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‘What’s that supposed to lio’s notes as if they would strike hiue on the spot

‘Best to hide thelio replied as he propelled Basta towards the door

‘If it doesn’t work, old rowled Basta before he closed the door behind hier’s’ Then he was gone, and Fenoglio leaned against the closed door with a satisfied sie

‘So? Three days are a long tiain ‘And I hope we shan’t need that long After all, ant to prevent an execution to, don’t we?’

He spent the rest of the day alternately staring into space and writing like a man possessed More and e handwriting, scrawled iie didn’t disturb hi at the hills and wondering exactly where Mo was hiding a all the branches and leaves there The tin soldier sat beside her, his leg stretched straight out in front of hi with fear in his eyes at the world that was so entirely new to hi of the paper ballerina he loved so le word

46

Woken in the Dead of Night

‘Let us use our ic and enchantments to conjure up a woman out of flowers’ … Math and Gwydyon took the flowers of oak and broom and meadoeet and froirl anyone had seen; they baptized her with the form of baptism that was used then, and named her Blodeuedd

‘Math Son of Mathonwy’,

froht had fallen long ago, but Fenoglio was still writing Under the table lay the sheets of paper he had crues than he had laid aside, collecting those few pages very carefully, as if the words theht slip off the paper When one of the lio hid the written sheets he had kept beneath the covers of his bed Basta did not return that evening Perhaps he was too busy hiding Fenoglio’soutside was so dark that she couldn’t distinguish the hills froht,’ she whispered into the dark, as if Mo could hear her Then she took the tin soldier and clambered up to her bed She put the little soldier by her pillow ‘You’re better off than Tinker Bell, honestly!’ she whispered to hi good luck, and if we ever get out of here I promise I’ll make you a ballerina just like the one in your story’

The tin soldier said nothing in reply to that either He just looked at her with his sad eyes, then, barely perceptibly, he nodded Has he lost his voice too, wondered Meggie, or could he never speak? His mouth did look as if he had never once opened it If I had the book here, she thought, I could read the story and find out, or I could try to bring the ballerina out of it for hipie had the book She had taken all the books away

The tin soldier leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes No, the ballerina would only break his heart, thought Meggie before she fell asleep The last sound she heard was Fenoglio’s pen scribbling over the paper, writing word after word as fast as a weaver’s shuttle turning threads into colourfully patterned cloth …

Meggie did not dreaht – not even a spider scurried through her dreah she dreamed of a room that appeared to be the bedroom in Elinor’s house, she knew that she was at home Mo was there, too, and so was her ie knew she was the woer in Capricorn’s church You know a great s in dreams, often despite the evidence of your eyes You just know them She was about to sit down next to her mother on the old sofa surrounded by Mo’s bookshelves when soain: ‘Meggie!’ She didn’t want to hear it, she wanted the dreaie recognised it Reluctantly, she opened her eyes Fenoglio was standing by her bed, his ink-stained fingers as black as the night beyond the open