第七章: 倾巢而出的杰克 Every Man Jack |《坟场之书》双语小说在线阅读

Silas had been preoccupied for the previous several months. He had begun to leave the graveyard for days, sometimes weeks, at a time. Over Christmas, Miss Lupescu had come out for three weeks in his place, and Bod had shared her meals in her little flat in the Old Town. She had even taken him to a football match, as Silas had promised that she would, but she had gone back to the place she called “The Old Country” after squeezing Bod’s cheeks and calling him Nimini, which had become her pet name for him.

过去几个月，赛拉斯一直很忙。他会一连离开坟场好几天，有时甚至好几周。圣诞节时，卢佩斯库小姐来顶替过他三周，她和伯蒂在她租住的小公寓里一起用餐，还带伯蒂去看了一场足球赛，就像赛拉斯所承诺的那样。可三周后，她在捏了捏伯蒂的脸蛋，叫了他一声尼米尼——她给伯蒂起的昵称后，就回了那个在她口中叫“古国”的地方。

Now Silas was gone, and Miss Lupescu also. Mr. and Mrs. Owens were sitting in Josiah Worthington’s tomb talking to Josiah Worthington. None of them was happy.

现在赛拉斯走了，卢佩斯库小姐也走了。欧文斯夫妇正坐在约西亚·沃辛顿的坟墓里和他交谈，三人都郁郁寡欢。

When the Owenses shook their heads, Josiah Worthington said, “Well, where is he?”

见欧文斯夫妇双双摇头，他接着说：“他到底去了哪里呢？”

Josiah Worthington said, “You mean to say that he did not tell either of you where he was going or how the child was to be cared for?”

约西亚·沃辛顿说：“所以说他没有告诉任何人他去了哪里，也没交代该怎么照顾伯蒂那孩子？”

Neither Owens was able to answer. Master Owens said, “He’s never been gone for so long before. And he promised, when the child came to us, promised he would be here, or someone else would be here to help us care for him. He promised.”

欧文斯夫妇都回答不上来。欧文斯先生说：“他从来没有离开这么久过。他在这个孩子到来时保证过，说他一直会在这里照顾他，若他不在就会找别人来帮忙，他保证过的。”

Mrs. Owens said, “I worry that something must have happened to him.” She seemed close to tears, and then her tears turned to anger, and she said, “This is too bad of him! Is there no way to find him, to call him back?”

欧文斯太太说：“我担心他出事了。”她几乎要落泪，可下一刻她的泪水就转为怒火，“他太不像话了！就没有什么办法把他叫回来吗？”

“None that I know,” said Josiah Worthington. “But I believe that he’s left money in the crypt, for food for the boy.”

“我束手无策。”约西亚·沃辛顿说，“但我相信他肯定在教堂地下室留了钱，好给那孩子买吃的。”

“Bod will be needing money if he’s to go out there to buy food,” began Mr. Owens, but Mrs. Owens turned on him.

“伯蒂出去买吃的要用到。”欧文斯先生回答，可欧文斯太太转而将怒火撒到他身上。

“Money!” said Mrs. Owens. “What use is money?”

“钱钱钱，就知道钱！”欧文斯太太说，“钱有什么用？”

“You’re all as bad as each other!” she said.

“你俩都不是什么好东西！”

She left the Worthington tomb, then, and she went looking for her son, whom she found, as she expected to, at the top of the hill, staring out over the town.

欧文斯太太离开沃辛顿的坟墓，去找她的儿子。不出她所料，伯蒂正在山顶上望着整座城镇。

“You don’t have a penny,” said Bod. He was fourteen, now, and taller than his mother.

“你没有一便士。”伯蒂说。他已经十四岁，长得比他母亲还要高了。

“Penny for your thoughts,” said Mrs. Owens.

“你呆呆地在想什么呢？告诉我，我就给你一便士。”

“I’ve got two in the coffin,” said Mrs. Owens. “Probably a bit green by now, but I’ve still got them right enough.”

“我的棺材里有两便士。”欧文斯太太说，“也许有些发绿，但依然是货真价实的两便士。”

“I was thinking about the world,” said Bod. “How do we even know that the person who killed my family is still alive? That he’s out there?”

“我在思考这个世界。”伯蒂说，“我们怎么知道杀了我家人的那个人还活着，还在外头？”

Mrs. Owens said, “He means only the best for you. You know that.”

“他的出发点一定是为你好，你明白的。”

“If Silas had killed him back then, I would be safe now. I could go anywhere.”

“如果赛拉斯当场杀了他，现在我就会很安全，想去哪里就能去哪里。”

“Silas says he is,” said Mrs. Owens.

“赛拉斯是这么说的。”

Bod said, “What was his name? The man who killed them.”

“杀了我家人的那个人，他叫什么名字？”

Mrs. Owens nodded.

欧文斯太太点点头。

Mrs. Owens made no reply.

欧文斯太太没有回答。

“Mostly, I had eyes for you. Let me see… he had dark hair, very dark. And I was frightened of him. He had a sharp face. Hungry and angry all at once, he was. Silas saw him off.”

“那时我眼里只有你，没太留意他。让我想想…他有一头黑发，非常黑。他让我很害怕，棱角分明的脸，一副又是饥渴又是愤怒的模样。赛拉斯把他送走了。”

“He didn’t say it. Not then.”

“他没有说。”

“But Silas doesn’t tell us anything else.”

“可赛拉斯告诉我们的仅此而已。”

Mrs. Owens touched the back of Bod’s hand with her cold fingers. She said, “He’s not a monster, Bod.”

欧文斯太太用冰冷的手指抚摸伯蒂的手背：“他不是个怪物，伯蒂。”

“Why didn’t Silas just kill him?” said Bod, fiercely. “He should have just killed him then.”

“为什么赛拉斯不干脆杀了他？”伯蒂厉声问，“他当时就该直接杀了他。”

Bod said, “You saw the man who killed my family, didn’t you? On the day you adopted me.”

伯蒂说：“你看到了杀了我家人的那个人，对不对？在收养我的那天晚上。”

“Thanks,” said Bod, unimpressed. “So where is he?”

“谢谢。”伯蒂不为所动，“所以那人在哪里？”

“Silas knows more than you do about all this, more than any of us do. And Silas knows about life and death,” said Mrs. Owens. “It’s not that easy.”

“对这件事，赛拉斯了解得比你多，比我们任何人都多。他了解生与死，这不是那么轻描淡写的事。”

“What was he like?”

“他长什么样？”

Bod put his head on one side, and stared at her with eyes as grey as thunderclouds. “But you know it, don’t you?”

伯蒂歪着脑袋，用同雷雨云一样灰暗的眼睛凝视着欧文斯太太。“可是你知道，对不对？”

Mrs. Owens said, “There’s nothing you can do, Bod.”

欧文斯太太说：“伯蒂，你什么也做不了。”

Bod said nothing. Then he nodded. “Mother?”

伯蒂一言不发，后来才点点头，说：“妈妈？”

“What is it, son?”

“怎么了，儿子？”

“When will Silas come back?”

“赛拉斯什么时候回来？”

“There is. I can learn. I can learn everything I need to know, all I can. I learned about ghoul-gates. I learned to Dreamwalk. Miss Lupescu taught me how to watch the stars. Silas taught me silence. I can Haunt. I can Fade. I know every inch of this graveyard.”

“你瞧，我能学习，我能学会我所需要的一切知识，我什么都能做到。我了解食尸鬼之梦，我会梦游术。卢佩斯库小姐教会我怎么看星星，赛拉斯教会我低调沉稳。我还会阴魂不散法和隐身术，还了解坟场的每一寸土地。”

Mrs. Owens was no longer angry. She feared for her son. She said only, “I wish I knew, my darling boy, I wish I knew.”

欧文斯太太早已消气。她为儿子忧心忡忡，只能说：“我也想知道，宝贝儿子，我也想知道啊。”

Mrs. Owens reached out a hand, touched her son’s shoulder. “One day,” she said… and then she hesitated. One day, she would not be able to touch him. One day, he would leave them. One day. And then she said, “Silas told me the man who killed your family was called Jack.”

欧文斯太太伸出一只手，抚摸儿子的肩膀。“有朝一日…”她迟疑了。有朝一日，她将再也无法触摸伯蒂；有朝一日，伯蒂会离开他们。这一天终会到来。思来想去后，她说：“赛拉斯告诉我，杀了你家人的人叫杰克。”

The midnight wind was cold and it came from the north.

午夜的风从北方吹来，冷得刺骨。

Scarlett Amber Perkins was fifteen, and, at that moment, sitting on the upper deck of the elderly bus, she was a mass of angry hate. She hated her parents for splitting up. She hated her mother for moving away from Scotland, hated her father because he didn’t seem to care that she had gone. She hated this town for being so different — nothing like Glasgow, where she had grown up — and she hated it because every now and again she would turn a corner and see something and the world would all become achingly, horribly familiar.

斯卡莉特·安贝尔·帕金斯十五岁了，此时此刻，她正坐在一辆老旧双层公交车的上层，一肚子怨气。她恨她的父母离了婚，恨她的母亲从苏格兰搬走，恨她的父亲对她们的去向漠不关心。她恨这座小镇，因为它那么不同，一点也不像格拉斯哥——她在那儿长大。她恨时不时转过拐角就会看到眼熟的东西，恨这个世界变得越来越熟悉，熟悉得让人心痛，熟悉得让人恐惧。

“I don’t remember,” said Scarlett. “And it’s not like I still know anyone. Do you want me to find my old friends from when I was five? Is that what you want?”

“我不记得了。”斯卡莉特说，“我什么人也不记得了。你还指望我能找回五岁时交的老朋友吗？你不会真这么想吧？”

Scarlett had gone through the whole of the school day angry, and she was angry now. She hated her school and she hated the world, and right now she particularly hated the town bus service.

今天在学校时，斯卡莉特一直闷闷不乐。现在她依然在生气。她恨学校，她恨这个世界，而此刻，她特别恨公交车。

She had lost it with her mother that morning. “At least in Glasgow I had friends!” Scarlett had said, and she wasn’t quite shouting and she wasn’t quite sobbing. “I’ll never see them again!” All her mother had said in reply was, “At least you’re somewhere you’ve been before. I mean, we lived here when you were little.”

这天早晨，她忍无可忍地对母亲说：“至少在格拉斯哥我还有朋友！”她没有大喊大叫，也没有一把鼻涕一把泪，“我再也见不到他们了！”她母亲只回应道：“至少你在这儿生活过，我是说，你小时候在这儿住过。”

Every day, when school was over, the 97 bus to the City Center would take her from her school gates all the way to the end of the street where her mother had rented a small flat. She had waited at the bus-stop on that gusty April day for almost half an hour and no 97 buses had appeared, so when she saw a 121 bus with City Center as its destination she had climbed aboard. But where her bus always turned right, this one turned left, into the Old Town, past the municipal gardens in the Old Town square, past the statue of Josiah Worthington, Bart., and then crept up a winding hill lined with high houses, as Scarlett’s heart sank and her anger was replaced with misery.

每天放学后，开往市中心的97路公交车会将她从校门口带到大街尽头，她母亲在那里租了一间公寓。在这个疾风劲吹的四月天，她在公交车站等了将近半个小时，也没等来一辆97路。因此，当看到终点站是市中心的121路开来时，她就跳上了车。可在97路向右拐的地方，这路车却向左一拐，进入老城区，驶过市政花园，路过准男爵约西亚·沃辛顿的雕像，接着缓缓爬上蜿蜒的山路，路边有两排高大的房子。斯卡莉特心一沉，相比怒火，难受的感觉渐渐占了上风。

And her mother said, “Well, I’m not stopping you.”

母亲说：“嗯，你去啊，我不拦你。”

She walked downstairs, edged forward, eyed the sign telling her not to speak to the driver when the vehicle was in motion, and said, “Excuse me. I wanted to go to Acacia Avenue.”

她从车的上一层走下来，慢慢向前挪，看着“不要在车辆行驶时和驾驶员讲话”的标语，开口道：“不好意思，我想去金合欢大道。”

“But this goes to the City Center.”

“可这辆车也去市中心。”

The driver, a large woman, her skin even darker than Scarlett’s said, “You should have got the 97, then.”

司机是个高大的女人，皮肤甚至比斯卡莉特还要黑。她说：“那你应该坐97路。”

“Eventually. But even when you get there, you’ll still need to get back.” The woman sighed. “Best thing you can do, get off here, walk back down the hill, there’s a bus-stop in front of the town hall. From there, you can catch the number 4 or the 58, both of them will take you most of the way to Acacia Avenue. You could get off by the sports center and walk up from there. You got all that?”

“那是终点站，得绕一大圈，一会儿还得回这里。”女司机叹了口气，“你最好在这里下车，走下山。市政厅前有个公交站，你可以在那儿搭乘4路或58路，这两路车都能把你一路带到金合欢大道。在体育中心下车，走到金合欢大道。听明白没？”

“I’ll let you off here.” It was a request stop on the side of the hill, just past a large pair of open iron gates, and it looked uninviting and dismal. Scarlett stood in the open doorway of the bus until the bus driver said, “Go on. Hop it.” She stepped down onto the pavement and the bus belched black smoke and roared away.

“我把你在这里放下。”公交车驶过一对敞开的铁门，在山路边临时停车，那铁门看起来阴森可怖。斯卡莉特站在打开的车门边，直到司机催促：“下车，快点。”她的脚刚踏上路面，公交车就喷出一股黑烟，呼啸而去。

“The 4 or the 58.”

“4路或58路。”

Scarlett began to walk back down the hill — this was why she needed a mobile phone, she thought. If she was so much as five minutes late, her mother would freak, but she still wouldn’t buy Scarlett a phone of her own. Oh well. She would have to endure another shouting match. It wouldn’t be the first and it wouldn’t be the last.

斯卡莉特向山下走去——所以说她需要个手机嘛。每次只要她晚到家五分钟，她妈妈就会大惊小怪，可硬是不肯给她买一部手机。真是的。看来她又得挨一场口水仗了。不是第一场，也不会是最后一场。

By now she was level with the open gates. She glanced inside and…

她走到敞开的铁门前，往里头望去…

A magpie flew up as she walked in, a flash of black and white and iridescent green, and settled in the branches of a yew tree, watching her. Around that corner, she thought, is a church, with a bench in front of it, and she turned a corner to see a church — much smaller than the one in her head, a sinister blocky little Gothic building of grey stone, with a jutting spire. In front of it was a weathered wooden bench. She walked over, sat down on the bench, and swung her legs as if she was still a little girl.

当她走入时，一只乌鸦飞了起来，闪过一道黑色、白色与荧光闪闪的绿色交织的光芒，接着落在一棵紫杉树上，盯着她的一举一动。“转过拐角有座教堂，教堂前有一张长凳。”斯卡莉特一边默念，一边转过拐角，真的有一个教堂，但比她印象中小得多：一座由灰色石头砌成的哥特式建筑，上有尖顶，墙面斑驳，叫人瘆得慌。教堂前有一张久经日晒雨淋的木质长凳。她走到长凳前坐下，晃动双腿，仿佛她还是个小女孩。

The wind rattled the trees on the other side of the wall.

大风吹过，墙另一边的树叶沙沙作响。

Scarlett walked through the open gates into the graveyard.

她步入敞开的铁门，进了坟场。

“That’s odd,” she said, aloud.

“太奇怪了。”她大声说。

There’s an expression, déja vu, that means that you feel like you’ve been somewhere before, that you’ve somehow already dreamed it or experienced it in your mind. Scarlett had experienced it — the knowledge that a teacher was just about to tell them that she’d been to Inverness on holiday, or that someone had dropped a spoon in just that way before. This was different. This wasn’t a feeling that she had been here before. This was the real thing.

有这么个说法——似曾相识，意思是你感觉你曾经来过这个地方，或是梦见过，或是神游过。斯卡莉特有过这样的体验，比如预感到老师马上要讲她去延文尼斯度过假，或预感到有人的汤勺即将掉落。可这次不一样。这种感觉不是似曾相识，而是她真的来过这里。

Scarlett looked around, and saw a man in a fawn-colored raincoat squatting in front of a gravestone. He was holding a large sheet of paper which was blowing about in the wind. She hurried over to him.

斯卡莉特环视四周，看到一个穿着浅黄褐色雨衣的男人蹲在一块墓碑前，手里拿着一大张纸，纸被风吹得忽上忽下。斯卡莉特连忙跑过去。

“Hullo. Um, hullo?” said a voice from behind her. “Awful cheek of me, I know, but would you help me hold down this, er, just really need another pair of hands, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“小姑娘。嘿，小姑娘，”身后有人说，“我知道这么做有点厚脸皮，但能不能劳烦你帮我一下，我需要别人搭把手，希望没给你添麻烦。”

He had a biscuit tin next to him, and from the tin he pulled what looked like a crayon the size of a small candle. He began rubbing it back and forth across the stone with easy, practiced movements.

他从身边的饼干盒里拿出一根有点像蜡笔的东西，和小蜡烛一般大，随后在紧贴石头的纸面上来回刮擦，动作驾轻就熟。

“There we go,” he said, cheerfully. “And here she comes… oops. A wiggly bit, down at the bottom here, I think it’s meant to be ivy — the Victorians loved putting ivy on things, deeply symbolic you know… and there we are. You can let go now.”

“好嘞，”男人欣喜地说，“出来了…哦，弯曲的线条，在底部，我想这应该是常春藤——维多利亚时期的人很喜欢用常春藤的图案装点各种东西，这有深刻的象征意义…好，搞定了，你可以松手了。”

He stood up, ran one hand through his grey hair. “Ow. Needed to stand. Legs got a bit pins-and-needlesy,” he said. “So. What do you reckon to that?”

男人站起身，用一只手顺了顺自己灰白的头发。“哦，我刚才应该站起来缓一缓的，两条腿都麻了。”他说，“你觉得这上面写了什么？”

“You hold on to it here,” said the man. “One hand here, one hand there, that’s it. Frightful imposition, I know. Ridiculously grateful.”

“你压住这个地方。”男人说，“一只手在这里，一只手在那里。对，就是这样。真是难为你了，我不胜感激。”

“And probably now lost even to that,” said the man. His hair was thinning, and he smiled hesitantly and blinked at her through small, round glasses which made him look a little like a friendly owl.

“没准记忆也失去了。”男人冲斯卡莉特勉强地笑了笑。他长着稀疏的头发，眼睛透过小小的圆框眨巴眨巴，看上去活像一只友善的猫头鹰。

The actual headstone was covered in green and yellow lichen, and so worn and faded as to almost be undecipherable, but the rubbing was clear. “Majella Godspeed, Spinster of this Parish, 1791-1870, Lost to All But Memory,” Scarlett read aloud.

真正的墓碑早已覆满绿色和黄色的地衣，磨损得几乎看不清了，但拓片很清晰。“麦杰拉·戈斯佩德，本教区的老姑娘，1791年到1870年，失去一切，唯余记忆。”斯卡莉特大声念了出来。

“Thank you so much,” said the man. “I don’t think it’s really going to rain much. Weather forecast for this afternoon said mostly sunny.”

“太感谢你了。”男人说，“我想雨不会下太久，天气预报说今天下午基本是晴天。”

As if in reply, the wind gusted coldly and the rain began to beat down in earnest.

如同在回应他，一阵寒风呼啸而过，大雨铺天盖地般倾泻而下。

A large raindrop splashed down on the paper, and the man hurriedly rolled it up and grabbed his tin box of crayons. Another handful of raindrops, and Scarlett picked up the portfolio the man pointed to, propped up beside a nearby gravestone, and followed him into the tiny porch of the church, where the rain could not touch them.

一大滴雨落在纸面上，男人赶紧把纸卷起来，接着一把抓起装蜡笔的饼干盒。又落下几滴雨，斯卡莉特循着男人所指的方向，拿起一个靠在墓碑边的文件夹，跟随他走进教堂避雨。

“I know what you’re thinking,” the gravestone-rubbing man said to Scarlett.

“我知道你在想什么。”拓印墓碑的男人说。

“You’re thinking, is this a church or a funeral chapel? And the answer is, as far as I can ascertain, that on this site there was indeed a small church, and the original graveyard would have been its churchyard. That’s as long ago as eight, perhaps nine hundred A. D. Rebuilt and extended several times in there. But there was a fire here in the 1820s and by that time it was already much too small for the area. People around here were using St. Dunstan’s in the village square as their parish church, so when they came to rebuild here, they made it a funeral chapel, keeping many of the original features — the stained glass windows in the far wall are said to be original…”

“你在想这是座普通教堂还是座墓地教堂？答案是——据我确认，这个地方很早以前就有一个小教堂，大约在公元800年，也可能是公元900年。后来，这里又重建、扩建了好几次。不过在19世纪20年代时，这儿发生了一起火灾，在那时，这个教堂对这片地区来说已经太小了，住在周边的人开始将乡村广场上的圣邓斯坦教堂用作教区教堂。所以重建时，他们把这儿建成了墓地教堂，保留了许多原本的特征——据说远处那面墙上的彩绘玻璃窗就是那时流传下来的…”

“You do?” she said. She had been thinking, My mum will kill me.

“真的吗？”斯卡莉特在想的是：我妈妈会杀了我。

“Good Lord, you poor thing,” said the man. “Look, I only live just down the road. You wait here –” And with that he thrust his portfolio, his tin of crayons, and his rolled-up sheet of paper into her hands and he set off at a trot down to the gates, his shoulders hunched against the driving rain. A couple of minutes later, Scarlett saw the lights of a car and heard the sound of a car horn.

“我的天，可怜的小家伙。”男人说，“听着，我就住在这条路前头，你在这儿等一会儿——”他把文件夹、装蜡笔的饼干盒和卷好的拓印纸往斯卡莉特手里一塞，在疾风骤雨中缩着肩膀，一路小跑出了大门。几分钟后，斯卡莉特看到了车灯的亮光，听到了车喇叭的鸣响。

“Actually,” said Scarlett, “I was thinking that my mum is going to kill me. I got the wrong bus and I am already so late home…”

“其实吧，”斯卡莉特打断了他，“我在想我妈妈会杀了我。我坐错了公交车，而且这么晚还没回家…”

“Quite right too,” said the man. “But one good turn deserves, and, um, all that. Here, put the stuff in the back before it gets soaked.” He pulled open the passenger door, and Scarlett leaned inside and put his graverubbing equipment down on the backseat as best she could. “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you phone your mother — you can use my phone — and tell her my car’s number plate? You can do it from inside the car. You’re getting soaked out there.”

“你说得很对。”男人说，“不过，礼尚往来嘛。来，在东西湿透前把它们放到后座上。”他拉开副驾驶座的车门。斯卡莉特探身进去，把拓印墓碑的工具放在后座上，尽可能摆放整齐。“要我说，”男人说，“何不给你妈妈打个电话，告诉她我的车牌号呢？你可以用我的手机。进车里来打吧，不然你就要淋成落汤鸡了。”

Scarlett ran down to the gates, where she could see the car, an elderly green Mini. The man she had been talking to was sitting in the driver’s seat. He wound down his window.

她跑到大门口，看到一辆老旧的绿色小型车。刚才那个男人正坐在驾驶座上，摇下车窗。

The man reached over and handed her his mobile phone. Scarlett looked at it. She realized she was more afraid of calling her mother than she was of getting into the car. Then she said, “I could call the police too, couldn’t I?”

男人探身过来，把手机递给斯卡莉特。斯卡莉特看着手机，意识到相比于上车，她更害怕给母亲打电话。“我是不是也可以给警察打电话？”

“Come on,” he said. “Where exactly am I taking you?”

“上来吧。”他说，“你要我带你去哪里？”

Scarlett stood there, the rain running down her neck. “I don’t take rides from strangers,” she said.

斯卡莉特站在原地，雨顺着她的脖子淌下来。她说：“我不搭陌生人的车。”

Scarlett hesitated. Rain was beginning to plaster her hair down. It was cold.

斯卡莉特仍在犹豫，被雨水打湿的头发耷拉下来。天很冷。

“Where do you live?” the man asked.

