Inkheart

57 . A DESERTED VILLAGE

So Capricorn died, just as Fenoglio had written, and Cockerell disappeared at the same moment his master fell to the ground, and with him more than half the men on the benches. The rest ran away, all of them, the boys and women, too. Those heading toward the village met some of Capricorn's men running back from extinguishing the fire. Their faces were smeared with soot and full of horror, and not because of the flames that had been licking around Capricorn's house, for they had put those out. No. They had seen Flatnose and several other men vanish into thin air before their very eyes. They were gone, as if the darkness had swallowed them up, as if they had never existed. And perhaps that was the truth of it. The man who had made them had now destroyed them, erased them like mistakes in a drawing, like marks on white paper. They were gone, and the others, the men who had not been born of Fenoglio's words, were hurrying back to tell Capricorn what had happened. But Capricorn lay on his face with gravel clinging to his red suit, and never again would anyone tell him anything – about fire and smoke, about fear and death. Never again.

Only the Shadow still stood there, a figure so tall that the men running across the parking lot saw him from afar, gray before the black night sky, his eyes two blazing red stars, and they forgot the master they had been going to serve. Every one of them ran for the cars. They wanted only to get away, far away, before the being who had been summoned like a dog turned and devoured them all.

Meggie did not come to her senses properly until they had all gone. She had nestled her head under Mo's arm, as she always did when she simply didn't want to see the world. Mo put the book under the jacket, which had almost made him look like one of Capricorn's henchmen. And he held her tight while all about them people were running and screaming. Only the Shadow stood perfectly still, as if killing his master had sapped all his power.

"Farid, " Meggie heard Mo say, "can you get that cage open? "

Only then did she bring her head out from under Mo's arm and see that the Magpie was still there. Why hadn't she disappeared, too? Darius was still holding on to her as if he was afraid of what would happen if he let go. But she was no longer kicking and struggling. She was just looking at Capricorn, with tears running down her sharp-boned face, over her small soft chin, and falling like rain onto her dress.

Agile as Gwin, Farid jumped down from the rostrum and ran over to the cage, without once taking his eyes off the Shadow. However, the Shadow just stood there motionless, as if he would never move again.

"Meggie, " whispered Mo. "Let's go over to the prisoners, shall we? Poor Elinor looks exhausted, and there's someone else I want to introduce to you." Farid was already busy with the door of the cage, but the two women inside were watching them.

"You don't need to introduce her, " said Meggie, squeezing his hand. "I know who she is. I've known for ages. I wanted so much to tell you, but you weren't here, and now there's something else we have to read first. The last few sentences. " She took the book out from under Mo's jacket and leafed through it until she found Fenoglio's sheet of paper still among the pages. "He wrote them on the other side; there wasn't any space left on the first page, " she said. "He just can't make his handwriting small."

Fenoglio!

Meggie lowered the sheet of paper and looked around, searching for him, but she couldn't see him anywhere. Had Capricorn's men taken him with them, or -?

"Mo, he's gone!" she said, dismayed.

"I'll go and look for him in a moment, " Mo reassured her. "But now read the rest, quick! Or should I do it?"

"No, I will. "

The Shadow was beginning to move again. He took a step toward the dead Capricorn, staggered back, and turned as clumsily as a dancing bear. Meggie thought she heard a groan.

Farid ducked down behind the cage when the red eyes looked his way. Her mother and Elinor flinched, too, but Meggie read in a firm voice:

There stood the Shadow, and his memories hurt so much they almost tore him apart. He heard them in his head, all those screams and sighs, he thought he could feel tears on his gray skin. Their fear burned his eyes like smoke. Then, quite suddenly, he felt something different, something that made him shudder and forced him to his knees. Then his whole terrible figure disintegrated, and suddenly they were all back again, all the beings from whose ashes the Shadow had been made: men, women, and children, dogs and cats, goblins, fairies, and many more as well.

Meggie saw the arena filling up with them. More and more of them were gathering in a throng where the Shadow had collapsed, all looking around as if they'd just woken from a deep sleep. She read Fenoglio's last sentence.

They woke as if from a bad dream and, at last, everything was all right again.

"He isn't here anymore!" said Meggie when Mo took Fenoglio's sheet of paper from her and put it back in the book. "Fenoglio's gone, Mo! He's in the story now. I know he is. "

Mo looked at the book and tucked it back under his jacket. "Yes, I think you're right, " he said. "But if so, there's nothing we can do about it for the moment. Perhaps the story now goes on beyond the book. " He led Meggie away with him down from the rostrum, past all the people and the strange creatures crowding into the arena outside Capricorn's village as if they had always been there. Darius followed them. He had finally let go of the Magpie, who was now standing with her bony hands gripping the back of the chair where Meggie had been sitting. She was weeping soundlessly, her face crumpled, as if her whole being were made of tears.

A tiny, blue-skinned fairy apologized profusely when it fluttered into Meggie's hair as she and Mo went toward the cage containing her mother and Elinor. Then a shaggy creature who looked half-human, half-animal stumbled across her path, and finally she almost stepped on a tiny little man who seemed to be made entirely of glass. Capricorn's village had acquired some strange new inhabitants.

Farid was still trying to get the lock open when they reached the cage. He was picking at it, looking angry, and muttering something to the effect that Dustfinger had shown him just how to do it and this must be a very special sort of lock.

