Cornelia Funke - Inkheart

Fenoglio took a sip of the black coffee that Flatnose had brought him and choked.

"Don't you fancy that kind of thing, grandpa?" Flatnose looked at him sneeringly. "Take my word for it, Capricorn's executions are something to remember!"

"Who do you think you're telling?" muttered Fenoglio unhappily.

At that moment someone knocked on the door. Flatnose had left it ajar, and Darius the reader put his head around it.

"Sorry!" he breathed, looking at Flatnose as anxiously as a bird obliged to get close to a hungry cat. "I – er – I'm to get the girl to read something aloud. Capricorn's orders. "

"Really? Well, let's just hope she reads something useful out of a book this time. Basta showed me the fairy. She doesn't even sprinkle any fairy dust, however hard you shake her. " Flatnose looked at Meggie with a mixture of dislike and respect. Perhaps he thought she was some kind of a witch. "Knock when you want to come out again, " he grunted, pushing past Darius.

Darius nodded and stood there for a moment before sitting down at the table with Meggie and Fenoglio, looking embarrassed. He stared greedily at the fruit until Fenoglio pushed the basket over to him. Tentatively, he took an apricot and put it into his mouth as if he thought he would never in his life taste anything so delicious again.

"Good heavens, it's only an apricot!" laughed Fenoglio. "Not exactly a rare fruit in these latitudes. "

Darius spat the apricot stone out into his hand, still looking awkward. "Whenever they shut me up in this room, " he said timidly, "they gave me nothing but dry bread. And they took my books away, too, but I managed to hide some of them, and when the hunger got too bad I looked at the pictures in them. The best was a picture of apricots. I sometimes sat for hours staring at the painted fruit with my mouth watering. Ever since then I just can't control myself when I see apricots. "

Meggie took another apricot from the basket and put it into his hand. "Did they often shut you up?" she asked.

The thin little man shrugged. "Yes, whenever I didn't read something out of a book properly, " he replied evasively. "Well, that meant all the time, really. Then they finally gave up because they realized that my reading didn't exactly improve when they frightened me. On the contrary. Take Flatnose, for instance. " He lowered his voice, casting a nervous glance at the door. "I read Flatnose out while Basta was standing beside me with his knife. Well…" He raised his narrow shoulders regretfully.

Meggie looked at him sympathetically. Then she asked hesitantly, "Did you ever read any women out of that story?"

Fenoglio looked at her uneasily.

"Certainly, " Darius replied. "I read Mortola out of the book! She says I made her older and as rickety as a chair cob bled together badly, but I really don't think I got too much wrong with her. Luckily Capricorn agreed."

"Any younger women?" Meggie was looking at neither Darius nor Fenoglio.

"Oh yes, " Darius sighed. "On the same day as I read Mortola out. I remember it very well. Capricorn was living up in the north then, at a lonely, half-ruined farm in the mountains, and there weren't many local girls around. I myself was living not far away, in my sister's house. I worked as a teacher, but in my free time I read aloud now and then in libraries and schools, or for children's parties, and sometimes on warm summer evenings I even read in a square or cafe. I loved reading aloud."

His gaze wandered to the window, as if he could catch a glimpse there of those long-forgotten, happier days. "I think Basta noticed me when I was reading aloud at a party in the village – a passage from Dr. Dolittle – and all of a sudden there was a bird flying around. I really didn't know I had the gift – perhaps it was something to do with Basta being there. Anyway, when I went home Basta caught me as if I were a stray dog and took me to Capricorn. First he made me read gold out of books, like your father did," he said, smiling sadly at Meggie, "but then I had to read Mortola out for him, and after that he told me to read his maidservants out, too. It was terrible." Darius pushed his glasses up on his nose with trembling fingers. "I was so scared. How can you read aloud well when you're terrified? He made me try three times. Oh, I felt so sorry for them – I don't want to talk about it!" He buried his face in his hands, which were as bony as an old man's. Meggie thought she heard him sob, and for a moment she hesitated to ask her next question, but then she did.

"The maid they call Resa, " she said, her heart beating in her mouth. "Was she one of them?"

Darius took his hands away from his face. "Yes, she came out quite by chance, " he said huskily. "Capricorn had really wanted another of them, but suddenly there was Resa, and at first I thought I'd got it right for once. She looked so beautiful, almost improbably beautiful with her golden hair and her sad eyes. But then we realized she couldn't speak. Well, that didn't bother Capricorn; in fact I think he liked it. " He searched his pants pocket and brought out a crumpled hand kerchief. "I really could read better once, " he said, sniffing. "But this constant fear… May I?" With a sad smile he took another apricot and bit into it. Then he wiped the juice from his mouth with his sleeve, cleared his throat, and gazed straight at Meggie. His eyes looked curiously large behind the thick lenses of his glasses.

"At the – er – festivities that Capricorn's planning, " he said, lowering his gaze and running his finger awkwardly along the edge of the table, "the idea, as you probably know, is for you to read from Inkheart . The book's being kept in a secret place until that time comes. Only Capricorn knows where it is. So you won't see it before the – er – occasion. Which means that we're to use another book for the latest test Capricorn wants of your talents. Luckily, there are a few other books in this village, not many, but anyway, I've been told to choose something suitable. " He raised his head again and gave a small, slight smile. "Fortunately, I didn't have to look for gold and such treasures this time. All Capricorn wants is proof of your skill, and so, " he said, pushing a small book over the table, "so I chose this one. "

Meggie bent over the cover. "Collected Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, " she read aloud. She looked at Darius. "They're beautiful stories. "

"Yes, " he breathed. "Sad, but very, very beautiful. " Reaching over the table, he opened the book for Meggie at a place that he had marked with a couple of long blades of grass slipped between the yellowed pages. "First I thought of my favorite story, the one about the nightingale. Maybe you know it?"

Meggie nodded.

"But the fairy you read out of the book yesterday isn't happy in the jug where Basta has put her, " Darius went on, "so I thought it might be better if you tried the tin soldier."

The tin soldier. Meggie did not reply at once. The brave tin soldier in his little paper boat – she imagined him suddenly appearing beside the fruit basket. "No!" she said. "No. I've told Capricorn already, I won't read anything out of a book for him, not even as a test. Tell him I can't do it anymore. Just tell him I tried and nothing came out of the story!"

Darius gave her a sympathetic look. "Oh, I would, " he said quietly. "Really I would. But it's the Magpie -" he said, quickly putting his hand to his mouth as if he had said too much. "Sorry, I mean the housekeeper, of course, Signora Mortola – it's her you have to read aloud to. I've only chosen the story. "

The Magpie. An image of her flashed into Meggie's mind, watching her with her birdlike eyes. Suppose I bite my tongue? she thought. Very hard. She had done that a few times by mistake, and once her tongue had swelled up so much she had to talk to Mo in sign language for two days. She looked at Fenoglio for help.