“T’aint healthy for a living body,” said Mrs. Owens. “There’s damp down that end of things. It’s practically a marsh. You’ll catch your death.”
“那儿对活人的身体不好。那鬼地方湿气重，几乎算得上是个沼泽了，你到那儿会丢了小命的。”欧文斯太太说。
“Why?” he asked.
“为什么？”伯蒂问。
Mr. Owens himself was more evasive and less imaginative. “It’s not a good place,” was all he said.
欧文斯先生的回答更加闪烁其词，毫无想象的空间，他只简单说了句：“那不是个好地方。”
The graveyard proper ended at the bottom of the west side of the hill, beneath the old apple tree, with a fence of rust-brown iron railings, each topped with a small, rusting spearhead, but there was a wasteland beyond that, a mass of nettles and weeds, of brambles and autumnal rubbish, and Bod, who was, on the whole, obedient, did not push between the railings, but he went down there and looked through. He knew he wasn’t being told the whole story, and it irritated him.
坟场的边缘在西侧的山脚。在一棵年老的苹果树下，围着一排生锈的铁栏杆，栏杆上竖着一个个生锈的小尖头。越过栏杆是一片荒地，上头长着一大丛荨麻、野草和荆棘，落满了腐烂的秋日落叶。总体来说，伯蒂是个听话的孩子，他从未越过栏杆，只是透过栏杆间隙往另一边窥探过。他知道大人们没把全部真相如实相告，这让他有些恼火。
Bod went back up the hill, to the little chapel near the entrance to the graveyard, and he waited until it got dark. As twilight edged from grey to purple there was a noise in the spire, like a fluttering of heavy velvet, and Silas left his resting place in the belfry and clambered headfirst down the spire.
伯蒂走向小教堂，一直等到天黑。暮色渐渐由灰变紫，塔尖传来一声响，如同厚重的天鹅绒抖了一抖。赛拉斯离开休息的地方——钟塔，头向下从塔尖爬了下来。
There was a witch buried at the edge of the graveyard, it was common knowledge. Bod had been told to keep away from that corner of the world by Mrs. Owens as far back as he could remember.
众所周知，坟场边缘埋着一个女巫。自打伯蒂有记忆以来，欧文斯太太就告诫过他要远离那个角落，越远越好。
“What’s in the far corner of the graveyard?” asked Bod. “Past Harrison Westwood, Baker of this Parish, and his wives, Marion and Joan?”
伯蒂问：“过了哈里森·威斯伍德，也就是这个教区的烤面包师还有他的两个老婆玛丽恩和琼的坟墓，坟场的那一角有什么？”
Bod shrugged. “Just wondered.”
伯蒂耸耸肩：“就是好奇嘛。”
Silas walked across the path without disturbing a fallen leaf, and sat down on the bench beside Bod. “There are those,” he said, in his silken voice, “who believe that all land is sacred. That it is sacred before we come to it, and sacred after. But here, in your land, they blessed the churches and the ground they set aside to bury people in, to make it holy. But they left land unconsecrated beside the sacred ground, Potter’s Fields to bury the criminals and the suicides or those who were not of the faith.”
赛拉斯沿路走来，没有惊动一片落叶。他在长凳上坐下，挨着伯蒂，用丝绸般的嗓音说：“有这么一些人，他们相信所有土地都是神圣的，无论在我们到来前，还是在我们离去后。但在这里，在你生活的这片土地上，人们会祈求上帝保佑教堂和埋葬逝者的地方，视之为神圣之地。但他们也在神圣的土地边留出了一片不神圣的土地——陶工之地，来埋葬罪犯、自杀者或不信仰基督教的人。”
“So the people buried in the ground on the other side of the fence are bad people?”
“所以埋在围栏外的那些人都是坏人咯？”
“Why do you ask?” said his guardian, brushing the dust from his black suit with ivory fingers.
“为什么问起这个？”赛拉斯用象牙般的手指拂去黑衣上的灰尘。
“It’s unconsecrated ground,” said Silas. “Do you know what that means?”
“那个地方不神圣。你明白这是什么意思吗？”
“Not really,” said Bod.
“不太明白。”
Silas raised one perfect eyebrow. “Mm? Oh, not at all. Let’s see, it’s been a while since I’ve been down that way. But I don’t remember anyone particularly evil. Remember, in days gone by you could be hanged for stealing a shilling. And there are always people who find their lives have become so unsupportable they believe the best thing they could do would be to hasten their transition to another plane of existence.”