“你住在哪里？”男人问。

“102a Acacia Avenue. It’s off the main road, a wee bit past the big sports center…”

“金合欢大道102A，不在大路上，体育中心过去一点点。”

“You really don’t have to. I mean, you could just take me to the bus stop…”

“你不必如此。我是说，你只要把我带到公交车站就…”

“You are out of your way, aren’t you? Right. Let’s get you home.” He took off the handbrake, swung the car around, and drove down the hill.

“你走岔路了吧。行了，我现在送你回家。”男人放下手刹，让车掉了个头，驶向山下。

“I’ll take you home. Address?”

“我送你回家，地址？”

Scarlett got into the passenger seat and closed the door. She kept hold of the man’s phone.

斯卡莉特坐上副驾驶座，关上车门，抓着男人的手机。

“Is that a brogue I detect in your accent?”

“我听你说话有点儿苏格兰腔。”

“We’ve been living in Scotland for ten years. There, I sounded like everyone else, and then I came down here, and now I stick out like a sore thumb.” She had wanted it to sound like a joke, but it was true, and she could hear it as she said it. Not funny, just bitter.

“我们在苏格兰住了十年，那儿所有人都是这种口音，可来这儿之后，我突兀得就像一根大拇指，和其他四指格格不入。”她这句话听起来像在开玩笑，可这是真事。她的话里没有调侃，只有苦涩，连她自己都听得出来。

“You certainly can, yes. Or you can walk home. Or you can just call your mother and ask her to come and pick you up.”

“当然可以，你也可以走回家，或者直接叫你妈妈到这儿来接你。”

“Been living here long?” he said.

“你在这儿住了很久吗？”男人问。

“Not really. We moved here just after Christmas. We lived here when I was five, though.”

“算不上。我们在圣诞节后才搬过来，不过我五岁时曾在这里住过。”

Scarlett expected her mother to shout at both of them, and was surprised and relieved when her mother only said, Well, you couldn’t be too careful these days, and was Mr. Um a teacher, and would he like a cup of tea?

斯卡莉特本以为母亲会冲着他俩大喊大叫，却惊讶而释然地听到，母亲只说了一句话：这年头再小心也不为过，请问你是一位老师吗？要不要进来喝杯茶？

The man drove to Acacia Avenue, parked in front of the house, then insisted on coming up to the front door with her. When the door was opened he said, “Frightfully sorry. I took the liberty of bringing your daughter back to you. Obviously, you taught her well, shouldn’t accept rides from strangers. But, well, it was raining, she took the wrong bus, wound up on the other side of town. Bit of a mess all around really. Say you can find it in your heart to forgive. Forgive her. And, um, me.”

男人把车开到金合欢大道，停在斯卡莉特家门前，并坚持要陪她到门口。当门打开时，他说：“非常抱歉，我擅自把你女儿带回来了，显然你把她教育得很好，比如不能随便搭陌生人的车。但是呢，雨下得很大，她上错了公交车，到了城镇的另一边，一时手足无措。希望你能打心底里原谅她。请原谅她，也请原谅我。”

Perkins smiled and said he should call her Noona, and she’d put the kettle on.

帕金斯夫人笑着说那他可以叫她诺娜，随后开始烧水沏茶。

Over tea, Scarlett told her mother the story of her wrong bus adventure, and how she had found herself at the graveyard, and how she met Mr. Frost by the little church…

喝茶时，斯卡莉特给妈妈讲了自己坐错公交后一路的经历，讲她是如何到了坟场，如何在教堂前遇到了弗洛斯特先生。

Mr. Um said his name was Frost, but she should call him Jay, and Mrs.

男人说他叫弗洛斯特，但她们最好叫他杰。

“I live over that way,” said Mr. Frost. “Been doing a lot of grave-rubbings. And you know it’s technically a nature reserve?”

“我住在那一带，”弗洛斯特先生说，“做了许多拓印墓碑的活儿。你知道那儿名义上是一片自然保护区吗？”

Mrs. Perkins dropped her teacup.

帕金斯夫人手中的茶杯掉了下来。

Mrs. Perkins said, “I know,” thin-lipped. Then she said, “Thank you so much for giving Scarlett a ride home, Mr. Frost.” Each word might have been an ice cube. Then, “I think you should leave now.”

“我知道。”帕金斯夫人抿紧嘴唇，“弗洛斯特先生，谢谢你开车送斯卡莉特回家。我想是时候送客了。”她嘴里吐出的每个字都像一块冰块。

They were sitting around the table in the kitchen, so the cup didn’t fall very far, and it didn’t break, just spilled tea. Mrs. Perkins apologized awkwardly, and went and got a cloth from the sink to mop it up.

由于坐在桌边，茶杯没摔得太狠，没有碎，只是洒出了点茶水。帕金斯夫人手忙脚乱地道歉，随后起身到水池边拿了块布来擦干净。

For a heartbeat, Scarlett thought that her mother was going to strike Mr. Frost, who just looked worried.

有那么一瞬间，斯卡莉特以为母亲要对弗洛斯特先生动手，而对方只是面露忧色。

Then she said, “The graveyard on the hill, in the Old Town? That one?”

收拾干净后，她说：“你是说山上那片坟场？老城区那片？”

But Mrs. Perkins shook her head and said, “Sorry, family history. Not your fault.” As if she was making a conscious effort, she said, brightly, “You know, Scarlett actually used to play in that graveyard when she was little. This is, oh, ten years ago. She had an imaginary friend, too. A little boy called Nobody.”

可帕金斯夫人摇摇头，说：“不，这是我们家过去的事，不是你的错。”她似乎努力想让自己的语气轻快些。“是这样的，斯卡莉特小时候经常在坟场玩，那是，嗯…十年前的事了。她有个幻想中的朋友，一个叫诺伯蒂的小男孩。”

“I say, that’s a bit much,” said Frost, amiably. “Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Was it something I said? The rubbings, they’re for a local history project, it’s not as if I’m, you know, digging up bones or anything.”

“我说，这有些过了吧。”弗洛斯特先生友好地说，“我无意伤害你们的感情。是我说错了什么话吗？拓印这事是当地的一个历史项目，不是说挖骨头啊，盗祖坟啊，之类的。”

Scarlett shook her head. “I must have been a funny kid,” she said.

斯卡莉特摇摇头，说：“我那时一定是个可笑的孩子。”

A smile twitched at the corner of Mr. Frost’s lips. “A ghostie?”

弗洛斯特先生的嘴角抽了抽，一丝笑意若隐若现：“一个幽灵？”

“No, I don’t think so. He just lived there. She even pointed out the tomb he lived in. So I suppose he was a ghost. Do you remember, love?”

“不，我想不是。他住在坟场，斯卡莉特甚至指得出他住的那座坟墓。这么说来，说不定他真的是个幽灵。亲爱的，这事你还记得吗？”

“I’m sure that you were nothing of the, um,” said Mr. Frost. “You are raising a fine girl here, Noona. Well, lovely cup of tea. Always a joy to make new friends. I’ll be toddling off now. Got to make myself a little dinner, then I’ve got a meeting of the Local History Society.”

“怎么可能呢。”弗洛斯特先生说，“诺娜，你把女儿教育得很好。好了，茶很不错，交到新朋友总是令人愉悦。我现在得走了，回去做顿简单的晚饭，接着要去参加一个当地历史协会的会议。”

“You’re making your own dinner?” said Mrs. Perkins.

“你自己做晚饭？”帕金斯太太问。

“Yes, making it. Well, defrosting it really. I’m also a master of the boil-in-the-bag. Eating for one. Living on my own. Bit of a crusty old bachelor. Actually, in the papers, that always means gay, doesn’t it? Not gay, just never met the right woman.” And for a moment, he looked rather sad.

“没错，自己做，确切来说只是解冻加热。我可是个使用蒸煮袋的行家。我一个人吃饭，一个人住，是个老光棍。说实在的，这个词在报纸上总是指男同性恋，是吧？我不是男同性恋，只是还没碰上合得来的女人。”一时，他看起来很沮丧。

Mrs. Perkins, who hated to cook, announced that she always cooked too much food at the weekend, and as she ushered Mr. Frost out into the hall, Scarlett heard him agree that he would love to come round for dinner on Saturday night.

一向讨厌做菜的帕金斯太太说她经常在周末做大餐，在她送弗洛斯特先生到门口时，斯卡莉特听到弗洛斯特先生同意星期六晚上来和她们共进晚餐。

In her mind she imagined and she remembered, and somewhere in there she fell asleep, but in sleep she still walked the paths of the graveyard. It was night, but she could see everything as clearly as if it were day. She was on the side of a hill. There was a boy of about her own age standing with his back to her, looking at the lights of the city.

她想象着，回忆着，不知不觉睡着了，可睡梦中她仍走在坟场的小路上。夜幕低垂，可眼前的一切都像白天一样清晰。她站在山坡上，前面站着一个和她年龄相仿的男孩，背对着她，望着城镇的万家灯火。

When Mrs. Perkins came back from the front hall, all she said to Scarlett was, “I hope you’ve done your homework.”

当帕金斯太太从门口回来时，她只对斯卡莉特说：“希望你的作业已经写完了。”

Scarlett was thinking about the afternoon’s events as she lay in bed that night listening to the sound of the cars grinding their way along the main road. She had been there, in that graveyard, when she was little. That was why everything had seemed so familiar.

当晚，斯卡莉特躺在床上，听着来来往往的车辆碾过主路，想着下午发生的事。她去过那片坟场，在她小时候，所以一切都让她觉得那么熟悉。

Scarlett said, “Boy? What’re you doing?”

斯卡莉特问：“你在做什么？”

“Not quite what I meant,” said the boy. “Hullo. I’m Bod.”

“和我说的意思不太一样。”男孩说，“你好，我叫伯蒂。”

He looked around, seemed to have trouble focusing. “Who said that?” and then, “Oh, I can see you, sort of. Are you Dreamwalking?”

男孩四处张望，似乎不知该往哪儿聚焦。“谁在说话？”他说，“哦，我看到你了，隐隐约约的。你在梦游吗？”

“I think I’m dreaming,” she agreed.

“我想我在做梦。”

“I’m Scarlett,” she said.

“我叫斯卡莉特。”

He looked at her again, as if he were seeing her for the first time. “Of course, you are! I knew you looked familiar. You were in the graveyard today with that man, the one with the paper.”

男孩又看向斯卡莉特，似乎是第一次见到她。“哦，原来是你！怪不得我看你那么眼熟。你今天和那个人在坟场，那个带着拓印纸的男人。”

“I remember,” said Scarlett. But she said it to the empty darkness of her bedroom, and heard nothing in reply but the low trundle of a distant lorry, making its way through the night.

“我想起来了。”斯卡莉特说。可一抬眼，面前是黑黢黢的卧室，耳边无人应答，只有穿行过黑夜的公交车从远方传来的低沉轰鸣。

“Yeah. I keep an eye on most things that happen in the graveyard.”

“对，坟场里发生的大多数事我都会留意。”

He was taller than she was. He wore grey, although she could not have described his clothes. His hair was too long, and she thought it had been some time since he had received a haircut.

他比斯卡莉特要高，一身灰，尽管斯卡莉特描述不出他穿了什么。他的头发很长，像是很久很久没理过发了。

“What kind of a name is Bod?” she asked.

“伯蒂这名字是怎么来的？”

“Mr. Frost,” she said. “He’s really nice. He gave me a lift home.” Then she said, “Did you see us?”

“那是弗洛斯特先生。”斯卡莉特说，“他人很好，还开车送我回家了呢。你看到我们了？”

He nodded.

伯蒂点点头。

He said, “You were really brave. We went deep into the hill and we saw the Indigo Man. And we met the Sleer.”

他说：“你小时候很勇敢。我们进入山里，看到了刺青人，还遇见了杀戮者。”

Something happened, then, in her head. A rushing and a tumbling, a whirl of darkness and a crash of images…

斯卡莉特的脑海不再平静。先一起惊涛，后一记骇浪，翻天覆地的黑暗，奔涌而出的一幅幅画面…

“It’s short for Nobody.”

“这是诺伯蒂的小名。”

“Of course!” said Scarlett. “That’s what this dream is about. You’re my imaginary friend, from when I was little, all grown up.”

“我想起来了！我居然做了这么一个梦。你是我幻想中的朋友，那时我还小，现在我们都长大了。”

Bod had stores of food, the kind that lasted, cached in the crypt, and more in some of the chillier tombs and vaults and mausoleums. Silas had made sure of that. He had enough food to keep him going for a couple of months. Unless Silas or Miss Lupescu was there, he simply would not leave the graveyard.

伯蒂的食物储存了很多，每样都能存放很久，小部分放在教堂地下室，而大多数存放在温度更低的墓穴里。赛拉斯会确保食物充足且存放妥当。这些食物够伯蒂吃上几个月，如果赛拉斯或卢佩斯库小姐不在，他几乎一步也不会走出坟场。

And yet…

可是…

He missed the world beyond the graveyard gates, but he knew it was not safe out there. Not yet. The graveyard, though, was his world and his domain, and he was proud of it and loved it as only a fourteen-year-old boy can love anything.

他想念坟场外的世界，但他知道外面不安全，暂且不安全，而坟场毕竟是他的世界，他的领地，他为之骄傲，并深深爱着它——以一个十四岁男孩全部的爱。

In the graveyard, no one ever changed. The little children Bod had played with when he was small were still little children; Fortinbras Bartleby, who had once been his best friend, was now four or five years younger than Bod was, and they had less to talk about each time they saw each other; Thackeray Porringer was Bod’s height and age, and seemed to be in much better temper with him; he would walk with Bod in the evenings, and tell stories of unfortunate things that had happened to his friends. Normally the stories would end in the friends being hanged until they were dead for no offense of theirs and by mistake, although sometimes they were simply transported to the American Colonies and they didn’t have to be hanged unless they came back.

在坟场，每个人都不会改变。伯蒂小时候的玩伴现在依然是小孩子；他曾经最好的朋友，福丁布拉斯·巴特比，如今已比伯蒂小了四五岁，每次见面，他们可谈的东西越来越少；萨克雷·波林格同伯蒂年纪一样，身高相近，和伯蒂相处时脾气变好了许多。他会在夜晚与伯蒂一起散步，讲述他朋友们的不幸遭遇。故事的结局通常是他的朋友被送上绞架——其实他们没犯什么罪，完全是冤死；他还有一些朋友被送到美洲的殖民地，但他们只要一回来，还是会被绞死。

Liza Hempstock, who had been Bod’s friend for the last six years, was different in another way; she was less likely to be there for him when Bod went down to the nettle-patch to see her, and on the rare occasions when she was, she would be short-tempered, argumentative, and often downright rude.

丽萨·赫姆斯托克，伯蒂过去六年的朋友，却是另一副样子。当伯蒂去荨麻地里找她时，她总是不在，偶尔在的时候脾气也很差，动辄就和伯蒂吵起来，常常蛮横无理。

Mrs. Owens sniffed. “It was a pear I threw,” she said, tartly, “and I was talking to you again soon enough, for we danced a measure at your cousin Ned’s wedding, and that was but two days after your sixteenth birthday.”

欧文斯太太哼了一声，没好气地说：“我扔的是梨，而且我很快就和你说话了，我们在你堂兄奈德的婚礼上跳了一曲，那时你的十六岁生日才过去两天。”

Bod talked to Mr. Owens about this, and, after a few moments’ reflection, his father said, “It’s just women, I reckon. She liked you as a boy, probably isn’t sure who you are now you’re a young man. I used to play with one little girl down by the duck-pond every day until she turned about your age, and then she threw an apple at my head and did not say another word to me until I was seventeen.”

伯蒂和欧文斯先生说了这事。思索片刻后，他的父亲说：“我跟你说，女人就是这个样子。她喜欢男孩时的你，而你长大了，她不确定你成了什么样子。我小时候每天都和一个小女孩在鸭塘边玩耍，直到她到了你这个年纪。有一天她突然往我头上扔了个苹果，然后就再也不和我说话了。这一直持续到我十七岁。”

Mr. Owens said, “Of course you are right, my dear.” He winked at Bod, to tell him that it was none of it serious. And then he mouthed “Seventeen,” to show that, really, it was.

欧文斯先生说：“亲爱的，你说的当然是对的。”他冲伯蒂眨巴眼睛，示意他别当真，接着做了个“十七”的嘴形，以示自己才是对的。

He was wandering deeper into the tangle of ivy and trees that made the graveyard’s northwest quadrant so dangerous. Signs advised visitors to keep out, but the signs were not needed. It was uninviting and creepy once you were past the ivy-tangle that marked the end of the Egyptian Walk and the black doors in the mock-Egyptian walls that led to people’s final resting places. In the northwest, nature had been reclaiming the graveyard for almost a hundred years, and the stones were tipped over, graves were forgotten or simply lost beneath the green ivy and the leaf-fall of fifty years. Paths were lost and impassable.

伯蒂晃悠晃悠，渐渐步入坟场西北边的幽深之地，那儿因盘绕缠结的常春藤和树木而危险重重。路边挂有标语，建议游客就此止步，可这根本就没必要挂。一旦你走过埃及路尽头的那丛常春藤，走过引领人们前往安息之地的仿埃及墙的一扇扇黑门，阴森恐怖的气息就会扑面而来，让你毛骨悚然。西北边的坟场早已被一百年来的日晒雨淋打回了原始的面貌，墓碑东倒西歪，墓穴要么被遗忘，要么就干脆消失在了绿色的常春藤或积聚了五十年的落叶之下。若想通过这里，几乎无路可走。

Bod had allowed himself no friends among the living. That way, he had realized back during his short-lived schooldays, lay only trouble. Still, he had remembered Scarlett, had missed her for years after she went away, had long ago faced the fact he would never see her again. And now she had been here in his graveyard, and he had not known her…

伯蒂一直没和活人交朋友，他那时日不长的校园生活带来的只有无穷无尽的麻烦，但他依然记得斯卡莉特。自从斯卡莉特走后，他想念了她好几年，后来才不得不接受了再也见不到她的事实。可现在她来到了坟场，他却没认出她…

Bod walked with care. He knew the area well, and he knew how dangerous it could be.

伯蒂小心翼翼地前行。他对这片区域了如指掌，对这里暗藏的凶险心中有数。

Nehemiah Trot was the Poet’s name, and his gravestone, beneath the greenery, read:

诗人名叫尼赫迈亚·特罗特，他的墓碑掩映在青枝绿叶之下，上头写着：

Here lies the mortal remains of

此地长眠着

When Bod was nine he had been exploring in just this part of the world when the soil had given way beneath him, tumbling him into a hole almost twenty feet down. The grave had been dug deep, to accommodate many coffins, but there was no headstone and only one coffin, down at the bottom, containing a rather excitable medical gentleman named Carstairs who seemed thrilled by Bod’s arrival and insisted on examining Bod’s wrist (which Bod had twisted in the tumble, grabbing onto a root) before he could be persuaded to go and fetch help.

他九岁时曾探索过这片区域。有一天他在四处探寻时，脚下的土地忽然坍陷，害得他掉进了一个足足有二十五英尺深的洞。这个墓穴挖得如此之深，本是为了装下更多的棺材，可这儿没有墓碑，棺材也只有一口，在最底部，里头住了一个懂医学的绅士。这位绅士名叫卡斯泰尔斯，是个很容易激动的人。见到伯蒂时，他兴奋得不得了，还坚持要诊疗他的手腕（伯蒂掉下来时抓住了一棵树的树根，扭伤了手腕），之后他才听从伯蒂的劝说，去找了别人来帮忙。

Bod was making his way through the northwest quadrant, a sludge of fallen leaves, a tangle of ivy, where the foxes made their homes and fallen angels stared up blindly, because he had an urge to talk to the Poet.

坟场西北部，落叶一堆又一堆，常春藤一簇又一簇，其间常有狐狸安家，时而还会见到掉落的天使雕像茫然地凝视着天空。伯蒂艰难前行，他迫切地想和诗人聊一聊。

Nehemiah Trot beamed, wanly. “Of course, brave boy. The advice of poets is the cordiality of kings! How may I smear unction on your, no, not unction, how may I give balm to your pain?”

尼赫迈亚·特罗特无精打采的脸瞬间容光焕发：“当然可以，勇敢的男孩。诗人的建议热情真挚，直抵人心！我该如何为你涂上油膏，哦，不对，我该如何为你涂上香膏，缓解你的痛苦呢？”

SWANS SING BEFORE THEY DIE

天鹅死前之绝唱

NEHEMIAH TROT

尼赫迈亚·特罗特

1741-1774

1741—1774

POET

诗人

Bod said, “Master Trot? Might I ask you for advice?”

伯蒂说：“特罗特先生，我有问题想请教你。”

“I’m not actually in pain. I just — well, there’s a girl I used to know, and I wasn’t sure if I should find her and talk to her or if I should just forget about it.”

“我其实并不痛苦。我只是——是这样的，我遇见一个以前认识的女孩。我不知是该去找她，和她说话，还是应该放下此事，就此相忘。”

Nehemiah Trot drew himself up to his full height, which was less than Bod’s, raised both hands to his chest excitedly, and said, “Oh! You must go to her and implore her. You must call her your Terpsichore, your Echo, your Clytemnestra. You must write poems for her, mighty odes — I shall help you write them — and thus — and only thus — shall you win your true love’s heart.”

尼赫迈亚·特罗特挺直身子（虽然还是没伯蒂高），双手激动地按着胸膛，感叹道：“哦！你必须去找她，向她恳求。你必须称呼她为你的特普斯歌利[1]，你的厄科[2]，你的克吕泰墨斯特拉[3]！你必须为她写诗，写激情澎湃的颂歌。我可以帮你写。这样一来，你定能赢得她的芳心。”【注：[1]特普斯歌利（Terpsichore）：希腊神话中的舞蹈女神，主管艺术的九位女神之一。[2]厄科（Echo，字面意为回声）：希腊神话中的仙女，因爱恋那喀索斯遭到拒绝，憔悴消殒，最后只剩下声音。[3]克吕泰墨斯特拉（Clytemnestra）：希腊神话中的阿伽门农之妻。】

“Of all the organs,” said Nehemiah Trot, “the tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste our sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sour with the same tongue. Go to her! Talk to her!”

“所有器官中，”尼赫迈亚·特罗特说，“舌头最为不同寻常。无论是香甜的美酒，还是苦涩的毒药，我们都用它来品尝；无论是甜言蜜语，还是恶语污言，我们都用它来发声。去找她吧！和她说话吧！”

“I don’t actually need to win her heart. She’s not my true love,” said Bod. “Just someone I’d like to talk to.”

“我不必赢得她的芳心，她不是我的真爱。”伯蒂说，“我只是想和她说说话。”

“I shouldn’t.”

“我不该去。”

“You should, sir! You must! I shall write about it, when the battle’s lost and won.”

“你该去，先生！你必须得去！无论这场战斗胜败与否，我都会为你写下永恒的诗篇！”

“But if I Unfade for one person, it makes it easier for other people to see me…”

“可如果我为一个人解除隐身，其他人会更容易看到我…”

“Dish best served cold,” said Nehemiah Trot. “Do not take revenge in the heat of the moment. Instead, wait until the hour is propitious. There was a Grub Street hack named O’Leary — an Irishman, I should add — who had the nerve, the confounded cheek to write of my first slim volume of poems, A Nosegay of Beauty Assembled for Gentlemen of Quality, that it was inferior doggerel of no worth whatsoever, and that the paper it was written on would have been better used as — no, I cannot say. Let us simply agree that it was a most vulgar statement.”

“复仇如同冷菜，越凉口味越佳。正所谓君子报仇，十年不晚。”尼赫迈亚·特罗特说，“别因一时激动而贸然复仇，要等待，等待时机成熟。格罗布街上有个赶马车的人，名叫奥利望——我得提一嘴，他是个爱尔兰人。此人恬不知耻，居然好意思剽窃我的第一卷诗集《佳篇荟萃——致文人雅士》。尽管如此，他的那些打油诗依旧品质低劣，毫无价值可言，连写诗的纸也只能用来充当——不，我不能说出来，你就当我说了一句粗俗至极的话。”

“But you got your revenge on him?” asked Bod, curious.

“那你向他复仇了吗？”伯蒂好奇地问。

Nehemiah Trot said, “Ah, list to me, young Leander, young Hero, young Alexander. If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.”

