Inkspell

15. STRANGE SOUNDS ON A STRANGE NIGHT

Later, when Meggie tried to remember the way they went to Fenoglio's room, she could see only a few blurred pictures in her mind's eye – a guard who tried to bar their way with his spear, but sullenly let them pass when he recognized Fenoglio, dark alleys down which they followed a boy with a torch, then a steep flight of steps, creaking underfoot as it led them up the side of a gray wall. She felt so dizzy with weariness as she followed Fenoglio up these steps that he felt quite anxious and took her arm a couple of times.

"I think we'd better wait until morning to tell each other what's happened since we last met," he said, propelling her into his room. "I'll ask Minerva to bring you up a straw mattress later, but you'll sleep in my bed tonight. Three days and nights in the Wayless Wood. Inky infernos, I'd probably have died of sheer fright!"

"Farid had his knife," murmured Meggie. The knife had indeed been a comfort when they were sleeping in the treetops by night, and those growling, grating noises came up to them from below. Farid had always kept it ready at hand. "And when he saw ghosts," she said sleepily, as Fenoglio lit a lamp, "he made a fire."

"Ghosts? There aren't any ghosts in this world, or at least none that I wrote into it. What did you eat all that time?"

Meggie groped her way over to the bed. It looked very inviting, even if it was only a straw mattress and a couple of coarse blankets. "Berries," she murmured. "Lots of berries, and the bread we took with us from Elinor's kitchen – and rabbits, but Farid caught those."

"Good heavens above!" Fenoglio shook his head, incredulous. It was really good to see his wrinkled face again, but right now all Meggie really wanted to do was sleep. She took off her boots, crept under the scratchy blankets, and stretched out her aching legs.

"What gave you the crazy idea of reading yourself and Farid into the Wayless Wood? Why not arrive here? Dustfinger must have told the boy a few things about this world."

"Orpheus's words." Meggie couldn't help yawning. "We only had Orpheus's words, and Dustfinger had gotten Orpheus to read him into the forest."

"Of course. Sounds just like him." She felt Fenoglio pulling the blankets up to her chin. "I'd better not ask you who this Orpheus is. We'll talk again tomorrow. Sleep well. And welcome to my world!"

Meggie just managed to open her eyes once more. "Where are you going to sleep?"

"Don't worry about me. A few of Minerva's relations come in every night to share the family's beds downstairs, and one more won't make much difference. You soon get used to a little less comfort, I assure you. I only hope her husband doesn't snore as loud as she says."

Then he closed the door behind him, and Meggie heard him laboriously making his way down the steep wooden staircase, cursing quietly to himself. Mice scurried through the rafters over her head (at least, she hoped they were mice) and the voices of the sentries guarding the nearby city wall drifted in through the only window. Meggie closed her eyes. Her feet hurt, and the music from the strolling players' camp was still ringing in her ears. The Black Prince, she thought, I've seen the Black Prince… and the city gate of Ombra… and I've heard the trees whispering to one another in the Wayless Wood. If she could only have told Resa all about it. Or Elinor. Or Mo. But more than likely Mo never wanted to hear another word about the Inkworld.

Meggie rubbed her tired eyes. Fairies' nests clung to the beams in the roof above the bed, just as Fenoglio had always wanted, but nothing moved behind the dark entrance holes where the fairies flew into them. Fenoglio's attic room was a good deal larger than the one where he and Meggie had been kept prisoner by Capricorn. As well as the bed he had so generously let her have, there was a wooden chest, a bench, and a writing desk made of dark wood, gleaming and adorned with carvings. It did not go with the rest of the furniture: the roughly made bench, the simple chest. You might have thought it had strayed here out of another story, just like Meggie herself. An earthenware jug stood on it, containing a whole set of quill pens, there were two inkwells…

Fenoglio was looking happy. He really was.

Meggie passed her arm over her tired face. The dress Resa had made her still smelled of her mother, but now it smelled of the Wayless Wood, too. She put her hand inside the leather bag that she had almost lost twice in the forest and took out the notebook Mo had given her. The marbled binding was a mixture of deep blue and peacock green – Mo's favorite colors. It was good to have your books with you in strange places. Mo had told her that so often, but did he mean places like this? On their second day in the forest Meggie had tried to read the book she had brought with her, while Farid went hunting for a rabbit. She couldn't get past the first page, and finally she had forgotten the book and left it lying as she sat beside a stream with swarms of blue fairies hovering over it. Did your hunger for stories die down when you were in one yourself? Or had she just been too exhausted? I should at least write down what's happened so far, she thought, stroking the cover of her notebook again, but weariness was like cotton wool in her head and her limbs. Tomorrow, she thought. And tomorrow I'll tell Fenoglio that he must write me back home, too. I've seen the fairies, I've even seen the fire-elves, and the Wayless Wood and Ombra. Yes. Because, after all, it will take him a few days to find the right words…

Something rustled in one of the fairies' nests above her. But no blue face looked out.

