Inkheart

20. SNAKES AND THORNS

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.

The night was perfectly still. Meggie had never known one like it. It was as if she could hear the trees breathing – the trees, the grass, the night itself.

They watched the van headlights emerge on the slope of the next hill: two fingers of light groping their way along an invisible road in the dark. But suddenly they stopped moving.

"They're turning!" whispered Elinor. "Oh God! Now what?"

She tried to stand up, but Mo held her back. "Are you mad?" he hissed. "It's too late to climb any farther. They'd see us. "

Mo was right. The delivery van was speeding back up the road. Meggie saw it stop just a few meters from where they had pushed Elinor's car off the road. She heard the van doors open and saw two men get out. Both had their backs to the fugitives, but when one of them turned and looked suspiciously up the slope Meggie thought she recognized Basta's face, though it was little more than a patch of paler color in the night.

"There's the car, " said the other man.

Was that Flatnose? He was certainly tall and broad enough.

"See if they're in it. "

Yes, that was Basta. Meggie would have known his voice among a thousand others.

Flatnose made his way down the slope, clumsy as a bear. Meggie heard him cursing the thorns, the prickles, the darkness, and the wretched riffraff he was having to stumble after in the middle of the night. Basta was still standing in the road, his face sharply outlined when he lit a cigarette with a lighter. The white smoke drifted up to them until Meggie thought she could almost smell it.

"They're not here, " called Flatnose. "They must have got ten away on foot. Hell, do you think we have to follow them?

Basta went over to the roadside and looked down. Then he turned and looked up at the slope where Meggie was crouching beside Mo, her heart thudding wildly. "They can't have gotten far, " he said. "But it'll be difficult to find their trail in the dark."

"Exactly!" Flatnose was panting as he appeared back on the road. "We're not bloody native trackers, are we?"

Basta did not reply. He just stood there, listening and inhaling his cigarette smoke. Then he whispered something to Flatnose. Meggie's heart almost stopped.

Flatnose looked around anxiously. "Nah, let's get the dogs instead!" Meggie heard him say. "Even if they're hiding somewhere around here, how do we know whether they climbed up or down?"

Basta glanced at the trees, looked down the road, and trod out his cigarette. Then he went back to the van and took out two shotguns. "We'll try going down first, " he said, tossing Flatnose one of the guns. "I'm sure that fat woman would rather climb downhill. " And without another word, he vanished into the darkness. Flatnose cast the van a longing glance, then trudged after him, grumbling.

The two were barely out of sight before Dustfinger rose to his feet, soundless as a shadow, and pointed up the slope. Meggie's heart was beating in her throat as they followed him. They darted from tree to tree, from bush to bush, constantly looking behind them. Every time a twig cracked underfoot Meggie jumped, but luckily Basta and Flatnose were making a fair amount of noise themselves as they worked their way downhill through the undergrowth.

A time came when they couldn't see the road anymore. But their fear did not leave them, the fear that Basta might have turned back already and was now following them uphill. Yet, however often they stopped and listened, all they could hear was their own breathing.

"They'll soon realize they've gone the wrong way, " Dustfinger whispered after a while. "Then they'll go back for the dogs. We're lucky they didn't bring them in the first place. Basta doesn't think much of those dogs, and he's right. I've fed them cheese often enough, and cheese dulls a dog's nose. All the same, he'll fetch them sooner or later because even Basta doesn't like taking bad news back to Capricorn. "

"Then we must just go faster, " said Mo.

"Go faster where?" Elinor was still fighting for breath.

Dustfinger looked around. Meggie wondered why. She could hardly make out anything, it was so dark. "We must keep going south, " said Dustfinger. "Toward the coast. We must hide among other people. That's the only thing that can save us. Down there the nights are bright and nobody believes in the devil."

Farid was standing beside Meggie, gazing at the night sky as if he could make morning come or find the people Dustfinger had mentioned somewhere, but there wasn't a light to be seen in the darkness except for the tangle of stars sparkling cold and distant in the heavens. For a moment, Meggie felt as if those stars were eyes giving away their presence and imagined she could hear them whispering, "Look, Basta, there they go, down there! Quick, catch them!"

