The Petrified Flesh by Cornelia Funke

Author:Cornelia Funke [Cornelia Funke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782691273
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2016-10-23T04:00:00+00:00

31

WHAT IF…

Without the horses it took them hours to reach a road that led from the valley up into the mountains. Jacob missed the mare and hoped the Goyl were as kind to their horses as rumors said. One’s horse was, if well chosen, a treasured companion behind the mirror, and Jacob remembered them all, the ones he had lost, the ones that had run away… The two horses he finally bought from a farmer were no competition for any of those but better than walking. The Dwarf protested elaborately when Jacob acquired a donkey for him, but he soon was so pleased with it that he filled their ears with musings about the advantages of a smaller body.

The paths leading north got steeper with every mile, but Jacob only stopped when even the donkey was stumbling in the dark. They found shelter beneath a ledge that shielded them from the wind, and soon Valiant was snoring as loudly as if he had crawled into one of the soft beds Dwarf inns were famous for. The vixen disappeared into the night to hunt and Jacob advised Clara to sleep behind the horses so that they could keep her warm.

He himself lit a fire with some dry wood he’d found among the rocks, and stared into the night, listening to his own heartbeat, as probably anyone does if he has come back from the Dead. He remembered darkness. And then light. The feeling of having left something important unfinished, and the wish to forget about it and to get lost in the light. Peace. Yes, he remembered that feeling of peace very clearly. Of being everything and nothing. And then… he had heard the voice of the Fairy. Miranda’s voice, calling him. And there had been wings. Red wings. And Fox. Yes, she was what he had come back for. Not the Fairy, not even Will, just the vixen.

But now everything was coming back, while the fire was dancing away the night: the unicorn graveyard, the rose, and the way his brother had looked at him when he had felt its spell. When you wake up, all this will be over, I promise.

How, Jacob? Even if the Dwarf didn’t double-cross him again. Even if he managed to find the Dark Fairy in the Goyl’s Royal Fortress. How was he going to get close enough to her to use what her sister had revealed to him?

“Jacob?” Clara was standing behind him, a horse blanket around her shoulders. “You can’t sleep?”

Jacob could still hear the disbelief in her voice that he was actually alive. And how much it frightened her. It frightened him too.

“Yes. That is to be expected, isn’t it?” he answered. “A few minutes in Death make up for many hours of sleep, I guess.”

An owl was screaming above them. In this world, owls were regarded as the souls of dead Witches. Clara knelt down next to him and held her hands above the warming flames.

“Please tell me. What did you learn on that island?”

She looked terribly tired.

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