It was chilly in this room, and everything was strange – so strange. Meggie was used to strange places; after all, Mo had always taken her with him when he had to go away to cure sick books. But she could rely on one thing in all those places: She knew he was with her. Always. Meggie pressed her cheek against the rough straw mattress. She missed her mother and Elinor and Darius, but most of all she missed Mo. It was like an ache tugging at her heart. Love and a guilty conscience didn't mix. If only he had come, too! He'd shown her so much of her own world, how she would have loved to show him this one! She knew he'd have liked it all: the fire-elves, the whispering trees, the camp of the strolling players…

Oh, she did miss Mo.

How about Fenoglio? Wasn't there anyone he missed? Didn't he feel at all homesick for the village where he used to live, for his children, his friends, and neighbors? What about his grandchildren? Meggie had often raced around his house with them! "I'll show you everything tomorrow!" Fenoglio had whispered to her as they hurried after the boy ahead of them, carrying the torch that had almost burned down, and his voice had sounded as if he were a prince informing his guest that he would show him around the palace the next day. "The guards don't like people roaming the streets by night," he had added, and it was indeed very quiet among the close-crammed houses. They reminded Meggie of Capricorn's village so much that she half expected to see one of the Black Jackets around some corner, leaning against the wall with a rifle in his hand. But all they met were a few pigs grunting as they wandered in the steep alleys, and a ragged man sweeping up the garbage that lay among the houses and shoveling it into a handcart. "You'll get used to the smell in time!" Fenoglio had whispered, as Meggie put her hand over her nose. "Think yourself lucky I'm not lodging with a dyer, or over there with the tanners. Even I haven't gotten used to the stink of their trades."

No, Meggie felt sure that Fenoglio didn't miss anything. Why would he? This was his world, born from his brain, as familiar to him as his own thoughts.

Meggie listened to the night. There was another sound as well as the rustle of the scurrying mice – a faint snoring. It seemed to come from the desk. Pushing back her blanket, she made her way cautiously over to it. A glass man was sleeping beside the jug of quill pens, his head on a tiny cushion. His transparent limbs were spattered with ink. Presumably he sharpened the pens, dipped them in the bulbous inkwells, sprinkled sand over the wet ink… just as Fenoglio had always wanted. And did the fairies' nests above his bed really bring good luck and sweet dreams? Meggie thought she saw a trace of fairy dust on the desk. Thoughtfully, she ran her finger over it, looked at the glittering dust left clinging to her fingertip, and rubbed it on her forehead. Did fairy dust cure homesickness?

For she was still homesick. All this beauty around her, yet she kept thinking of Elinor's house and Mo's workshop… Her heart was so stupid! Hadn't it always beat faster when Resa told her about the Inkworld? And now that she was here, really here, it didn't seem to know just what it ought to feel. It's because the others aren't here, too, something inside her whispered, as if her heart were trying to defend itself. Because they're none of them here.

If only Farid at least had stayed with her… How she envied him the way he had slipped from one world to another as if he were just changing his shirt! The only longing he seemed to know was for the sight of Dustfinger's scarred face.

Meggie went to the window. There was only a piece of fabric tacked over it. Meggie pushed it aside and looked down into the narrow alley. The ragged refuse collector was just pushing his cart past with its heavy, stinking load. It nearly got stuck between the buildings. The windows above it were almost all dark; a candle burned behind only one of them, and a child's crying drifted out into the night. Roof stood next to roof like the scales of a fir cone, and the walls and towers of the castle rose dark above them to the starry sky.

The Laughing Prince's castle. Resa had described it well. The moon stood pale above the gray battlements, outlining them in silver, them and the guards pacing up and down on the walls. It seemed to be the same as the moon that rose and set over the mountains behind Elinor's house. "The prince is holding festivities for his spoiled grandson," Fenoglio had told Meggie, "and I'm supposed to go up to the castle with a new song. I'll take you with me. We'll have to find you a clean dress, but Minerva has three daughters. They're sure to have a dress among them to fit you."

Meggie took one last look at the sleeping glass man and went back to the bed under the fairies' nests. After the celebrations, she thought as she pulled off her dirty dress over her head and slipped under the coarse blanket again, first thing after the celebrations I'll ask Fenoglio to write me home. As she closed her eyes, she once again saw the swarms of fairies who had swirled around her in the green twilight of the Wayless Wood, pulling her hair until Farid threw fir cones at them. She heard the trees whispering in voices that seemed to be half earth, half air, she remembered the scaly faces she had seen in the water of dark pools, and the Black Prince, too, and his bear…

There was a rustling under the bed, and something crawled over her arm. Meggie sleepily brushed it off. I hope Mo isn't too angry was the last thing she thought before she fell asleep and dreamed of Elinor's garden. Or was it the Wayless Wood?