Inkdeath (23 page)

That sort of story, yes. But who was telling it? Not Fenoglio. Mo looked at the frost on his fingers. Cold and white. Like the White Women . . . Sometimes he woke from sleep with a start because he thought he heard them whispering. Sometimes he still felt their cold fingers on his heart, and sometimes yes sometimes he almost wanted to see them again.

He looked up at the trees, away from all the whiteness below. The sun was breaking through the morning mist, and the last few leaves shone pale gold on branches that were now almost bare. "What about Farid? Isn’t he a reason to stay?"

Meggie lowered her head again. She was taking great care to sound casual. "Farid doesn’t mind whether I’m here or not. He thinks only of Dustfinger. It’s been even worse since he died."

Poor Meggie. She’d fallen in love with the wrong boy. But when did love ever bother about that?

She tried very hard to hide her sadness when she looked at him again. "What do you think, Mo? Is Elinor missing us?"

"You and your mother certainly. I’m not so sure about me." He ilvlitated Elinor’s voice. "Mortimer! You’ve put that Dickens back in the wrong place. And why do I have to tell a bookbinder not to eat jam sandwiches in a library?"

Meggie laughed. Well, that was something. It was getting harder every day to make her laugh. But next moment her face was grave again. "I do miss Elinor very much. I miss her house, and the library, and the café by the lake where she always took me for an ice cream. I miss your workshop, and you driving me to school in the morning and imitating Elinor and Darius quarreling, and my friends always wanting to come and visit us because you make them laugh. I’d love to tell them everything that’s happened to us, not that they’d believe a word of it. Although—perhaps I could take a glass man back with me as proof."

For a moment she seemed to be far, far away, taken back to her old world, not by the words of Fenoglio or Orpheus, but by her own. But they were still sitting beside a pond in the hills around Ombra, and a fairy fluttered into Meggie’s hair and pulled so hard that she shrieked, and Mo was quick to shoo the little creature away. It was one of the rainbow-colored fairies, Orpheus’s creations, and Mo thought he detected something of her maker’s malice in the tiny face. Giggling happily, she carried her pale blond plunder up to her nest, which shimmered in as many colors as the fairy herself Unlike the blue fairies, those made by Orpheus didn’t seem to grow drowsy as winter came on. The Strong Man even claimed that they stole from the blue fairies, too, as they slept in their nests. A tear hung on Meggie’s lashes. Perhaps the fairy had caused it, or perhaps not. Mo gently wiped it away.

"I see. So you do want to go back."

"No! I tell you, I don’t know!" She was looking at him so unhappily. "What will become of Fenoglio if we simply disappear? And what would the Black Prince think, and the Strong Man, and Battista? What will become of them? And Minerva and her children, and Roxane. . . and Farid?"

"Yes, what?" said Mo. "How would the story go on without the Bluejay? The Piper will take the children, because even the desperate mothers won’t be able to find the Bluejay for him. Of course the Black Prince will try to save them, he’ll be the true hero of this story, and he’ll play the part well. But he’s already played the hero too long, he’s tired — and he doesn’t have enough men. So the men-at-arms will kill him and all his followers one by one: the Prince, Battista, the Strong Man and Doria, Gecko and Snapper—well, perhaps those two will be no great loss. Then the Piper will probably chase the Milksop out and rule Ombra himself for a while. Orpheus will read unicorns here for him, or a few war machines . . . yes, I’m sure the Piper would rather like those. Fenoglio will drown his sorrows in wine and drink himself to death. And the Adderhead will be immortal. Someday he’ll reign over a nation of the dead. I think the end of the story would go something like that, don’t you?"

Meggie looked at him. In the light of the new morning her hair looked like spun gold.

Resa’s hair had been just the same color when he had first seen her, in Elinor’s house.

"Yes. Perhaps," said Meggie quietly. "But would the story really end so very differently if the Bluejay stayed? How could he give it a happy ending all by himself?"

"Bluejay?" A couple of toads jumped into the water in alarm as the Strong Man plowed his way through the undergrowth.

Mo straightened up. "Maybe you’d better not call that name quite so loud in the forest," he said, lowering his own voice.

