Cornelia Funke - Inkheart

"Get the book away from her!" shouted Capricorn. He was standing in front of his chair, bent double as if he feared his legs would refuse to obey him if he took so much as a step toward the Shadow. "Get it away from her!"

But none of his remaining men moved, none of the boys and none of the women came to his aid. They had eyes for nothing but the Shadow as he stood there listening to Meggie's voice, as if she were telling him a long-forgotten tale.

"Indeed, he wanted revenge, " Meggie read on. If only her voice weren't shaking so much, but it wasn't easy to kill, even if someone else was going to do it for her. "So the Shadow went to his master and reached out to him with ashen hands…"

How soundlessly it moved, that terrible, gigantic figure!

Meggie stared at Fenoglio's next sentence. And Capricorn fell down on his face, and his black heart stopped beating – She couldn't say it. She couldn't. It had all been in vain.

Then, suddenly, someone else was standing behind her. She hadn't even noticed him climbing up onto the rostrum. The boy was there, too, holding a shotgun aimed at the benches – but no one sitting there stirred. No one so much as lifted a finger to save Capricorn. And Mo took the book from Meggie's hands, ran his eyes over the lines Fenoglio had added, and in a firm voice read to the end of what the old man had written.

"And Capricorn fell down on his face, and his black heart stopped beating, and all those who had gone burning and murdering with him disappeared – blown away like ashes in the wind. "

So Capricorn died, just as Fenoglio had written, and Cockerell disappeared at the same moment his master fell to the ground, and with him more than half the men on the benches. The rest ran away, all of them, the boys and women, too. Those heading toward the village met some of Capricorn's men running back from extinguishing the fire. Their faces were smeared with soot and full of horror, and not because of the flames that had been licking around Capricorn's house, for they had put those out. No. They had seen Flatnose and several other men vanish into thin air before their very eyes. They were gone, as if the darkness had swallowed them up, as if they had never existed. And perhaps that was the truth of it. The man who had made them had now destroyed them, erased them like mistakes in a drawing, like marks on white paper. They were gone, and the others, the men who had not been born of Fenoglio's words, were hurrying back to tell Capricorn what had happened. But Capricorn lay on his face with gravel clinging to his red suit, and never again would anyone tell him anything – about fire and smoke, about fear and death. Never again.

Only the Shadow still stood there, a figure so tall that the men running across the parking lot saw him from afar, gray before the black night sky, his eyes two blazing red stars, and they forgot the master they had been going to serve. Every one of them ran for the cars. They wanted only to get away, far away, before the being who had been summoned like a dog turned and devoured them all.

Meggie did not come to her senses properly until they had all gone. She had nestled her head under Mo's arm, as she always did when she simply didn't want to see the world. Mo put the book under the jacket, which had almost made him look like one of Capricorn's henchmen. And he held her tight while all about them people were running and screaming. Only the Shadow stood perfectly still, as if killing his master had sapped all his power.

"Farid, " Meggie heard Mo say, "can you get that cage open? "

Only then did she bring her head out from under Mo's arm and see that the Magpie was still there. Why hadn't she disappeared, too? Darius was still holding on to her as if he was afraid of what would happen if he let go. But she was no longer kicking and struggling. She was just looking at Capricorn, with tears running down her sharp-boned face, over her small soft chin, and falling like rain onto her dress.

Agile as Gwin, Farid jumped down from the rostrum and ran over to the cage, without once taking his eyes off the Shadow. However, the Shadow just stood there motionless, as if he would never move again.

"Meggie, " whispered Mo. "Let's go over to the prisoners, shall we? Poor Elinor looks exhausted, and there's someone else I want to introduce to you." Farid was already busy with the door of the cage, but the two women inside were watching them.

"You don't need to introduce her, " said Meggie, squeezing his hand. "I know who she is. I've known for ages. I wanted so much to tell you, but you weren't here, and now there's something else we have to read first. The last few sentences. " She took the book out from under Mo's jacket and leafed through it until she found Fenoglio's sheet of paper still among the pages. "He wrote them on the other side; there wasn't any space left on the first page, " she said. "He just can't make his handwriting small."

Fenoglio!

Meggie lowered the sheet of paper and looked around, searching for him, but she couldn't see him anywhere. Had Capricorn's men taken him with them, or -?

"Mo, he's gone!" she said, dismayed.

"I'll go and look for him in a moment, " Mo reassured her. "But now read the rest, quick! Or should I do it?"

"No, I will. "

The Shadow was beginning to move again. He took a step toward the dead Capricorn, staggered back, and turned as clumsily as a dancing bear. Meggie thought she heard a groan.

Farid ducked down behind the cage when the red eyes looked his way. Her mother and Elinor flinched, too, but Meggie read in a firm voice:

There stood the Shadow, and his memories hurt so much they almost tore him apart. He heard them in his head, all those screams and sighs, he thought he could feel tears on his gray skin. Their fear burned his eyes like smoke. Then, quite suddenly, he felt something different, something that made him shudder and forced him to his knees. Then his whole terrible figure disintegrated, and suddenly they were all back again, all the beings from whose ashes the Shadow had been made: men, women, and children, dogs and cats, goblins, fairies, and many more as well.

Meggie saw the arena filling up with them. More and more of them were gathering in a throng where the Shadow had collapsed, all looking around as if they'd just woken from a deep sleep. She read Fenoglio's last sentence.

They woke as if from a bad dream and, at last, everything was all right again.

"He isn't here anymore!" said Meggie when Mo took Fenoglio's sheet of paper from her and put it back in the book. "Fenoglio's gone, Mo! He's in the story now. I know he is. "

Mo looked at the book and tucked it back under his jacket. "Yes, I think you're right, " he said. "But if so, there's nothing we can do about it for the moment. Perhaps the story now goes on beyond the book. " He led Meggie away with him down from the rostrum, past all the people and the strange creatures crowding into the arena outside Capricorn's village as if they had always been there. Darius followed them. He had finally let go of the Magpie, who was now standing with her bony hands gripping the back of the chair where Meggie had been sitting. She was weeping soundlessly, her face crumpled, as if her whole being were made of tears.

A tiny, blue-skinned fairy apologized profusely when it fluttered into Meggie's hair as she and Mo went toward the cage containing her mother and Elinor. Then a shaggy creature who looked half-human, half-animal stumbled across her path, and finally she almost stepped on a tiny little man who seemed to be made entirely of glass. Capricorn's village had acquired some strange new inhabitants.