Inkheart (26 page)

They kept to the path because the snakes were already moving through the tall grass. Once, a thin black serpent wriggled over the yellow soil in front of them. Dustfinger pushed a stick under its scaly body and threw it back into the thorn-bushes. Meggie had expected the snakes to be bigger, but Elinor assured her that the smallest were the most dangerous. Elinor was limping,
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but she did her best not to hold up the others. Mo, too, was walking more slowly than usual. He tried to hide it, but the dog bite obviously hurt.

Meggie walked close to him and kept looking anxiously at the red scarf Dustfinger had used to bandage the wound. At last they came to a paved road. A truck with a load of rusty gas cylinders was coming toward them. They were too tired to hide, and anyway it wasn't coming from the direction of Capricorn's village. Meggie saw the surprised expression of the man at the wheel as he passed them. They must have looked very disreputable in their dirty clothes, drenched with sweat, and torn by all the thorn bushes.

Soon afterward they passed the first houses. There were more and more of them on the slopes now, brightly colorwashed, with flowers growing outside their doors. Trudging on, they came to the outskirts of a fairly large town. Meggie saw multistory buildings, palm trees with dusty leaves, and, suddenly, still far away but shining silver in the sun, a glimpse of the sea.

"Heavens, I hope they'll let us into a bank," said Elinor. "We look as if we'd fallen among thieves."

"Well, so we have," said Mo.

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Chapter 22 – In Safety

The slow days drifted on, and each left behind a slightly lightened weight of
apprehension.

–
Mark Twain,
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

They did let Elinor into the bank, despite her torn stockings. Before that, however, she had disappeared into the ladies' room of the first cafe they came to. Meggie never did find out exactly where Elinor hid her valuables, but when she returned her face was washed, her hair not quite as tangled, and she was triumphantly waving a gold credit card in the air. Then she ordered breakfast for everyone.

It was an odd feeling to be suddenly sitting in a cafe having breakfast, watching perfectly ordinary people outside in the street, going to work, shopping, or just standing around chatting.

Meggie could hardly believe they had spent just two nights and a day in Capricorn's village, and that all this — the bustle of ordinary life going on outside the window — hadn't stood still the whole time.

Nonetheless, something had changed. Ever since Meggie had seen Basta hold his knife to Mo's throat it had seemed as if there were a stain on the world, an ugly, dark burn mark still eating its way toward them, stinking and crackling.

Even the most harmless things seemed to be casting suspicious shadows. A woman smiled at Meggie, then stood looking at the bloody display in a butcher's window. A man pulled a child along after him so impatiently that the little boy stumbled and cried as he rubbed his
grazed
knee. And why was that man's jacket bulging over his belt? Was he carrying a knife, like Basta?

Normal life now seemed improbable, unreal. Their flight through the night and the terror she had felt in the ruined house seemed more real to Meggie than the lemonade that Elinor passed over to her.

Farid hardly touched his own glass. He sniffed its yellow contents, took a sip, and went back to looking out of the window. His eyes could hardly decide what to follow first. His head moved back and forth as if he were watching an invisible game, and desperately trying to understand its rules.

After breakfast, Elinor asked at the cash desk which was the best hotel in town. While she paid the bill with her credit card, Meggie and Mo examined all the delicacies behind the glass counter.

Then to their surprise they turned around and found that Dustfinger and Farid had disappeared.

Elinor was very worried, but Mo calmed her fears. "You can't tempt him with a hotel bed. He'd prefer never to sleep under a roof," he said, "and he's always gone his own way. Perhaps he just wants to get away from here, or perhaps he's around the next corner putting on a performance for tourists. I can assure you he won't go back to Capricorn."

"What about Farid?" Meggie couldn't believe he had simply run off with Dustfinger.

But Mo only shrugged his shoulders. "He was sticking close to Dustfinger all the time," he pointed out. "Though I don't know whether he or Gwin was the real attraction."