"Oh, wonderful!" said Elinor sarcastically, pressing her face to the bars from inside. "So that Shadow didn't eat us after all, but we'll be left to starve in a cage. Well, well! What do you think of your daughter, Mo? Isn't she a brave little thing? I couldn't have uttered a word myself, not a single word. My God, my heart almost stopped when that old woman tried to get the book away from her. "

Mo put his hand on Meggie's shoulder and smiled, but he was looking at someone else. Nine years is a long, long time.

"I've done it! I've done it!" cried Farid, pulling the door of the cage open. But before the two women could take a step, a figure rose in the darkest corner of their prison, leaped toward them, and seized the first person he could lay his hands on – Meggie's mother.

"Wait!" spat Basta. "Stop, stop, not so fast. Where are you off to, then, Resa? To join your beloved family? You think I didn't understand all that whispering down in the crypt? Well, I did. "

"Let go of her!" cried Meggie. "Let go of her!" Why hadn't she noticed the dark heap lying so still in the corner? She just assumed Basta was as dead as Capricorn. And indeed, why wasn't he? Why hadn't he disappeared like Flatnose and Cockerell and all the others?

"Let her go, Basta!" Mo spoke very quietly as if he had no strength for anything else, "You won't get out of here, even by using her as a shield. No one will help you. They're all gone. "

"Oh, I'll get out!" replied Basta unpleasantly. "I will choke her if you don't let me pass. I'll break her scrawny neck. Did you know she can't talk? She can't make a sound because that useless Darius read her out of the book. She's as silent as a fish, a pretty, mute fish. But if I know you, you'll want her back all the same, am I right?"

Mo made no reply, and Basta laughed.

"Why aren't you dead?" Elinor shouted at him. "Why didn't you fall down dead like your master, or vanish? Why not?"

Basta merely shrugged. "How should I know?" he growled, keeping his hand around Resa's neck. She tried to kick him, but he only tightened his grip. "After all, the Magpie's still here, too, but she always made other people do her dirty work for her, and as for me – perhaps I'm one of the good characters in the story now because they put me in the cage? Perhaps I'm still here because it's been a long time since I set fire to anything, and Flatnose got much more fun out of killing people? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps… but anyway here I am, so let me pass, you old bookbag!"

But Elinor did not budge.

"No, " she said. "You don't get out of here until you let her go! I'd never have expected this story to have a happy ending, but it has – and a creature like you isn't going to spoil that at the last moment, as sure as my name's Elinor Loredan!" Looking very determined, she placed herself in front of the cage door. "You don't have your knife with you this time, " she went on in a dangerously soft voice. "You have nothing but your filthy tongue, and believe you me, that'll be no use to you now. Poke your fingers into his eyes, Teresa! Kick him, bite him, the beast!"

But before Teresa could do as she said Basta thrust her away from him so violently that she fell against Elinor and brought her down – her and Mo, for both of them had been coming to her aid. As for Basta, he raced for the open door of the cage, pushed the startled Farid and Meggie aside – and ran away past all the people and creatures still wandering like sleepwalkers around the scene of Capricorn's festivities. Before Farid or Mo could give chase he had disappeared.

"Oh, great!" muttered Elinor, stumbling out of the cage with Teresa. "Now that wretched fellow will haunt me in my dreams, and every time I hear something rustling out in my garden at night I will feel his knife at my throat. "

Not only had Basta gone, but the Magpie also disappeared without a trace that night. And when, wearily, they set off to find a vehicle of some kind to get them away from Capricorn's village, they found all the cars had gone, too. Not a single one was left in the parking lot, which was dark now.

"Oh no, tell me it isn't true!" groaned Elinor. "Does this mean we have to go the whole wretched way on foot again?"

"Unless you happen to have a cell phone with you, " said Mo. He had not moved from Teresa's side since Basta had made his escape. He had looked with concern at her neck, where the red marks left by Basta's fingers were still visible, and he had run a strand of her hair through his fingers and said he almost liked it better now that it was darker. But nine years is a long time, and Meggie saw how careful they were with each other, like people on a narrow bridge crossing a wide, wide void.

Of course Elinor did not have her cell phone. Capricorn had had it taken away from her, and although Farid immediately offered to go and search Capricorn's fire-blackened house for it, it did not turn up. So they finally decided to spend one last night in the village, along with all the creatures that Fenoglio had brought back to life. It was still a beautiful, mild night, and sleeping under the trees would be quite comfort able. Meggie and Mo found plenty of blankets in the now-deserted houses. But they did not go back into Capricorn's house. Meggie never wanted to set foot inside it again, not because of the acrid smell of burning seeping out of its windows, or the charred doors, but because of the memories that leaped out at her like fierce animals at the mere sight of the place.

Sitting between Mo and her mother under one of the old oaks surrounding the parking lot, Meggie thought for a moment of Dustfinger, and wondered whether perhaps Capricorn had been telling the truth after all, maybe he really was dead and buried somewhere in the hills. I may never find out what's happened to him, she thought, as one of the blue fairies rocked back and forth on a twig above her, its face bland and happy.

The whole village seemed to be enchanted that night. The air was full of buzzing and murmuring, and the figures wandering around the parking lot looked as if they had escaped from the dreams of children and not the words of an old man. That was something else Meggie kept asking herself during the night: Where was Fenoglio now, and did he like it in his own story? She so much hoped so. But she knew he would miss his grandchildren and their games of hide-and-seek in his kitchen cupboard.

Before Meggie's eyes closed, she saw Elinor walking around among the trolls and fairies, looking happier than she had ever seen her. And her own parents were sitting to the left and right of Meggie, and her mother was writing and writing, on leaves from the trees, on the fabric of her dress, in the sand. There were so many words, so many tales to tell.