Inkspell

40. NO HOPE

Luckily, Darius was a good cook, or Orpheus would probably have locked up Elinor in the cellar again after the very first meal and read himself food to eat out of her books. Thanks to Darius's cooking, however, they were able to spend time upstairs more often – although under the watchful eye of Sugar – for Orpheus liked his food, and plenty of it, and he enjoyed what Darius cooked.

Fearing that otherwise Orpheus might let only Darius upstairs, they pretended that Elinor had concocted all those delicacies with their appetizing aromas and Darius was just her assistant, tirelessly chopping, stirring, and tasting; but as soon as Sugar, getting bored, left the kitchen to stare at the bookshelves, Darius took over the wooden spoon and Elinor the chopping – not that she was much better at chopping than cooking.

Now and then some bewildered figure, looking around as if lost, stumbled into the kitchen. Sometimes the visitor was human, sometimes furry or feathered, once it was even a talking mustard-pot. Elinor could usually work out, from the appearance of each one, which of her poor books Orpheus had in his pale hands at that moment. Tiny men with old-fashioned hairstyles were presumably from Gulliver's Travels. The mustard-pot was very probably from Merlin's cottage, and the enchanting and extremely confused faun who tripped in one lunchtime on delicate goat's hooves must have come from Narnia.

Naturally, Elinor wondered anxiously if all these creatures were in her library when they didn't happen to be standing glassy-eyed in the kitchen, and finally she asked Darius to go and find out, on the pretext of asking what Orpheus wanted to eat. He came back with the reassuring news that her Holy of Holies was still in dreadful disorder, but apart from Orpheus, his horrible dog, and a rather pale gentleman who looked to Darius suspiciously like the Canterville Ghost, no one was pawing, soiling, sniffing, or otherwise damaging Elinor's books.

"Thank God!" she sighed, relieved. "He obviously makes them all disappear again. I must say that appalling man really does know his trade. And it looks as if he can read them out of a book by now without making someone else disappear into it!"

"No doubt about that," remarked Darius – and Elinor thought she heard a trace of envy in his gentle voice.

"He's a monster all the same," she said, in a clumsy attempt to console him. "It's just a pity this house is so well stocked with provisions, or he'd have had to send the wardrobe-man shopping, and then he'd be alone facing the two of us."

As it was, however, days passed by, and there was nothing they could do about either their own imprisonment or the fact that Mortimer and Resa were probably in deadly danger. Elinor tried not even to think of Meggie. And Orpheus, the one person who could obviously have put everything right with such ease, sat in her library like a pale, fat spider, playing with her books and the characters who populated them, as if they were toys to be taken out and put away again.

"How much longer is he planning to go on like this, I ask myself?" she said for about the hundredth time as Darius was putting rice in a serving dish – rice cooked just long enough, of course, so that it was soft but the grains were all separate. "Is he planning to keep us cooking and cleaning for him as unpaid servants for the rest of his life, while he amuses himself with my poor books? In my house?"

Darius did not reply. Instead, and without a word, he piled food onto four plates – this was a meal that certainly wasn't going to send Orpheus out of the house.

"Darius!" whispered Elinor, putting a hand on his thin shoulder. "Won't you just have a try? I know he always keeps the book close to him, but perhaps we can get our hands on it somehow. You could put something in his food…"

"He gets Sugar to taste everything he's going to eat."

"Yes, I know. Right, so we must try something else, anything, and then you can read us into the book! If this repulsive creature won't bring them out for us, then we'll simply go after them!"

But Darius shook his head, as he had done every time Elinor had suggested the same thing, although in slightly different words. "I can't do it, Elinor!" he whispered, and his glasses clouded over, whether with the steam of cooking or tears rising to his eyes she thought it better not to inquire. "I've never read anyone into a book, only out of it, and you know what happened then."

"Oh, all right, then read someone here, someone strong and heroic who'll chase those two out of my house! Who cares if his nose has been flattened or he's lost his voice like Resa, just so long as he has plenty of muscles!"

As if on cue, Sugar put his head around the door. Elinor wasconstantly amazed to see that it was not much wider than his neck. "Orpheus wants to know where dinner is."

"Just ready," replied Darius, handing him one of the steaming plates.

"Rice again?" growled Sugar.

"Yes, sorry about that," said Darius, as he pushed past him with Orpheus's plate.

"And you see about the dessert!" Sugar ordered Elinor as she was about to put the first forkful into her own mouth.

No, this just couldn't go on. Acting the kitchen maid in her own house, with a horrible man in her library throwing her books on the floor, treating them like boxes of chocolates, nibbling something from one book here, another there.

There must be a way to do it, she thought, spooning walnut ice cream into two dishes with a gloomy expression on her face. There must. There must. Why couldn't her stupid brain work it out?