The Strong Man looked as horrified as if men-at-arms were already standing among the trees. "Sorry," he muttered. "My head doesn’t work well so early in the morning, and all that wine last night. . . It’s the boy. You know, the one who works for Orpheus, the one that Meggie —" He stopped short at the sight of Meggie’s expression. "Oh, whatever I say sounds stupid!" he groaned, pressing his hand to his round face. "Plain stupid! But that’s how the words come out of my mouth. I can’t help it!"

"Farid. His name is Farid. Where is he?" Meggie’s face lit up, although she was making a great effort to look indifferent.

"Farid, of course. Funny sort of name. Like something out of a song, eh? He’s in the camp. But he wants to speak to your father."

Meggie’s smile was extinguished as quickly as it had come to her lips. Mo put his arm around her shoulders, but a father’s hug was no use to a lovesick girl. Damn the boy.

"He’s all worked up. He must have ridden here so fast his donkey can hardly stand.

He woke the whole camp, asking: ‘Where’s the Bluejay? I have to speak to him!’ No one could get anything else out of him!"

"The Bluejay!" Mo had never heard Meggie sound so bitter before. "I’ve told him a thousand times already not to call you that. How can he be so stupid?"

The wrong boy. But what did the heart care about that?

"Darius!" Elinor couldn’t bear the sound of her own voice LI anymore. It was horrible — grouchy, irritable, impatient. She hadn’t sounded like that in the old days, had she?

Darius almost dropped the books he was bringing in, and the dog raised his head from the rug she had bought to keep him from ruining her wonderful wooden floor with his slimy slobber. Quite apart from the fact that you were always slipping on it.

‘‘Where’s the Dickens we bought last week? For goodness sake, how long does it take you to put a book back in its proper place? Am I paying you to sit in my armchair reading? That’s what you do when I’m not here, admit it!"

Oh, Elinor. How she hated the words coming out of her mouth, and yet there was no keeping them back: bitter and venomous, Spat out by her unhappy heart.

Darius bowed his head, as he always did when he was trying not to show her how hurt he was. "It’s where it belongs, Elinor," he said in his gentle voice, which only infuriated her more than ever. She’d been able to have magnificent quarrels with Mortimer, and Meggie had been a real little fighter. But Darius! Even Resa, mute as she was, used to stand up to Elinor better.

Owl-faced coward. Why didn’t he call her names? Why didn’t he throw the books at her feet instead of clutching them so lovingly to his scrawny chest, as if he had to protect them from her?

"Where it belongs?" she repeated. "Do you think I can’t even read these days?"

How anxiously the stupid dog was looking at her. Then he let his massive head sink to the rug again with a grunt.

Darius put the stack of books he was carrying down on the nearest glass case, went up to the shelf where Dickens made himself at home, taking up a lot of space in between Defoe and Dumas (the man had written just too many books, that was his trouble), went straight to the volume she wanted, and took it out. Without a word, he gave it to Elinor. Then he set about sorting the books he had brought into the library.

She felt so stupid, and Elinor hated to feel stupid. It was almost worse than feeling sad.

"It’s dirty!

Stop it, Elinor, she told herself. But she couldn’t. The words simply came out of her mouth. "When did you last dust the books? Do I have to do that for myself, too?"

Darius kept his thin back turned to her. He took the words without flinching, like an undeserved beating.

"What’s the matter? Has your stuttering tongue finally given up? Sometimes I wonder whether you have a tongue at all! Mortola ought to have taken you with her instead of Resa — even when she was mute, Resa was more talkative than you.

Darius put the last book on the shelf, straightened another, and marched toward the door, holding himself very straight.

"Darius! Come back!"

He didn’t even turn.

Damn. Elinor hurried after him, holding the Dickens which she had to admit, really wasn’t so very dusty. To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t dusty in the least. Of course it’s not, Elinor! she told herself As if you didn’t know how devotedly Darius removes the tiniest speck of dust from the books every Tuesday and Friday. Her cleaning lady always laughed at the fine brush he used for the purpose.

"Darius! For heaven’s sake, don’t make such a big deal of it!" No reply.

The dog overtook her on the stairs and looked down at her from the top step with his tongue hanging out.

"Darius!"

By that stupid dog’s slobber where was he?