赛拉斯扬起一边漂亮的眉毛。“哦？也不能这么说。让我想想，我在坟场待了很久，但我不记得哪个人特别坏。要知道，在过去，你可能因为偷了一先令就被绞死。还有些觉得自己活不下去的人，会相信最好的办法是让自己过渡到另一个层面。”
“They kill themselves, you mean?” said Bod. He was about eight years old, wide-eyed and inquisitive, and he was not stupid.
“你是说他们自杀了？”伯蒂睁大眼睛，好奇地问。他快八岁了，但他不笨。
“Does it work? Are they happier dead?”
“那有用吗？他们死后更快乐了吗？”
“Indeed.”
“没错。”
“Sort of,” said Bod.
“懂那么一点儿吧。”
“Sometimes. Mostly, no. It’s like the people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.”
“个别这样，但大多数人没有，就像有些人相信自己换个地方生活就会更快乐，去了后却发现并非如此。无论你去哪里，你还是你。你听懂我说的这句话了吗？”
Bod said, “What about the witch?”
伯蒂问：“那女巫呢？”
“Yes. Exactly,” said Silas. “Suicides, criminals, and witches. Those who died unshriven.” He stood up, a midnight shadow in the twilight. “All this talking,” he said, “and I have not even had my breakfast. While you will be late for lessons.” In the twilight of the graveyard there was a silent implosion, a flutter of velvet darkness, and Silas was gone.
“对，还有女巫。自杀者、罪犯和女巫，那些死前不知忏悔的人。”赛拉斯站起身，身影在暮色中若隐若现，“说了这么多，我还没吃早饭，而你呢，上课就快迟到了。”坟场暮色沉沉，一记无声的爆响，黑色天鹅绒一阵波动，赛拉斯消失了。
Silas reached down and ruffled the boy’s hair.
赛拉斯弯下腰，摸了摸伯蒂的头。
“Sorry, Mr. Pennyworth.”
“对不起，彭尼沃斯先生。”
The moon had begun to rise by the time Bod reached Mr. Pennyworth’s mausoleum, and Thomes Pennyworth (here he lyes in the certainty of the moft glorious refurrection) was already waiting, and was not in the best of moods.
等伯蒂赶到托马斯·彭尼沃斯先生的陵墓（长眠此地，必于复活之日获得荣耀）时，月亮已经升起。彭尼沃斯在等他，心情不是很好。
Mr. Pennyworth was not impressed.
彭尼沃斯先生面无表情。
Bod’s heart sank. He took a deep breath, and did his best, squinching up his eyes and trying to fade away.
伯蒂心一沉。他深吸一口气，努力将眼睛对拢，让自己消失。
“Pah. That’s not the kind of thing. Not the kind of thing at all. Slipping and Fading, boy, the way of the dead. Slip through shadows. Fade from awareness. Try again.”
“呵，不对，完全不对。穿越，消失，就像死人一样，穿过阴影，隐于无形。再来一次。”
“You are late,” he said.
“你迟到了。”
“It’s all right,” he said. “I mean. You know.”
“还好吧，我是说，你知道的。”
“No, Master Owens. I do not know. Why do you not demonstrate for me?”
“不，欧文斯先生，我不知道。你何不向我展示一下呢？”
“I am afraid so, young Master Owens. Now, how is your Fading?”
“恐怕是的。年轻的欧文斯先生，我问你，你的隐身术练得怎么样了？”
Pennyworth tutted. The previous week Mr. Pennyworth had been teaching Bod about Elements and Humors, and Bod had kept forgetting which was which. He was expecting a test, but instead Mr. Pennyworth said, “I think it is time to spend a few days on practical matters. Time is passing, after all.”
彭尼沃斯啧了一两声。上一周，伯蒂学了元素和体液，可他学了忘，忘了学，怎么也学不会。他以为彭尼沃斯会考他，却听见彭尼沃斯说：“我觉得我们该花几天来学点实用的东西了，毕竟时间过得很快。”
“Is it?” asked Bod.
“真的吗？”伯蒂问。
Bod had hoped he would not be asked that question.
伯蒂真希望他没提这个问题。
Bod tried again. He closed his eyes and imagined himself fading into the stained stonework of the mausoleum wall, becoming a shadow on the night and nothing more. He sneezed.
伯蒂再次尝试。他闭上眼睛，想象自己渐渐消失，融入陵墓墙壁上脏兮兮的石雕，成为夜晚的一道黑影，化作虚无。阿嚏！他打了个喷嚏。
“You’re as plain as the nose on your face,” said Mr. Pennyworth. “And your nose is remarkably obvious. As is the rest of your face, young man. As are you. For the sake of all that is holy, empty your mind. Now. You are an empty alleyway. You are a vacant doorway. You are nothing. Eyes will not see you. Minds will not hold you. Where you are is nothing and nobody.”