“啊，年轻的勒安得耳，年轻的海洛[4]，年轻的亚历山大，请听我说！如果你畏缩不前，那么光阴荏苒，日月如梭，一无所有便会是你所有的收获。”【注：[4]希腊神话中，女祭司海洛（Hero）在一次集市上与男青年勒安得耳（Leander）一见倾心。每天晚上，海洛会点燃火炬，引导勒安得耳泅渡海峡，与其相会。在一个风雨交加之夜，勒安得耳溺水身亡。次日清晨，海洛在岸边目睹情人尸体，痛不欲生，遂投海自尽。于是，“Hero and Leander”一词被用来形容万古情痴。】

“Mister Trot?” said Bod. “Tell me about revenge.”

“特罗特先生，给我讲讲复仇吧。”

“Good point.” Bod was pleased with himself, and glad he had thought of asking the Poet for advice. Really, he thought, if you couldn’t trust a poet to offer sensible advice, who could you trust? Which reminded him…

“说得好。”伯蒂听了后心情很好，他很庆幸来向诗人寻求建议。他心想：的确，如果你不相信一位诗人能提供理智的建议，那你还能相信谁呢？他忽然心念一动…

“Not yet, no. But there is still plenty of time. Posterity is vast.”

“还没有，但来日方长，子子孙孙无穷尽也。”

“And after you died, they dug you up, and they printed the poems?”

“那你死后，他们有来挖你的坟，出版你的诗吗？”

“On him and on his entire pestilent breed! Oh, I had my revenge, Master Owens, and it was a terrible one. I wrote, and had published, a letter, which I nailed to the doors of the public houses in London where such low scribbling folk were wont to frequent. And I explained that, given the fragility of the genius poetical, I would henceforth write not for them, but only for myself and posterity, and that I should, as long as I lived, publish no more poems — for them! Thus I left instructions that upon my death my poems were to be buried with me, unpublished, and that only when posterity realized my genius, realized that hundreds of my verses had been lost — lost!– only then was my coffin to be disinterred, only then could my poems be removed from my cold dead hand, to finally be published to the approbation and delight of all. It is a terrible thing to be ahead of your time.”

“当然，不仅是他，我还报复了和他同类的整个伤风败俗的群体！我复仇了，欧文斯先生，那是一场惊天地、泣鬼神的复仇。我写了一封信，公之于大庭广众。我把信钉在许多家伦敦酒馆的门前，那群没文化的人常去的地方。我向他们宣告，由于天才诗人天性脆弱，我将不会再为他们写诗。从今往后，我只为自己与自己的子孙后代写诗，有生之年，我不会再为他们这帮人发表任何诗作！我立下遗嘱，死后要与未发表的诗作一同下葬。有朝一日，等哪位后人领略到我的才华，发现我有上千首诗没有传世时，我的坟墓才会被挖开，我的诗作才会从我冰凉的手中被抽走，最终得以出版，得到芸芸众生的嘉许。唉，走在自己的时代前面是多么可悲啊！”

“So… that was your revenge?”

“所以…这就是你的复仇？”

“Indeed. And a mightily powerful and cunning one at that!”

“没错。多么强大有力！多么奸诈狡猾！”

Bod left the northwest of the graveyard, returned through the Egyptian Walk to the more orderly paths and untangled ways, and as the dusk fell, he wandered back towards the old chapel — not because he hoped Silas had returned from his travels, but because he had spent his life visiting the chapel at dusk, and it felt good to have a rhythm. And anyway, he was hungry.

伯蒂离开坟场西北边，穿过埃及路，来到更加清爽，没有植物挡道的小路上。暮色渐渐降临，伯蒂慢慢地走向老教堂——这并不是因为他抱有赛拉斯远行归来的期望，而是因为他习惯了黄昏时去教堂，作息规律让他感觉很好。还有就是，他肚子饿了。

“Best. Served. Cold,” said Nehemiah Trot, proudly.

“冷——菜——上——佳！”尼赫迈亚·特罗特自豪地说。

“Ye-es,” said Bod, unconvinced.

“的…确。”伯蒂哑口无言。

He headed outside, was on his way to sit on the grey wooden bench, when he saw something and he hesitated. There was someone already there, sitting on his bench. She was reading a magazine.

他走出教堂，走向他常坐的那条灰色木质长凳。在看到长凳上的东西后，他犹豫了。一个女孩坐在他的长凳上，正在看一本杂志。

Bod slipped through the crypt door, down into the crypt. He moved a cardboard box filled with curled and damp parish papers and took out a carton of orange juice, an apple, a box of bread sticks, and a block of cheese, and he ate while pondering how and whether he would seek out Scarlett — he would Dreamwalk, perhaps, since that was how she had come to him…

伯蒂敏捷地穿过地下室的门，进入地下室。他移开一个纸板箱，箱子里装满了卷了边、受了潮的教堂文件。随后他拿出一盒橙汁、一个苹果、一盒面包棍和一大块奶酪。他边吃边想，他该怎么去找斯卡莉特呢？他能找到她吗？既然她是在梦里到来的，也许他可以试一试梦游术…

He said nothing. Then he said, “Why can you see me?”

伯蒂沉默了一会儿，问：“你为什么看得见我？”

“I almost couldn’t. At first I thought you were a shadow or something. But you look like you did in my dream. You sort of came into focus.”

“一开始看不见，还以为你是个影子或别的什么，可你的模样和我梦里一模一样，然后你就变得越来越清晰了。”

But she looked up. She looked straight at him, and she said, “Bod? Is that you?”

可女孩抬起头，直直地看向他，说：“伯蒂，是你吗？”

She nodded. “I helped Mr. Frost do some grave-rubbings, after school. And then I told him I wanted to sit and think here, for a bit. When I’m done here, I promised to go and have a cup of tea with him and he’ll run me home. He didn’t even ask why. Just said he loves sitting in graveyards too, and that he thinks they can be the most peaceful places in the world.” Then she said, “Can I hug you?”

斯卡莉特点点头：“我放学后来这儿帮弗洛斯特先生拓印墓碑，完事后我跟他说想坐在这儿想想心事。我答应之后跟他去喝杯茶，然后他会送我回家。他压根没问我为什么要待在这里，只说他也喜欢坐在坟场里，还说他觉得坟场是世界上最安宁的地方。”过了一会儿，斯卡莉特问：“我能抱抱你吗？”

He walked over to the bench. He said, “Can you actually read that? Isn’t it too dark for you?”

伯蒂走到长凳边，问：“这杂志你看得清？你不觉得太暗了吗？”

“Are you…” He trailed off, uncertain of what he had wanted to ask her. “Are you here on your own?”

“你…”伯蒂一时不知自己想问她什么，“你一个人在这儿？”

Bod Faded even more, became a part of the graveyard, no more important than a shadow or a twig.

伯蒂让自己隐身得更加彻底，成为坟场的一部分，比一片阴影、一根树枝还要不起眼。

Scarlett closed the magazine. She said, “It’s odd. You’d think it would be too dark, but I could read it fine, no problem.”

斯卡莉特合上杂志，说：“是挺古怪的，的确很暗，但我完全看得清。”

“No. It was nice. I mean. You just squeezed more than I was expecting.”

“没事，这挺好的，我只是没想到你会抱得那么紧。”

“Well then.” He thought for a moment. “I don’t mind if you do.”

“这样啊。”他想了想，“你想抱就抱吧。”

“You won’t go through me,” he told her, and she threw her arms around him and squeezed him so tightly he could hardly breathe. He said, “That hurts.”

“不会的。”斯卡莉特抱住伯蒂，抱得很紧很紧，让伯蒂喘不上气来。“疼。”

“Yes,” said Bod. “Of course.”

“是的，”伯蒂说“当然。”

“My hands won’t go through you or anything? You’re really there?”

“我的手不会穿过你的身体吧？你真的在那儿吗？”

“I just wanted to know if you were real. All these years I thought you were just something in my head. And then I sort of forgot about you. But I didn’t make you up, and you’re back, you’re in my head, and you’re in the world too.”

“我只想确认你是不是真的。好几年来，我一直以为你只是我的幻想，还差点把你给忘了。但你不是我的幻想，你回来了，你既在我的脑海中，又在这个世界上。”

“No,” she said. “Not for a long time. It would be a wee bit too small for me now.”

“不穿了，好久不穿了，那衣服对现在的我来说太小了。”

Bod smiled. He said, “You used to wear a sort of a coat, it was orange, and whenever I saw that particular color orange, I’d think of you. I don’t suppose you still have the coat.”

伯蒂笑了笑，说：“你以前经常穿一件外套，橙色的，每当我见到那种橙色，就会想起你。那件外套你应该不穿了吧？”

“I should go home,” said Scarlett. “I thought I could come up on the weekend, though.” And then, seeing the expression on Bod’s face, she said, “Today’s Wednesday.”

“我得回家了。不过，我想我周末能过来。”看到伯蒂的表情后，斯卡莉特又说，“今天是星期三。”

Scarlett let go. “Sorry.”

斯卡莉特松开手：“抱歉。”

“Yes.”

“对。”

“Do you want to?” said Bod.

“你想抱我？”伯蒂说。

Bod said, “I’ll find you. Don’t worry. Just be on your own and I’ll find you.”

伯蒂说：“别担心，你自己过来就行，我会来找你。”

She nodded, and was gone.

斯卡莉特点点头，转身离开。

She turned to go. Then she said, “How will I find you, next time?”

她转身要走，又问：“下次我怎么找到你？”

“I’d like that.”

“好啊。”

Scarlett said that she didn’t want a cup of tea, thank you.

斯卡莉特说：“我不想喝茶，谢谢。”

Or a chocolate biscuit. Mr. Frost was concerned.

“那你要来一片巧克力饼干吗？”弗洛斯特先生担忧地问。

Bod walked back into the graveyard and up the hill, until he reached the Frobisher mausoleum. He did not enter it. He climbed up the side of the building, using the thick ivy root as a foothold, and he pulled himself up onto the stone roof, where he sat and thought looking out at the world of moving things beyond the graveyard, and he remembered the way that Scarlett had held him and how safe he had felt, if only for a moment, and how fine it would be to walk safely in the lands beyond the graveyard, and how good it was to be master of his own small world.

伯蒂走回坟场，上了山，来到弗罗比歇陵墓。他没有进去，而是踩着陵墓墙边浓密的常春藤攀了上去，坐在石头墓顶上一边思索，一边看着坟场外车水马龙、生机盎然的世界。他回想起斯卡莉特的拥抱，那么令人安心。安全地行走在坟场外的大地上是那么美好，成为自己的小小世界的主人是那么美妙，哪怕只有一瞬间也好。

“Honestly,” he told her, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Well, a graveyard, not a bad place to see one, if you were going to, um, I had an aunt once who claimed her parrot was haunted. She was a scarlet macaw. The parrot. The aunt was an architect. Never knew the details.”

“说真的，”他对斯卡莉特说，“你的样子就跟见了鬼一样。不过，若你去了坟场，那见了鬼也不是不可能。我有个婶婶，她有一次说她的鹦鹉被鬼魂附体了，那是一只鲜红的金刚鹦鹉。我婶婶是个建筑师。其他细节我就不清楚了。”

“She said she’d drop me off here in the morning. Then she has to go and get groceries for our dinner. She’s cooking a roast chicken.”

“她说她早晨会先把我送到这里，她自己要去采购晚餐的食材什么的。她打算烤只鸡。”

“‘Fraid not,” said Scarlett. “But I’ll take another look when I come out on Saturday.”

“不太像。”斯卡莉特说，“我周六来时再仔细看看。”

“I’m fine,” said Scarlett. “It was just a long day.”

“我没事。”斯卡莉特说，“今天挺漫长的。”

“I’ll give you a lift home then. Any idea what this says? Been puzzling over it for half an hour.” He indicated a grave-rubbing on the little table, held flat by a jam jar in each corner. “Is that name Gladstone, do you think? Could be a relative of the prime minister. But I can’t make out anything else.”

“我马上开车送你回家。对了，你对这个有啥想法吗？我都卡了半个多小时了。”他指向小桌子上被果酱罐压住四个角的一张墓碑拓片，“你觉得上头的名字是格莱斯顿[5]吗？这人说不定是首相的亲戚呢。可别的我什么也没看出来。”【注：[5]威廉·尤尔特·格莱斯顿（William Ewart Gladstone， 1809—1898），英国政治家，于1868—1894年间四度任英国首相。】

“I expect so, yes.”

“应该有吧。”

“Is your mother likely to put in an appearance?”

“你妈妈会来吗？”

“She’s loving it,” said Scarlett, truthfully. “Thank you for giving me a lift home.”

“她很乐意准备这顿饭。”斯卡莉特真诚地说，“谢谢你愿意开车送我回家。”

“Do you think,” asked Mr. Frost, hopefully, “there are likely to be roast potatoes?”

“你觉得，”弗洛斯特先生满怀期待地问，“会有烤土豆吗？”

“More than welcome,” said Mr. Frost. They walked together down the steps in Mr. Frost’s high narrow house, to the little entrance hall at the bottom of the stairs.

“不客气。”弗洛斯特先生的房子又高又窄。他们一同走下台阶，来到一楼窄小的门口。

Mr. Frost looked delighted. Then he said, “I wouldn’t want to put her out of her way, I mean.”

弗洛斯特先生一脸兴奋：“但愿没给你妈妈添麻烦。”

In Krakow, on Wawel Hill, there are caves called the Dragon’s Den, named after a long dead dragon. These are the caves that the tourists know about. There are caves beneath those caves that the tourists do not know and do not ever get to visit. They go down a long way, and they are inhabited.

在波兰古都克拉科夫的瓦维尔山上，有许多统称为龙穴的山洞，以一条死去已久的龙命名，许多游客慕名而来。但在这些山洞底下还有一些山洞，游客们不知晓，更别提探访过。通往地底山洞的路很长，那些山洞里甚至有人居住。

There had originally been four of them, but they had lost Haroun in a cave far above, when the Ifrit, as naturally overconfident as are all of its race, had stepped into a space bounded by three polished bronze mirrors and had been swallowed up in a blaze of bronze light. In moments the Ifrit could only be seen in the mirrors, and no longer in reality. In the mirrors his fiery eyes were wide open, and his mouth was moving as if he was shouting at them to leave and beware, and then he faded and was lost to them.

一开始他们一行有四个人，但在之前的一个山洞，他们失去了哈龙——一只伊斯兰教精灵。这个种族生来自信到自负的地步。哈龙走进一片由锃亮的黄铜镜子三面环绕的空间，被一束炫目的铜光所吞噬。不一会儿，他的身形从现实中消失，只显现在镜子里。镜子中，他喷火的眼睛睁得巨大无比，嘴唇一开一合，仿佛在冲他们大喊：这儿危险，快点离开。接着他消失了，他们永远失去了他。

Silas went first, followed by the grey hugeness of Miss Lupescu, padding quietly on four feet just behind him. Behind them was Kandar, a bandage-wrapped Assyrian mummy with powerful eagle-wings and eyes like rubies, who was carrying a small pig.

赛拉斯走在前面，灰色巨兽卢佩斯库小姐紧跟其后，四条腿落地无声。跟在两人身后的是坎达尔，一个浑身裹满绷带的亚述木乃伊，他长着强健有力的雄鹰翅膀，眼睛像红宝石，怀里抱着一只小猪。

“One day?”

“哪一天？”

“So, your family were all killed?” said Scarlett. “Does anyone know who did it?”

“所以说，你的家人全被杀死了？有人知道凶手是谁吗？”

“Let them come,” whispered Kandar.

“放马过来吧。”坎达尔低语。

“Why?” asked Miss Lupescu, with a wolf-tongue, through wolf teeth. “Why the pig?”

“为什么？为什么带只猪来？”卢佩斯库小姐张嘴问，露出狼舌和狼牙。

Miss Lupescu’s hackles were rising. She said nothing, but she was ready for them, and it was only by an effort of will that she did not throw back her head and howl.

卢佩斯库小姐脖颈上的毛立了起来。她一言未发，但已作好迎战准备。她拼尽全力，压制住仰天长啸的冲动。

Silas, who had no problems with mirrors, had covered one of them with his coat, rendering the trap useless.

镜子影响不了赛拉斯，他走过去，用自己的外套盖住一面镜子，这个陷阱就失效了。

“What’s he scared of? That you’d strap on your gun and ride out to wreak vengeance on the man who killed your family?”

“他在害怕什么？怕你跃马横枪，去找那个杀了你家人的凶手报仇雪恨吗？”

“So,” said Silas. “Now there are only three of us.”

“这样一来，”赛拉斯说，“我们就只剩三个人了。”

“It’s lucky,” said Kandar.

“它能带来幸运。”

“And a pig,” said Kandar.

“还有一只猪。”坎达尔说。

“Hush,” said Silas. “They are coming. From the sound of it, there are many of them.”

“嘘，”赛拉斯说，“嘘，他们来了，我听到声音了，来了很多。”

“Did Haroun have a pig?” asked Kandar, simply.

“哈龙带小猪了吗？”坎达尔反问。

“No. Not that I know. My guardian only says that the man who did it is still alive, and that he’ll tell me the rest of what he knows one day.”

“没有，至少我不知道。我的监护人只告诉我那人还活着，等将来的某一天，他会把他知道的全都告诉我。”

“It’s beautiful up this way,” said Scarlett.

“这里一路上来很漂亮。”斯卡莉特说。

“When I’m ready.”

“我准备好的那一天。”

“Yes,” said Bod.

“是啊。”伯蒂说。

Miss Lupescu growled, unconvinced.

卢佩斯库小姐低吼一声，并不认同。

“You’re joking.”

“你在开玩笑吧。”

“Your guardian. Is he a dead person too?”

“你的监护人，他也是个死人吗？”

Scarlett looked hurt. “Not even to me?”

“跟我说也不行吗？”斯卡莉特看上去很受伤。

Bod said, “I don’t talk about him.”

“我不能说他的事。”

“Right,” said Bod, worried he had offended her, unsure what he should say to make anything better.

“好吧。”伯蒂很担心自己惹她不开心了，可又不知该说点什么来缓和气氛。

Bod said, “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –” just as Scarlett said, “I promised Mr. Frost I wouldn’t be too long. I’d better be getting back.”

“不，对不起，我不是那个意思——”斯卡莉特打断了他：“我答应弗洛斯特先生不会逗留太久，我得回去了。”

It was a bright and sunny Saturday morning. They were just past the entrance to the Egyptian Walk, out of the direct sunlight, under the pines and the sprawling monkey puzzle tree.

周六清晨，阳光明媚。他们刚刚走上埃及路，来到松树和枝枝蔓蔓的猴谜树[6]的树荫下，免受阳光直射。【注：[6]猴谜树（Monkey Puzzle Tree），又名智利南洋杉，其坚硬而呈尖刺状的叶子在坚挺的枝上螺旋排列，形成缠结多刺的网，难以攀爬到连猴子都望而兴叹。】

Bod looked at her seriously. “Well, obviously,” he said. “Not a gun, though. But yes. Something like that.”

伯蒂严肃地看着斯卡莉特，说：“可不是嘛，但我不会用枪，不过你那么说也行，我要用的东西和枪差不多。”

“Not even to you.”

“跟你说也不行。”

“Well,” she said. “Be like that.”

“好吧，随你。”

He watched Scarlett head off on the winding path back to the chapel. A familiar female voice said, with derision, “Look at her! Miss high and mighty!” but there was no one to be seen.

他看着斯卡莉特沿着弯弯曲曲的小路向教堂走去。耳边响起一个熟悉的女声，奚落道：“好个傲慢的丫头。”可四周一个人影也没有。

Bod, feeling awkward, walked back to the Egyptian Walk. Miss Lillibet and Miss Violet had let him store a cardboard box filled with old paperback books in their vault, and he wanted to find something to read.

伯蒂走回埃及路，心里很别扭。莉莉贝特小姐和维奥莱特小姐同意他在她们的墓穴里放一个装满旧版平装书的纸箱子，他想去找点书来读。

Bod said nothing. His lips were tight-pressed together. He shook his head. Then he said, “I’m not joking.”

伯蒂一言不发，紧抿双唇。“我没有开玩笑。”他摇了摇头。

Scarlett said, “If you wanted to find out about a murder, where would you look? I already tried the Internet.”

斯卡莉特问：“如果想调查一起谋杀案，该去哪里找线索？网上我已经查过了。”

Scarlett helped Mr. Frost with his grave-rubbings until midday, when they stopped for lunch. He offered to buy her fish and chips as a thank-you, and they walked down to the fish and chip shop at the bottom of the road, and as they walked back up the hill they ate their steaming fish and chips, drenched in vinegar and glittering with salt, out of paper bags.

斯卡莉特帮弗洛斯特先生拓印墓碑，一直忙到中午才停下来吃午饭。弗洛斯特先生想为她买点烤鱼和薯条以表谢意。他们走到山脚下的快餐店，买完后一边走上山，一边享用纸袋里热气腾腾的烤鱼和薯条，烤鱼浸过醋，撒着亮晶晶的细盐。

“Um. Depends. What kind of murder are we talking about?”

“嗯，这得看情况，那是怎样一起谋杀案？”

“Oh yes. Are you all right?”

“没错。你还好吗？”

“Something local, I think. About thirteen or fourteen years ago. A family was killed around here.”

“我想是当地的吧，十三四年前，这附近有一户人家被杀了。”

“Crikey,” said Mr. Frost. “This really happened?”

“天哪！真的吗？”

Mr. Frost finished off the last of his fried cod. “The library, I suppose. If it’s not on the Internet, it’ll be in their newspaper files. What set you off after this?”

弗洛斯特先生吃掉最后一块烤鳕鱼：“去图书馆吧，如果网上没有，那就去查阅一下报纸。对了，是谁让你查这件事的？”

“Not really. Bit too, well, bit of a wimp, really. Things like that, I mean, local true crime, you don’t like to think about it. Things like that, happening here. Not something I’d expect a girl of your age to be interested in.”

“不太好，说真的，挺不是滋味的。我是说，发生在本地的真实凶杀案，任谁听了都会不舒服——你想，那样的事，就发生在自己身边。我没想到你这个年纪的女孩会对这种事感兴趣。”

“It’s not actually for me,” admitted Scarlett. “It’s for a friend.”

“不是我感兴趣，是我的一个朋友。”

“Oh.” Scarlett wanted to lie as little as possible. She said, “A boy I know. He was asking about it.”

“哦。”斯卡莉特尽量不撒谎，“是我认识的一个男孩，这事是他提起的。”

“Definitely the library,” said Mr. Frost. “Murder. Brr. Gives me the shivers.”

“绝对应该去图书馆。”弗洛斯特先生说，“谋杀啊，我一听就瑟瑟发抖。”

“Me too,” said Scarlett. “A bit.” Then, hopefully, “Could you maybe, possibly, drop me off at the library, this afternoon?”

“我也是，心里直发毛。”斯卡莉特又满怀希望地问，“今天下午，你能顺道送我去图书馆吗？”

“I’m sorry,” said Scarlett. “I shouldn’t be asking for rides everywhere –“

“抱歉。”斯卡莉特说，“我不该总麻烦你送我去这儿去那儿的——”

Mr. Frost bit a large chip in half, chewed it, and looked at the rest of the chip, disappointed. “They get cold so fast, don’t they, chips. One minute, you’re burning your mouth on them, the next you’re wondering how they cool off so quickly.”

弗洛斯特先生将一根长长的薯条从中咬断，一边咀嚼，一边失望地看着剩下的薯条。“凉得真快啊，薯条这玩意。上一刻还热乎得烫嘴，下一刻就让你琢磨：啊，怎么凉得这么快。”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Frost. “Just wondering how best to organize this afternoon, and whether or not your mother likes chocolates. Bottle of wine or chocolates? Not really sure. Both maybe?”

“没有的事。”弗洛斯特先生说，“我只是在想下午该怎么安排才好，还有你妈妈喜不喜欢巧克力。你说是来瓶红酒好呢，还是来些巧克力好呢？我不太确定，要不索性都拿来？”

“Chocolates it is, then,” said Mr. Frost, relieved. They had reached the middle of the row of high, terraced houses on the hill, and the little green Mini parked outside. “Get in. I’ll run you over to the library.”

