Inkheart

15. GOOD LUCK AND BAD LUCK

The cages, as Basta had called them, kept ready by Capricorn for unwelcome guests were behind the church, in a paved area where trash containers stood next to mountains of building rubble. There was a slight smell of gasoline in the air, and even the glowworms whirling aimlessly through the night didn't seem to know what had brought them to this place. A row of tumbledown houses stood behind the garbage cans and the rubble. The windows were just holes in the gray walls, and a couple of rotten shutters hung from their hinges at such an angle they looked as if a sudden gust of wind would blow them right off. Only the doors on the ground floor had obviously been given a fresh coat of paint fairly recently, in a dull brown shade with numbers painted on them clumsily, as if by a child, one for each door. As far as Meggie could see in the dark the last door had a number 7 on it. Basta propelled her and Elinor toward number 4. For a moment Meggie was relieved that he hadn't really meant a cage, although the door in the blank wall looked anything but inviting.

"This is ridiculous!" said Elinor furiously as Basta unlocked and unbolted the door. He had brought reinforcements with him from the house in the form of a skinny lad who wore the same black uniform as the grown men in Capricorn's village, and who obviously liked to menace Elinor by pointing his gun at her whenever she opened her mouth. But that didn't keep her quiet for long.

"What do you think you're playing at?" she said angrily, without taking her eyes off the muzzle of the gun. "I've heard that these mountains were always a paradise for robbers, but for heaven's sake, we're living in the twenty-first century! These days people don't go pushing visitors around at gun point – certainly not a youngster like him. "

"As far as I'm aware people in this fine century of yours still do exactly as they always did, " replied Basta. "And that youngster is just the right age to be apprenticed to us. I was even younger when I joined. " He pushed the door open. The darkness inside was blacker than night itself. Basta shoved first Meggie, then Elinor in, and slammed the door behind them.

Meggie heard the key turn in the lock, then Basta saying something that made the boy laugh, and the sound of their footsteps retreating. She reached her hands out until her fingertips touched a wall. Her eyes were useless; she might as well have been blind, she couldn't even see where Elinor was. But she heard her muttering, letting off steam somewhere over to her left.

"Isn't there at least a bloody light switch somewhere in this hole? Oh, to hell with it, I feel as if I've fallen into some farfetched adventure story where the villains wear black eye patches and throw knives. Damn, damn, damn!" Meggie had already noticed that Elinor swore a lot, and the more upset she was the worse her language became.

"Elinor?" The voice came from somewhere in the darkness, and that one word expressed delight, horror, and surprise.

Meggie spun around so suddenly she almost fell over her own feet. "Mo?"

"Oh no! Meggie, not you, too! How did you get here?"

"Mo!" Meggie stumbled through the darkness toward Mo's voice. A hand took her arm and fingers felt her face.

"Ah, at last!" A naked electric lightbulb hanging from the ceiling came on, and Elinor, looking pleased with herself, took her finger off a dusty switch. "Electric light is a wonderful invention!" she said. "That at least is an improvement on past centuries, don't you agree?"

"What are you two doing here, Elinor?" demanded Mo, holding Meggie very close. "I trusted you to look after her at least as well as your books! How could you let them bring her here?"

"How could I let them?" Elinor's indignant voice almost cracked. "I never asked to baby-sit your daughter! I know how to look after books, but children are something else, damn it! And she was worried about you – wanted to go looking for you. So what does stupid Elinor do instead of staying comfortably at home? I mean, I couldn't let the child go off on her own, I told myself. And what do I get for my noble conduct? Insults, a gun held to my chest, and now I'm here in this hole with you carrying on at me, too!"

"All right, all right!" Mo held Meggie at arm's length and looked her up and down.

"I'm fine, Mo!" said Meggie, although her voice shook just a little. "Honestly. "

Mo nodded and glanced at Elinor. "You brought Capricorn the book?"

"Of course! You'd have given it to him yourself if I hadn't…," said Elinor, turning red and looking down at her dusty shoes.

"If you hadn't swapped them. " Meggie ended her sentence for her. She reached for Mo's hand and held it very tightly. She couldn't believe he was back with her, apparently perfectly all right except for the scratch on his forehead, almost hidden by his dark hair. "Did they hit you?" She felt the dried blood anxiously with her forefinger.

Mo had to smile, although he couldn't have been feeling much like it. "That's nothing. I'm fine, too. Don't worry. "

Meggie didn't think that was really much of an answer, but she asked no more questions.

"So how did you come here?" asked Mo. "Did Capricorn send his men back again?"

Elinor shook her head. "No need for that, " she said bitterly. "Your slimy-tongued friend fixed it. A nice kind of snake you brought to my house, I must say. First, he gives you away, then he serves up the book and your daughter to this man Capricorn. 'Bring the girl and the book.' We heard Capricorn say so himself. That was our little matchstick-eater's mission, and he carried it out to his master's complete satisfaction. "

Meggie put Mo's arm around her shoulders and buried her face against him.

"The girl and the book?" Mo held Meggie close again. "Of course. Now Capricorn can be sure I'll do what he wants. " He turned around and went over to the pile of straw lying on the floor in a corner of the room. Sighing, he sat down on it, leaned his back against the wall, and closed his eyes for a moment. "Well, now we're quits, Dustfinger and I, " he said. "Although I wonder how Capricorn is going to pay him for his treachery. Because what Dustfinger wants is something Capricorn can't give him. "

"Quits? What do you mean?" Meggie sat down beside him. "And what are you supposed to do for Capricorn? What does he want you for, Mo?" The straw was damp, not a good place to sleep, but still better than the bare stone floor.

Mo said nothing for what seemed an eternity. He stared at the bare walls, the locked door, the dirty floor.

"I think it's time I told you the whole story, " he said at last. "Although I would rather not have had to tell you in a grim place like this, and not until you're a little older. "

"Mo, I'm twelve!" Why do grown-ups think it's easier for children to bear secrets than the truth? Don't they know about the horror stories we imagine to explain the secrets? "Sit down, Elinor, " said Mo, making room. "It's quite a long story. "

Elinor sighed and sat down unceremoniously on the damp straw. "This can't be happening!" she murmured. "This really can't be happening!"

"That's what I thought for nine years, Elinor, " said Mo. And then he began his story.