“你真是显眼得不能再显眼了，尤其是你的鼻子，还有你整张脸，还有你整个人。小伙子，看在上帝的份上，放空——你是空门，你是空巷，你是虚无。没人看得见你，没人想得到你，你所在之处空无一物。”
Bod tried harder.
伯蒂更卖力地尝试。
“Um. Sanguine. Choleric. Phlegmatic. And the other one. Um, Melancholic, I think.”
“嗯，多血质、胆汁质、黏液质，还有一个，应该是抑郁质吧。”
“Dreadful,” said Mr. Pennyworth, with a sigh. “Quite dreadful. I believe I shall have a word with your guardian about this.” He shook his head. “So. The humors. List them.”
“糟糕，”彭尼沃斯先生叹了口气，“太糟糕了。我想我得和你的监护人谈谈这件事。”他摇了摇头，“那么，把体液列举一下。”
And so it went, until it was time for Grammar and Composition with Miss Letitia Borrows, Spinster of this Parish (Who Did No Harm to No Man all the Dais of Her Life. Reader, Can You Say Lykewise?). Bod liked Miss Borrows, and the coziness of her little crypt, and that she could all-too-easily be led off the subject.
时间就这么过去了，接下来是语法写作课，由教区的老处女利蒂希娅·伯萝丝（有生之年从未伤害过他人，你，能做到吗？）任教。伯蒂很喜欢伯萝丝小姐和她温暖的小坟墓，还有她容易跑题的个性。
“Why not?”
“为什么呀？”
“But it is the graveyard, isn’t it? I mean, I’m allowed to go there if I want to?”
“但那里也是坟场的一部分，对吧？我是说，我是不是有权去那里？”
“Yes, dear. But you don’t want to go over there.”
“没错，亲爱的，但你不会喜欢去那里的。”
“They say there’s a witch in uncons — unconsecrated ground,” he said.
伯蒂说：“他们说在不神…不神圣的地方有个女巫。”
“That,” said Miss Borrows, “would not be advisable.”
“这个，”伯萝丝小姐说，“不是太建议。”
Miss Borrows smiled the guileless smile of the dead. “They aren’t our sort of people,” she said.
伯萝丝小姐露出死人独有的厚道微笑：“他们和我们不是一类人。”
Bod was obedient, but curious, and so, when lessons were done for the night, he walked past Harrison Westwood, Baker, and family’s memorial, a broken-armed angel, but did not climb down the hill to the Potter’s Field. Instead he walked up the side of the hill to where a picnic some thirty years before had left its mark in the shape of a large apple tree.
伯蒂虽听话，但好奇心旺盛。当天晚上下课后，他走过面包师哈里森·威斯伍德的墓和一尊作为家族纪念物的断臂天使雕像，但没有下到陶工之地去，反之，他走向高处，来到三十年前的一片野炊地，野炊的痕迹留在一棵大苹果树的阴影下。
There were some lessons that Bod had mastered. He had eaten a bellyful of unripe apples, sour and white-pipped, from the tree some years before, and had regretted it for days, his guts cramping and painful while Mrs. Owens lectured him on what not to eat. Now he always waited until the apples were ripe before eating them, and never ate more than two or three a night. He had finished the last of the apples the week before, but he liked the apple tree as a place to think.
有些教训伯蒂掌握得很好。几年前，他曾从这棵树上摘下生苹果，吃了满满一肚子，苹果很酸，果核还是白色的，然后他为此举后悔了好多天，绞痛的胃疼得他满地打滚。欧文斯太太借此契机，教了他哪些东西不能吃。现在，他会等到苹果熟了后再吃，而且一晚上顶多吃两三个。树上结的苹果上周他已经吃完了，但他喜欢到这棵苹果树下思考。
He edged up the trunk, to his favorite place in the crook of two branches, and looked down at the Potter’s Field below him, a brambly patch of weeds and unmown grass in the moonlight. He wondered whether the witch would be old and iron-toothed and travel in a house on chicken legs, or whether she would be thin and sharp-nosed and carry a broomstick.
他慢慢爬上树干，来到他最爱的树丫上，望着下方的陶工之地。月光下，陶工之地遍地荆棘，杂草丛生。不知那个女巫是年老色衰，铁齿钢牙，住在一座由鸡腿驱动的房子里？还是瘦骨嶙峋，鼻子尖尖，带着一条扫帚呢？
Bod’s stomach growled and he realized that he was getting hungry. He wished he had not devoured all the apples on the tree. That he had left just one…
伯蒂的肚子开始咕咕叫，饥饿感越来越强。要是没把树上的苹果都吃光就好了，哪怕只留一个也好啊…
He glanced up, and thought he saw something. He looked once, looked twice to be certain: an apple, red and ripe.