“那就巧克力了。”弗洛斯特先生松了口气。山两侧各有一排带露台的高大房子，他们走到其中一栋房子前，弗洛斯特先生的绿色小型车停在外头。“上车吧，我送你去图书馆。”

“I can make my own way home from the library,” said Scarlett. “And she loves chocolates. So do I.”

“我能自己从图书馆回家。”斯卡莉特说，“我妈妈喜欢巧克力，我也喜欢。”

The library was a square building, all brick and stone, dating back to the beginning of the last century. Scarlett looked around, and then went up to the desk.

图书馆是一座四四方方的建筑，由砖石砌成，其历史可追溯到上世纪初。斯卡莉特四处看了看，走向咨询台。

The woman said, “Yes?”

咨询台的女人问：“有什么事？”

Scarlett said, “I wanted to see some old newspaper clippings.”

斯卡莉特说：“我想查阅一些旧报纸。”

“Is it for school?” said the woman.

“是学校的作业吗？”

“It’s local history,” said Scarlett, nodding, proud that she hadn’t actually lied.

“是当地历史协会让我来的。”斯卡莉特点点头，为自己没撒谎而暗喜。

Scarlett could feel her heart pounding in her chest; she was certain she looked guilty or suspicious, but the woman led her into a room with boxes that looked like computer screens, and showed her how to use them, to project a page of the newspaper at a time onto the screen. “One day we’ll have it all digitized,” said the woman. “Now, what dates are you after?”

斯卡莉特感到自己的心怦怦直跳。她知道自己看上去就心里有鬼，惹人生疑。可女人直接把她带进一间屋子，屋里有许多形如电脑显示屏的盒子。女人给她演示了这些盒子的使用方法，教她如何每次将一页报纸投影到显示屏上。“有朝一日，我们会将这些全部数字化。”女人说，“好了，你想找什么时期的报纸？”

“We’ve got the local paper on microfiche,” said the woman. She was large, and had silver hoops in her ears.

“我们已经把当地报纸做成了微缩胶片。”女人说。她很高大，耳朵上戴着银色耳环。

“About thirteen or fourteen years ago,” said Scarlett. “I can’t be more specific than that. I’ll know it when I see it.”

“十三四年前。”斯卡莉特说，“我不晓得更具体的时间，但我查了后就能知道。”

The woman gave Scarlett a small box with five years’ worth of newspapers on microfilm in it. “Go wild,” she said.

女人递给她一个小盒子，里头有五年报纸的微缩胶片。“尽管查吧。”

There was no mention of how the family died, and nothing said about a missing baby. In the weeks that followed, there was no follow-up, and the police did not ever comment, not that Scarlett could see.

报道没有提那一家人是怎么死的，也没提到有个小孩失踪了。随后几周没有跟进的消息，警方也未发表任何评论，反正斯卡莉特没有看到。

But that was it. She was certain: 33 Dunstan Road. She knew the house. She had been in there.

但她敢肯定，准是这起案件：邓斯坦路33号。她知道这栋房子，她去过。

Scarlett assumed that the murder of a family would have been front page news but instead, when she eventually found it, it was almost buried on page five. It had happened in October, thirteen years earlier. There was no color in the article, no description, just an understated list of events: Architect Ronald Dorian, 36, his wife, Carlotta, 34, a publisher, and their daughter, Misty, 7, were found dead at 33 Dunstan Road. Foul play is suspected. A police spokesman said that it was too early to comment at this stage in their investigations, but that significant leads are being followed.

斯卡莉特本以为一起灭门案一定会登上头版，可当她终于找到相关报道时，却发现这起谋杀案的新闻居然在第五版这一不太起眼的版面。事件发生在十三年前的十月。报道平铺直叙，轻描淡写，仅仅刊登了如下信息：罗纳德·多里安，36岁，建筑师；其妻卡洛塔，34岁，出版从业者；两人之女米斯蒂，7岁——三人被发现死于邓斯坦路33号，疑似谋杀。警方发言人称就目前的调查进度，发表评论为时尚早，但他们已发现重大线索且正在追踪。

She returned the box of microfilm to the front desk, thanked the librarian, and walked home in the April sunshine.

她把微缩胶片盒还给咨询台，向图书管理员道谢，随后在四月的阳光下往家走去。

Her mother was in the kitchen cooking — not entirely successfully, judging from the smell of burnt-bottom-of-the-saucepan that filled most of the flat. Scarlett retreated to her bedroom and opened the windows wide to let the burnt smell out, then she sat on her bed and made a phone call.

她母亲正在厨房里烧菜——想必不太成功，从那来自炖锅锅底，近乎飘遍整个屋子的煳味就可见一斑。斯卡莉特撤入自己的卧室，打开窗户透气，让煳味散出去，接着坐在床上打了个电话。

“Mister Frost? Are you there?”

“弗洛斯特先生，你还在吗？”

There was a silence at the other end of the phone.

电话那头沉默了。

Scarlett wondered how much she could tell him. She said, “There was a little piece on it in an old newspaper, it only gave the address and nothing else. I don’t know how they died or anything.”

斯卡莉特不知该告诉他多少为好：“一份旧报纸里有个小版面，只写了地址，别的什么也没有，也不知道他们是怎么死的。”

“How did you find it?”

“你是怎么找到那栋房子的？”

“Scarlett. Everything still all right for this evening? How’s your mother?”

“你好，斯卡莉特，今晚一切顺利吗？你妈妈怎么样？”

“Estate agents’ window. It was empty and I could afford it. Well, more or less. Well, I wanted something within walking distance of the graveyard, and this was perfect.”

“通过房产中介。这房子没人住，价格我又能承担，嗯，多多少少付得起。再说我想找一栋步行就能到达坟场的房子，所以这栋恰好合适。”

“Um. Still here, Scarlett. Sorry. Not the sort of thing you expect to hear. It’s an old house, I mean, you expect things to happen a long time ago. But not… well, what happened?”

“嗯，我还在。抱歉，斯卡莉特，这实在是出乎我的意料。这是栋老房子，我是说，你会料想到这里曾发生过很多事，但不会是…好吧，具体发生了什么？”

“Mister Frost.” Scarlett wondered how to say it, and then just said it. “About thirteen years ago, three people were murdered in your house. The Dorian family.”

“弗洛斯特先生，”斯卡莉特一时不知该如何开口，旋即决定直话直说，“十三年前，有三个人在你住的房子里被杀了，多里安一家。”

“How long? About, well, four months now.”

“住了多久？我想想，大概四个月吧。”

“Hello? Mr. Frost?”

“你好，是弗洛斯特先生吗？”

“Oh, it’s all under control,” said Scarlett, which was what her mother had said when she had asked. “Um, Mr. Frost, how long have you lived at your house?”

“哦，尽在掌控之中。”斯卡莉特说。她曾问过妈妈同样的问题，而她妈妈就是这么回答的。“那个，弗洛斯特先生，你在现在住的房子里住了多久？”

“Thank you,” said Scarlett, relieved.

“谢谢你。”斯卡莉特舒了口气。

“Well. Good lord.” Mr. Frost sounded more intrigued by the news than Scarlett could have expected. “This, young Scarlett, is where we local historians come into our own. Leave it with me. I’ll find out everything I can and report back.”

“哦，天哪。”弗洛斯特先生听上去对此事非常感兴趣，超乎斯卡莉特所想，“斯卡莉特，这样的事正是我们当地历史学家所关心的。交给我吧，我会尽力调查，之后把结果告诉你。”

“Um. I assume this phone call is because if Noona thought there were murders going on in my home, even thirteen-year-old ones, you’d never be allowed to see me or the graveyard again. So, um, suppose I won’t mention it unless you do.”

“嗯。我想你给我打这通电话，是因为如果诺娜知道我住的房子曾发生过谋杀案，即便发生在十三年之前，她也不会再允许你来见我或允许你来坟场了。所以呢，如果你不说，我绝不会提起这件事。”

“Thank you, Mr. Frost!”

“谢谢你，弗洛斯特先生！”

“See you at seven. With chocolates.”

“七点见。等着巧克力吧。”

Dinner was remarkably pleasant. The burnt smell had gone from the kitchen. The chicken was good, the salad was better, the roast potatoes were too crispy, but a delighted Mr. Frost had proclaimed that this was precisely the way he liked them, and had taken a second helping.

晚餐非常美味。烧煳的味道早已从厨房散去。烤鸡很香，沙拉很棒，烤土豆太脆了，但心情愉悦的弗洛斯特先生说这样的烤土豆正合他的口味，他还拿了第二份。

The flowers were popular, the chocolates, which they had for dessert, were perfect, and Mr. Frost sat and talked then watched television with them until about 10 P. M., when he said that he needed to get home.

他带来的花，母女俩都很喜欢，巧克力呢，他们当甜点吃了，也很完美。弗洛斯特先生坐着与她们谈天说地，与她们一同看电视，一直到晚上十点左右，他说他要回家了。

Deep beneath the hill in Krakow, in the deepest vault beneath the caves they call the Dragon’s Den, Miss Lupescu stumbled and fell.

在克拉科夫的那座山的地下深处，在被人们称作龙穴的山洞之下最深的坟墓里，卢佩斯库小姐跌倒了。

Scarlett tried to find Bod in her dreams that night; she thought of him as she went to sleep, imagined herself walking the graveyard looking for him, but when she did dream it was of wandering around Glasgow city center with her friends from her old school. They were hunting for a specific street, but all they found was a succession of dead ends, one after another.

当晚，斯卡莉特试图在梦里寻找伯蒂。她在临睡前想着他，想象自己在坟场里到处寻找他。可她梦到的，却是和小学同班的朋友们一同在格拉斯哥的市中心游荡，他们想找一条街，发现的却是一个接一个的死胡同。

“No,” said Silas. “I won’t leave you.”

“不。”赛拉斯说，“我不会丢下你的。”

“Time, tide, and historical research wait for no man,” he said. He shook Noona’s hand with enthusiasm, winked at Scarlett conspiratorially, and was out the door.

“时间、潮汐，还有历史研究不会等人。”他说。他热忱地握住诺娜的手，冲斯卡莉特会意地眨了眨眼，告辞离去。

Silas crouched beside her and cradled Miss Lupescu’s head in his hands. There was blood on her face, and some of it was hers.

赛拉斯在她身边蹲下，双手抱住她的头。她的脸上血迹斑斑，部分是她自己的血。

“You must leave me,” she said. “Save the boy.” She was halfway now, halfway between grey wolf and woman, but her face was a woman’s face.

“你必须离开我。”卢佩斯库小姐说，“去救那个孩子。”她处于半人半狼的状态，脸是女人的样子。

Behind him, Kandar cradled its piglet like a child might hold a doll. The mummy’s left wing was shattered, and it would never fly again, but its bearded face was implacable.

在他身后，坎达尔抱着他的小猪，就像孩子抱着一个洋娃娃。他的左翅已经碎裂，再也无法起飞，可他那留有胡须的脸庞却流露出宁死不屈的神情。

She threw back her head and howled a howl of fury and of challenge. Her lips curled back from her teeth and she lowered her head once more. “Now,” growled Miss Lupescu. “We end this.”

她仰起头，龇牙咧嘴，发出一声奋勇迎战的怒号。她再次低下头，低吼：“来吧，决一死战！”

“They will come back, Silas,” Miss Lupescu whispered. “Too soon, the sun will rise.”

“赛拉斯，他们马上会卷土重来。”卢佩斯库小姐低语，“太阳就要升起了。”

“Da. I am one of the Hounds of God,” said Miss Lupescu. “I will stand.” She lowered her face into the shadows, flexed her fingers. When she raised her head again, it was a wolf’s head. She put her front paws down on the rock, and, laboriously, pushed herself up into a standing position: a grey wolf bigger than a bear, her coat and muzzle flecked with blood.

“能，我是上帝之犬的一员。我能站起来。”卢佩斯库小姐低下头，让脸没入阴影，屈伸指关节。当她再次抬头时，她的头已变成狼的样子。她把前爪搭在岩石上，吃力地立起身：一只比熊还要大的灰狼，皮毛和口鼻处沾着血。

“Then,” said Silas, “we must deal with them before they are ready to attack. Can you stand?”

“那么，”赛拉斯说，“我们就得在他们蓄势待发之前把他们解决掉，你还能站起来吗？”

“Funny, we were just talking about you,” said her mother, although they hadn’t been. “It was wonderful,” her mother continued. “I had the best time. Honestly, it was no trouble. The chocolates? They were perfect. Just perfect. I told Scarlett to tell you, any time you want a good dinner, you just let me know.” And then, “Scarlett? Yes, she’s here. I’ll put her on. Scarlett?”

“真是太巧了，我们刚刚正好在聊你。”她母亲说，虽然没有那回事。“棒极了，”她母亲接着说，“我特别开心，真的，一点都不麻烦。巧克力？巧克力很完美，无可挑剔。我和斯卡莉特说过让她转告你，你什么时候想吃一顿丰盛的晚餐，直接告诉我就行。斯卡莉特？对，她在，我让她马上来接。斯卡莉特？”

Late on Sunday afternoon the telephone rang. Scarlett was sitting downstairs, laboriously copying faces from the manga she had been reading onto scrap paper. Her mother picked up the phone.

星期天下午，电话铃响了，此时斯卡莉特正坐在楼下，一笔一画地在便条纸上临摹漫画人物的脸。她的母亲接起电话。

Her mother shot her a puzzled look.

她的母亲投来狐疑的一瞥。

“Scarlett?” He sounded excited. “The. Um. The thing we were talking about. The thing that happened in my house. You can tell this friend of yours that I found out — um, listen, when you said ‘a friend of yours’ did you mean it in the sense of ‘we’re actually talking about you,’ or is there a real person, if it’s not a personal question –“

“斯卡莉特？”弗洛斯特先生听上去很兴奋，“那个，嗯，我们谈过的那件事，就在我家发生的那件，你可以告诉你的朋友我发现了——嗯，我问一句，当你说‘我的一个朋友’时，是不是指的就是你自己？还是说真的有这么个人？这么问不知有没有侵犯你的隐私——”

“Like what?” asked Scarlett.

“发现了什么？”

“I’m just here, Mum,” said Scarlett. “You don’t have to shout.” She took the phone. “Mister Frost?”

“我就在这儿，妈妈，你不用叫那么大声。”斯卡莉特接过电话，“弗洛斯特先生？”

“I’ve got a real friend who wants to know,” said Scarlett, amused.

“我真有个朋友想知道。”斯卡莉特被逗乐了。

“Look… don’t think I’m mad. But, well, as far as I can tell, three people were killed. One of them — the baby, I think — wasn’t. It wasn’t a family of three, it was a family of four. Only three of them died. Tell him to come and see me, your friend. I’ll fill him in.”

“听我说…别觉得我脑子坏了。不过，据我所知，这家人中三个人被杀了，但除此之外还有一个人——一个小男孩，我想他还活着。这不是个三口之家，而是个四口之家，死了其中三个。叫你的朋友来见我，我会把这些都告诉他。”

“Tell your friend that I did some digging — not literally, more like rummaging, well, a fair amount of actual looking around — and I think I might have unearthed some very real information. Stumbled over something hidden. Well, not something I think we should spread around… I, um. I found things out.”

“告诉你的朋友，我挖掘了一下——不是字面意思，更像是翻箱倒柜，翻找了很多很多东西。偶然间，我真的挖掘到了可信度极高的信息——被隐瞒的惊天秘密。不过，我想这东西大肆宣扬不太好…总而言之，我有了新发现。”

Bod walked down the narrow stone stairs for the first time in six years. His footsteps echoed in the chamber inside the hill.

时隔六年，伯蒂再次踏上那窄窄的石阶，一路向下，他的脚步声在山中的石室里回荡。

He reached down and touched the edge of the knife. It was sharper than he had expected, and it nicked the skin of his finger.

他弯下腰，摸了摸石刀的边缘。刀把他的指尖划破了个小口，比他想象得更锋利。

“I’ll tell him,” said Scarlett. She put down the phone, her heart beating like a snare.

“我会叫他的。”斯卡莉特放下电话，心如擂鼓一般扑通扑通跳个不停。

Bod said, “You’re the oldest thing here. I came to talk to you. I want advice.”

伯蒂说：“这一带活得最久的就是你。我来和你谈谈，希望你能给我提提建议。”

He looked around the chamber, untroubled by the deep darkness, seeing it as the dead see. He walked over to the altar stone set in the floor, where the cup and the brooch and the stone knife sat.

他环视石室，丝毫不受一片漆黑所扰，死人能看见的他都能看见。他走向地上的祭坛石，酒杯、胸针和石刀摆在上面。

He reached the bottom of the steps and waited for the Sleer to manifest. And he waited, and waited, but nothing appeared, nothing whispered, nothing moved.

他走到石阶尽头的平台，等待杀戮者现身。他等啊等，等啊等，可什么都没出现，什么都没低语，什么都没移动。

“I know. But Silas isn’t here. And I don’t know who else to talk to.”

“我知道，可赛拉斯不在，我不知道该问谁。”

A pause.

停顿。

NOTHING COMES TO THE SLEER FOR ADVICE. THE SLEER GUARDS. THE SLEER WAITS.

没人来向杀戮者寻求建议。杀戮者负责守卫，负责等待。

IT IS THE TREASURE OF THE SLEER, whispered a triple voice, but it sounded smaller than he remembered, more hesitant.

这是杀戮者守护的宝藏。一个三重声响起，但没有伯蒂记忆中那么中气十足。

“That’s all, then. Sorry I bothered you.”

“我知道了，冒昧打扰，非常抱歉。”

“I’m afraid not.”

“恐怕不行。”

“I’m not frightened of dying,” said Bod. “It’s just, so many people I care for have spent so much time keeping me safe, teaching me, protecting me.”

“我不怕死。”伯蒂说，“但是，有太多我在意的人花了那么多时间和心血来保障我的安全，教我知识，保护我。”

IF YOU WERE OUR MASTER, WE COULD HOLD YOU IN OUR COILS FOREVER. IF YOU WERE OUR MASTER, WE WOULD KEEP YOU SAFE AND PROTECT YOU UNTIL THE END OF TIME AND NEVER LET YOU ENDURE THE DANGERS OF THE WORLD.

如果你是我们的主人，你将永远处于我们的盘绕之中，护佑之下。如果你是我们的主人，我们会一直保护你，直到时间的尽头。我们不会让你承受世间的任何危险。

It whispered into Bod’s head, then, in a voice that was a sleek insinuating glide, THE SLEER WAS SET TO GUARD THE TREASURE UNTIL OUR MASTER RETURNED. ARE YOU OUR MASTER?

杀戮者的低语忽然溜进了伯蒂的脑海，声音柔滑，带着讨好之意：杀戮者会守卫宝藏，直到主人归来。你是我们的主人吗？

Nothing was said. Just a silence in reply, that echoed of dust and loneliness.

杀戮者以沉默应答，寂静在尘土和孤寂中回荡。

Again, silence.

依然一片沉寂。

Then he said, “I have to do this on my own.”

伯蒂接着说：“这件事我得自己解决。”

“No,” said Bod.

“不是。”

“I don’t know what to do,” Bod said, honestly. “I think I can find out about who killed my family. Who wanted to kill me. It means leaving the graveyard, though.”

“我不知道该做什么。”伯蒂实话实说，“我想我能找出杀死我家人还想杀了我的那个人，可这意味着我得离开坟场。”

YES.

对。

The Sleer said nothing. Smoke-tendrils twined slowly around the inside of the chamber.

杀戮者一言不发，卷须般的烟雾环绕石室缓缓游移。

And then, with a hopeful whine, WILL YOU BE OUR MASTER?

接下来是一声饱含期望的恳求：你愿意做我们的主人吗？

Bod felt the Sleer writhing through his mind. It said, THEN FIND YOUR NAME. And his mind was empty, and the room was empty, and Bod was alone.

伯蒂感到杀戮者在他脑海中翻腾，它说：那就去寻找你的名字。刹那间，脑海空了，房间也空了，只余伯蒂一人。

NO.

不。

Scarlett was waiting for him on the bench by the chapel. “Well?” she said.

斯卡莉特在教堂边的长凳上等他。“怎么样？”她问。

Bod walked back up the stairs carefully yet quickly. He had come to a decision and needed to act fast, while the decision still burned in his mind.

伯蒂小心翼翼，快步走上石阶。他已经有了决定，趁这个决定还在他脑中熊熊燃烧，他得尽快行动。

Number 33 was a tall house, spindly-thin, in the middle of a terraced row. It was red-brick and unmemorable. Bod looked at it uncertainly, wondering why it did not seem familiar, or special. It was only a house, like any other. There was a small concreted space in front of it that wasn’t a garden, a green Mini parked on the street. The front door had once been painted a bright blue, but had been dimmed by time and the sun.

33号是一栋又高又窄的房子，处于一整排带露台的房子之中，由红砖砌成，毫无特色。伯蒂看着这栋房子，心里捉摸不定，不知这栋房子为何没带给他任何熟悉或特别的感受。这只是一栋房子，和其他房子别无二致。房子前面不是小花园，而是一小块水泥地，临路停有一辆绿色小型车。前门曾被漆成明亮的蓝色，但早因时间的流逝与太阳的暴晒而褪了色彩。

“I am not your master.”

“我不是你们的主人。”

“I’ll do it. Come on,” he said, and side by side they walked the path down to the graveyard gates.

“我和你去，走吧。”两人肩并肩，向坟场大门走去。

Bod knocked on the door. There was nothing, then a clatter of feet on the stairs from inside, and the door opened to reveal an entryway and stairs. Framed in the doorway was a bespectacled man with receding grey hair, who blinked at them, then stuck out his hand at Bod, and smiled nervously, and said, “You must be Miss Perkins’s mysterious friend. Good to meet you.”

伯蒂敲了敲门。一开始没有声音，随后咔嗒咔嗒的脚步声从门后传来。门开了，露出门廊和台阶。门框里站着一位戴眼镜的男子，灰色的发际线呈现出后移之势。他冲两人眨了眨眼睛，接着向伯蒂伸出手，不好意思地笑了笑。“想必你就是帕金斯小姐的神秘朋友吧。很高兴认识你。”

“Well?” said Scarlett.

“你来？”斯卡莉特说。

“Bod. With a D,” she said. “Bod, this is Mr. Frost.”

“伯蒂，D结尾。”她转向伯蒂，“伯蒂，这位就是弗洛斯特先生。”

“This is Bod,” said Scarlett.

“他叫伯蒂。”斯卡莉特说。

“Bob?”

“鲍勃？”

Bod and Frost shook hands.

伯蒂和弗洛斯特握了握手。

They sat on a large, extremely purple sofa (“It was already here when I came”), and they sipped their tea.

他们在一张特别大的紫色沙发上坐下（“在我搬来时这张沙发就在了。”），开始喝茶。

They followed him up the steps to a kitchen, where he poured three mugs of tea, then led them into a small sitting room. “The house just keeps going up,” he said. “The toilet’s on the next floor up, and my office, then bedrooms above that. Keeps you fit, all the stairs.”

他带着两人走上楼梯，进入厨房。在厨房里倒了三杯茶后，他带着他们进了一间小小的起居室。“这栋房子层数多，一层上头还有一层，”他说，“卫生间在上一层，我的工作室和卧室还要再上一层。这么多台阶，用来减肥正好。”

Scarlett said, “So what did you find out?”

斯卡莉特问：“所以说，你发现了什么？”

Scarlett had worried that Mr. Frost would ask Bod lots of questions, but he didn’t. He just seemed excited, as if he had identified the lost gravestone of someone famous and desperately wanted to tell the world. He kept moving impatiently in his chair, as if he had something enormous to impart to them and not blurting it out immediately was a physical strain.

斯卡莉特原本还担心弗洛斯特先生会问伯蒂太多问题，但他没有。他看上去很兴奋，仿佛刚刚证实了某位名人久未现世的墓碑，迫不及待地想昭告天下。他难耐地动来动去，仿佛憋着什么天大的事，不立即吐露就要承受生理上的痛苦。

“Kettle’s on,” said Mr. Frost. “What say we swap information over a cuppa?”