His room was right next to the one Mortimer had used as an office. The door was open, and so was his suitcase, lying on the bed. It was the case she had bought him for their first trip together. Buying books with Darius had always been a pleasure (and she had to admit that he’d kept her from making many silly mistakes).

"What . . . ?" How heavy her sharp tongue suddenly felt. "What the devil are you doing?"

Well, what did she think? Very obviously, he was packing the few clothes he possessed.

"Darius!"

lie put the drawing of Meggie that Resa had given him onto the bed, with the notebook Mortimer had bound for him, and the bookmark that Meggie had made him from a blue jay’s feathers.

"The bathrobe," he said hesitantly, as he put the photograph of his parents, the one that always stood by his bed, in the case. "Do you mind if I take it with me?"

"Don’t ask such silly questions! Of course not! It was a present, for heaven’s sake.

But where are you going?"

Cerberus trotted into the room and went to the bedside cupboard. Darius always kept a few dog biscuits in the drawer.

"I don’t know yet. . . ."

He folded the bathrobe just as carefully as his other clothes (it was much too large for him, but how would she have known his size?), put the drawing, the notebook, and the bookmark in the case and closed it. Of course, he couldn’t manage to close the catches. He was so clumsy sometimes!

"Unpack that again! At once! This is silly."

But Darius shook his head.

"Heavens above, you can’t go as well and leave me all alone!" Elinor herself was frightened by the despair in her voice.

"You’re alone even when I’m here, Elinor," said Darius in a strained voice. "You’re so unhappy! I can’t stand it anymore!"

The stupid dog gave up snuffling around the bedside table and stood in front of her, looking sad. He’s right, said his watering doggy eyes.

As if she didn’t know! She couldn’t stand herself anymore, either. Had she been like this long ago? Before Meggie, Mortimer, and Resa came to live with her? Maybe.

But then there’d only been the books around, and they weren’t complaining.

Although, to be honest, she’d never been as hard on the books as she was on Darius.

"All right, you go, then!" Her voice began shaking in the most ridiculous way.

"Leave me alone. You’re right. Why would you want to watch me getting more insufferable every day, always waiting for some miracle to bring them back? Perhaps I ought to shoot myself or drown myself in the lake, instead of perishing slowly in this miserable way. Writers sometimes do that, and it sounds good in stories."

Oh, the way he was looking at her with his farsighted eyes! (She really ought to have bought him new glasses long ago. His present pair looked just too silly.) Then he opened the case again and stared at his possessions. He took out Meggie’s bookmark and stroked the boldly patterned blue feathers. Blue jay feathers. Meggie had glued them to a strip of pale yellow cardboard. It looked very pretty. Darius cleared his throat. He cleared it three times.

"Oh, very well!" he said at last, in a voice that he carefully kept level. "You win, Elinor. I’ll try it. Fetch me that sheet of paper. Or you probably will go and shoot yourself someday."

What? What was he saying? Elinor’s heart began to race, as if hurrying on ahead of her into the Inkworld to see the fairies, the glass men, and the people she loved so much more than she loved any book.

"You mean. . ."

Darius nodded, resigned, like a warrior who has fought too many battles. "Yes," he said. "Yes, Elinor."

"I’ll get it!" Elinor turned on her heel. Everything that had made her heart so heavy these last few weeks, turning her limbs to an old woman’s — it was all gone!

Vanished without trace.

But Darius called her back. "Elinor! We ought to take some of Meggie’s notebooks, too — and some practical things, like.. . like a lighter, for instance."

"And a knife!" Elinor added. After all, Basta was where they Were going, and she had sworn that when next she met him she’d have a knife in her own hand.

She almost fell down the stairs, she was in such a hurry to get back to the library.

Cerberus bounded after her, panting with excitement. Did he guess, in some corner of his doggy heart, that they were following his old master to the place where he’d gone when he had disappeared?

He’s going to try it! He’s going to try it! Elinor couldn’t think of anything else. She didn’t think of Resa’s lost voice, Cockerell’s stiff leg, or Flatnose’s mutilated face.

Everything’s going to be all right, that was all she thought as, with trembling fingers, she took the words that Orpheus had written out of the glass case. This time there won’t be any Capricorn to frighten Darius. This time he’ll read beautifully. Oh, dear God, Elinor, you’re going to see them again!