他往上望，似乎看到了什么，定睛一看，没有看错：一个苹果，红彤彤的熟透的大苹果。
He was never to taste it.
可他永远都没能吃到。
Bod prided himself on his tree-climbing skills. He swung himself up, branch by branch, and imagined he was Silas, swarming smoothly up a sheer brick wall. The apple, the red of it almost black in the moonlight, hung just out of reach. Bod moved slowly forward along the branch, until he was just below the apple. Then he stretched up, and the tips of his fingers touched the perfect apple.
伯蒂对自己爬树的本事引以为傲。他荡上树，从一根树枝荡到另一根树枝，假想自己是能沿着笔直的墙壁往上爬、动作流畅的赛拉斯。那个苹果，在月光下红得发黑的苹果，触手可及。伯蒂顺着树枝慢慢向前，来到苹果正下方，伸出手，指尖碰到了苹果。
“I was in the apple tree,” said Bod.
“我刚才在苹果树上。”伯蒂说。
The ground beneath him seemed relatively soft, and oddly warm. He pushed a hand down and felt something like warm fur beneath him. He had landed on the grass-pile, where the graveyard’s groundskeeper threw the cuttings from the mower, and it had broken his fall. Still, there was a pain in his chest, and his leg hurt as if he had landed on it first and twisted it.
身下的地面相对而言挺软的，还散发着古怪的暖意。伯蒂伸手往下，像是摸到了一层温暖的毛皮。他落在草堆上，坟场的管理员会把割草机割的草倒在这里，正巧起了缓冲的作用。他除了胸口疼，腿也疼，脚踝像是因最先着地而扭伤了。
Bod moaned.
他痛苦地呻吟。
“Hush-a-you-hush-a-boy,” said a voice from behind him. “Where did you come from? Dropping like a thunderstone. What way is that to carry on?”
“哎呀呀，小男孩。”声音从他身后传来，“你从哪儿来的呀？像块陨石似的从天而降，你怎么搞的？”
A snap, loud as a hunter’s gun, as the branch gave way beneath him.
啪——响声如同猎枪开火，伯蒂身下的树枝折断了。
He turned his head, looked up and behind him. She was older than him, but not a grown-up, and she looked neither friendly nor unfriendly. Wary, mostly. She had a face that was intelligent and not even a little bit beautiful.
他扭头向后上方看去。说话的是个女孩，比他大一些，但还没成年，看上去既不友好也没什么敌意，更多的是戒备吧。她长着一张聪慧的脸，但一点儿也不好看。
A flash of pain woke him, sharp as ice, the color of slow thunder, down in the weeds that summer’s night.
夏夜，野草丛中，一阵刺痛惊醒了他，尖锐如冰锥，低沉如闷雷。
“Oh, good,” said Bod. “Hurts, though.”
“那就好。”伯蒂说，“可还是挺疼的。”
“Ah. Let me see your leg. Broken like the tree’s limb, I’ll be bound.” Cool fingers prodded his left leg. “Not broken. Twisted, yes, sprained perhaps. You have the Devil’s own luck, boy, falling into the compost. ‘Tain’t the end of the world.”
“啊，让我瞧瞧你的腿，我敢说一定像树枝一样折断了。”冰凉的手指戳了戳伯蒂的腿，“没断。扭了，没错，可能是扭了。你真是走了魔鬼运啊，男孩，恰好掉进了草堆。放心吧，这不是世界末日。”
“The live boy?” she asked.
“那个活人男孩？”
“How-de-do, young Master Bod.”
“你好啊，年轻的伯蒂先生。”
“I’m Bod,” he said.
“我是伯蒂。”
Bod looked her up and down. She wore a plain white shift. Her hair was mousy and long, and there was something of the goblin in her face — a sideways hint of a smile that seemed to linger, no matter what the rest of her face was doing.
伯蒂上下打量着女孩。她穿着一条朴素的白色直筒式连衣裙，生着一头灰色长发，脸上有那么一点儿小妖精的感觉——无论什么表情，总挂着一抹笑意。
Bod nodded.
伯蒂点点头。
“I thought you must be,” she said. “We’ve heard of you, even over here, in the Potter’s Field. What do they call you?”
“我就知道一定是你。我们都听说过你，即便在这里，在陶工之地。怎么称呼你？”
“Owens,” he said. “Nobody Owens. Bod, for short.”
