Fearless (Mirrorworld) - By Cornelia Funke Page 0,7

and tried to pull it out with his massive fingers. Now, Jacob! He jumped on to the Djinn’s shoulder and sliced the tattered earlobe with his knife. Black blood spurted out. Jacob rubbed it on his skin while the spirit still tried in vain to pull the bottle from his nostril. His grunts and groans sent ice crystals dancing through the air. Jacob jumped off the Djinn’s shoulder. He nearly broke his legs landing on the icy flagstones. On your feet, Jacob! The chapel’s roof burst under the pressure of the spirit’s barbed back. Jacob slithered towards the door.

Go, Jacob!

He ran towards the tall pines behind the chapel, but before he could reach the protection of their branches, he was grabbed by icy fingers and lifted up into the air. Jacob felt one of his ribs break. Dangerous medicine.

‘Pull it out!’

Jacob screamed with pain as the spirit tightened his grip. The huge fingers lifted Jacob higher, until he was close enough to push his hand into the massive nostril.

‘If you drop it,’ the spirit whispered, ‘I’ll still have enough time to break all your bones.’

Maybe. But the Djinn was going to kill him even if he handed over the bottle. Nothing to lose. Jacob’s fingers found the neck of the bottle. They gripped the cold glass.

‘Pull . . . it . . . ooouuut!’ The spirit’s bloodthirsty voice enveloped him.

Jacob was in no rush. After all, these might be the final moments of his life. Up on the hill he saw the tower rising into the dark sky, and beneath it a marten was nibbling on the fresh buds of a tree. Spring was coming. Life or death, Jacob. Once again.

He pulled out the bottle and threw it as hard as he could against the remnants of the chapel’s gabled roof.

The Djinn’s enraged howl caused the marten to freeze. The grey fingers closed around Jacob’s body so hard, he thought he could hear every one of his bones break. But his pain was penetrated by the sound of shattering glass. The huge fingers let go – and Jacob fell.

He fell far.

The impact winded him completely, but above him he could see the spirit’s body erupt as though someone had stuffed him with explosives. The Djinn’s grey flesh tore into a thousand shreds, which rained down on Jacob like grimy snow. He lay on the ground, licking the black blood from his lips. It tasted sweet and burnt his tongue.

He had got what he wanted.

And he was still alive.

CHAPTER FIVE

ALMA

Schwanstein’s gaslit streets had not seen a practising Witch for years. Witches were part of the past, and the people of Schwanstein believed in the future. Instead of relying on magic and bitter herbs, they preferred the doctors who had moved there from Vena. It was only when modern medicine failed them that they found their way to the village on the eastern side of the castle hill.

Alma Spitzweg’s house stood right next to the cemetery, even though her craft usually kept her patients out of it before it was their time. Officially, she ran a normal medical practice. Alma could splint a broken limb like any doctor from the big city. At times she even prescribed the same pills, but Alma also tended to cows and Heinzel with the same diligence she applied to her human patients; her clothes changed colour with the weather; and her pupils were as slender as the pupils in her cat’s eyes.

Alma’s practice was still closed when Jacob knocked on the back door. It was a while before she opened it. She’d obviously had an exhausting night, yet her face brightened immediately at the sight of him. On that early morning, she looked exactly as Jacob would have imagined a Witch would look like when he was a child, but he’d seen Alma with many different faces and in many different bodies.

‘I could have done with your help last night,’ she said. Her cat was purring a welcome at Jacob’s feet. ‘The Stilt from up by the ruins tried to steal a child. Can’t you get rid of him?’

The Stilt. The first creature he’d encountered behind the mirror. Jacob hands still bore the scars from its yellow teeth. He’d tried to catch it more than a dozen times, but Stilts were cunning, and masters at playing hide-and-seek.

‘I’ll try again. I promise.’ Jacob picked up the purring cat and followed Alma into the plain room where she practised both the old and the new kinds of medicine.