“水正在烧。”弗洛斯特说，“我们一边喝茶一边聊天吧。”

Mr. Frost said, “Well, you were right. I mean, this was the house where those people were killed. And it… I think the crime was… well, not exactly hushed up, but forgotten about, let go… by the authorities.”

弗洛斯特说：“嗯，你是对的，我是说，这里就是那家人遇害的地方。而且…我觉得这起案件…嗯，并不是被刻意隐瞒了，而是被遗忘了，被当局给…忽视了。”

“I don’t understand,” said Scarlett. “Murders don’t get swept under the carpet.”

“我没明白。”斯卡莉特说，“凶杀案不太会被忽视吧？”

“And what was that?” asked Bod.

“他怎么了？”伯蒂问。

“This one was,” said Frost. He drained his tea. “There are people out there who have influence. It’s the only explanation for that, and for what happened to the youngest child…”

“但这起案件被忽视了。”弗洛斯特将杯中的茶水一饮而尽，“有影响力极大的人从外介入，这是唯一的解释。至于那个最小的孩子…”

“Who are they?” asked Bod.

“他们是谁？”伯蒂问。

“He lived,” said Frost. “I’m sure of it. But there wasn’t a manhunt. A missing toddler normally would be national news. But they, um, they must have squashed it somehow.”

“他活着。”弗洛斯特说，“我很确定，可当时却没有大规模的寻人行动。一个失踪的小孩通常能成为国家新闻，可他们，他们一定把这件事给压下去了。”

“Yes. Well, a little…” Frost trailed off. “I’m sorry. I’m. Look. Given what I found. It’s all too incredible.”

“有，有一些…”弗洛斯特的声音越来越轻，“抱歉，我有点…根据我的发现，这一切实在太过不可思议。”

“The same people who had the family killed.”

“就是杀了这一家的人。”

“Do you know any more than that?”

“你知道更多的信息吗？”

Scarlett was starting to feel frustrated. “What was? What did you find?”

斯卡莉特开始不耐烦了：“什么呀？你发现了什么？”

Frost looked shamefaced. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Getting into keeping secrets. Not a good idea. Historians don’t bury things. We dig them up. Show people. Yes.” He stopped, hesitated, then he said, “I found a letter. Upstairs. It was hidden under a loose floorboard.” He turned to Bod. “Young man, would I be correct in assuming your, well, your interest in this business, this dreadful business, is personal?”

弗洛斯特有些不好意思地说：“实在抱歉，我习惯了保守秘密，这不是个好习惯。历史学家不该掩盖任何事，我们要做的是把事实挖掘出来，公之于众。没错。”他犹豫了一会儿，“我发现了一封信，就在楼上，夹在一块松动的地板下。”他转向伯蒂，“年轻人，如果我没猜错的话，你对这件事——这起灭门惨案感兴趣，是出于个人原因吧？”

“Deal,” said Scarlett.

“好。”斯卡莉特说。

“We won’t be long,” said Mr. Frost. “Come on, lad.”

“不会太久的。”弗洛斯特说，“跟我来吧，小伙子。”

Bod nodded.

伯蒂点点头。

“I won’t ask any more,” said Mr. Frost, and he stood up. “Come on,” he said to Bod. “Not you, though,” to Scarlett, “not yet. I’ll show him. And if he says it’s all right, I’ll show you as well. Deal?”

“我不再多问了。”说罢，弗洛斯特站起身，对伯蒂说，“跟我来。”他又对斯卡莉特说：“你暂时别来，我先给他看，如果他说可以，我再给你看。好吗？”

Bod stood up, darted a concerned look at Scarlett. “It’s okay,” she said, and smiled at him as reassuringly as she could. “I’ll wait here for you.”

伯蒂站起身，担忧地看了斯卡莉特一眼。“没事的。”斯卡莉特冲他莞尔一笑，尽可能让他安心，“我在这儿等你。”

She watched their shadows as they walked out of the room and up the stairs. She felt nervous, but expectant. She wondered what Bod would learn, and was happy that he would learn it first. It was his story, after all. It was his right.

伯蒂跟着弗洛斯特走出房间，上了楼梯。斯卡莉特看着两人的影子，心里忐忑不安，又满怀期待。不知伯蒂会知道些什么呢，他能第一个知道真是太好了，毕竟这是他的故事，他有权优先得知。

Out on the stairs, Mr. Frost led the way.

楼梯上，弗洛斯特走在前头。

Bod looked around as he walked up toward the top of the house, but nothing seemed familiar. It all seemed strange.

伯蒂一边向上走，一边四处打量，可没有任何东西让他觉得熟悉，一切都很陌生。

“All the way to the very top,” said Mr. Frost. They went up another flight of stairs. He said, “I don’t — well, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but — um, you’re the boy, aren’t you?”

“一直向上到顶楼。”弗洛斯特说。他们又走了几级楼梯。“不知你——嗯，你不想回答可以不说，不过我还是想问一问，那个男孩就是你吧？”

The room was small, an attic room with a sloping ceiling. Thirteen years before, it had held a crib. It barely held the man and the boy.

房间很小，是个斜顶阁楼间，小到几乎容不下他们两人。十三年前，这里曾放着一个摇篮。

Bod said nothing.

伯蒂没有回应。

“Stroke of luck, really,” said Mr. Frost. “Under my own nose, so to speak.” He crouched down, pulled back the threadbare carpet.

“真是时来运转。”弗洛斯特说，“正所谓，远在天边，近在眼前。”他蹲下身，拉动露出线头的破旧地毯。

“Here we are,” said Mr. Frost. He turned the key in the door at the top of the house, pushed it open, and they went inside.

“到了。”弗洛斯特拧动钥匙，推开顶楼的门，两人走了进去。

“We know he has dark hair,” said Bod, in the room that had once been his bedroom. “And we know that his name is Jack.”

“我们知道他有一头黑发，”伯蒂在自己曾经的卧室里说，“还知道他叫杰克。”

“So you know why my family were murdered?” asked Bod.

“所以说，你知道我的家人为什么被杀？”伯蒂问。

Mr. Frost put his hand down into the empty space where the floorboard had been. “It’s been almost thirteen years,” he said. “And hair gets thin and goes gray, in thirteen years. But yes, that’s right. It’s Jack.”

弗洛斯特把手伸入那块地板下方：“都十三年了啊。头发稀疏了，灰白了。十三年哪。但你后半句说得没错，他的确叫杰克。”

Mr. Frost said, “It’s all in here.” He reached down to a short length of floorboard and pushed at it until he was able to lever it out. “This would have been the baby’s room,” said Mr. Frost. “I’ll show you the… you know, the only thing we don’t know is just who did it. Nothing at all. We don’t have the tiniest clue.”

弗洛斯特回答：“答案全在这里。”他伸向一块短短的地板，用力推，直到能把它撬开。“这儿是那个孩子的房间。我这就给你看…要知道，我们唯一不知晓的就是凶手的身份，对此我们一无所知，一丁点儿线索都没有。”

Bod stared at him. It was as if Mr. Frost had been a coat or a hat the man had been wearing, that he had now discarded. The affable exterior had gone.

伯蒂盯着他。弗洛斯特先生这个身份仿佛只是他穿着的一件外套、戴着的一顶帽子，说扔就扔，和善的外表转瞬之间荡然无存。

The man Jack looked back to where Bod had been, then stared around the room, puzzlement and rage competing on his face. He took a step further into the room, his head swinging from side to side like an old tiger scenting prey.

杰克之一的目光转回伯蒂的所在之处，接着环视阁楼，困惑与怒火在他脸上竞相显现。他往前迈了一步，不停扭头，像一只老奸巨猾的狮子在嗅探猎物的气味。

He straightened up. The hand that had been in the hole in the floor was holding a large, sharp knife.

他站起身。刚才伸进地板凹陷处的手，此刻正握着一柄锋利的刀。

“Now,” said the man Jack. “Now, boy. Time to finish this.”

“好，”杰克之一说，“好啊，小子，是时候了结此事了。”

The light glinted on the man’s spectacles, and on the blade of the knife.

他的镜片闪着寒光，刀锋也闪着寒光。

A voice called up to them from further down the stairs — Scarlett’s. “Mr. Frost? There’s someone knocking at the front door. Should I get it?”

楼下传来呼喊声——是斯卡莉特：“弗洛斯特先生，有人在敲门，我要去开门吗？”

The man Jack only glanced away for a moment, but Bod knew that the moment was all he had, and he Faded, as completely, as utterly as he could.

杰克之一向边上瞟了一眼，伯蒂知道这一刻是他唯一的机会。他发动隐身术，竭尽全力，尽可能全然，尽可能彻底。

“You’re here somewhere,” growled the man Jack. “I can smell you!”

“你就在这里。”杰克之一低吼，“我闻到你的味了！”

Behind him, the little door to the attic bedroom slammed closed, and as he swung around he heard the key turn in the lock.

在他身后，阁楼的小门砰然关上，正当他转身时，锁孔里的钥匙咔嚓一转。

Bod threw himself down the stairs, bouncing into the walls, almost tumbling headlong in his rush to reach Scarlett.

伯蒂玩命似的冲下楼梯，撞上了墙壁，反弹后直冲斯卡莉特而来，差点把她撞倒。

The man Jack raised his voice. “It buys you moments, but it won’t stop me, boy,” he called through the locked door. Then added, simply, “We have unfinished business, you and I.”

杰克之一提高嗓门：“你这样只能拖延一会儿，小子，你挡不住我的。”他在上锁的房门后高喊：“你和我之间，还有事没了结呢！”

“Ah. Good evening, young lady,” said the man at the door, looking down at her. “We are looking for Mr. Frost. I believe this is his neck of the woods.” He had silver-white hair, and he smelled of cologne.

“啊，晚上好，年轻的姑娘。”门外的男人低头看她，“我们来找弗洛斯特先生，我想这儿就是他住的地方。”男人一头花白的头发，身上散发着古龙水的气味。

“Him! Frost. He’s Jack. He tried to kill me!”

“他呀！弗洛斯特！他就是杰克，他想杀了我！”

A bang! from above as the man Jack kicked at the door.

砰！杰克之一在楼上踹了一脚门。

“Are you friends of his?” she asked.

“你是他的朋友？”斯卡莉特问。

“But.” Scarlett tried to make sense of what she was hearing, “But he’s nice.”

“可是，”斯卡莉特百思不得其解，“他人很好啊。”

Scarlett pulled open the front door.

斯卡莉特拉开房屋的正门。

“No,” said Bod, grabbing her hand and pulling her down the stairs, into the hallway. “No, he’s not.”

“不。”伯蒂抓住她的手，拉着她跑下楼梯，来到门口，“不，他不是好人。”

“It’s who? What are you talking about?”

“就是谁？你在说什么呀？”

“Scarlett!” he said, when he saw her. “It’s him! Come on!”

“斯卡莉特！”一看到她，伯蒂大喊，“就是他！快跑！”

“Oh yes,” said a smaller man, standing just behind. He had a small black mustache and was the only one of the men to wear a hat.

“没错。”边上一个个头小一点的男子说。他留着黑黑的小胡子，来者之中只有他戴了帽子。

“Every man Jack of us,” said the last of the men, wide and bull-like, with a massive head. His skin was brown.

“我们每一位杰克都是他的朋友。”最后一个男子说。他魁梧得像头牛，脑袋很大，皮肤棕黑。

“Certainly are,” said a third, a younger man, huge and Nordic blond.

“那当然。”第三个男子说。他更年轻，更高大，像北欧人一样金发碧眼。

“He. Mr. Frost. He had to go out,” she said.

“弗洛斯特先生他，他刚刚出去了。”斯卡莉特说。

She said, as breezily as she could, “He just popped out. Popped out for a newspaper. From the corner shop down there.” And she closed the door behind her, stepped around the men and began to walk away.

斯卡莉特尽量轻快自然地说：“他刚出门了，去买报纸，就在那边拐角的一家店。”她关上门，绕过四个男人，向外走去。

“But his car’s here,” said the white-haired man, as the blond one said, “Who are you, anyway?”

“可他的车停在这儿。”白发男子说。这时金发男子问：“你和他什么关系？”

“He’s a friend of my mum’s,” said Scarlett.

“他是我妈妈的朋友。”斯卡莉特回答。

She could see Bod, now, on the other side of the group of men, gesturing frantically to her to leave the men and follow him.

她看得见伯蒂。他正站在这群男人边上，疯狂地向她比画，让她离开他们跟他走。

“Where are you going?” asked the man with the mustache.

“你要去哪儿？”留着小胡子的男人问。

“I’ve got a bus to catch,” she said. Scarlett walked up the hill towards the bus-stop and the graveyard, and did not, resolutely did not, look back.

“我要去乘公交车。”斯卡莉特向山上的公交车站和坟场走去，一直坚定地没有回头。

Bod walked beside her. Even to Scarlett he seemed shadowy in the deepening dusk, like something that was almost not there, a shimmer of heat haze, a skittery leaf that for a moment had seemed to be a boy.

伯蒂走在她身边。即使在斯卡莉特眼中，他都像渐渐深沉的黄昏中的影子，虚幻缥缈，像微微闪烁的热雾，像轻巧掠过的叶子，恍惚间又像个男孩。

“You don’t like this, Mr. Tar?” said the white-haired man. “None of us like it. All wrong. Everything’s going wrong.”

“塔尔先生，你不喜欢这样？”白发男子说，“我们没一人喜欢这样，乱套了，全都乱套了。”

“I think… we should go after her,” said the bull-necked man, Mr. Tar.

“我想…我们得去追她。”粗脖子的塔尔先生说。

The four men stood at the door to number 33.

四个男人站在邓斯坦路33号门口。

“I don’t like this,” said the big man with the bull-neck.

“我不喜欢这样。”脖子粗得像公牛的高大男子说。

“Who are they?” asked Scarlett, quietly.

“他们是谁？”斯卡莉特轻声问。

“Of course they’re people,” said Scarlett, and she walked up the hill as fast as she could without actually running, no longer certain that Bod was by her side.

“他们当然是正常人。”斯卡莉特说。她加紧步伐，全神贯注，以最快的步速往山上走，甚至没有留意伯蒂是不是还在她边上。

“Krakow’s gone. They aren’t answering. And after Melbourne and Vancouver…” said the man with the mustache. “For all we know, we four are all that’s left.”

“克拉科夫沦陷了，没有任何回应。继墨尔本和温哥华…”小胡子男人说，“看来，我们几个是最后剩下的杰克了。”

“Sorry, sir,” said Mr. Ketch, and he patted his mustache with one gloved finger, looked up the hill and down again, and whistled through his teeth.

“抱歉，先生。”凯奇先生戴着手套，他抚了抚自己的小胡子，上上下下打量这座山，透过齿缝吹了声口哨。

“Walk faster,” said Bod. “They’re all looking at you. But don’t run.”

“走快点，但别跑起来。”伯蒂说，“他们都在看你。”

“Quiet, please, Mr. Ketch,” said the white-haired man. “I’m thinking.”

“安静点，凯奇先生。”白发男子说，“我在思考。”

“I don’t know,” said Bod. “But they all felt weird. Like they weren’t properly people. I want to go back and listen to them.”

“我不知道，但他们太奇怪了，不像正常人。我想回去听听他们在说什么。”

“Maybe she’s one of them,” said Mr. Tar. “The ones who done for us in Vancouver and Melbourne and –“

“也许她是那帮人的一员，”塔尔先生说，“那帮将我们赶尽杀绝的人。温哥华、墨尔本——”

They were quiet.

众人都不再说话。

Mr. Tar put his shoulder against the door and began to lean his weight on it. “It’s reinforced,” he said. “Protected.”

塔尔先生用肩膀抵住门，把全身重量压了上去。“门被加固了，”他说，“被护住了。”

“Dead or alive?” asked Mr. Ketch, with a smug smile.

“要死的还是活的？”凯奇先生露出一丝神气活现的笑容。

Mr. Dandy and Mr. Tar stood outside the door to number 33.

丹迪先生和塔尔先生站在33号别墅外。

In the silence, they could hear thumping sounds coming from high inside the house.

寂静之中，房子高处传来了砰砰的撞击声。

“Get her,” said Mr. Dandy. “Get her now.”

“抓住她。”丹迪先生说，“现在就去。”

“Alive, you moron,” said Mr. Dandy. “I want to know what she knows.”

“当然是活的，你个白痴。”丹迪先生说，“我想知道她知道些什么。”

The blond man and the hat-and-mustache hurried up the hill.

金发男人尼伯和小胡子男人凯奇飞快地向山上赶去。

“I think you people should listen to me,” said the white-haired man. “I said quiet. And what I meant was, quiet.”

“你们都得听我指挥。”白发男人说，“我说了安静，意思就是，安静。”

“Force it,” said Mr. Dandy.

“把门撞开。”丹迪先生说。

“Sorry, Mr. Dandy,” said the blond man.

“对不起，丹迪先生。”金发男人说。

“I’m going in,” said Mr. Dandy. “Mr. Tar, you’re with me. Nimble and Ketch, get that girl. Bring her back.”

“我要进去。”丹迪先生说，“塔尔，你和我一起。尼伯，凯奇，你们去抓那个女孩，把她带过来。”

Mr. Dandy said, “Nothing one Jack can do that another can’t fix.” He pulled off his glove, put his hand against the door, muttered something in a language older than English. “Now try it,” he said.

丹迪先生说：“没有哪件事是一个杰克能设局，而另一个杰克限免不了的。”他脱下手套，把手放在门上，嘴里念念有词——那是一种比英语还要古老的语言。“你再试试。”

Tar leaned against the door, grunted and pushed. This time the lock gave and the door swung open.

塔尔先生抵着门，低喝一声，用力一撞。这一回，锁不堪重负，门应声而开。

There was a crashing noise from far above them, up at the top of the house.

楼上传来什么东西破碎的声音，来自顶楼。

The man Jack met them halfway down the stairs. Mr. Dandy grinned at him, without any humor but with perfect teeth. “Hello, Jack Frost,” he said. “I thought you had the boy.”

杰克之一在楼梯上碰见两人。丹迪先生冲他咧嘴一笑，露出一口好牙，但不含任何情感。“你好，杰克·弗洛斯特。”他说，“我想你抓住那个男孩了。”

The three men hurried down the stairs.

三人快步走下楼梯。

“I did,” said the man Jack. “He got away.”

“抓住了。”杰克之一说，“又让他给跑了。”

“It had better,” said Mr. Dandy.

“那样最好。”丹迪先生说。

“Nicely done,” said Mr. Dandy.

“干得漂亮。”丹迪先生说。

The man Jack sniffed the air. He had the scent of the boy in his nostrils, a prickle at the nape of his neck. He felt like all this had happened years before. He paused, pulled on his long black coat, which had hung in the front hall, incongruous beside Mr. Frost’s tweed jacket and fawn mackintosh.

杰克之一嗅了嗅空气，他的鼻腔里有那个男孩的味道，后颈有刺痒感，和十几年前的感觉如出一辙。他停下身，穿上挂在前厅的黑色长外套。这件外套挂在弗洛斯特先生的粗花呢夹克和浅黄褐色防水雨衣旁边，显得极其不搭。

“He’ll be in the graveyard,” said the man Jack.

“他一定去了坟场。”杰克之一说。

“We’ll get him,” said the man Jack. “This ends tonight.”

“我们会抓住他。今晚就解决掉。”

“Again?” Jack Dandy’s smile grew wider and chillier and even more perfect. “Once is a mistake, Jack. Twice is a disaster.”

“又？”杰克·丹迪嘴咧得更开，笑得更加冰冷，甚至更加灿烂，“一次是过失，杰克，两次就是大祸。”

The front door was open to the street, and the daylight had almost gone. This time the man Jack knew exactly which way to go. He did not pause, but simply walked out of the house, and hurried up the hill towards the graveyard.

房屋正门朝马路敞开着，白日将尽。这一次，杰克之一很清楚自己该怎么走。他未作停留，出门后急速上山，直奔坟场而去。

The graveyard gates were closed when Scarlett reached them. Scarlett pulled at them desperately, but the gates were padlocked for the night. And then Bod was beside her. “Do you know where the key is?” she asked.

斯卡莉特来到坟场大门口，门关着，她绝望地想把门拉开，可门在夜里全都上了锁。这时伯蒂出现在她身边。“你知道哪儿有钥匙吗？”斯卡莉特问。

“You what?”

“啊？”

“We don’t have time,” said Bod. He pushed close to the metal bars. “Put your arms around me.”

“没时间了。”伯蒂紧紧靠住金属栏杆，“抱住我。”

“You can open your eyes,” he said.

“睁眼吧。”伯蒂说。

“Just put your arms around me and close your eyes.”

“抱住我，闭上眼睛。”

Scarlett stared at Bod, as if daring him to try something, then she held him tightly and screwed her eyes shut. “Okay.”

斯卡莉特盯着伯蒂，那眼神仿佛在质疑他能搞出什么名堂，接着她紧紧抱住伯蒂，闭上眼睛。“好了。”

Bod leaned against the bars of the graveyard gates. They counted as part of the graveyard, and he hoped that his Freedom of the Graveyard might just, possibly, just this time, cover other people too. And then, like smoke, Bod slipped though the bars.

伯蒂紧贴坟场大门的金属栏杆。这些栏杆是坟场的一部分，但愿他在坟场的自由行动权能够扩散到另一个人身上，至少在这一刻。眨眼间，伯蒂如一缕轻烟般穿过了栏杆。

She did. “How did you do that?”

斯卡莉特睁开眼：“你是怎么做到的？”

“Run!” said Bod to Scarlett, pulling at her hand. She ran.

“快跑！”伯蒂拉住斯卡莉特的手跑了起来。

“This is my home,” he said. “I can do things here.”

“这里是我的家，我在这里无所不能。”

The sound of shoes slapping against the pavement, and two men were on the other side of the gates, rattling them, pulling at them.

路上传来啪啪啪的脚步声，两个男子出现在大门另一边，把栏杆摇得嘎吱作响。

“Hul-lo,” said Jack Ketch, with a twitch of his mustache, and he smiled at Scarlett through the bars like a rabbit with a secret. He had a black silk cord tied around his left forearm, and now he was tugging at it with his gloved right hand. He pulled it off his arm and into his hand, testing it, running it from hand to hand as if he was about to make a cat’s cradle. “Come on out, girlie. It’s all right. No one’s going to hurt you.”

“嘿。”杰克·凯奇的小胡子抖了抖。隔着栏杆，他冲斯卡莉特笑了笑，就像一只心怀鬼胎的兔子。他的左臂上绕着一条黑色的丝绳。他用戴着手套的右手拉拽丝绳，将之从左臂上扯下，抓在手里向两侧拉了拉，接着像翻花绳一样在手里翻来覆去地摆弄。“小姑娘，过来吧。没事的，没人会伤害你。”

“We just need you to answer some questions,” said the big blond man, Mr. Nimble. “We’re on official business.” (He lied. There was nothing official about the Jacks of All Trades, although there had been Jacks in governments and in police forces and in other places besides.)

“我们只是想问你几个问题。”高个金发男子——杰克·尼伯说，“我们在办公事。”（他在撒谎，杰克们干的事和正儿八经的公事八竿子打不着，即便是在政府和警务机关工作的杰克。）

“What?”

“什么？”杰克·尼伯说。

“Did you see that?” said the Jack they called Ketch.

“你看到了吗？”杰克·凯奇问。

“I saw somebody with her. A boy.”

“我看到她身边有个人，一个男孩。”

“I’m sure he does. That man Jack — your Mister Frost — he was going to kill me. He’s got a knife.”

“他的确想杀你。而杰克，你的弗洛斯特先生，他想杀了我。他拿着一把刀。”

“How do you mean?”

“你什么意思？”

“I think that man wanted to kill me. Did you see how he was playing with that black cord?”

“我想那个男人想杀了我。你没看到他在摆弄那条黑绳子吗？”

“The boy?” asked the Jack called Nimble.

“那个男孩？”

The bigger man put his hands out, linked them to make a step, and Jack Ketch’s black-clad foot went into it. Lifted up, he scrambled onto the top of the gates and jumped down to the drive, landing on all fours like a frog. He stood up, said, “Find another way in. I’m going after them.” And he sprinted off up the winding path that led into the graveyard.

