Free Inkheart by Cornelia Funke Page B

sisters. The fire flared up so suddenly it made Meggie jump. However, Dustfinger put the second bottle to his lips, filling his mouth until his scarred cheeks were 39

    bulging. Then he took a deep, deep breath, arched his body like a bow, and spat whatever was in his mouth out into the air above the burning torch.
    A fireball hung over Elinor's lawn, a bright, blazing globe of fire. It ate away at the darkness like a living thing. And it was so big, Meggie felt sure everything around it would go up in flames: the grass, the deck chair, and Dustfinger himself. But he just spun around and around on the spot, exuberant as a dancing child, breathing out more fire. He made the fire climb high in the air, as if to set the stars alight. Then he lit a second torch and ran its flame over his bare arms. He looked as happy as a child playing with a pet animal. The fire licked his skin like something living, a darting, burning creature that he had befriended, a creature that caressed him and danced for him and drove the night away. He threw the torch high in the air where the fireball had just been blazing, caught it as it came down, lit more, juggled with three, four, five torches. Their fire whirled around him, danced with him but never hurt him: Dustfinger the tamer of flames, the man who breathed sparks, the friend of fire. He made the torches disappear as if the darkness had devoured them, bowed to the speechless Meggie with a smile, before once more spitting fire out into the night's black face.
    Afterward, she could never say what had distracted her attention from the whirling torches and the showers of sparks, making her look up once more at the house and its windows. Perhaps you feel the presence of evil on your skin like sudden heat or cold .. or perhaps it was just that the light now seeping through the library shutters caught her eye, the light falling on the rhododendron bushes where their leaves pressed close to the wood. Perhaps.
    She thought she heard voices rising above Dustfinger's music, men's voices, and a terrible fear rose inside her, as dark strange as the terror she had felt on the night when she first saw Dustfinger standing out in the yard. As she jumped up, a burning torch slipped from his hands and fell on the grass. He quickly trod out the fire before it could spread any further, then followed the direction of Meggie's eyes, and he, too, looked at the house without a word.
    Meggie began to run. Gravel crunched under her feet as she raced toward the house. The front door stood ajar, there was no light in the entrance hall, but Meggie heard loud voices echoing down the corridor that led to the library. "Mo?" she called, and there was the fear back again, digging its curved beak into her heart, taking her breath away.
    The library door was open, too, Meggie was about to rush in when two strong hands grasped her by the shoulders.
    "Quiet!" breathed Elinor, pulling her into her bedroom. Meggie saw that her fingers were shaking as she locked the door.
    "Don't!" Meggie dragged Elinor's hand away and tried to turn the key. She wanted to shout that she must help her father, but Elinor put a hand over her mouth and pulled her away from the door, hard as Meggie struggled, hitting and kicking. Elinor was strong, much stronger than Meggie.
    "There are too many of them!" Elinor whispered as Meggie tried to bite her fingers. "About four or five, big strong men, and they're armed." She hauled the struggling Meggie over to the wall by the bed. "I've told myself a hundred times — oh, a thousand times! — I ought to buy a revolver!"
    she muttered, pressing her ear to the wall.
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    "Of course it's here!" The voice carried through the wall without Meggie having to strain to hear it, rasping like a cat's tongue. "Should we get your little daughter from the garden to show us just where? Or would you rather find it for us yourself?"
    Meggie tried to pull Elinor's hand away from her mouth. "Stop it, for goodness sake!" Elinor