“欧文斯。诺伯蒂·欧文斯，简单点就是伯蒂。”
“Never stole nuffink,” she said, “Not even a handkerchief. Anyway,” she said, pertly, “the suicides is all over there, on the other side of that hawthorn, and the gallows-birds are in the blackberry-patch, both of them. One was a coiner, t’other a highwayman, or so he says, although if you ask me I doubt he was more than a common footpad and nightwalker.”
“我什么都没偷过，连一块手帕都没有。”她轻佻地说，“自杀的人都在那里，山楂树那边。被绞死的人在黑莓丛里，两个都是，其中一个造了假币，另一个是强盗。他自己是那么说的，不过要我说啊，他恐怕不只是个普通的盗贼。”
“Ah,” said Bod. Then, suspicion forming, tentatively, he said, “They say a witch is buried here.”
“哦。”伯蒂忽然有了个猜想，便试探道，“听说这儿埋着一个女巫。”
“Were you a suicide?” he asked. “Did you steal a shilling?”
“你是自杀的吗？”伯蒂问，“你是不是偷了一先令？”
She nodded. “Drownded and burnded and buried here without as much as a stone to mark the spot.”
女孩点点头：“被水淹，被火烧，埋在此地，连个标记的石头都没有。”
“You were drowned and burned?”
“你先是被水淹了，后又被火烧了？”
She settled down on the hill of grass-cuttings beside him, and held his throbbing leg with her chilly hands. “They come to my little cottage at dawn, before I’m proper awake, and drags me out onto the Green. ‘You’re a witch!’ they shouts, fat and fresh-scrubbed all pink in the morning, like so many pigwiggins scrubbed clean for market day. One by one they gets up beneath the sky and tells of milk gone sour and horses gone lame, and finally Mistress Jemima gets up, the fattest, pinkest, best-scrubbed of them all, and tells how as Solomon Porritt now cuts her dead and instead hangs around the washhouse like a wasp about a honeypot, and it’s all my magic, says she, that made him so and the poor young man must be bespelled. So they strap me to the cucking stool and forces it under the water of the duckpond, saying if I’m a witch I’ll neither drown nor care, but if I am not a witch I’ll feel it. And Mistress Jemima’s father gives them each a silver groat to hold the stool down under the foul green water for a long time, to see if I’d choke on it.”
女孩在伯蒂身边的草堆上坐下，冰凉的手搭在伯蒂阵阵抽痛的腿上。“一天黎明，当我还没彻底醒来时，他们来到我的小木屋，把我拖到了草地上。‘你是个女巫！’他们大呼小叫，一个个满脸横肉，擦洗得粉粉嫩嫩，就像清洗干净要到集市上售卖的猪。天空下，他们一个接一个站起来，控诉自家的牛奶馊了啊，几匹马跛了啊。最后，杰米玛小姐站了起来，最胖，最粉嫩，梳洗得最干净整洁的就是她。她控诉所罗门·波利特如何甩了她，然后成天像只围着蜜罐转的蜜蜂一样绕着洗衣房打转。她说所罗门变成那副样子都是我的魔法作祟，这个可怜的年轻人一定中了我的咒。所以他们把我绑到惩椅上，再把惩椅硬生生地淹入池塘，还说如果我是个女巫就既不会淹死也不会在乎。杰米玛小姐的父亲给了每个人一枚四便士银币，让他们把惩椅按在臭气熏天的绿色水塘里，按了好长时间，看我会不会淹死。”
“Oh yes. Got a lungful of water. It done for me.”
“哦，死了啊，一肚子水。”
The girl fixed him with her beady ghost-eyes and smiled a lopsided smile. She still looked like a goblin, but now she looked like a pretty goblin, and Bod didn’t think she would have needed magic to attract Solomon Porritt, not with a smile like that. “What nonsense. Of course I was a witch. They learned that when they untied me from the cucking stool and stretched me on the Green, nine-parts dead and all covered with duckweed and stinking pond-muck. I rolled my eyes back in my head, and I cursed each and every one of them there on the village Green that morning, that none of them would ever rest easily in a grave. I was surprised at how easily it came, the cursing. Like dancing it was, when your feet pick up the steps of a new measure your ears have never heard and your head don’t know, and they dance it till dawn.” She stood, and twirled, and kicked, and her bare feet flashed in the moonlight. “That was how I cursed them, with my last gurgling pond-watery breath. And then I expired. They burned my body on the Green until I was nothing but blackened charcoal, and they popped me in a hole in the Potter’s Field without so much as a headstone to mark my name,” and it was only then that she paused, and seemed, for a moment, wistful.
