Abarat: The First Book of Hours - Barker Clive - Страница 49

Once again Candy changed the subject.

“Back in the Hereafter,” she said, “we have people who catch stray animals and find new homes for them. Or if they can’t do that, then they have them put down.”

“Homes?” Wolfswinkel said, his tone incredulous. “Who would give a home to any one of those monsters! The Infernal Regions is the only home the tarries deserve. Anyway, they can’t be caught. They’re too quick. They have to be tricked. Poison! That’s the way. You see that plate of fish on the table by the door? It contains enough scathrassic acid to kill a whole pack of them. If only I could just get them to eat it. But they’re suspicious of me.” He paused, then he snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Maybe you’d have more luck! Yes. I believe you would.”

“Me?” said Candy.

“Yes, you! If they saw you putting out the food—you, whom they don’t really know—they’d be fooled into taking it.” He looked smugly satisfied with his little plan. “You just need to be very casual—” He started to get up from his armchair.

“Wait!” Candy said. “I don’t want to disappoint you, Mr. Wolfswinkel, especially as you’ve been so kind and all, but I’m not going to poison cats for you.”

“If they were just cats I’d understand your moral dilemma, Miss Quackenbush. But they’re not. They’re hellspawn. Trust me on this. Hellspawn. After all the harm they’ve done—not just to me, but to poor, innocent people right across Ninnyhammer—scathrassic acid is kinder than they deserve, believe me. If there were any justice in heaven, they’d be struck down by lightning, every last one of them!”

Before Candy could reply to this outburst from her host, there was a sound from an adjacent room.

“What was that?” she said.

“Oh, it was just the wind,” Wolfswinkel replied hurriedly. “Take no notice.”

“It didn’t sound like the wind,” Candy said, getting up out of her chair. “It sounded like a voice. Like somebody crying.”

“Oh! Crying! Well, yes. Of course there’s crying! I didn’t want to depress you when you first arrived, but there are several mourners here in the house with me.”

“Mourners?”

“One of my friends—a dear, dear friend—was killed by the tarrie-cats just yesterday, and we’re having a wake on his behalf. You know, gathering to toast his memory and tell tales of what a fine fellow he was.”

“Really?” Candy said. Something about this explanation didn’t quite ring true. “If there’s a wake going on,” she said, “then why are you wearing a bright yellow suit?”

Wolfswinkel glanced down at his jaundiced ensemble, then feigned a look of surprise. “This is yellow!” he said. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, dear,” he said pitifully. “Poor Kaspar. The blindness is getting worse.”

“You’re saying you didn’t realize that was a yellow suit?” said Candy, more and more certain that her suspicions were correct, and that this strange little man was for some reason deceiving her.

“Yes,” Kaspar said, putting his hand to his brow, as though the drama was too much for him. But Candy wasn’t convinced by his hammy theatrics. Her real interest now was to discover who had made the grieving sound she’d heard.

She got up from her chair and went to the adjoining door, through which the sound of sobbing had come.

“Where are all these mourners then?” she said, as she went. Kaspar moved to stop her, but he wasn’t quick enough. Candy stepped through the door into the next room.

Just as she’d suspected, there was neither a casket here, nor a corpse, nor so much as a single mourner. There was simply a dark, cluttered room, one of its walls dominated by a huge portrait of Kaspar sitting on an animal that looked like a cross between a giant armadillo and a camel.

“There’s no wake going on in this house!” Candy snapped. “You were lying to me. I can’t bear liars!”

Kaspar had followed her through the door. “So what if I was?” he replied, nonchalantly. “It’s my house. I can lie in my house if I want to. I can run around in the nude yelling hallelujahs if I so desire.”

“Didn’t anybody ever tell you it was rude to lie?”

“Maybe I can’t help it,” Kaspar said. “Maybe I’ve got an incurable disease that makes me lie. Poor Kaspar.”

“Oh,” Candy said. “And do you have such a disease?”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.”

“Oh, stop it,” Candy snapped, her temper stretched to breaking point. “Can’t you simply tell me the truth?”

“Well… yes, I suppose I could. But where would the fun be in that?”

“You know what?” Candy said. “This is a ridiculous conversation. And you are a ridiculous little man.”

She turned on her heel and started to walk back toward the door she’d just walked through.

“I wouldn’t go out there if I were you. The tarrie-cats are still out there.”

“So what?” said Candy. “I’d prefer to take my chances with them than stay in here another—”

Before she could finish, Kaspar stepped into the doorway, blocking her path.

“What are you doing?” Candy said. “Get out of my way.”

He didn’t reply to this. He simply raised his arm, put his stubby-fingered hand over Candy’s face, and shoved.

Candy stumbled backward, her foot catching on a rucked-up rug. Down she went, on her tailbone. It hurt, and she yelped.

“I think you should stop being so judgmental, little missy,” Wolfswinkel said, every little trace of kindliness abruptly gone from his face. He stood over her and looked her dead in the eye. “Believe me, I’ve done worse than lying in my life. A whole lot worse.”

“I believe you have,” Candy said softly.

She started to scramble to her feet. Wolfswinkel neatly kicked the legs from under her, and down she went for a second time. She was beginning to get a little scared of Wolfswinkel now. He might look like a clown, with his stupid hats and his yellow suit, but then she’d always been a little afraid of clowns.

“I want to leave now,” she told him.

“Do you indeed? Well, I’m afraid you’re not going to. You’re going to stay here with me.”

“You can’t keep me here. I’m not—”

“—a child? You are to me. To me you are an infant. A baby with no one to protect you. I’d lay a bet that nobody even knows you’re here.”

Candy didn’t reply, but her silence was all the confirmation Wolfswinkel required.

“I didn’t lie about one thing,” Kaspar said.

“What was that?”

“I did whisper an incantation when I saw you. I prayed you’d make the mistake of ignoring the tarrie-cats who were trying to warn you about coming up here. Lo and behold, my supplications were answered! Into my hands you came, like a stupid little fish.”

“One minute I’m a baby, the next minute I’m a fish,” Candy snapped. “Make up your mind!”

She was feeling more afraid of Wolfswinkel by the moment, but she wasn’t going to show it.

“My error,” Kaspar said. “You’re not a baby, and you’re not a fish. You’re a hostage.”

“A what?”

“You heard me: a hostage. I’ll bet there are people out there who would pay a few thousand zem to have you in their hands.”

“Well, you can forget that,” Candy said. “I don’t have any friends in the Abarat.”

“Now who’s lying?” Wolfswinkel said, bending down to poke Candy. “Of course you’ve got friends. A pretty girl like you? You’ve probably got half a dozen boys pining away for you.”

Candy laughed out loud at the preposterousness of this.

“Then you have family.”

“Not here I don’t,” Candy said, thinking, while she spoke, of how quickly she could squirm out from between Wolfswinkel’s legs and get to the door. “My parents are—”

“—in Chickentown.”

“Yes.”

“Hmm,” said Wolfswinkel. “Well give me time. I’ll find somebody here who wants you. Somebody who’ll pay a price. Malingo? Where are you? Malingo! Present yourself before me right now, or I’ll have your hide for boot leather.”