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The hotel recommended to Elinor by the staff in the cafe was on a square just off the main street that passed right through the town and was lined with palm trees and shops. Elinor took two rooms on the top floor, with balconies that had a view of the sea. It was a big hotel. A doorman in an elaborate costume stood at the entrance, and although he seemed surprised by their lack of luggage he overlooked their dirty clothes with a friendly smile. The pillows were so soft and white that Meggie had to bury her face in them at once. All the same, the sense of unreality didn't leave her. A part of her was still in Capricorn's village, or trudging through thorns, or cowering in the ruined hovel and trembling as Basta came closer. Mo seemed to feel the same. Whenever she glanced at him there was a distant expression on his face, and instead of the relief she might have expected after all they'd been through, she saw sadness in it — and a thoughtfulness that frightened her.

"You're not thinking of going back, are you?" she asked at last. She knew him very well.

"No, don't worry!" he replied, stroking her hair. But she didn't believe him.

Elinor seemed to share Meggie's fears, for she was to be seen several times talking earnestly to Mo — in the hotel corridor outside her room, at breakfast, at dinner. But she fell silent abruptly as soon as Meggie joined them. Elinor called a doctor to treat Mo's arm, although he didn't think it necessary, and she bought them all new clothes, taking Meggie with her because, as she said,

"If I choose you something myself you won't wear it." She also did a great deal of telephoning and visited every bookshop in the town. At breakfast on the third day she suddenly announced that she was going home.

"I've already rented another car," she said. "My feet are better now, I'm dying to see my books again, and if I see one more tourist in swimming trunks I shall scream. But before I leave, let me give you this!"

With these words she passed Mo a piece of paper across the table. It had a name and address on it in Elinor's large, bold handwriting. "I know you, Mortimer!" she said. "I know you can't get
Inkheart
out of your head. So I've found you Fenoglio's address. It wasn't easy, I can tell you, but after all there's a fair chance that he still has a few copies. Promise me you'll go to see him — he lives not far from here — and put the copy of the book still in that wretched village out of your mind once and for all."

Mo stared at the address as if he were learning it by heart, then put the piece of paper in his new wallet. "You're right, it really is worth a try!" he said. "Thank you very much, Elinor!" He looked almost happy.

Meggie didn't understand any of this. But she knew one thing: She'd been right. Mo was still thinking of
Inkheart;
he couldn't come to terms with losing it.

"Who's Fenoglio?" she asked uncertainly. "A bookseller or something?" The name seemed familiar, though she couldn't remember where she had heard it. Mo did not reply, but gazed out of the window.

"Let's go back with Elinor, Mo!" said Meggie. "Please!"

It was nice going down to the sea in the morning, and she liked the brightly colored houses, but all the same she wanted to leave. Every time she saw the hills rising behind the town her heart beat faster, and she kept thinking she saw Basta's face, or Flatnose's, among the crowds in the
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streets. She wanted to go home, or at least to Elinor's house. She wanted to watch Mo giving Elinor's books new clothes, pressing fragile gold leaf into the leather with his stamps, choosing endpapers, stirring glue, fastening the press. She wanted everything to be as it had been before the night when Dustfinger turned up.

But Mo shook his head. "I have to pay this visit first, Meggie," he said. "After that we'll go to Elinor's. The day after tomorrow at the latest."

Meggie stared at her plate. What amazing things you could have for breakfast in an expensive hotel. . . but she didn't feel like waffles with fresh strawberries anymore.

"OK, then I'll see you in a couple days' time. Give me your word of honor, Mortimer!" There was no missing the concern in Elinor's voice. "You'll come even if you don't have any luck with Fenoglio. Promise!"

Mo had to smile. "My solemn word of honor, Elinor," he said.

Elinor heaved a deep sigh of relief and bit into the croissant that had been waiting on her plate all this time. "Don't ask me what I had to do to get hold of that address!" she said with her mouth full. "And in the end the man doesn't live far from here at all — about an hour's car journey. Odd that he and Capricorn live so close to each other, isn't it?"

"Yes, odd," murmured Mo, looking out of the window. The wind blew through the leaves of the palms in the hotel garden.

"His stories are nearly always set in this region," Elinor went on, "but I believe he lived abroad for a long time and moved back here only a few years ago." She beckoned to a waitress and asked for more coffee.