女孩用乌溜溜的鬼眼睛看着伯蒂，歪嘴一笑。她看上去还是像个小妖精，不过现在像个漂亮的小妖精，伯蒂觉得既然有这样的笑容，她根本不需要用魔法来吸引所罗门·波利特。“你说什么呀，我当然是个女巫。当他们把我从惩椅上解开，摊开在草地上时，他们就明白了。我十分之九的身体死了，盖满了浮萍和发臭的淤泥。我翻着眼珠，诅咒那天早上在村庄草地上的每一个人，诅咒他们死后永远无法安息。我没想到诅咒应验得那么快，就像跳舞时，你的耳朵还没听到乐曲，脚就已经踩着节奏动了起来，一直跳到黎明。”她站起来，转了个圈，踢踏踢踏，光洁的脚在月光下闪闪发亮。“我的呼吸有如汩汩冒泡的池塘水，我用最后一口气下了诅咒，接着就死了。他们在草地上烧了我的身体，烧得只剩黑炭，然后在陶工之地挖了个洞，把我的焦尸扔了进去，连块写着我名字的墓碑都没立。”她顿了顿，一瞬之间显得很伤感。
“And did you?”
“你死了吗？”
“Oh,” said Bod. “Then you weren’t a witch after all.”
“哦。那你不是个女巫。”
“Not a one,” said the girl, with a twinkle. “The Saturday after they drownded and toasted me, a carpet was delivered to Master Porringer, all the way from London Town, and it was a fine carpet. But it turned out there was more in that carpet than strong wool and good weaving, for it carried the plague in its pattern, and by Monday five of them were coughing blood, and their skins were gone as black as mine when they hauled me from the fire. A week later and it had taken most of the village, and they threw the bodies all promiscuous in a plague pit they dug outside of the town, that they filled in after.”
“一个也没有，”女孩眨了眨眼，“在他们淹了我又烧了我后的那个周六，有人从伦敦给波林格先生寄来一条地毯，地毯很精美，可上头除了柔韧的羊毛和精巧的图案外，还有别的东西——地毯的花纹里藏有瘟疫。周一前，有五个人开始咳血，皮肤变得和我从火里被拉出来时一样黑。一周后，瘟疫几乎席卷了整个村落。幸存者在村外挖了个坑，把大大小小的尸体一股脑丢了进去，后来他们又把坑给填了。”
“Are any of them buried in the graveyard, then?” asked Bod.
“那些人中有人被埋在坟场吗？”伯蒂问。
“Was everyone in the village killed?”
“村里所有人都死了吗？”
She shrugged. “Everyone who watched me get drownded and burned. How’s your leg now?”
“所有看着我被水淹被火烧的人都死了。”女孩耸耸肩，“你的腿怎么样了？”
“Better,” he said. “Thanks.”
“好多了。谢谢你。”
“As if it would take witchcraft,” she said with a sniff, “to get Solomon Porritt mooning round my cottage.”
“哼，说得好像让所罗门·波利特围着我的屋子转要用到魔法似的。”
Bod stood up, slowly, and limped down from the grass-pile. He leaned against the iron railings. “So were you always a witch?” he asked. “I mean, before you cursed them all?”
伯蒂慢慢起身，一瘸一拐地下了草堆，靠在铁栏杆上。他问：“所以你一直是个女巫？我是说，在你诅咒他们前就是？”
Which, Bod thought, but did not say, was not actually an answer to the question, not at all.
答非所问。伯蒂心想，但没说出来。
“Got no headstone,” she said, turning down the corners of her mouth. “Might be anybody. Mightn’t I?”
“没有墓碑。”女孩撇了撇嘴，“只是个无名氏，不是吗？”
“But you must have a name.”
“但你一定有个名字。”
“Liza Hempstock, if you please,” she said tartly. Then she said, “It’s not that much to ask, is it? Something to mark my grave. I’m just down there, see? With nothing but nettles to show where I rest.” And she looked so sad, just for a moment, that Bod wanted to hug her. And then it came to him, as he squeezed between the railings of the fence. He would find Liza Hempstock a headstone, with her name upon it. He would make her smile.
“如果你愿意，就叫我丽萨·赫姆斯托克吧。”女孩娇蛮地说，“我的墓就在那下边，看到了吗？一无所有，只有荨麻显示出那是我的安息之地。我不过想要个东西标出我的坟墓罢了，这要求不过分吧？”她看上去很悲伤，有那么一瞬，伯蒂想上去抱抱她。当他从铁栏杆的缝隙挤回坟场时，忽然灵机一动：他想为丽萨找块墓碑，写上她的名字。他想让她笑。
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“你叫什么名字？”他问。
He turned to wave good-bye as he began to clamber up the hill, but she was already gone.