尼伯把手臂环在胸前，好让凯奇踏脚。凯奇穿着黑鞋踩了上去。被抬起来后，他爬上大门顶端，奋力一跃，像只青蛙一样四肢着地。他站起身，说：“你想别的方法进来吧。我先去追他们。”说罢，他沿着弯曲的小路向坟场深处飞奔而去。

“How would I know? Here. Give me a hand up.”

“我怎么知道？快，给我搭把手。”

Bod was walking fast through the twilit graveyard, but he was not running, not yet.

伯蒂正快步穿过暮色苍茫的坟场，但还没跑起来。

“First we put you somewhere safe. Then I deal with them.”

“先送你去个安全的地方，然后由我来对付他们。”

“He’s not my Mister Frost. Well, I suppose he is, sort of. Sorry. Where are we going?”

“他不是我的弗洛斯特先生，嗯，也有那么点是吧。抱歉，我们现在去哪儿？”

All around Bod, the inhabitants of the graveyard were waking and gathering, worried and alarmed.

坟场的居民们被惊醒了，他们围拢到伯蒂身边，一脸担忧和紧张。

Scarlett said, “Just tell me what we’re doing.”

斯卡莉特问：“这到底是怎么一回事？”

“First place they’ll look.”

“他们准会最先去那儿找。”

Bod thought. “Yes. Good call. Scarlett, do you remember the place where we found the Indigo Man?”

伯蒂想了想，说：“可以，好主意。斯卡莉特，你还记得我们发现刺青人的那个地方吗？”

“Kind of. A dark place. I remember there wasn’t anything to be scared of.”

“有点儿印象，那里很黑，但我记得那里没什么好怕的。”

“Bad people,” said Bod. “Can our lot keep an eye on them? Let me know where they are at all times. We have to hide Scarlett. Any ideas?”

“有坏人来了。”伯蒂说，“大伙儿能帮我盯住他们的动向吗？请时刻通知我他们的位置。我们现在得找个地方把斯卡莉特藏起来。你们有什么想法吗？”

“Bod?” said Caius Pompeius. “What is happening?”

“伯蒂，”凯厄斯·庞培问，“发生了什么事？”

They hurried up the path. Scarlett could tell that Bod was talking to people as he went, but could only hear his side of the conversation. It was like hearing someone talk on a phone. Which reminded her…

他们飞快地走在路上。斯卡莉特听见伯蒂一边走一边还在和人说话，但她只能听见伯蒂在说什么，就像在听一个人打电话。这让她想到…

“Who are you talking to?” asked Scarlett, staring at Bod as if he had gone mad.

“你在跟谁说话？”斯卡莉特盯着伯蒂，仿佛在看一个疯子。

Caius Pompeius said, “Inside the hill?”

凯厄斯·庞培提议：“藏在山里？”

“The chapel crypt?” said Thackeray Porringer.

“小教堂的地下室？”萨克雷·波林格提议。

“I’m taking you up there.”

“我现在带你去那里。”

“My mum’s going to go spare,” she said. “I’m dead.”

“我妈妈会气疯的。”她说，“我死定了。”

“No,” said Bod. “You’re not. Not yet. Not for a long time.” Then, to someone else, “Two of them, now. Together? Okay.”

“不。”伯蒂说，“你没死，未来很长一段时间里，你都不会死。”他又对别人说：“现在有两个人？一起？好的。”

They reached the Frobisher mausoleum. “The entrance is behind the bottom coffin on the left,” Bod said. “If you hear anyone coming and it’s not me, go straight down to the very bottom… do you have anything to make light?”

他们来到弗罗比歇陵墓。“入口在左侧最下面那个棺材的后头。”伯蒂说，“如果你听到有人进来，而又不是我的话，你就进去，一直往下走，直到洞底…你有照明的东西吗？”

Bod said, “Where are they now?”

伯蒂问欧文斯先生：“他们现在在哪里？”

“Where’s Mum?”

“妈妈在哪儿？”

He pulled open the door to the mausoleum. “And be careful. Don’t trip or anything.”

伯蒂拉开陵墓的门：“小心点，别绊倒。”

“Where are you going?” asked Scarlett.

“你要去哪里？”斯卡莉特问。

Scarlett squeezed the LED keyring, and went down on her hands and knees. The space behind the coffin was tight, but she went though the hole into the hill and pulled the coffin back as best she could. In the dim LED light she could see stone steps. She stood upright, and, hand on the wall, walked down three steps, then stopped and sat, hoping that Bod knew what he was doing, and she waited.

棺材后方空间很小，斯卡莉特捏着发光钥匙环，手脚并用，努力爬了进去，又尽力把棺材拉回原本的样子。借着钥匙环暗淡的光，她能勉强看清石阶。她直起身，扶着墙往下走了三级台阶，坐下来等待，暗自祈祷伯蒂对自己在做什么心里有数。

“You don’t need them,” said Mr. Owens encouragingly.

“你不需要他们。”欧文斯先生鼓励道。

“I wish Silas was here. He’d make short work of them. Or Miss Lupescu.”

“要是赛拉斯在就好了，他三两下就能解决他们，卢佩斯库小姐在也好。”

His father said, “One fellow’s up by the Egyptian Walk, looking for you. His friend’s waiting down by the alley wall. Three others are on their way over, climbing up the alley wall on all the big bins.”

他的父亲回答：“有一个正在埃及路上到处找你，他的同伴在墙边等待。另外三个人在赶来的路上，正踩在垃圾桶上打算翻过墙。”

“Yeah. A little LED thing on my keyring.”

“有，我的钥匙环能发光。”

“Good.”

“好。”

“This is my home,” said Bod. “I’m going to protect it.”

“这里是我的家，我要保护这里。”

“Down by the alley wall.”

“在墙边。”

Bod breathed in, Faded as deeply as he could Fade, and moved past the man like dust blown on an evening breeze. He walked down the green-hung length of the Egyptian Walk, and then, with an effort of will, he became as obvious as he could, and kicked at a pebble.

伯蒂吸了口气，用尽全力隐去自己的身形，如同一粒尘埃，乘着晚风从凯奇身边飘过。他在绿意葱茏的埃及路上走了几步后，故意现出身形，能多显眼就多显眼，接着他踢了一块鹅卵石。

Bod ran through the darkened graveyard. The only way into the northwest part of the graveyard was through the Egyptian Walk. And to get there he would have to go past the little man with the black silk rope. A man who was looking for him, and who wanted him dead…

伯蒂在黑黢黢的坟场上奔跑。通向坟场西北边唯一的路是埃及路，要通过埃及路，那他势必会碰到那个拿着黑丝绳的小个子。那人正在找他，想让他死…

He was Nobody Owens, he told himself. He was a part of the graveyard. He would be fine.

他告诉自己：他是诺伯蒂·欧文斯，他是坟场的一部分，他会没事的。

He nearly missed the little man — the Jack called Ketch — as he hurried into the Egyptian Walk. The man was almost part of the shadows.

跑到埃及路上时，他差点没看见那个小个子。这个名叫凯奇的杰克几乎和阴影融为一体。

“Tell her I’ve hidden Scarlett in the back of the Frobisher’s place. Ask her to keep an eye on her if anything happens to me.”

“告诉妈妈我把斯卡莉特藏在弗罗比歇陵墓里，如果我出了什么事，就让妈妈照顾她。”

He saw the shadow by the arch detach itself and come after him, almost as silent as the dead.

他看到拱门边的那道阴影弹射而出，像死人一样悄无声息地向他追来。

Bod pushed through the trailing ivy that blocked the Walk and into the northwest corner of the graveyard. He would have to time this just right, he knew. Too fast and the man would lose him, yet if he moved too slowly a black silk rope would wrap itself around his neck, taking his breath with it and all his tomorrows.

埃及路上满是拖在地上的常春藤。伯蒂推开常春藤，跑向坟场的西北角。他得精准把控时间。太快的话，小个子会跟丢他；太慢的话，一条黑丝绳就会绕上他的脖子，夺去他的呼吸，还有他所有的明天。

Now he was hurrying carefully, stepping from root-tangle of ivy to stone to earth, confident that this was his graveyard. He could feel the graveyard itself trying to hide him, to protect him, to make him vanish, and he fought it, worked to be seen.

他在乱石、泥土和盘根错节的常春藤间快速行进，又不失小心。他很自信，因为这里是他的坟场，他能感受到坟场在隐匿他，保护他，想让他化作无形。他得奋力与之抗争，才能显现出自己的身形。

“Hola, young Bod!” called the poet. “I hear that excitement is the master of the hour, that you fling yourself through these dominions like a comet across the firmament. What’s the word, good Bod?”

“你好，年轻的伯蒂！”诗人向他问好，“我听到慷慨激昂的气息主宰了时间，你如划过苍穹的彗星掠过领地。有何吩咐，我亲爱的伯蒂？”

He pushed noisily through the tangle of ivy, disturbing one of the graveyard’s many foxes, which sprinted off into the undergrowth. It was a jungle here, of fallen headstones and headless statues, of trees and holly bushes, of slippery piles of half-rotted fallen leaves, but it was a jungle that Bod had explored since he had been old enough to walk and to wander.

他哗啦啦地推开缠结成团的常春藤，惊动了一只狐狸。狐狸飞快地蹿进低矮的灌木丛。这儿是片小丛林，倒坍的墓碑，无头雕像，各种各样的树，冬青灌木，半腐烂的落叶一堆又一堆，踩上去滑溜溜的。尽管不好走，但伯蒂自打会走路以来，就常常来这里探索。

He saw Nehemiah Trot, and hesitated.

他看到尼赫迈亚·特罗特，一时犹豫。

“Stand there,” said Bod. “Just where you are. Look back the way I came. Tell me when he comes close.”

“站着别动。”伯蒂说，“就站在原地，看着我来时的方向，当他靠近时立刻告诉我。”

Bod skirted the ivy-covered Carstairs grave, and then he stood, panting as if out of breath, with his back to his pursuer.

伯蒂绕着卡斯泰尔斯那覆满常春藤的坟墓走了半圈，站定，背对追捕者，装出一副喘得上气不接下气的样子。

(“He’s here, lad,” said Nehemiah Trot. “About twenty paces behind you.”)

“他来了，孩子。”尼赫迈亚·特罗特说，“在你身后大约二十步。”

Ketch’s mustache moved, but nothing else. He had his prey in his sight, and did not want to startle it. He began to advance, silent as a shadow.

凯奇的小胡子动了动，但仅此而已，他不想惊动近在眼前的猎物。他慢慢前进，如影子般悄无声息。

The boy straightened up.

男孩直起身。

And he waited. It was only for a few seconds, but it felt like a small forever.

他等待着，不过等了几秒，却像短暂的永恒那么漫长。

(“He comes, lad!” called Nehemiah Trot.)

“他来了，孩子！”尼赫迈亚·特罗特大喊。

Jack Ketch darted forward, his polished black shoes almost soundless on the leaf-mold.

杰克·凯奇向前突进，锃亮的黑皮鞋近乎无声地落在腐叶堆上。

And Mr. Ketch felt the world tumbling away beneath him. He grabbed at the world with one gloved hand, but tumbled down and down into the old grave, all of twenty feet, before crash-landing on Mr. Carstairs’s coffin, splintering the coffin-lid and his ankle at the same time.

脚下的世界骤然崩塌。他伸出一只戴着手套的手，想抓住这个世界。他下坠了二十英尺，撞上了卡斯泰尔斯先生的棺材。棺材的盖子和他的脚踝同时碎裂。

The Jack called Ketch saw the boy in front of him. He pulled his black silk cord tight between his hands. It had been stretched around many necks, over the years, and had been the end of every one of the people it had embraced. It was very soft and very strong and invisible to X-rays.

名叫凯奇的杰克看到前方的男孩，拽紧了手中的黑丝绳。这些年来，这条绳子绕上过许多人的脖子，而这些人无一例外，全都一命呜呼。这绳子既柔软又坚韧，还不会被X光照出来。

The boy turned around, and Jack Ketch made a leap towards him —

男孩转过身，杰克·凯奇向前一扑——

“That’s one,” said Bod, calmly, although he felt anything but calm.

“干掉一个。”伯蒂冷静地说，尽管他的内心百感交集，但此刻他只剩冷静。

Euphemia Horsfall said, “Three of them are on the southwestern path, heading up the hill.”

尤菲米娅·霍斯福尔说：“三个在西南侧的路上，正往山上赶。”

“Elegantly accomplished,” said Nehemiah Trot. “I shall compose an Ode. Would you like to stay and listen?”

“干得漂亮。”尼赫迈亚·特罗特说，“我要为你写一首颂歌。你愿意留下来听吗？”

Bod said, “Keep an eye on the man in with Mr. Carstairs — and please apologize to Mr. Carstairs for me…”

伯蒂说：“留意卡斯泰尔斯先生坟上的这个人，并代我向卡斯泰尔斯先生道个歉…”

“No time,” said Bod. “Where are the other men?”

“没空。”伯蒂说，“其他几个人在哪儿？”

Tom Sands said, “And there’s another. Right now he’s just walking around the chapel. He’s the one who’s been all around the graveyard for the last month. But there’s something different about him.”

汤姆·桑兹说：“还有一个家伙刚刚在围着教堂转，上个月老在坟场里转来转去的就是他，不过他的样子的和上个月不太一样。”

He passed the old apple tree.

他跑过那棵老苹果树。

He ducked under a pine-branch and loped around the hill, on the paths when it suited him, off the paths, jumping from monument to stone, when that was quicker.

他钻过松树枝，在山上大步奔跑，有路的地方就径直向前跑，没路的地方就从一块墓碑跳到另一块墓碑，以最快的速度前行。

“Hullo, Liza. I thought you were angry at me.”

“嘿，丽萨。我以为你在和我闹别扭。”

“There’s four of them, still,” said a tart female voice. “Four of them, and all killers. And the rest of them won’t all of them fall into open graves to oblige you.”

“还有四个人。”一个尖刻的女声说，“四个人，全是杀手，他们可不会全都傻乎乎地掉进你的陷阱。”

“I might be and I mightn’t,” she said, nothing more than a voice. “But I’m not going to let them cut you up, nohow.”

“也许是，也许不是。”丽萨依然只闻其声不见其人，“但我不会让他们伤害你，绝不。”

“Then trip them for me, trip them and confuse them and slow them down. Can you do that?”

“那帮我绊住他们，迷惑他们，拖住他们，可以吗？”

“Actually, you are. I mean, we’re talking right now.”

“可你没有啊，我是说，我们现在不就在说话吗？”

“While you runs away again? Nobody Owens, why don’t you just Fade, and hide in your mam’s nice tomb, where they’ll never find you, and soon enough Silas will be back to take care of them –“

“你还要继续跑？诺伯蒂·欧文斯，为什么你不干脆隐身，然后躲到你妈妈温暖的墓穴里呢？他们永远发现不了你躲在那儿。很快赛拉斯就会回来，把他们给一锅端了——”

“Maybe he will and maybe he won’t,” said Bod. “I’ll meet you by the lightning tree.”

“他也许会来，也许不会。”伯蒂说，“一会儿雷劈树下见。”

It was harder to find the grave than he had expected, even looking for it, but he found it — an ugly grave tipped at an odd angle, its stone topped by a headless, waterstained angel that had the appearance of a gargantuan fungus. It was only when he touched it, and felt the chill, that he knew it for certain.

找到那座坟墓比他预想的困难得多，但他还是找到了——一座歪歪扭扭的丑陋坟墓，墓碑顶上是个水渍斑斑的无头天使，乍看就像一朵巨大的蘑菇。直到他触摸到这座坟墓，感受到那股森森寒意后，他才确定就是这里。

“I am still not talking to you,” said Liza Hempstock’s voice, proud as a peacock and pert as a sparrow.

“我不和你说话。”丽萨的声音像孔雀一样骄傲，像麻雀一样轻佻。

Bod made for the lightning tree, an oak that had been burned by lightning twenty years ago and now was nothing more than a blackened limb clutching at the sky.

伯蒂跑向雷劈树——一棵二十年前惨遭雷劈的橡树，如今只剩一节焦黑的枝干抓向天空。

He had an idea. It was not fully formed. It depended on whether he could remember Miss Lupescu’s lessons, remember everything he had seen and heard as a child.

他有了个主意，不过还没完全想好，得看他还记不记得卢佩斯库小姐教过的课，记不记得自己孩提时代的所见所闻。

“Only during this emergency. After that, not a word.”

“眼下情况紧急另当别论，结束之后，一句话也别想。”

Bod stayed where he was.

伯蒂仍坐在坟墓上。

“More know Jack Fool than Jack Fool knows,” said Liza.

“枪打出头鸟。”丽萨说。

“I can see him!”

“我看到他了！”

A man ran towards him, tripping and stumbling, two other men close behind.

一个男人跌跌撞撞地向他扑来，另两个人紧随其后。

The man with the white hair said, “Ah. The elusive Dorian boy, I presume. Astonishing. There’s our Jack Frost hunting the whole world over, and here you are, just where he left you, thirteen years ago.”

白发男人说：“啊，神出鬼没的多里安家的孩子。真叫人吃惊，我们的杰克·弗洛斯特找遍了全世界，而你居然就留在原地，留在十三年前他离开的地方。”

He sat down on the grave, forced himself to become entirely visible.

他在这座坟墓上坐下，迫使自己完全显露身形。

“You’ve not Faded,” said Liza’s voice. “Anyone could find you.”

“你没有隐身。”丽萨的声音说，“谁都能看见你。”

“Good,” said Bod. “I want them to find me.”

“很好。”伯蒂说，“我就是想让他们看见我。”

Bod was aware of the dead clustered around them, watching the scene, but he forced himself to ignore them. He made himself more comfortable on the ugly grave. He felt like the bait in a trap, and it was not a good feeling.

伯蒂知道死人们正在围观，但他竭力忽视他们，迫使自己以更放松的姿态坐在丑陋的坟墓上。这种在陷阱里当诱饵的感觉一点也不好受。

The moon was rising. It was huge now and low in the sky. Bod wondered if it would be overdoing it if he began to whistle.

硕大的月亮冉冉升起，低悬于天穹。伯蒂想，如果吹个口哨是不是有点过头？

The bull-like man was the first to reach the grave, followed closely by the man with the white hair who had done all the talking, and the tall blond man.

粗脖子男人第一个到达坟墓边，后面紧跟掌控话语权的白发男人和高个子的金发男人。

Bod said, “That man killed my family.”

伯蒂说：“他杀死了我的家人。”

The white-haired man took another step closer to the grave. “Hush, Jack Tar. All right. An answer for an answer. We — my friends and I — are members of a fraternal organization, known as the Jacks of All Trades, or the Knaves, or by other names. We go back an extremely long way. We know… we remember things that most people have forgotten. The Old Knowledge.”

白发男人向坟墓迈进一步。“安静，杰克·塔尔。答案换答案。我们——我的同伴和我是一个兄弟会组织的成员，组织名称是‘无所不能的杰克’，或者‘恶棍’[7]，或别的什么名字。组织的历史源远流长。我们知道…我们记得许多近乎失传的东西，比如古老的秘辛。”【注：[7]扑克中的Jack（杰克）一词原先是Knave（恶棍）。Jack一词被广泛接受的原因是，在记录或报告牌例时，Jack可方便地用首字母J来指代；而过去使用Knave一词时，就必须用Kn来指代，因为只使用K会造成混淆。】

The bull-necked man said, “You don’t talk to Mr. Dandy like that, little snot! I split you, I will –“

粗脖子男人说：“你怎么跟丹迪先生说话的，臭小子！小心我把你——”

“Indeed he did.”

“的确。”

“I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.”

“你先回答我的问题，我就告诉你。”

The white-haired man barked a laugh. “Hah! Funny boy. What I want to know is, how have you lived in a graveyard for thirteen years without anyone catching wise?”

白发男人冷笑一声：“呵！可笑的男孩。我想问问你，你是怎么在坟场里待了十三年而没被任何人察觉的？”

“Does it matter? You’re never going to tell anyone.”

“你知道又如何？你又不会有机会告诉别人。”

“Why?”

“为什么？”

“Then it’s no skin off your nose to tell me, is it?”

“告诉我你也不会掉块肉，你说是吧？”

The man nodded agreeably. “If you want to call it that. But it is a very specific sort of magic. There’s a magic you take from death. Something leaves the world, something else comes into it.”

白发男人点点头：“这么说也行，不过我们会的是一种特殊的魔法，从死亡中获取魔力。一些东西离开这个世界，一些东西就会进来。”

Bod said, “Magic. You know a little magic.”

伯蒂说：“魔法，你们会一点魔法。”

“You killed my family for — for what? For magic powers? That’s ridiculous.”

“你们杀了我的家人，就是为了获得魔力？太荒谬了吧。”

“No. We killed you for protection. Long time ago, one of our people — this was back in Egypt, in pyramid days — he foresaw that one day, there would be a child born who would walk the borderland between the living and the dead. That if this child grew to adulthood it would mean the end of our order and all we stand for. We had people casting nativities before London was a village, we had your family in our sights before New Amsterdam became New York. And we sent what we thought was the best and the sharpest and the most dangerous of all the Jacks to deal with you. To do it properly, so we could take all the bad Juju and make it work for us instead, and keep everything tickety-boo for another five thousand years. Only he didn’t.”

“不，我们是为了自保。很久以前，在金字塔时代的埃及，我们中的一员预见到有朝一日，会有一个男孩出生与行走在生与死的交界地带。如果这个孩子长大了，那我们的组织和我们所代表的东西就会走向终结。在伦敦还是个村庄前，我们就在测算你何时降生；在新阿姆斯特丹成为纽约前，我们就盯上了你的家族。我们派出了身手最出色、下手最狠辣的杰克来对付你。如果得手，那我们就能得到西非土著全部的邪恶魔法力，为己所用，顺利地走过下一个五千年。可他失手了。”

“So where is he? Why isn’t he here?”

“那他去哪儿了？为什么不在这里？”

The blond man said, “We can take care of you. He’s got a good nose on him, has our Jack Frost. He’s on the trail of your little girlfriend. Can’t leave any witnesses. Not to something like this.”

金发男人说：“我们来对付你，而我们的杰克·弗洛斯特有个好鼻子，他正在追踪你的小女友呢。对于这种事，目击者一个活口都不能留。”

Bod looked at the three men.

伯蒂看着三个男人。

Bod leaned forward, dug his hands into the wild weed-grass that grew on the unkempt grave.

伯蒂向前倾身，将手深深插入乱糟糟的坟墓上肆意生长的野草之中。

He opened the ghoul-gate.

他打开了食尸鬼之门。

Bod pushed his fingers as deeply as he could into the grass, and he pulled his lips back from his teeth, and he said three words in a language that was already ancient before the Indigo Man was born.

伯蒂将手指深深插入草间，咧开嘴，念了三个词——早在刺青人诞生前，这门语言已经非常古老了。

“Skagh! Thegh! Khavagah!”

“Skagh！Thegh！Khavagah！”

“Come and get me,” was all that he said.

“来抓我呀。”他只说了一句。

The blond man grinned, the bull-necked man lunged, and — yes — even Mr. Dandy took several steps forward.

金头发咧嘴一笑，粗脖子向前一扑，连丹迪先生都向前走了几步。

The grave swung up like a trapdoor. In the deep hole below the door Bod could see stars, a darkness filled with glimmering lights.

坟墓像活板门一样打开，露出深不见底的洞穴，一片黑暗中星光点点。

The bull-man, Mr. Tar, at the edge of the hole, could not stop, and stumbled, surprised, into the darkness.

洞边的粗脖子男人——塔尔先生站不住脚，惊愕地跌进了黑暗。

Mr. Dandy stood at the edge of the ghoul-gate, on a lip of stone and looked down into the darkness beneath. Then he raised his eyes to Bod, and thin-lipped, he smiled.

丹迪先生站在食尸鬼之门边的石头沿上，低头看了看无尽的黑色深渊，又抬头看向伯蒂，咧开薄薄的嘴唇，微微一笑。

Mr. Nimble jumped toward Bod, his arms extended, leaping over the hole. Bod watched as the man stopped in the air at the zenith of his spring, and hung there for a moment, before he was sucked through the ghoul-gate, down and down.

