Even as she read the first few words, she sensed that Fenoglio had done his work well yet again. She felt it like breath on her face. The letters on the page were alive, the story was alive. It wanted to take those words and grow. That was what it wanted. Had Fenoglio felt the same when he wrote them?
"One day, when Death had taken much prey again," began Meggie, and it was almost as if she were reading a familiar book that she had only just laid aside, "Fenoglio the great poet decided to write no more. He was tired of words and their seductive power. He had had enough of the way they cheated and scorned him and kept silent when they should have spoken. So he called on another, younger man, Orpheus by name – skilled in letters, even if he could not yet handle them with the mastery of Fenoglio himself – and decided to instruct him in his art, as every master does at some time. For a while Orpheus should play with words in his place, seduce and lie with them, create and destroy, banish and restore – while Fenoglio waited for his weariness to pass, for his pleasure in words to reawaken, and then he would send Orpheus back to the world from which he had summoned him, to keep his story alive with new words never used before."
Meggie's voice died away. It echoed underground as if it had a shadow. And just as silence was spreading around them, they heard footsteps.
Footsteps on the damp stone.
75. ALONE AGAIN
"Hope" is the thing with feathers.
Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson
Orpheus disappeared right in front of Elinor's eyes. She was standing only a few steps from him, holding the bottle of wine he had demanded, when he simply vanished into thin air – into less than thin air, into nothing – as if he had never been there at all, as if she had only dreamed him. The bottle slipped from her hand, fell on the wooden floorboards of the library, and broke among the books that Orpheus had left open there.
The dog began to howl so horribly that Darius came racing out of the kitchen. The wardrobe-man didn't bar his way. He was simply staring at the place where Orpheus had been standing a moment ago. His voice trembling, he had been reading from a sheet of paper lying on one of Elinor's glass display cases right in front of him and clutching Inkheart to his breast, as if he could force the book to accept him at last in that way. Elinor had stopped as if turned to stone when she realized what he was trying to do for the hundredth, even the thousandth time. Perhaps they'll come back out of the book to replace him, she had thought, or at least one of them: Meggie, Resa, Mortimer. Each of the three names tasted so bitter on her tongue, as bitter as all that is lost. But now Orpheus had gone, and none of the three had come back. Only the damned dog refused to stop howling.
"He's done it," whispered Elinor. "Darius, he's done it! He's over there… they're all over there. All except for us!"
For a moment she felt infinitely sorry for herself. Here she was, Elinor Loredan, among all her books, and they wouldn't let her in, not one of them would let her in. Closed doors enticing her, filling her heart with longing, and then letting her go no farther than the doorway. Accursed, blasted, heartless things! Full of empty promises, full of false lures, always making you hungry, never satisfying you, never!
But you once saw it quite differently, Elinor! she reminded herself, wiping the tears from her eyes. So what? Wasn't she old enough to change her mind, to bury an old love that had betrayed her miserably? They had not let her in. All the others were between their pages now, but she wasn't. Poor Elinor, poor, lonely Elinor! She sobbed so loudly that she had to put her hand over her mouth.
Darius cast her a sympathetic glance and hesitantly came to her side. Well, at least he was still with her, that was one good thing. And of course he could read her thoughts in her face, as always. But he couldn't help her, either.
I want to be with them, she thought despairingly. They're my family: Resa and Meggie and Mortimer. I want to see the Wayless Wood and feel a fairy settle on my hand again, I want to meet the Black Prince even if it means smelling his bear, I want to hear Dustfinger talking to fire even if I still can't stand the man! I want, I want, I want…
"Oh, Darius!" sobbed Elinor. "Why didn't the wretched fellow take me, too?" But Darius just looked at her with his wise, owl-like eyes.
"Hey, where did he go? That bastard still owed me money!" Sugar went to the place where Orpheus had disappeared and looked all around him, as if Orpheus might be stuck among the bookshelves somewhere. "Damn it, what does he think he's doing, just vanishing like that?" He bent down and picked up a sheet of paper.
The sheet of paper that Orpheus had been reading from! Had he taken the book with him but left behind the words that had opened the door for him? If so, then all was not lost after all… With determination, Elinor snatched the sheet of paper from Sugar's hand. "Give me that!" she demanded, clutching it to her breast just as Orpheus had clutched the book. The wardrobe-man's face darkened.
Two very different feelings seemed to be struggling with each other on his face: anger at Elinor's boldness, and fear of the written words that she was pressing to her breast so passionately. For a moment Elinor wasn't sure which would get the upper hand. Darius came up behind her, as if he seriously intended to defend her if necessary, but luckily Sugar's face cleared again, and he began to laugh.
"Well, fancy that!" he mocked her. "What do you want that scrap of paper for? Do you want to disappear into thin air, too, like Orpheus and the Magpie and your two friends? Feel free, but first I want the wages Orpheus and the old woman still owe me!" And he looked around Elinor's library as if he might see something in it that would do instead of payment.
"Your wages, yes, of course, I understand!" said Elinor quickly, leading him to the door. "I still have some money hidden in my room. Darius, you know where it is. Give it to him, all that's left, just so long as he goes away."
Darius did not look very enthusiastic, but Sugar gave such a broad smile that you could see every one of his bad teeth. "Well, that sounds like sense at last!" lie grunted and stomped after Darius who, resigned to this development, led him to Elinor's room.
But Elinor stayed behind in the library.
How quiet it suddenly was there. Orpheus had indeed sent all the characters he had read out of their books back into them again. Only his dog was still there, tail drooping as it sniffed the spot where its master had been standing only a few minutes before.
"So empty!" Elinor murmured. "So empty." She felt desolate. Almost more so than on the day when the Magpie had taken Mortimer and Resa away. The book into which they had all disappeared was gone. What happened to a book that disappeared into its own story?
Oh, forget the book, Elinor! she thought as a tear ran down her nose. How are you ever going to find, them again now?
Orpheus's words. They swam before her eyes as she looked at the paper. Yes, they must have taken him over there, what else? Carefully, she opened the glass case on which the paper had been lying before Orpheus disappeared, took out the book inside it – a wonderfully illustrated edition of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales signed by the author himself – and put the sheet of paper in its place.
76. A NEW POET
The joy of writing
The power of preserving,
Revenge of a mortal hand.
Wislawa Szymborska, "The Joy of Writing,"
View with a Grain of Sand
At first Orpheus could hardly be seen in the shadows filling the gallery like black breath. He stepped hesitantly into the light of the oil lamp by whose light Meggie had been reading. She thought she saw him put something under his jacket, but she couldn't make out what it was. Perhaps a book.