"Oh, he has a heart, does he?" inquired Elinor bitterly.

"It would be better for him if he didn't," replied Mo. "More than a week passed before he was back at my door again. It was night, of course. He prefers night to day. I was just packing. I'd decided it was safer to leave, since I didn't want to be driving Basta and Capricorn out of my house at sword point again. Dustfinger's reappearance showed that I was right to feel anxious. It was well after midnight when he turned up, but I couldn't sleep anyway." Mo stroked Meggie's hair. "You weren't sleeping well then either. You had bad dreams, however much I tried to keep them away with my stories. I was just packing the tools in my workshop when there was a knock on the front door, a very soft, almost furtive knock. Dustfinger emerged from the dark as suddenly as he did when he came to our house four days ago — heavens, was it really only four days? Well, when he came back that first time he looked as if it had been too long since he'd eaten. He was thin as a stray cat and his eyes were dull. 'Send me back,' he begged, 'send me back! This world will be the death of me. It's too fast, too crowded, too noisy. If I don't die of
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homesickness I shall starve to death. I don't know how to make a living. I don't know anything.

I'm like a fish out of water,' he said. And he refused to believe that I couldn't do it. He wanted to see the book and try for himself, even though he could scarcely read, but there was no way I could let him have 't It would have been like giving away the very last part I still had of your mother. Luckily, I'd hidden it well. I let Dustfinger sleep on the sofa, and came down the next morning to find him still searching the bookshelves. Over the next few years he kept on turning up, following us wherever we went, until I got sick and tired of it and made off with you in secret like a thief in the night. After that I saw no more of him for five years. Until four days ago."

Meggie looked at him. "You still feel sorry for him," she said.

Mo was silent. At last, he said, "Sometimes."

Elinor's comment on that was a snort of contempt. "You're even crazier than I thought," she said.