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Meggie followed Elinor down the unlit corridor For a ht step out of one of the ht on in the whole vast house, and once or twice Meggie bumped her knee on a chair or a little table that she hadn’t seen in the gloom ‘Why is it so dark everywhere here?’ she asked as Elinor felt around for the light switch in the entrance hall

‘Because I’d rather spend my money on books than unnecessary electricity,’ replied Elinor, looking at the light she had turned on as if she thought the stupid thing should go easy on the power Then she made her way over to a metal box fixed to the wall near the front door and hidden behind a thick, dusty curtain ‘I hope you switched your light off before you knocked on my door?’ she asked, as she opened the box

‘Of course,’ said Meggie, although it wasn’t true

‘Turn round!’ Elinor told her before setting to work on the alarm system She frowned ‘Heavens, all these knobs! I hope I haven’t done soain Tell me as soon as the show’s over – and don’t even think of seizing your chance to slink into the library and take a book off the shelves Re is keener than a bat’s’

Meggie bit back the answer on the tip of her tongue Elinor opened the front door Without a word, Meggie pushed past her and went outside It was aof crickets ‘Were you always as nice as this to my mother?’ she asked as Elinor was about to close the door behind her

Elinor looked at her for a moment as if turned to stone ‘Oh yes, I think so,’ she said ‘Yes, I’m sure I was And she was always as cheeky as you, too! Have fun with your fire-eater!’ Then she shut the door

As Meggie was going through the dark garden behind the house she suddenly heard unexpectedfor Meggie’s footsteps: strange music, a carnival mixture of bells, pipes and druie wouldn’t have been surprised to find a whole troop of fairground entertainers waiting for her on the lawn behind Elinor’s house, but only Dustfinger stood there

He aiting where Meggie had found him that afternoon The rass beside the wooden deckchair Dustfinger had placed a garden bench on the edge of the lawn for his audience Lighted torches were stuck into the ground to the right and left of it, and twoshadows in the night The shadows danced across the grass like servants conjured up by Dustfinger from some dark world for this occasion He himself stood there bare-chested, his skin as pale as the ht above Elinor’s house as if it too had turned up especially for Dustfinger’s show

When Meggie eer bowed to her ‘Sit down, pretty lady!’ he called over thefor you’

Shyly, Meggie sat down on the bench and looked around her The two dark glass bottles she had seen in Dustfinger’s bag were standing on the deckchair So whitish shier had filled it with ed between the wooden rungs of the chair, and beside the cassette recorder stood a bucket and a large, big-bellied vase, which if Meggie remembered correctly came from Elinor’s entrance hall

For a moment, she let her eyes wander to the s of the house There was no light in Mo’s bedroo – but one floor below Meggie saw Elinor standing at her lightedThe ie looked her way she drew the curtain, as if she had felt Meggie watching her, but she still stayed at theHer shadoas a dark outline against the pale yellow curtain

‘Do you hear how quiet it is?’ Dustfinger switched the recorder off The silence of the night fell on Meggie’s ears, muffled as if by cotton wool Not a leafand the chirping of the crickets

Dustfinger switched the music back on ‘I had a private ith the wind,’ he said ‘There’s one thing you should know: if the wind takes it into its head to play with fire then even I can’t taave ht and not spoil our fun’

So saying, he picked up one of the torches from Elinor’s deckchair He sipped fro whitish out into the big vase Then he dipped the torch he was holding into the bucket, took it out again, and held its dripping head of wadding to one of its burning sisters The fire flared up so suddenly it er put the second bottle to his lips, filling hisThen he took a deep, deep breath, arched his body like a bow, and spat whatever was in historch

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 flaer himself But he just spun round and round on the spot, exuberant as a dancing child, breathing out h in the air, as if to set the stars alight Then he lit a second torch and ran its fla with a pet ani, burning creature that he had befriended, a creature that caressed hiht away He threw the torch high in the air where the fireball had just been blazing, caught it as it caled with three, four, five torches Their fire whirled around hier the tamer of flames, the man who breathed sparks, the friend of fire He made the torches disappear as if the darkness had devoured theie with a sht’s black face

Afterwards, she could never say what had distracted her attention fro her look up once more at the house and its s 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 and strange as the terror she had felt on the night when she first saw Dustfinger standing out in the yard As she ju torch slipped frorass He quickly trod the fire out 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 towards 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