Dustfinger had been lucky to make it as far as Basta's house. He had run into a whole crowd of Capricorn's men almost as soon as he stumbled out of the church. Of course they had recognized him instantly – Basta had long ago made that a certainty. But their surprise had given Dustfinger just enough time to disappear down one of the alleys. Fortunately, he knew every nook and cranny of this accursed village. He had meant to make for the parking area and go on into the hills, but then he'd thought of Basta's empty house. He had forced his way through holes in walls, crawled through cellars, and ducked down behind the parapets of balconies that were no longer used. When it came to hiding, even Gwin had nothing to teach Dustfinger. A strange sense of curiosity had always driven him to explore the hidden, forgotten corners of this and any other place, and all that knowledge had now come in useful.
He was out of breath when he finally reached Basta's house. Basta was probably the only man in Capricorn's village who locked his front door, but the lock was no great obstacle to Dustfinger. He let himself in and hid in the attic until his heart had slowed down, even though the wooden planks were so rotten he feared he would go through the floor at every step. Downstairs, he found enough food in Basta's kitchen to quell the hunger that had been gnawing like a worm at the walls of his stomach. Neither he nor Resa had been given anything to eat since they were put in those nets, so it was doubly satisfying to fill his belly with Basta's food.
When he had partially satisfied his hunger he opened one of the shutters just a crack, so he could have warning in good time of any approaching footsteps, but the only sound that met his ears was a tinkling, so faint he could hardly hear it. Only then did he remember the fairy that Meggie had read into this world that normally had no fairies.
He found her in Basta's bedroom. The room contained nothing but a bed and a chest of drawers on which a number of bricks lay carefully arranged side by side, all of them covered with soot. They said in the village that whenever Capricorn had a house set on fire Basta took away a brick or stone, even though he feared fire at other times, and clearly that story was true. On one of the bricks stood a glass jug with a faint light coming from it, not much brighter than a glowworm would have made. The fairy was lying at the bottom of the glass, crumpled up like a butterfly just out of the cocoon.
Basta had put a plate over the top of the jug, but the fragile little thing didn't look as if she had the strength to fly.
When Dustfinger took the plate away the fairy didn't even raise her head. Dustfinger put his hand into her glass prison and carefully took the little creature out. Her limbs were so delicate he was afraid his fingers would break them. The fairies he knew had looked different, smaller but stronger, with fair blue skin and four shimmering wings. This one had skin the same color as a human, a very pale human, and her wings were more like butterfly than dragonfly wings. But would she like the same things to eat as the fairies he knew? It was worth a try. She looked half dead.
Dustfinger took the pillow off Basta's bed and put it on the kitchen table, which was scrubbed clean. (Everything in Basta's house was scrubbed clean, as spotless as his snow-white shirt.) He laid the fairy on the pillow, then filled a dish with milk and put it on the table beside her. She immediately opened her eyes – so, in having a good sense of smell and a taste for milk, she seemed no different from the fairies he knew. He dipped his finger in the milk and let a white drop fall on her lips. She licked it up like a hungry little cat. Dustfinger trickled drop after drop into her mouth until she sat up and feebly beat her wings. Her face had a little color in it now, but, although he spoke three fairy languages, he under stood not a word of what she finally said in her faint tinkling voice.
"What a pity!" he whispered as she spread her wings and flew, rather unsteadily, up to the ceiling. "That means I can't ask you if you could make me invisible, or so small that you could carry me to Capricorn's festivities."
The fairy looked down at him, tinkled something that he couldn't understand, and settled on the side of the kitchen cupboard.
Dustfinger sat down on the only chair by Basta's kitchen table and looked up at her. "All the same, " he said, "it's good to see someone like you again. If only the fire in this world had more of a sense of humor, and a troll or a glass man would look out of the trees now and then – well, perhaps I could get used to the rest of it after all, the noise, the speed, the crowds – and the way the nights are so much lighter… "
He sat there in his worst enemy's kitchen for quite a long time, watching the fairy flying around the room investigating everything, for fairies are naturally inquisitive, and this one was obviously no exception. Every now and then she stopped to sip her milk, and he filled the dish a second time. Once or twice, footsteps approached, but each time they passed by the house. What a good thing Basta had no friends. The air that came in through the window was sultry; it made Dustfinger drowsy. The narrow strip of sky showing above the houses would stay light for many hours yet – long enough for him to make up his mind whether or not to go to Capricorn's festivities.
Why should he go? He could get hold of the book later, some time when all the excitement in the village had died down and everything was back to normal. And what about Resa? What was going to happen to her? The Shadow would come for her. There was nothing to be done about that, not by anyone, not even Silvertongue if he was really so crazy as to try. But Silvertongue didn't know about her, or about his daughter; at least there was no need to worry about Meggie – not now that she was Capricorn's favorite toy. Capricorn wouldn't let the Shadow hurt her.
No, I won't go, thought Dustfinger, I'll hide here for a while. Tomorrow, there'll be no more Basta, that's one good thing. And perhaps I will go away from here, go away forever… No. He knew he wouldn't do that. Not while the book was here.
The fairy had flown over to the window and was peering curiously out at the alley.
"Forget it. Stay here, " said Dustfinger. "Please. Believe me, it's no place for you out there. "
She looked at him quizzically, then folded her wings and knelt on the windowsill. And there she stayed, as if she couldn't decide between the hot room and the strange freedom to be found outside.
53 . THE RIGHT WORDS
This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life.
Robert Louis Stevenson,
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Fenoglio wrote and wrote, but the number of pages he had hidden under the mattress was no greater. He kept taking them out, fiddling with them, tearing up one, and adding another. "No, no, no!" Meggie heard him muttering crossly to himself. "No, that's not it yet. "
"It will be dark in a few hours, " she said at last, anxiously. "Suppose you don't finish it in time?"
"I have finished!" he snapped, irritated. "I've finished a dozen times already, but I'm not happy with it." He lowered his voice to a whisper before he went on. "There are so many questions. Suppose the Shadow turns on you or me or the prisoners once he's killed Capricorn? And is killing Capricorn really the only solution? What's going to happen to his men afterward? What do I do with them?"
"What do you think? The Shadow must kill them all!" Meggie whispered back. "How else are we ever going to get home or rescue my mother?"
Fenoglio did not like this reply. "Good heavens, what a heartless creature you are!" he whispered. "Kill them all! Haven't you seen how young some of them are?" He shook his head. "No! I'm not a mass murderer, I'm a writer! I'm sure I can think of some less bloodthirsty ending. " And he began writing again… and crossing out words… and writing more, while outside the sun sank lower and lower until its rays were gilding the hilltops.