They stumbled on, keeping close together so that no one would get lost. Dustfinger had taken Gwin out of his pack and put him on his chain before letting him run alongside them. The marten didn't seem to like it. Dustfinger had to keep hauling him out of the undergrowth, away from all the promising scents that their human noses couldn't pick up. The marten spat and snarled with annoyance, biting and tearing at the chain.

"Curse the little brute, I'm sure to fall over it, " said Elinor crossly. "Can't you keep it away from under my sore feet? I tell you one thing, the moment we're in decent human company again I'm going to take the best hotel room money can buy and put my poor feet up on a big soft cushion. "

"You've still got money on you?" Mo sounded incredulous. "They took all mine first thing. "

"Oh yes, Basta took my wallet, too, " said Elinor. "But I think ahead. I have my credit card somewhere safe. "

"Is anywhere safe from Basta?" Dustfinger dragged Gwin away from a tree trunk.

"Oh yes, " replied Elinor. "Men are never particularly keen to search fat old ladies. Which can be useful. That was how some of my most valuable books came into my -" She interrupted herself abruptly, clearing her throat when her eyes fell on Meggie. But Meggie acted as if she hadn't heard Elinor's last remark, or at least hadn't understood what she meant.

"You're not all that fat!" Meggie said. "And old is a bit of an exaggeration!" Oh, how her own feet hurt.

"Well, thank you very much, darling!" said Elinor. "I think I'll buy you from your father so you can say nice things like that to me three times a day. How much do you want for her, Mo?"

"I'll have to think about it, " replied Mo. "Suppose I lend her to you for a few days now and then?"

They chatted like this, voices scarcely raised above a whisper, as they struggled through the thorny growth on the hill side. It didn't matter what they talked about, for their hushed conversation had only one purpose: to fend off the fear and exhaustion that was weighing down all their limbs. On and on they walked, hoping that Dustfinger knew where he was taking them. Meggie kept close behind Mo all the time. At least his back offered some protection from the thorny branches that kept catching at her clothes and scratching her face, like vicious animals with needle-sharp claws lying in wait in the dark.

At last, they came upon a footpath they could follow. It was littered with empty cartridge cases dropped by hunters who had dealt out death in this silent place. Walking was easier on the trodden earth, although Meggie was so tired she could hardly pick up her feet. When she stumbled against the back of Mo's legs for the second time, he put her on his back and carried her as he used to do before she could keep up with his long legs. He had called her "Little Flea" in those days, or "Feather Girl, " or "Tinker Bell" after the fairy in Peter Pan. Sometimes he still called her Tinker Bell.

Wearily, Meggie rested her face against his shoulders and tried to think of Peter Pan instead of snakes, or men with knives. But this time her own story was too strong to give way to an invented one. Mo was right: Fear devours everything.

It was a long time since Farid had said anything. Most of the time he stumbled along after Dustfinger. He seemed to have taken a fancy to Gwin. Whenever the marten's chain got caught up somewhere Farid would rush to free him, even if Gwin only hissed at him in return and snapped at his fingers. Once he sank his teeth into the boy's thumb and made it bleed.

"Well, do you still think this is a dream?" asked Dustfinger ironically as Farid wiped the blood away.

The boy didn't answer, just examined his sore thumb. Then he sucked it and spat. "What else could it be?" he asked.

Dustfinger looked at Mo, but he seemed so deep in thought he didn't notice the glance. "How about another story?" said Dustfinger.

Farid laughed. "Another story. I like that idea. I've always been fond of stories. "

"Oh yes? And how do you like this one?"

"Too many thorns, and I wish it would get light, but at least I haven't had to work yet. That's something. "

Meggie couldn't help smiling.

A bird called in the distance. Gwin stopped and raised his round muzzle, sniffing the air. The night belongs to beasts of prey, and always has. It's easy to forget that when you're indoors, protected by light and solid walls. Night provides cover for hunters, making it easy for them to creep up and strike their prey blind. Words about the night from one of her favorite books slipped into Meggie's mind: "This is the hour of pride and power, talon and claw. "

She snuggled her face against Mo's shoulder once more. Perhaps I should walk again, she thought. He's been carrying me for so long. But then she nodded off to sleep still perched on his back.