Meggie shook her head when the waitress asked if she would like anything else.

"Mo, I don't want to stay here," she said quietly. "I don't want to visit anyone either. I want to go home, or at least back to Elinor's."

Mo picked up his coffee cup. It still hurt when he moved his left arm. "We'll get it over with tomorrow, Meggie," he said. "You heard Elinor — it's not far away. And by the end of the day after that you'll be back in Elinor's huge bed, the one that a whole school class could sleep in." He was trying to make her laugh, but Meggie couldn't. She looked at the strawberries on her plate.

How red they were.

"I'll also have to rent a car, Elinor," said Mo. "Can you lend me the money? I'll pay you back as soon as we meet up again."

Elinor nodded, her gaze lingering on Meggie. "You know something, Mortimer?" she said. "I don't think your daughter is very keen on books just now. I remember the feeling. Whenever my father got so absorbed in a book that we might have been invisible I felt like taking a pair of scissors and cutting it up. And now, I'm as mad about them as he was. Oh well, that's something to think about, eh!" She folded her napkin and pushed back her chair. "I'm going upstairs to pack, and you can tell your daughter who Fenoglio is."

Then she was gone, leaving Meggie at the table with Mo. He ordered another coffee, even though he usually drank no more than one cup.

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"What about your strawberries?" he asked. "Don't you want them?"

Meggie shook her head.

Mo sighed and took one. "Fenoglio is the man who wrote
Inkheart,"
he said. "It's possible that as the author he will still have some copies. Indeed, it's more than possible, it's very probable."

"Oh, come on!" said Meggie scornfully. "Capricorn's sure to have stolen them long ago! He stole all the copies — you saw that!"

But Mo shook his head. "I don't believe he will have thought of Fenoglio. You know, it's a funny thing about writers. Most people don't stop to think of books being written by people much like themselves. They think that writers are all dead long ago — they don't expect to meet them in the street or out shopping. They know their stories but not their names, and certainly not their faces. And most writers like it that way — you heard Elinor say it was quite hard for her to get hold of Fenoglio's address. Believe me, it's more than likely that Capricorn has no idea that the man who wrote his story lives scarcely two hours' drive away from him."

Meggie wasn't so sure. She thoughtfully pleated the tablecloth, then smoothed out the pale yellow fabric again. "All the same, I'd rather we went to Elinor's house," she said. "I don't see why .. " She hesitated, but then finished what she had been going to say. "I don't see why you want the book so much. It's no use anyway." My mother's gone, she added in her thoughts. You tried to bring her back but it doesn't work. Let's go home.

Mo helped himself to another of her strawberries, the smallest of all. "The little ones are always the sweetest," he said and put it in his mouth "Your mother loved strawberries. She couldn't get enough of them, and she was always terribly cross if it rained so much in spring that they rotted in her strawberry bed."

A smile lit up his face as he looked out of the window again. "Just this one last shot, Meggie," he said. "Just this one. And the day after tomorrow we'll go back to Elinor's. I promise."

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Chapter 23 – A Night Full of Words

What child unable to sleep on a warm summer night hasn't thought he saw Peter Pan's
sailing ship in the sky? I will teach you to see that ship.

–
Roberto Cotroneo,
When a Child on a Summer Morning

Meggie stayed in the hotel while Mo went to the rental agency to collect the car he had booked.

She took a chair out onto the balcony, looked out over its white-painted railing to the sea shining like blue glass beyond the buildings, and tried to think of nothing, nothing at all. The sound of the traffic drifting up to her was so loud she almost didn't hear Elinor's knock.

Elinor was already on her way down the corridor when Meggie opened the door. "Oh, you are there," Elinor said, coming back and looking rather embarrassed. She was hiding something behind her back.

"Yes, Mo's gone to get the rental car."

"I've got something for you — a good-bye present." Elinor produced a flat parcel from behind her back. "It wasn't easy to find a book without any unpleasant characters in it, but I absolutely had to find one your father could read aloud to you without doing any damage. I don't think anything can happen with this one."