"I didn't mean to do it!" whispered Meggie. "Really I didn't. "
The fairy kept colliding with the window again and again.
"No!" Meggie hurried over to her. "You mustn't go out! You don't understand. " It was a fairy, no longer than your hand, but still growing. It was a girl called Tinker Bell, exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf.
"Someone's coming!" Fenoglio sat up in such a hurry he hit his head on the top bunk. He was right. Out in the corridor footsteps were approaching: rapid, firm footsteps. Meggie retreated to the window. What did it mean? It was the middle of the night. Perhaps Mo's arrived, she thought, Mo is here. Although she didn't want to feel glad of it, her heart leaped with joy.
"Hide her!" whispered Fenoglio. "Quick, hide her!"
Meggie looked at him, confused. Of course. The fairy. They mustn't find her. Meggie tried to catch Tinker Bell, but the fairy slipped through her fingers and whirred up to the ceiling, where she hovered like a light made of invisible glass.
The footsteps were very close now. "Call that keeping watch?" It was Basta's voice. Meggie heard a hollow groan; he had probably woken the guard with a kick. "Unlock that door, and get a move on. I don't have forever. "
Someone put a key in the lock. "That's the wrong one, you dozy idiot! Capricorn wants to see the girl, and I'll tell him why he's had to wait so long."
Meggie climbed up on her bed. The bunk swayed alarmingly as she stood on it. "Tinker Bell!" she whispered. "Please! Come here!" But as she reached out her hand, the fairy flew back to the window – and Basta opened the door.
"Hey, where did that come from?" he asked, standing in the doorway. "It's years since I saw one of those fluttery things."
Meggie and Fenoglio said nothing – what was there to say?
"You needn't think you can wriggle out of telling me!" Basta took off his jacket and went slowly over to the window, holding the garment in his left hand. "You stand in the door way in case it gets away from me!" he told the guard. "And if you let it get past you I'll slice off your ears."
"Leave her alone!" Meggie slid hastily down from the bed again, but Basta moved faster. He threw his jacket. Tinker Bell's light disappeared, snuffed out like a candle. There was a faint twitching under the jacket as it fell to the floor. Basta picked it up carefully, holding it together like a sack, went over to Meggie, and stopped in front of her. "Well, sweetheart, let's hear your story," he said in a menacingly quiet voice. "Where did that fairy come from?"
"I don't know!" uttered Meggie without looking at him. "She – she was just suddenly here."
Basta looked at the guard. "Ever seen anything like a fairy in these parts?" he asked.
The guard raised the newspaper, to which a couple of dusty moth wings were still clinging, and slapped the door frame with it, smiling broadly. "No, but if I did I'd know what to do about it!" he said.
"You're right, those little creatures are as troublesome as midges. But they're supposed to bring luck. " Basta turned back to Meggie. "Now then, out with it! Where did she come from? I'm not asking you again. "
Meggie couldn't help it: Her eyes strayed to the book that Fenoglio had dropped. Basta followed her glance and picked it up.
"Well, fancy that!" he murmured as he looked at the picture on the cover. The artist had produced a good likeness of Tinker Bell. In real life she was a little paler and a little smaller than the picture suggested, but of course Basta still recognized her. He whistled softly through his teeth, then held the book close to Meggie's face. "Don't try telling me the old man read her out of this!" he said. "You did it. I'll bet my knife you did it. Did your father teach you how, or have you just inherited the knack from him? Well, it comes to the same thing. " He stuck the book in his waistband and grasped Meggie's arm. "Come along, we're going to tell Capricorn about this, l was really supposed to get you just to meet an old acquaintance, but I'm sure Capricorn will have no objection to hearing such interesting news. "
"Has my father come?" Meggie did not resist as he forced her out of the door.
Basta shook his head and looked ironically at her. "Him? No, he hasn't turned up yet, " he said. "Obviously he thinks more of his own skin than yours. I wouldn't be pleased with him if I were you. "
Meggie felt two emotions at once – disappointment as sharp as a prickle, and relief.
"I'll admit I'm rather disappointed in him, " Basta continued. "I swore he'd come looking for you, but I guess we don't need him anymore. Right?" He shook his jacket, and Meggie thought she heard a quiet, desperate tinkling.
"Lock the old man in, " Basta told the guard. "And if you're snoring again when I get back it will be the worse for you!"
Then he hauled Meggie down the corridor.
39 . THE PUNISHMENT FOR TRAITORS
"What about you?" inquired Lobosch. "You're not afraid, are you, Krabat?"
"More than you guess, " said Krabat. "And not for myself alone. "
Otfried Preussler, The Satanic Mill
Meggie's shadow followed her like an evil spirit as she and Basta crossed the square outside the church. The glaring floodlights made the moon look faded.
It was not so bright inside the church. Capricorn's statue, looking down on them in the gloom, was pale and half swallowed up by the shadows. Between the columns it was as dark as if night had fled there to escape the floodlights. Only the place where Capricorn sat, leaning back in his armchair with a contemptuous expression and wrapped in a silk dressing gown that shimmered like peacock feathers, was illuminated by a single lamp. The Magpie stood behind him, appearing little more than a washed-out face above a black dress in the dim light. A fire was burning in one of the braziers at the foot of the steps. The smoke stung Meggie's eyes, and the flickering firelight danced on the red walls and columns as if the whole church were ablaze.
"Hang the rags outside his children's window as a final warning. " Capricorn's voice echoed in Meggie's ears, although he kept it lowered. "And soak them with gasoline until it's seeping out, " he told Cockerell, who was standing at the foot of the steps with two other men. "When that smell reaches the fool's nostrils first thing in the morning, perhaps he'll finally realize my patience is at an end."
Cockerell received the order with a brief nod, turned on his heel, and signaled to the other two to follow him. Their faces were blackened with soot, and each of the three wore a red rooster's feather in his buttonhole. "Ah, Silvertongue's daughter!" growled Cockerell sarcastically as he limped past Meggie. "Well, well, hasn't your father come for you yet? Doesn't seem very keen to see you, does he?" The other two laughed, and Meggie couldn't help the hot blood rising to her face.
"At last!" cried Capricorn as Basta stopped at the foot of the steps with his prisoner. "What kept you so long?" Something like a smile passed over the Magpie's face. She had pushed out her lower lip slightly, giving her thin face a look of great satisfaction, which troubled Meggie much more than Capricorn's mother's usual dark looks.
"The guard couldn't find the right key, " replied Basta irritably. "And then – well, I had to catch something. " The fairy began moving again as he held up his jacket, and its fabric bulged with her frenzied attempts to struggle free.
"What's that?" Capricorn's voice sounded impatient.
Have you taken to catching bats these days?"
Basta's lips quivered with annoyance, but he bit back his reply and, without a word, put his hand under the black cloth. Suppressing a curse, he produced the fairy. "Devil take these flickery little things!" he said angrily. "I'd forgotten how hard they can bite!"
One of Tinker Bell's wings was fluttering frantically; the other was held between Basta's fingers. Meggie couldn't watch. She was terribly ashamed of herself for luring this fragile little creature out of her book.