上山前，他转过身想挥手告别，但女孩已经不在了。
There were broken lumps of other people’s stones and statues in the graveyard, but, Bod knew, that would have been entirely the wrong sort of thing to bring to the grey-eyed witch in the Potter’s Field. It was going to take more than that. He decided not to tell anyone what he was planning, on the not entirely unreasonable basis that they would have told him not to do it.
坟场里散落着一些破碎的墓碑和雕像，但伯蒂觉得把这些东西带给陶工之地的灰眼睛女巫太过草率，这件事需要更多的付出。他决定严守自己的计划，不告诉任何人，因为倘若他们让自己停手，也不无道理。
He took advantage of Miss Borrows’s willingness to be diverted from the subjects of Grammar and Composition to the subject of anything else at all to ask her about money — how exactly it worked, how one used it to get things one wanted.
伯萝丝小姐从不介意在课堂上从语法和写作扯到别的话题，伯蒂借此机会，问了关于钱币的事——钱币到底怎么用？怎么用它来获得所需的东西？
Bod simply stared at him, and said nothing. He was wondering whether there were special shops in the places where the living people gathered that sold only headstones, and if so how he could go about finding one, and Fading was the least of his problems.
伯蒂只是愣愣地盯着彭尼沃斯先生，一言不发。他正在想活人聚居的地方有没有什么专卖墓碑的商店，如果有的话他也许能上那儿弄到一块。至于隐身术嘛，那根本不算个事儿。
Over the next few days his mind filled with plans, each more complicated and extravagant than the last. Mr. Pennyworth despaired.
接下来的几天，他脑袋里全是计划，一个比一个错综复杂，一个比一个天马行空。彭尼沃斯先生绝望了。
“I do believe,” he announced, scratching his dusty mustache, “that you are getting, if anything, worse. You are not Fading. You are obvious, boy. You are difficult to miss. If you came to me in company with a purple lion, a green elephant, and a scarlet unicorn astride which was the King of England in his Royal Robes, I do believe that it is you and you alone that people would stare at, dismissing the others as minor irrelevancies.”
他揪着自己灰扑扑的胡子，说：“我真的觉得，你练得越来越差了。你根本没有消失，你无比显眼，孩子，别人想不看到你都难。如果你和一头紫色的狮子、一头绿色的大象还有一头载着身穿皇袍的英国国王的朱红色独角兽一起迎面走来，人们也只会盯着你一个人，把旁边这些都给忽略掉。”
Bod had a number of coins he had found over the years (he had learned that the best place to find money was to go, afterwards, to wherever courting couples had used the grass of the graveyard as a place to cuddle and snuggle and kiss and roll about. He would often find metal coins on the ground, in the place where they had been) and he thought perhaps he could finally get some use from them.
伯蒂近年来攒了一些钱币（他早已知道找寻钱币的最佳地点。两情相悦的男男女女会来到坟场的草地上，搂搂抱抱，你亲我我亲你，滚过来滚过去。等他们离开后，伯蒂总会在地上找到一些金属硬币），也许这些钱币能派上点用场。
“How much would a headstone be?” he asked Miss Borrows.
“一块墓碑要多少钱？”他问伯萝丝小姐。
“In my time,” she told him, “they were fifteen guineas. I do not know what they would be today. More, I imagine. Much, much more.”
“在我生活的时代，要十五几尼[1]，现在要多少钱我不知道，应该要贵很多吧。”【注：[1]1几尼=1.05英镑。】
It had been four years, almost half a lifetime, since Bod had visited the Indigo Man’s tomb, but he still remembered the way. He climbed to the top of the hill, until he was above the whole town, above even the top of the apple tree, above even the steeple of the little chapel, up where the Frobisher mausoleum stood like a rotten tooth. He slipped down into it, behind the coffin, and down and down and still further down, down to the tiny stone steps cut into the center of the hill, and those he descended until he reached the stone chamber. It was dark in that tomb, dark as a tin mine, but Bod saw as the dead see and the room gave up its secrets to him.
距上次去刺青人的坟墓已经过去了四年——接近伯蒂人生的一半，可他依然记得路。他爬到山顶上，在这儿他能把苹果树的顶端、小教堂的尖顶乃至整座城镇尽收眼底。他来到弗罗比歇形如蛀牙的陵墓前，溜进去，钻入棺材后方，踩着深入山腹中心的石阶，向下，向下，再向下，直到进入石室。石室里很黑，黑得像锡矿，可伯蒂能像死人一样看见黑暗中的东西，这间石室对他来说毫无秘密可言。
Bod had two pounds and fifty-three pence. It would, he was quite certain, not be enough.