尼伯先生伸出双臂，想越过洞口抓住伯蒂。伯蒂看到他跃至最高点定住，悬停了一会儿后就被食尸鬼之门吸了进去，不断向下坠落。

“I don’t know what you just did,” said Mr. Dandy. “But it didn’t work.” He pulled his gloved hand out of his pocket, holding a gun, pointed directly at Bod. “I should have just done this thirteen years ago,” said Mr. Dandy. “You can’t trust other people. If it’s important, you have to do it yourself.”

“我不知道你做了什么。”丹迪先生说，“但它不会再奏效了。”他把戴手套的手伸进口袋，掏出一把枪，瞄准伯蒂，“十三年前我就该这么做了，他人不可信任，重要的事还是得亲自动手。”

Bod said, “There’s a desert down there. If you look for water, you should find some. There’s things to eat if you look hard, but don’t antagonize the night-gaunts. Avoid Ghûlheim. The ghouls might wipe your memories and make you into one of them, or they might wait until you’ve rotted down, and then eat you. Either way, you can do better.”

伯蒂说：“下头是一片沙漠。想找水的话能找到一些，努力找的话还能找到点吃的，但千万别和夜魇作对，千万别去戈莱姆。食尸鬼会抹掉你的记忆，让你成为他们的一员，或等到你腐烂后来吃了你。比起这两种结局，你总能找到更好的路子。”

The gun barrel did not waver. Mr. Dandy said, “Why are you telling me this?”

枪管纹丝不动。丹迪先生说：“你为什么告诉我这些？”

A desert wind came up from the open ghoul-gate, hot and dry, with grit in it.

敞开的食尸鬼之门中涌出一股沙漠之风，炽热而干燥，夹杂着砂砾。

Bod pointed across the graveyard. “Because of them,” he said, and as he said it, as Mr. Dandy glanced away, only for a moment, Bod Faded. Mr. Dandy’s eyes flickered away and back, but Bod was no longer by the broken statue. From deep in the hole something called, like the lonely wail of a night bird.

伯蒂指向前方：“因为他们。”丹迪先生回头一看，就那么一刹那，伯蒂趁机隐身。丹迪先生把视线转回来，可破损的雕像上哪里还有伯蒂的身影？黑洞深处不知什么东西在叫唤，如同夜鸟的孤鸣。

He thought he heard a voice say, “Ghoul-gates are made to be opened and then closed again. You can’t leave them open. They want to close.”

他感觉到一个声音说：食尸鬼之门打开后要尽快关上，它不能一直开着，它想关上。

Mr. Dandy looked around, his forehead a slash, his body a mass of indecision and rage. “Where are you?” he growled. “The Deuce take you! Where are you?”

丹迪先生四处张望，前额挤出一道深深的皱纹，全身升腾着犹疑和怒火。“你在哪儿？”他怒吼，“该死的！你去哪儿了？”

The earth shook, and he felt the headstone begin to shift, beneath his weight.

大地仍在摇晃，他感到怀中的石头因支撑不住他的体重而开始移动。

“I’m going to let the gate close now,” he said. “I think if you keep holding onto that thing, it might close on you, and crush you, or it might just absorb you and make you into part of the gate. Don’t know. But I’m giving you a chance, more than you ever gave my family.”

“我要把门关上了。”他说，“我想如果你抱着那东西不放，门就会把你夹得粉碎，或把你吸收了，让你变成它的一部分。谁知道呢？但我给你一个机会，尽管当初你没有给我的家人任何机会。”

He looked up. The boy was there, looking down at him curiously.

他抬起头，看到伯蒂正一脸玩味地看着他。

The lip of the hole shuddered and shook. Mr. Dandy had been in an earthquake once, years before, in Bangladesh. It felt like that: the earth juddered, and Mr. Dandy fell, would have fallen into the darkness, but he caught hold of the fallen headstone, threw his arms about it and locked on. He did not know what was beneath him, only that he had no wish to find out.

黑洞的边缘不停震颤。丹迪先生几年前曾在孟加拉国经历过一次地震，就是这种感觉：地动山摇。他失足跌落，眼看就要坠入黑暗，但他眼疾手快，抓住了一块倒在地上的墓碑紧紧抱住。他不知道下方有什么，只知道自己一点也不想去一探究竟。

Mr. Dandy’s face confirmed everything that Bod had suspected.

丹迪先生的表情证实了伯蒂的所有猜测。

Bod said, “Wegh Khârados.”

伯蒂说：“Wegh Kharados！”

A ragged judder. Mr. Dandy looked up into the boy’s grey eyes, and he swore. Then he said, “You can’t ever escape us. We’re the Jacks of All Trades. We’re everywhere. It’s not over.”

又一阵疯狂的晃动。丹迪先生仰头看着伯蒂的蓝眼睛，咒骂了几句。随后他说：“你逃不掉的，我们是无所不能、无处不在的杰克。还没结束呢。”

The man Jack followed his nose. He had left the others, not least because the stink of Jack Dandy’s cologne made finding anything subtler impossible.

杰克之一循着气味前行。他与其他人分头行动，就是因为杰克·丹迪身上的古龙水味儿太浓，会盖过更淡的气味。

And what Mr. Dandy might have said to that, Bod would never know, because the man let go of the headstone and tumbled slowly down into the open ghoul-gate.

丹迪先生会怎么回答，伯蒂永远都不会知道了，因为他松开了抱住墓碑的手，缓缓落入张开的食尸鬼之门。

The ghoul-gate was a grave once again, nothing more.

食尸鬼之门再度变回原来那座其貌不扬的坟墓。

“It is for you,” said Bod. “The end of your people and all you stand for. Like your man in Egypt predicted. You didn’t kill me. You were everywhere. Now it’s all over.” Then Bod smiled. “That’s what Silas is doing, isn’t it? That’s where he is.”

“你要结束了。”伯蒂说，“你们这些人和你们所代表的一切都要结束了，就像你们的人在埃及所预言的那样。你们没能杀死我。你们曾经无处不在，但现在已经全部结束了。”伯蒂笑了笑，“这就是赛拉斯在做的事，对不对？”

Something was tugging at his sleeve. Fortinbras Bartleby looked up at him. “Bod! The man by the chapel. He’s going up the hill.”

有什么东西在拉扯他的袖子，他一低头，看到福丁布拉斯·巴特比正仰头看着他。“伯蒂！小教堂的那个男人，他上山了。”

He could not find the boy by scent. Not here. The boy smelled like the graveyard. But the girl smelled like her mother’s house, like the dab of perfume she had touched to her neck before school that morning. She smelled like a victim too, like fear-sweat, thought Jack, like his quarry. And wherever she was, the boy would be too, sooner or later.

他没法靠气味找到那个男孩，这儿不行，因为男孩的气味和坟场一模一样，可女孩身上有她家的气味，还有早晨上学前喷在脖子上的香水的淡雅香味。她闻上去像个祭品，散发着恐惧的味儿，让杰克觉得她是自己的猎物。无论她在哪儿，男孩一定会去那里，或迟或早。

His hand closed around the handle of his knife and he walked up the hill. He was almost at the top of the hill when it occurred to him — a hunch he knew was a truth — that Jack Dandy and the rest of them were gone.

杰克之一握住刀柄，向山上走去。快要到达山顶时，他的心头蓦然一动——一种直觉，但他知道这是真的：杰克·丹迪和其他人完了。

Now, soon, everything would change.

过不了多久，就要变天了。

He retraced his steps, almost casually, caught her perfume again about fifty feet away, beside a small mausoleum with a closed metal gateway. He pulled on the gate and it swung wide.

他从容不迫地往回走了几步，在大约退了五十英尺后再度闻到了女孩的香水味，就在一座小陵墓边。陵墓的金属门紧闭着，他用力一拉，门开了。

At the top of the hill the man Jack lost the girl’s scent. He knew she was near.

到了山顶，杰克之一跟丢了女孩的气味。他知道女孩就在附近。

No, she was not hiding in any of those…

不，她没有藏在棺材里…

Her scent was strong now. He could smell that she was afraid. He pulled down the coffins, one by one, from their shelves, and let them clatter onto the ground, shattering the old wood, spilling their contents onto the mausoleum floor.

女孩的气味更浓了。他闻得出她很害怕。他把棺材一个个从架子上拉出来，任其摔到地上。老朽的木头四分五裂，里头的东西撒了一地。

Good, he thought. There’s always room at the top. The man Jack’s own rise through the Order had slowed and stopped after he had failed to kill all of the Dorian family. It was as if he had no longer been trusted.

很好，他心想，这样上面就有位置了。自从杀死多里安一家的任务失败后，他的晋升速度就慢了下来，乃至停滞，他们好像不再信任他了。

Then where?

那她在哪儿？

He examined the wall. Solid. He went down on his hands and knees, pulled the last coffin out and reached back. His hand found an opening…

杰克之一先检查了墙壁，很结实。他又跪下身，拉出最后一个棺材，把手伸进去。他摸到了一个洞…

When Scarlett heard the crashing noise from above she made her way, carefully, down the steps, her left hand touching the wall, her right hand holding the little LED keyring, which cast just enough light to allow her to see where she was placing her feet. She made it to the bottom of the stone steps and edged back in the open chamber, her heart thumping.

听到上方棺木摔碎的声音后，斯卡莉特开始小心翼翼地走下石阶，左手扶墙，右手拿着会发光的钥匙环，可微弱的光线只能照亮她的落脚之地。她下到石阶底部，进入石室，心怦怦直跳。

“Scarlett,” he called, trying to remember how he would have called her name when he was Mr. Frost, but he could not even find that part of himself any longer: he was the man Jack now, and that was all he was. On his hands and knees he crawled through the hole in the wall.

“斯卡莉特！”他努力回忆当他还是弗洛斯特先生时是怎么呼唤她的，可他连弗洛斯特先生的一丁点儿特质也找不回来：他现在是杰克之一，彻头彻尾的杰克之一。他手脚并用，钻进墙上的洞。

She was scared: scared of nice Mr. Frost and his scarier friends; scared of this room and its memories; even, if she were honest, a little afraid of Bod. He was no longer a quiet boy with a mystery, a link to her childhood. He was something different, something not quite human.

她很害怕：害怕温和的弗洛斯特先生和他古怪的朋友，害怕这间石室和与之相关的回忆，说实话，她还有些害怕伯蒂。他不再是童年时那个安静而神秘的男孩。他和常人不太一样，透着些许非人类的感觉。

She thought, I miss my mum.

妈妈，我想你。

She had not thought anyone human could move that silently through the dark, but a gloved hand closed upon her mouth, and a voice that was only barely recognizable as Mr. Frost’s said, without emotion, “Do anything clever — do anything at all — and I will cut your throat. Nod if you understand me.”

可她没有料想到，居然有人能在黑暗中悄无声息地前行。一只戴着手套的手捂住了她的嘴，一个冷漠无情的声音随之响起——她几乎没听出这是弗洛斯特先生的声音：“你要是敢耍花招，敢动一下，我就割断你的脖子。听懂了就点头。”

She thought, I wonder what Mum’s thinking right now. She’ll be phoning Mr. Frost’s house over and over to find out when I’m going to get back. She thought, If I get out of this alive, I’m going to force her to get me a phone. It’s ridiculous. I’m the only person in my year who doesn’t have her own phone, practically.

斯卡莉特心想：不知妈妈现在在想什么。她一定往弗洛斯特先生家打了一通又一通电话，想问清我什么时候回家。如果我活着出去，我一定要逼她给我买部手机。真可笑，在同龄人中，恐怕就只有我还没有自己的手机了。

Scarlett nodded.

斯卡莉特点点头。

“Thank you,” said Bod. He clambered through the hole into the inside of the hill, and he went down the stairs.

“谢谢。”伯蒂钻进山洞，走下石阶。

Bod saw the chaos on the floor of the Frobisher mausoleum, the fallen coffins with their contents scattered across over the aisle. There were many Frobishers and Frobyshers, and several Pettyfers, all in various states of upset and consternation.

伯蒂走进弗罗比歇陵墓，看到一地狼藉：棺材摔碎了，里头的东西撒满过道。弗罗比歇家族的很多人和佩蒂弗家族的一些人站在旁边，个个脸上不是黯然神伤，就是心有余悸。

“He is already down there,” said Ephraim.

“他已经下去了。”以法莲·佩蒂弗说。

The man Jack looked up in the darkness. “Hello, boy,” he said.

杰克之一抬头望着黑暗，说：“你好，孩子。”

Bod saw as the dead see: he saw the steps, and he saw the chamber at the bottom. And when he got halfway down the steps, he saw the man Jack holding Scarlett. He had her arm twisted up behind her back, and a large, wicked, boning-knife at her neck.

他能像死人一样看穿黑暗：他看得见石阶，看得见石阶尽头的石室。下到一半时，他看到了抓住斯卡莉特的杰克之一：他把斯卡莉特的双臂扭在身后，用一把硕大而瘆人的剔骨刀抵住她的脖子。

Bod said nothing. He concentrated on his Fade, took another step.

伯蒂一声不吭，在专心隐身的同时，又向前迈了一步。

“You think I can’t see you,” said the man Jack. “And you’re right. I can’t. Not really. But I can smell your fear. And I can hear you move and hear you breathe. And now that I know about your clever vanishing trick, I can feel you. Say something now. Say it so I can hear it, or I start to cut little pieces out of the young lady. Do you understand me?”

“你以为我看不见你。”杰克之一说，“没错，我是看不见你，但我能闻到你的恐惧，听到你的移动和呼吸。既然已经知晓你那隐身的小把戏，那我就能更清楚地感觉到你。大声说句话，让我听见，不然我就从这位年轻的小姐身上割一块肉下来。听见没？”

“Yes,” said Bod, his voice echoing in the chamber room. “I understand.”

“嗯，”伯蒂的声音在石室里回荡，“我听见了。”

Bod began to walk down the steps. He concentrated on the Fear, on raising the level of panic in the room, of making the Terror something tangible…

伯蒂继续沿着石阶向下走，他集中精力施展恐惧大法，让石室的恐怖程度节节攀升，让恐惧凝聚成有形之物…

“Good,” said Jack. “Now, come here. Let’s have a little chat.”

“很好。”杰克之一说，“你到这儿来，我们谈一谈。”

“Stop that,” said the man Jack. “Whatever it is you’re doing. Don’t do it.”

“停下，”杰克之一说，“不管你在耍什么把戏，都给我停下。”

Bod let it go.

伯蒂作罢。

“You think,” said Jack, “that you can do your little magics on me? Do you know what I am, boy?”

“你以为你能用那些小魔法来对付我？孩子，你知不知道我是谁？”

Bod said, “You’re a Jack. You killed my family. And you should have killed me.”

“你是一个杰克，你杀了我的家人，本来我也会被你杀死。”

“Oh yes. The old man said that if you let me grow to adulthood your Order would be destroyed. I did. You failed and you lost.”

“没错。那个古时候的预言者说，如果任由我长大，你们的组织就会完蛋。我长大了，你们输了，失去了一切。”

Jack raised an eyebrow. He said, “I should have killed you?”

杰克之一挑起一边眉毛：“本来我能把你杀死？”

“They didn’t tell you, did they?” Bod was standing five paces from the man Jack. “Those four. They were the last of the Jacks. What was it… Krakow and Vancouver and Melbourne. All gone.”

“他们没告诉你吗？”伯蒂站在离杰克之一五步远的地方，“他们四个连你已经是最后的杰克了。你们在克拉科夫、温哥华还有墨尔本的同伴，已经全军覆没。”

Scarlett said, “Please, Bod. Make him let go of me.”

斯卡莉特开口：“伯蒂，求求你，让他放开我。”

“Don’t worry,” said Bod, with a calm he did not feel. He said to Jack, “There’s no point in hurting her. There’s no point in killing me. Don’t you understand? There isn’t even an order of Jacks of All Trades. Not anymore.”

“别担心。”伯蒂虽语气冷静，实则心神不定。他对杰克说：“伤害她没有意义，杀死我也没有意义。你不明白吗？‘无所不能的杰克’这一组织已经不复存在了。”

“My order goes back before Babylon. Nothing can harm it.”

“早在巴比伦时代前，我们的组织就存在了，没有什么能让它损伤分毫。”

Jack nodded thoughtfully. “If this is true,” said Jack, “and if I am now a Jack-all-alone, then I have an excellent reason for killing you both.”

杰克若有所思地点点头：“如果这是真的，如果我是唯一在世的杰克，我仍有一个非杀了你俩不可的至高理由。”

Bod’s hair prickled. He could feel a smoke-tendril presence twining through the room. He said, “It’s not me. It’s the Sleer. It guards the treasure that’s buried here.”

伯蒂的头皮一阵刺痛，他感觉到一种须状的烟雾在石室里缭绕。他说：“不是我，是杀戮者，他们负责守卫埋藏在这里的宝藏。”

Bod said nothing.

伯蒂没说话。

Before Bod could speak, the Sleer’s voice spoke, echoing through the chamber, THIS IS THE PLACE OF THE TREASURE. THIS IS THE PLACE OF POWER. THIS IS WHERE THE SLEER GUARDS AND WAITS FOR ITS MASTER TO RETURN.

在伯蒂开口前，杀戮者的声音再次回响于石室之中：这里是宝藏之所。这里是力量之所。杀戮者守候此地，等待主人归来。

Scarlett said, “I didn’t hear anything.”

斯卡莉特说：“我什么也没听见。”

THE SLEER GUARDS THE TREASURE FOR THE MASTER.

杀戮者为主人守卫宝藏。

Jack said, “True? Buried treasure? Don’t make me –“

杰克说：“真的？埋藏的宝藏？别耍——”

“You heard it?” asked Bod, puzzled.

“你听得见？”伯蒂很诧异。

“Pride,” said the man Jack. “Pride in my work. Pride in finishing what I began.” And then he said, “What are you doing?”

“自豪。”杰克说，“一种职业自豪感，由我起始，由我终结的自豪感。”他忽然问，“你们在干什么？”

The man Jack tilted his head on one side. He said, “It’s good to hear my name in your mouth, boy. If you’d used it before, I could have found you sooner.”

杰克侧耳倾听。他说：“听到我的名字从你的嘴里说出来，可真动听啊。小子，你要是早点说出来，我早就能找到你了。”

Scarlett said, “He’s not lying. It’s true.”

斯卡莉特说：“他没撒谎，他说的是真的。”

“I heard it,” said Jack. “Yes.”

“对，我听得见。”

“Don’t lie.”

“别唬人。”

The man Jack said, “What is this place, boy? Where are we?”

杰克说：“小子，这里是什么地方？我们在哪里？”

“Who said that?” asked the man Jack, looking around.

“谁在说话？”杰克四处张望。

Bod said, “Jack?”

“杰克。”伯蒂叫了一声。

“I want you to let the girl go,” said Bod. “Let Scarlett go.”

“我希望你放了那个女孩。”伯蒂说，“放了斯卡莉特。”

He was smiling now, in the darkness. Bod could see it on his face: a strange, delighted smile that seemed out of place on that face, a smile of discovery and of understanding. Scarlett couldn’t see anything but a blackness that sometimes erupted in flashes inside her eyeballs, but she could hear the delight in Jack’s voice.

一片漆黑之中，杰克勾起嘴角。伯蒂看到了他的表情：一种古怪、愉悦且与他的脸不太相称的笑容浮现出来，透着股踏破铁鞋无觅处，得来全不费工夫的意味。斯卡莉特眼中只有一片黑暗和一闪而逝的星点光亮，但她听得出杰克语气中难以抑制的兴奋之情。

Jack peered into the darkness, then said, “That’s an altar stone, isn’t it?”

杰克凝视黑暗，开口问：“那儿是不是有一块祭坛石？”

Jack shrugged and nodded in the darkness, as if to say obviously.

杰克在黑暗中耸了耸肩，仿佛在说：那不明摆着的吗？

“Why should that matter to you now?”

“你问这个做什么？”

The man Jack said, “So the Brotherhood is over and the Convocation is at an end. And yet, if there are no more Jacks of All Trades but me, what does it matter? There can be a new Brotherhood, more powerful than the last.”

杰克说：“所以说，兄弟会没了，集会也没了，无所不能的杰克只剩下我一个人，可这又如何？我可以建立一个全新的兄弟会，比上一个更加强大。”

Jack said, “Let me see. Was it Peter? Or Paul? Or Roderick — you look like a Roderick. Maybe you were a Stephen…” He was playing with the boy.

“让我想想。彼得？保罗？罗德里克？看你的模样，应该是罗德里克，也可能是斯蒂芬…”他在胡说八道。

“I suppose so.”

“我想是的。”

“And a knife? And a cup? And a brooch?”

“还有一把刀、一个酒杯和一枚胸针？”

“You might as well tell me. You’re going to kill me anyway,” said Bod.

“你就告诉我吧，反正我马上要死在你的手下了。”伯蒂说。

Bod said, “The Sleer told me to find my name. What was it?”

“杀戮者让我找到自己的名字。我叫什么？”

“Jack. What was my real name? What did my family call me?”

“杰克，我的真名叫什么？我的家人管我叫什么？”

POWER, echoed the Sleer.

强大——杀戮者附和。

“This is perfect,” said the man Jack. “Look at us. We are in a place for which my people have hunted for thousands of years, with everything necessary for the ceremony waiting for us. It makes you believe in Providence, doesn’t it? Or in the massed prayers of all the Jacks who have gone before us, that at our lowest ebb, we are given this.”

“太完美了。”杰克说，“瞧，这就是我们寻找了上千年的地方，仪式所需的一切都一应俱全。这难道不是天意吗？或是一代又一代杰克的祷告得到了回应。在我们的最低谷，如此恩赐从天而降。”

The man Jack said, “I am going to put out my hand, boy. Scarlett, my knife is still at your throat — do not try to run when I let go of you. Boy, you will place the cup and the knife and the brooch in my hand.”

杰克说：“我现在要腾出一只手。斯卡莉特，我的刀还抵着你的脖子，别斗胆在我松手时逃跑。小子，你去把酒杯、刀和胸针拿来，放到我手上。”

Bod could feel the Sleer listening to Jack’s words, could feel a low susurrus of excitement building in the chamber.

伯蒂感觉到杀戮者在听杰克说话。沙沙的低语中，一股兴奋之情在石室里弥漫开来。

THE TREASURE OF THE SLEER, whispered the triple voice. IT ALWAYS COMES BACK. WE GUARD IT FOR THE MASTER.

杀戮者的宝藏。三重声低语，它总会回来的，我们为主人守卫它。

“Scarlett. I am going to release you. When I take the knife away, I want you to lie, facedown, on the ground, with your hands behind your head. Move or try anything, and I will kill you painfully. Do you understand?”

“斯卡莉特，我要放开你了。当我拿开刀时，你给我趴到地上，手背到头后面。你要是敢动一下，或耍什么花招，我会让你死得很痛苦。听见没？”

Bod bent down, took the objects from the altar stone, put them in Jack’s open gloved hand. Jack grinned.

伯蒂弯下腰，把三样东西从祭坛石上拿起来，放入杰克手中。杰克咧嘴一笑。

She gulped. Her mouth was dry, but she took one shaky step forward. Her right arm, which had been twisted up to the small of her back, was now numb, and she felt only pins and needles in her shoulder. She lay down, her cheek resting on the packed earth.

斯卡莉特吓得倒吸了口冷气。她口干舌燥，颤抖着腿向前迈了一步，一直被扭在后腰处的手臂全麻了，她能感受到的只有肩膀处针扎般的疼痛。她趴到地上，脸贴着石板地。

We are dead, she thought, and it was not even tinged with emotion. It felt as if she were watching something happening to other people, a surreal drama that had turned into a game of Murder in the Dark. She heard the noise of Jack taking hold of Bod…

我们死定了，斯卡莉特心如死灰，眼前这一幕仿佛发生在别人身上，从一出超现实戏剧变为黑暗中的杀人游戏。她听到杰克抓住了伯蒂…

The man Jack’s voice: “If you do everything I say, I won’t kill her. I won’t even hurt her.”

杰克说：“如果你乖乖照我说的做，我就不会杀她，甚至不会动她的一根毫毛。”

Bod’s voice said, “Let her go.”

伯蒂说：“放了她。”

“I don’t believe you. She can identify you.”

