Fearless (Mirrorworld) - By Cornelia Funke Page 0,54

Was her mother standing behind the door, once more hearing the impact of the stones on the ground and on her child’s skin? It felt like an eternity before she pushed back the latch.

She’d grown old. The long black hair was now grey, and her beauty had all but faded, washed, little by little, from her face by each passing year.

‘Celeste . . .’ She spoke the name as though it’d been waiting on her lips all these years, like a butterfly she’d never shooed away. She took her daughter’s hands before Fox could pull them away. Stroked Fox’s hair and kissed her face. Again and again. She held Fox tight, as though she wanted to get back all the years when she hadn’t held her child. Then she pulled the girl into the house. She latched the door. They both knew why.

The house still smelled of fish and damp winters. The same table. The same chairs. The same bench by the oven. And behind the windows, nothing but meadows and piebald cows. As though time had stopped. But on her way here, Fox had passed many abandoned houses. It was a hard life, having to rely on sea and land to feed you. The machines’ noisy promises were so alluring: everything could be made by human hands, and wind and winter no longer had to be feared. Yet it was the wind and the winter that had shaped these people.

Fox reached for the bowl of soup her mother had pushed towards her.

‘You’re doing well.’ It wasn’t a question. There was relief in her voice. Relief. Guilt. And so much helpless love. But that wasn’t enough.

‘I need the ring.’

Her mother put down the milk jug from which she was filling her cup.

‘You still have it?’

Her mother didn’t answer.

‘Please. I need it!’

‘He wouldn’t have wanted me to give it to you.’ She pushed the milk towards her daughter. ‘You can’t know how many years you still have.’

‘I’m young.’

‘So was he.’

‘But you’re alive, and that’s all he ever wanted.’

Her mother sat down on one of the chairs on which she’d spent so many hours of her life, mending clothes, rocking babies . . .

‘So you’re in love with someone. What is his name?’

But Fox didn’t want to say Jacob’s name. Not in this house. ‘I owe him my life. That’s all.’ It wasn’t all, but her mother would understand.

She brushed the grey hair from her face. ‘Ask me for anything else.’

‘No. And you know you owe me this.’ The words were out before Fox could hold them back.

The pain on the tired face made Fox forget all the anger she felt. Her mother got up.

‘I never should have told you that story.’ She smoothed the tablecloth. ‘I just wanted you to know what kind of a man your father was.’

She brushed her hand across the tablecloth again, as though she could brush away everything that had made her life so hard. Then she slowly walked to the chest where she kept the few things she called her own. From it she took a wooden box that was covered in black lace. It was lace from the dress she’d worn in mourning for two years.

‘Maybe I’d have survived the fever even if he hadn’t put it on my finger,’ she said as she opened the box.

Inside it was a ring of glass.

‘What I need it for is worse than fever,’ Fox said. ‘But I promise you, I’ll use it only if there is no other way.’

Her mother shook her head and firmly closed her fingers around the box. But then she heard some noises outside.

Steps and voices. Sometimes, when the sea was too rough, the men returned early from their boats.

Her mother looked towards the door. Fox took the box from her hand. She felt ashamed of the fear she saw on her mother’s face. Yet it wasn’t just fear; there was also love. There was always love, even for the man who struck her children.

He banged on the door, and Fox pushed back the latch. She longed for the vixen’s teeth, but she wanted to look her stepfather in the eyes. She’d barely reached up to his shoulders when he drove her out of the house.

He wasn’t as big as she’d remembered him. Because you were smaller then, Celeste. So small. He’d been the Giant and she the Dwarf. The Giant who smashed everything in his path. But now she was as tall as he, and he’d grown old. His face was