Meggie was kneeling among the flowers – violets and purple bellflowers – most of them fading now, but they were still fragrant and smelled so sweet that she felt dizzy. A wasp was zooming around among them – or did it just look like a wasp? How much had Fenoglio copied from his own world and how much had he made up? It all seemed so familiar and yet so strange.
“Isn’t it lucky he told me about everything in such detail?” Meggie saw Farid’s bare feet. He was swinging through the leaves at a dizzy height. “Dustfinger often couldn’t sleep at night. He was afraid of his dreams. I used to wake him up when they were bad, and then we sat by the fire and I asked him questions. I do that very well. I’m brilliant at asking questions. You bet I am!”
Meggie couldn’t help smiling at the pride in his voice. She looked up at the canopy of foliage and saw that the leaves were turning color, as they had been in Elinor’s garden, too. Did the two worlds keep time with each other? And had they always kept time, or did their stories become inextricably linked only on the day when Mo brought Capricorn, Basta, and Dustfinger from one into the other? She would never find out the answer, for who could know?
There was a rustling under one of the bushes, a thorny shrub, heavy with dark berries. Wolves and bears, cats with dappled fur – Resa had told her about them, too. Involuntarily, Meggie stepped back, but her dress caught on some tall thistles white with their own downy seed heads.
“Farid?” she called, angry with herself when she heard the fear in her voice. “Farid!”
But he didn’t seem to hear her. He was still chattering away to himself high among the branches, carefree as a bird in the sunshine, while she, Meggie, was down here among the shadows.
Shadows that moved, had eyes, growled .. Was that a snake? She freed her dress with such a violent tug that it tore, and stumbled farther back until she came up against the rough trunk of an oak tree. The snake slid past quickly, as if the sight of Meggie had made it mortally afraid, too, but there was still something moving under the bush, and finally a head pushed out from the prickly twigs. It was furry and round-nosed, and it had tiny horns between its ears.
“No!” whispered Meggie. “Oh no!”
Gwin stared at her almost reproachfully, as if he thought it was her fault that his fur was full of fine prickles.
Farid’s voice above her was more distinct now. Obviously, he was finally coming down from his lookout post. “No hut, no castle, nothing in sight!” he called. “It’ll be a few days before we get out of this forest, but that’s how Dustfinger wanted it. He wanted to take his time coming back to the world of humans. I think he was almost more homesick for the trees and fairies than for other people. Well, I don’t know about you – and the trees are beautiful, very beautiful – but personally I’d like to see the castle, too, and the other strolling players, and the men-at-arms.”
He jumped down on the grass, hopped on one leg through the carpet of blue flowers – and let out a cry of delight when he saw the marten. “Gwin! Oh, I knew you’d heard me! Come here, you son of a devil and a snake! Won’t Dustfinger be surprised to see we’ve brought him his old friend after all!”
Oh, won’t he just! thought Meggie. Fear will take his breath away – he’ll go weak at the knees.
The marten jumped onto Farid’s knee as the boy crouched down in the grass, and affectionately licked his chin. He would have bitten anyone else, even Dustfinger, but with Farid he acted like a young kitten.
“Shoo him away, Farid!” Meggie’s voice sounded sharper than she had intended. “Shoo him away?” Farid laughed. “What are you talking about? Hear that, Gwin? What have you done to offend her? Left a dead mouse on one of her precious books?”
“Shoo him away, I said! He’ll be all right on his own, you know he will. Please!” she added, seeing his horrified expression as he looked at her.
Farid straightened up, the marten in his arms. His face was more hostile than she had ever seen it before. Gwin jumped up on his shoulder and stared at Meggie as if he had understood every word she said. Very well, then, she’d just have to tell Farid – but how?
“Didn’t Dustfinger tell you?”
“Tell me what?” He looked at her as if he’d like to hit her. Above them, the wind blew through the leaf canopy like a menacing whisper.
“If you don’t shoo Gwin away,” said Meggie, although each word was difficult to utter, “then Dustfinger will. And he’ll chase you away, too.” The marten was still staring at her.
“Why would he do a thing like that? You don’t like him, that’s what it is. You never liked Dustfinger, and you don’t like Gwin, either.”
“That’s not true! You don’t understand!” Meggie’s voice was loud and shrill. “He’s going to die because of Gwin! Dustfinger dies, that’s how Fenoglio wrote the story! Perhaps it’s been changed, perhaps this is a new story we’re in and everything in the book is just a pile of dead words, but all the same .. ” Meggie hadn’t the heart to go on. Far id stood there shaking his head again and again, as if her words were like needles digging into it, hurting him.
“He’s going to die?” His voice was barely audible. “He dies in the book?”
How lost he looked standing there with the marten still perched on his shoulder! He looked at the trees around them with horror, as if they were all intent on killing Dustfinger. “But but if I’d known that,” he stammered, “I’d have torn up Cheeseface’s wretched piece of paper! I’d never have let him read Dustfinger back!”
Meggie just looked at him. What could she say? “Who kills him? Basta?”
Two squirrels were chasing around overhead. They had white spots as if someone had shaken a paintbrush over them. The marten wanted to go after them, but Farid seized his tail and held it tight.
“One of Capricorn’s men. That’s all Fenoglio wrote!” “But they’re all dead!”
“We don’t know that.” Meggie would have been only too glad to comfort him, but she didn’t know how. “Suppose they’re still alive in this world? And even if they aren’t – Mo and Darius didn’t read all of them out. Some are still sure to be here. Dustfinger tries to save Gwin from them, and they kill him. That’s what it says in the book, and Dustfinger knows it. That’s why he left the marten behind.”
“Yes, so he did.” Farid looked around as if seeking some solution, a way he could send the marten back again. Gwin nuzzled his cheek with his nose, and Meggie saw the tears in Farid’s eyes. “Wait here!” he said, and he turned abruptly and went off with the marten. He had gone only a few paces before the forest swallowed him up like a frog swallowing a fly, and Meggie stood there on her own among the flowers. Some of them grew in Elinor’s garden, too, but this wasn’t Elinor’s garden. This wasn’t even the same world. And this time she couldn’t just close the book and be back again: back in her own room, on the sofa that smelled of Elinor. The world beyond the words on the page was wide – hadn’t she always known it? – wide enough for her to be lost there forever. Only one person could write her out of it again – an old man – and Meggie didn’t even know where he lived in this world he had created. She didn’t even know if he was still alive. Could this world live if its creator was dead? Why not? Books don’t stop existing just because their authors have died, do they?