“我不相信你，她认得出你的脸，她能指认你。”

IT HAS BEEN SO LONG, said the Sleer, but all Scarlett heard was a slithering noise, as if of enormous coils winding around the chamber.

我们等了太久。杀戮者说。但斯卡莉特只能听到扭动前行的声音，仿佛有什么巨大的东西在房间里盘绕。

“No.” The adult voice seemed certain. “She can’t.” And then it said, “Ten thousand years, and the knife is still sharp…” The admiration in the voice was palpable. “Boy. Go and kneel on that altar stone. Hands behind your back. Now.”

“不，她不会的。”杰克笃定地说，“一万年了啊，这把刀还是那么锋利…”他的语气满怀敬畏，“小子，过去跪到祭坛石上，手背到身后，快点。”

Bod felt the cold of the knife at his neck. And in that moment, Bod understood. Everything slowed. Everything came into focus. “I know my name,” he said. “I’m Nobody Owens. That’s who I am.” And, kneeling on the cold altar stone, it all seemed very simple.

伯蒂感到脖子上的刀散发出森森凉意。在这一刻，他恍然大悟，一切都慢了下来，一切都豁然开朗。“我知道我的名字。”他说，“我叫诺伯蒂·欧文斯，我就是我。”跪在冰冷的祭坛石上，他居然一下子就想通了。

But the man Jack heard. “You want to know your name, boy, before I spill your blood on the stone?”

但杰克听见了杀戮者说的话：“小子，在你血洒祭石前，你想知道自己的名字吗？”

“Sleer,” he said to the chamber. “Do you still want a master?”

“杀戮者，”他对着石室说，“你们还想要个主人吗？”

THE SLEER GUARDS THE TREASURE UNTIL THE MASTER RETURNS.

杀戮者守卫宝藏，直到主人归来。

“Well,” said Bod, “haven’t you finally found the master you’ve been looking for?”

“好，”伯蒂说，“你们苦苦寻找多时的主人，不就在你们的眼前吗？”

And then, for the first time, Bod saw the Sleer. Afterwards, he was never able to describe what he had seen: something huge, yes; something with the body of an enormous snake, but with the head of a what…? There were three of them: three heads, three necks. The faces were dead, as if someone had constructed dolls from parts of the corpses of humans and of animals. The faces were covered in purple patterns, tattooed in swirls of indigo, turning the dead faces into strange, expressive monstrous things.

下一刻，平生第一次，伯蒂看到了杀戮者的真容，事后，他几乎描述不出自己看见了什么：它非常大，这不用说，身子是一条巨蛇，而头却是…杀戮者有三个头，三根脖子，它们的脸毫无生气，如同由人类和动物的尸体拼凑而成，布满紫色图案，印着旋涡状的刺青，让死僵的脸变得更加怪诞诡奇，夺人心魄。

He could sense the Sleer writhing and expanding, hear a noise like the scratching of a thousand dead twigs, as if something huge and muscular were snaking its way around the inside of the chamber.

他感觉到杀戮者在翻腾，在膨胀，响声如同上千条枯树枝同时刮擦，仿佛有某种肌肉强劲的巨大怪物在石室里游走。

The Sleer encircled the interior of the chamber. MASTER? it said, like a dog who had waited patiently for too long. It said MASTER? again, as if testing the word to see how it tasted. And it tasted good, so it said one more time, with a sigh of delight and of longing, MASTER…

杀戮者绕着石室内部盘旋。主人？它的声音如同一条耐心等待主人多时的狗。主人？它又叫了一声，仿佛在品尝这个词的味道。味道似乎很不错，因此它满怀愉悦和向往，叹息着又说了一声：主人…

“What’s happening?” said Jack. “What is it? What does it do?”

“怎么了？”杰克说，“什么东西？它在做什么？”

Jack hefted the flint knife in his hand. “Beautiful,” he said to himself. And then, “Of course. It’s been waiting for me. And yes. Obviously, I am its new master.”

杰克高高举起手中的燧石刀，自语道：“漂亮。它在等待的当然是我。没错，显然我就是它的新主人。”

The faces of the Sleer nuzzled the air about Jack tentatively, as if they wanted to stroke or caress him.

杀戮者的三张脸轻轻蹭着杰克周身的空气，像是想要爱抚他。

“It’s called the Sleer. It guards the place. It needs a master to tell it what to do,” said Bod.

“它叫杀戮者，负责守卫这个地方。它需要一个主人来给它下命令。”伯蒂说。

“Bod,” said Bod. “Not Boy. Bod.” He raised his voice. “Sleer,” he said. “What will you do with your new master?”

“我叫伯蒂，别叫我小子。”伯蒂提了点嗓门，“杀戮者，你们会为新主人做些什么？”

Jack looked down at Bod. “Thirteen years ago I missed you, and now, now we are reunited. The end of one order. The beginning of another. Good-bye, boy.” With one hand he lowered the knife to the boy’s throat. The other hand held the goblet.

杰克低头看向伯蒂，说：“十三年前，我失手了。现在，我们再次重逢。一个组织走向破灭，新的组织即将崛起。再见了，小子。”他一手用刀架住伯蒂的脖子，一手拿起那个酒杯。

The man Jack dropped the goblet. Now he had a knife in each hand — a flint knife, and a knife with a black bone handle — and he said, “Get back! Keep away from me! Don’t get any closer!” He slashed out with the knife, as the Sleer twined about him, and in a huge crushing movement, engulfed the man Jack in its coils.

杰克丢掉酒杯，两手各持一把刀：一把燧石刀，一把黑骨刀。“走开！离我远点！别靠近我！”他挥舞利刃，想挡住渐渐盘绕收紧的杀戮者。杀戮者猛地一压，把他给吞噬了。

The Sleer sighed. WE WILL PROTECT HIM UNTIL THE END OF TIME. THE SLEER WILL HOLD HIM IN ITS COILS FOREVER AND NEVER LET HIM ENDURE THE DANGERS OF THE WORLD.

杀戮者发出一声叹息。我们会保护他，直到时间的尽头。杀戮者会把主人盘绕在中间，不让主人经受世间的任何危险。

“I am your master. You will obey me,” said the man Jack.

“我是你们的主人，你们得服从我的命令！”杰克说。

THE SLEER HAS WAITED SO LONG, said the triple voice of the Sleer, triumphantly. SO LONG A TIME. It began to loop its huge, lazy coils around the man Jack.

杀戮者已经等了很久，三重声欣喜若狂，实在是太久了。它巨大的蛇身慢慢盘上了杰克的身体。

“Then protect him,” said Bod. “Now.”

“那就保护他吧。”伯蒂说，“快！”

Bod ran over to Scarlett, and helped her up. “I want to see,” she said. “I want to see what’s happening.” She pulled out her LED light, and turned it on…

伯蒂跑到斯卡莉特身边，扶她起来。“我想看看，”斯卡莉特说，“我想看看发生了什么。”她掏出钥匙环，打开亮光…

What Scarlett saw was not what Bod saw. She did not see the Sleer, and that was a mercy. She saw the man Jack, though. She saw the fear on his face, which made him look like Mr. Frost had once looked. In his terror he was once more the nice man who had driven her home. He was floating in the air, five, then ten feet above the ground, slashing wildly at the air with two knives, trying to stab something she could not see, in a display that was obviously having no effect.

斯卡莉特看到的和伯蒂不同。她看不到杀戮者，这不失为一件好事，但她看得到杰克，看得到他脸上的恐惧，这让他依稀显露出弗洛斯特先生的样子。在惊慌中，他再度变回曾开车送他回家的那个和善男子。他悬在空中，离地五英尺，十英尺，两把刀疯狂地挥舞，想要刺中某样无形的东西。一看就知道，一派徒劳。

Mr. Frost, the man Jack, whoever he was, was forced away from them, pulled back until he was spread-eagled, arms and legs wide and flailing, against the side of the chamber wall.

弗洛斯特先生，杰克之一，无论他是谁，都被拽得离他们越来越远，直到贴住石室的墙壁。他四肢大开，胡乱挣扎。

It seemed to Scarlett that Mr. Frost was being forced through the wall, pulled into the rock, was being swallowed up by it. Now there was nothing visible but a face. He was shouting wildly, desperately, shouting at Bod to call the thing off, to save him, please, please… and then the man’s face was pulled through the wall, and the voice was silenced.

在斯卡莉特看来，一股强大的力道将弗洛斯特先生压到了墙上，使劲往岩壁里推，要让岩壁吞了他。弗洛斯特先生此刻只剩下一张脸，他在疯狂尖叫，绝望地哀求伯蒂：让这东西停下来，救救我，求你了，求你了…随后他的脸也被拉进了墙里。他的声音消失了，一片死寂。

“Yes,” said Bod. “But it wanted a master to protect. It told me so.”

“没错，”伯蒂说，“但它想要一个主人来保护，它是这么跟我说的。”

“Yes. I hoped it would.”

“对，这正如我所愿。”

Bod walked back to the altar stone. He picked up the stone knife, and the goblet, and the brooch, from the ground and he replaced them where they belonged. He left the black metal knife where it fell.

伯蒂走回祭坛石边，从地上拿起石刀、酒杯和胸针，放回原位。他没去碰地上的那把黑刀。

Scarlett said, “I thought you said the Sleer couldn’t hurt people. I thought all it could do was frighten us.”

斯卡莉特说：“我记得你说过，杀戮者不会伤害人，它只能吓唬我们。”

Scarlett said, “You mean you knew. You knew that would happen…”

“你是说你知道，你知道会发生什么…”

He helped her up the steps and out into the chaos of the Frobisher mausoleum.

伯蒂扶着斯卡莉特走上石阶，钻出洞口，进入一片狼藉的弗罗比歇陵墓。

They stepped out into the graveyard. Scarlett said, dully, once more, “You knew that would happen.”

他们走到陵墓外的坟场。斯卡莉特木然地又说了一遍：“你知道会发生什么。”

“I’ll need to clean this all up,” said Bod, casually.

“我得把这里收拾干净。”伯蒂神态自若地说。

“One of them’s at the bottom of a deep grave, with a broken ankle. The other three are, well, they’re a long way away.”

“一个在深墓里，脚脖子断了。另外三个，怎么说呢，他们在很远的地方。”

Bod said, “It wasn’t like that.” Then he said, “We’re still alive, aren’t we? And he won’t trouble us any longer.”

“不是那样的。”伯蒂说，“总之我们活下来了，不是吗？他不会再来烦我们了。”

She looked at him as if unsure of what she was looking at. “So you knew. That the Sleer would take him. Was that why you hid me down there? Was it? What was I, then, bait?”

斯卡莉特幽幽地看着他，像是无法确定自己在看什么。“所以说，你知道杀戮者会带走他，因此才把我放在那里是吗？那我算什么？诱饵吗？”

“Then where are they?”

“那他们在哪儿？”

Scarlett tried not to look at the things on the floor.

斯卡莉特别开视线，不想看见地上的东西。

“Of course not.” Bod said, “This is my home. Why would I want them hanging around here for the rest of time?” Then, “Look, it’s okay. I dealt with them.”

“那还用说。这里是我的家，难不成我希望他们死后一直在这里转悠？”伯蒂说，“瞧，没事了，我把他们都解决了。”

“You didn’t kill them?”

“你没杀他们？”

This time Bod said nothing.

这回伯蒂没说话。

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

“我一个人也没杀。”

Scarlett could feel the anger and the rage welling up inside her. The fear had gone, and now all she was left with was the need to lash out, to shout. She fought the urge. “And what about those other men? Did you kill them too?”

斯卡莉特感到滔天怒火在胸口积聚。恐惧没有了，她现在只想尖叫怒骂，发泄一通。她压下这股冲动，问：“其他人呢？你把他们也杀了？”

Scarlett took a step away from him. She said, “You aren’t a person. People don’t behave like you. You’re as bad as he was. You’re a monster.”

斯卡莉特后退了一步，说：“你不是人，正常人不会像你这么做的，你和他们一样坏，你是个怪物。”

Scarlett began to back away from Bod.

斯卡莉特一步步往后退，与伯蒂拉开距离。

Bod felt the blood drain from his face. After everything he had been through that night, after everything that had happened, this was somehow the hardest thing to take. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t like that.”

霎时，伯蒂脸上血色尽失。这一夜发生了那么多事，经历了那么多事，可都不及这句话来得让他难以接受。“不。”他说，“不是那样的。”

She took one step, two steps, and was about to flee, to turn and run madly, desperately away through the moonlit graveyard, when a tall man in black velvet put a hand on her arm, and said, “I am afraid you do Bod an injustice. But you will undoubtedly be happier if you remember none of this. So let us walk together, you and I, and discuss what has happened to you over the last few days, and what it might be wise for you to remember, and what it might be better for you to forget.”

她向后退了一步，两步，正想转身逃离，绝望地狂奔过月光下的坟场时，一个身着黑色天鹅绒衣装的高大男子抓住了她的胳膊，说：“你这么跑掉恐怕对伯蒂不公平，但毫无疑问，你忘了这些事会生活得更幸福。所以我们边走边谈，就你和我两个人，谈一谈过去几天你经历的事，决定一下哪些记住比较好，哪些忘掉比较好。”

Bod said, “Silas. You can’t. You can’t make her forget me.”

伯蒂说：“赛拉斯，你不能这样，你不能让她忘了我。”

“It will be safest that way,” said Silas, simply. “For her, if not for all of us.”

“这样更安全，至少对她来说更安全。”

“Don’t — don’t I get a say in this?” asked Scarlett.

斯卡莉特开口：“难道我——难道我就没有一点话语权吗？”

Silas said nothing. Bod took a step towards Scarlett, said, “Look, it’s over. I know it was hard. But. We did it. You and me. We beat them.”

赛拉斯没发话。伯蒂朝斯卡莉特迈了一步，说：“你瞧，都结束了。我知道很难熬，但是，我们做到了，你和我，我们把他们打败了。”

She looked up at Silas, and said only, “I want to go home. Please?”

她抬头看向赛拉斯，说：“我想回家，好吗？”

A man brought Scarlett home. Later, Scarlett’s mother could not remember quite what he had told her, although disappointingly, she had learned that that nice Jay Frost had unavoidably been forced to leave town.

一个男人把斯卡莉特带回家。不久之后，斯卡莉特的母亲就会忘记男人对她说过的话，但她会记得一个令她失望的消息：那个名叫杰·弗洛斯特的好人因故不得不离开了这里。

Her head was shaking gently, as if she was denying everything she saw, everything she was experiencing.

斯卡莉特轻轻摇了摇头，仿佛在否认她所看到的一切，她所经历的一切。

Silas nodded. He walked, with the girl, down the path that would eventually lead them both out of the graveyard. Bod stared at Scarlett as she walked away, hoping that she would turn and look back, that she would smile or just look at him without fear in her eyes. But Scarlett did not turn. She simply walked away.

赛拉斯点点头。他和斯卡莉特一起沿着通向坟场外的小路渐行渐远。伯蒂看着远去的斯卡莉特，希望她能回眸一笑，或仅仅是不带恐惧地看他一眼。可她没有回头，就这么走了。

Bod went back into the mausoleum. He had to do something, so he began to pick up the fallen coffins, to remove the debris, and to replace the tangle of tumbled bones into the coffins, disappointed to discover that none of the many Frobishers and Frobyshers and Pettyfers gathered around to watch seemed to be quite certain whose bones belonged in which container.

伯蒂折回陵墓，想找点事做。他把摔落在地的棺材搬回原位，把地上的残片打扫干净，把七零八落的骨头放回棺材，却失望地发现围观的弗罗比歇家族和佩蒂弗家族的人也说不准哪块骨头该放回哪口棺材。

“How could you make her forget me?”

“你怎么能让她忘了我呢？”

“How is she?”

“她怎么样？”伯蒂问。

Silas returned to the graveyard and found Bod sitting in the amphitheater by the obelisk, his face set.

赛拉斯回到坟场，看到伯蒂坐在方尖碑边的环形剧场里，脸色阴沉。

The man talked with them, in the kitchen, about their lives and their dreams, and by the end of the conversation Scarlett’s mother had somehow decided that they would be returning to Glasgow: Scarlett would be happy to be near her father, and to see her old friends again.

男人与她们在厨房里聊天，谈论她们的生活与梦想。这番谈话结束前，斯卡莉特的母亲基本决定要重返格拉斯哥：若能离父亲近一些，能再次见到老朋友，斯卡莉特会很开心。

Silas left the girl and her mother talking in the kitchen, discussing the challenges of moving back to Scotland, with Noona promising to buy Scarlett a phone of her own. They barely remembered that Silas had ever been there, which was the way he liked it.

赛拉斯离开时，斯卡莉特正与母亲相谈甚欢，讨论搬回苏格兰要面临哪些挑战，母亲还答应给她买一部手机。她们几乎不记得赛拉斯曾来过，而这正是赛拉斯所希望的。

Silas said, “People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer.”

赛拉斯说，“人们想忘却超乎常理的东西，这样能让他们的世界更安全。”

“I took her memories,” said Silas. “They will return to Glasgow. She has friends there.”

“我取走了她的记忆。”赛拉斯说，“她们会回格拉斯哥，她的朋友在那里。”

Bod said, “I liked her.”

“我喜欢她。”

“I’m sorry.”

“对不起。”

Bod tried to smile, but he could not find a smile inside himself. “The men… they spoke about trouble they were having in Krakow and Melbourne and Vancouver. That was you, wasn’t it?”

伯蒂想笑一笑，却怎么也笑不出来。“那些人…他们提到了在克拉科夫、墨尔本和温哥华遭遇的劫难，是你干的吗？”

“I was not alone,” said Silas.

“不止我一个。”赛拉斯说。

Silas said, “He is the last of the Jacks. I will need to talk to him, then, before sunrise.”

赛拉斯说：“他是最后一个杰克，我得在日出前去和他谈谈。”

Bod said, “The Sleer has the man Jack. Three of the others went through the ghoul-gate. There’s one injured but still alive at the bottom of the Carstairs grave.”

伯蒂说：“杀戮者干掉了杰克之一，三个人进了食尸鬼之门，还有一个在卡斯泰尔斯的坟墓里，还活着，但受了伤。”

Silas shook his head, and for a moment his face was terrible for Bod to behold. “She fought bravely. She fought for you, Bod.”

赛拉斯摇摇头，他那一瞬的脸让伯蒂不忍直视：“她战斗得很勇敢。伯蒂，她是为你而战的。”

Bod’s eyes were dark. “You could have brought her back here. Buried her here. Then I could have talked to her.”

伯蒂的眼神暗淡下来：“你可以把她带回来，葬在这里，这样我就能和她说话了。”

“Yes.”

“嗯。”

Bod said, “She was scared of me.”

“她怕我。”伯蒂说。

“But why? I saved her life. I’m not a bad person. And I’m just like her. I’m alive too.” Then he said, “How did Miss Lupescu fall?”

“可为什么啊？我救了她啊。我不是个坏人。我和她一样，是个活人啊。”他接着说，“卢佩斯库小姐是怎么死的？”

“Bravely,” said Silas. “In battle. Protecting others.”

“在战场上英勇赴死，为了保护他人。”

The wind that blew across the graveyard was cold, but neither the man nor the boy seemed to feel it.

吹过坟场的风冷得刺骨，可两人都恍若未觉。

“Miss Lupescu?” said Bod. Then, seeing the expression on his guardian’s face, “Is she all right?”

“还有卢佩斯库小姐？”看到赛拉斯的神情，伯蒂追问，“她还好吗？”

Bod felt his eyes stinging. He said, “She used to call me Nimini. No one will ever call me that again.”

伯蒂的眼睛酸了。“她管我叫尼米尼，以后，再也没有人会那么叫我了。”

Silas said, “That was not an option.”

赛拉斯说：“那是不可能的。”

Silas said, “No one is trying to kill you. Not right now. There are a lot of things they are not going to be doing, not any longer. So, yes. What would you like to eat?”

“现在没人想杀你了，他们的很多计划再也无法实现，所以我们一起出去不会再有危险。你想吃什么？”

Silas said, “Shall we go and get food for you?”

赛拉斯问：“我们要不要去给你弄点吃的？”

“We? You want me to come with you? Out of the graveyard?”

“我们？我和你一起？到坟场外头？”

Bod thought about saying that he wasn’t hungry, but that simply was not true. He felt a little sick, and a little lightheaded, and he was starving. “Pizza?” he suggested.

伯蒂想说自己不饿，可这并非事实。他有些不舒服，头晕眼花，饥肠辘辘。“比萨？”他提议。

Bod tried to thank them for their help, to call out his gratitude, but the dead said nothing.

伯蒂千恩万谢，感谢他们之前的帮助，可死人们依旧沉默不语。

They walked through the graveyard, down to the gates. As Bod walked, he saw the inhabitants of the graveyard, but they let the boy and his guardian pass among them without a word. They only watched.

他们向坟场大门走去。一路上，伯蒂看到很多坟场居民站在路边，一言不发地看着他们走过。

The lights of the pizza restaurant were bright, brighter than Bod was comfortable with. He and Silas sat near the back, and Silas showed him how to use a menu, how to order food. (Silas ordered a glass of water and a small salad for himself, which he pushed around the bowl with his fork but never actually put to his lips.)

比萨店的灯很亮，亮得让伯蒂难受。两人选了个靠里的位置坐下。赛拉斯教伯蒂怎么看菜单，怎么点菜。（赛拉斯给自己点了一杯水和一小份沙拉，他一直在用叉子搅动沙拉，可一口都没送进嘴里）

Bod ate his pizza with his fingers and enthusiasm. He did not ask questions. Silas would talk in his own time, or he would not.

伯蒂用手抓起比萨，吃得很痛快。他什么也没问，赛拉斯自有考量，该说时他自然会说。

“The Honour Guard,” said Bod.

“荣誉卫士。”伯蒂说。

“Is we you and Miss Lupescu?” asked Bod.

“我们指你和卢佩斯库小姐吗？”伯蒂问。

Silas said, “We had known of them… of the Jacks… for a long, long time, but we knew of them only from the results of their activities. We suspected there was an organization behind it, but they hid too well. And then they came after you, and they killed your family. And, slowly, I was able to follow their trail.”

赛拉斯说：“我们知道他们，杰克他们，已经很久很久了，但只能从他们行动的结果中得知他们的存在。我们怀疑他们后头有个组织，但这个组织藏得太过隐蔽。后来他们找上你，杀了你的家人。顺着这件事，我慢慢追踪到了他们的根基。”

“Us and others like us.”

“还有类似我们的人。”

“How did you hear about –?” said Silas. Then, “No matter. Little pitchers have big ears, as they say. Yes. The Honour Guard.” Silas picked up his glass of water. He put the water glass to his lips, moistened them, then put it down on the polished black tabletop.

“你怎么知道？好吧，都说小孩子耳朵灵。没错，荣誉卫士。”赛拉斯端起水杯，润了润嘴唇，又将水杯放回到光洁的黑色桌面上。

The surface of the tabletop was almost mirrored, and, had anyone cared to look, they might have observed that the tall man had no reflection.

桌面锃亮得能反光，若有人留心看，会发现桌面上没有这个高个子男人的映像。

Bod said, “So. Now you’re done… done with all this. Are you going to stay?”

伯蒂说：“那么，既然你已经…已经了结了这件事，你还会留在这里吗？”

“That girl,” said Bod. “Scarlett. Why was she so scared of me, Silas?”

“那个女孩，斯卡莉特，她为什么那么怕我？”伯蒂问。

“I gave my word,” said Silas. “I am here until you are grown.”

“我承诺过，”赛拉斯说，“我会待到你长大。”

“No,” said Silas. “Almost. Not yet.”

“还没有。快了，但还没有。”

He put a ten-pound note down on the tabletop.

赛拉斯把一张十英镑的钞票放到桌上。

“I’m grown,” said Bod.

“我已经长大了。”

But Silas said nothing, and the question hung in the air as the man and the youth walked out of the bright pizza restaurant into the waiting darkness; and soon enough they were swallowed by the night.

可赛拉斯没有回答。两人走出明亮的比萨店，步入正在等待的黑暗，夜色一瞬间吞没了他们，而伯蒂的问题一直悬而未决。