伯蒂总共有两镑五十三便士。他确信这些肯定不够。
The Sleer was coiled around the wall of the barrow. He could feel it. It was as he remembered it, an invisible thing, all smoky tendrils and hate and greed. This time, however, he was not afraid of it.
杀戮者贴着古墓四周的墙壁环绕。伯蒂感觉得到。和他记忆中一样，它们是无形的，不过是烟雾般的卷须、仇恨和贪婪罢了。这次他一点儿都不怕。
NOTHING EVER LEAVES, came the reply from the coiled thing in the darkness. THE KNIFE, THE BROOCH, THE GOBLET. THE SLEER GUARDS THEM IN THE DARKNESS. WE WAIT.
刀、胸针、酒杯，这里的一切都不能丢失。黑暗中的盘绕之物回应，杀戮者在黑暗中守卫珍宝。我们在等待。
“Pardon me for asking,” said Bod, “but was this your grave?”
“冒昧问个问题，这里是你们的墓吗？”
MASTER SETS US HERE ON THE PLAIN TO GUARD, BURIES OUR SKULLS BENEATH THIS STONE, LEAVES US HERE KNOWING WHAT WE HAVE TO DO. WE GUARD THE TREASURES UNTIL MASTER COMES BACK.
主人派我们来这片平原，将我们的头骨埋在石板下，让我们完成使命。我们守卫财宝，直到主人归来。
WE ARE THE SLEER. WE GUARD.
我们是杀戮者。我们负责守卫。
“I don’t fear you,” said Bod. “Remember? And I need to take something away from here.”
“还记得我吗？我不怕你们。”伯蒂说，“我要从这里拿走点东西。”
FEAR US, whispered the Sleer. FOR WE GUARD THINGS PRECIOUS AND NEVER-LOST.
杀戮者低语：恐惧吧！我们守卫永不丢失的珍宝。
“I expect that he’s forgotten all about you,” pointed out Bod. “I’m sure he’s been dead himself for ages.”
“我想他早就把你们忘得一干二净了。我敢说他自己都死了几百年了。”
Bod wondered just how long ago you had to go back before the deepest tomb inside the hill was on a plain, and he knew it must have been an extremely long time ago. He could feel the Sleer winding its waves of fear around him, like the tendrils of some carnivorous plant. He was beginning to feel cold, and slow, as if he had been bitten in the heart by some arctic viper and it was starting to pump its icy venom through his body.
伯蒂想，当墓穴所在的这座山还是一片平原，那得是多久之前啊。他能感觉到杀戮者正在释放恐惧的波动，如同食肉植物的卷须般将他环绕。他感到一阵凉意，行动变得迟缓，仿佛心脏被某种北极的毒蛇咬了一口，冰凉的毒液被泵往全身上下。
Bod sat in the open air on the top of the hill and held the brooch. He thought it was all black, at first, but then the sun rose, and he could see that the stone in the center of the black metal was a swirling red. It was the size of a robin’s egg, and Bod stared into the stone wondering if there were things moving in its heart, his eyes and soul deep in the crimson world. If Bod had been smaller he would have wanted to put it into his mouth.
他坐在开阔的山顶上，拿起胸针。他起初以为胸针是黑色的，但等太阳升起后，他看到黑色金属所环绕的石头透出流转的红色，如知更鸟蛋一般大。伯蒂凝视石头内部，好奇里头是不是有东西在动。他的眼睛和灵魂深深沉入这个暗红色的世界。如果年纪再小一些，也许他会把这个东西放进嘴里。
HISH! whispered the Sleer. WE GUARD THAT FOR THE MASTER.
嘶！杀戮者低语，我们为主人守卫财宝！
He took a step forward, so he was standing against the stone slab, and he reached down and closed his fingers around the coldness of the brooch.
伯蒂往前走了一步，来到岩架前，弯下腰，手指触向环绕胸针的凉气。
The Sleer writhed angrily, twining around the tiny chamber like ghost-smoke. Then it slowed. IT COMES BACK, said the Sleer, in its tangled triple voice. ALWAYS COMES BACK.
杀戮者愤怒地翻腾，如鬼魅的烟雾在狭小的石室里疯狂扭动，然后慢了下来。它会回来的。杀戮者用三重声说，它总会回来的。
Bod went up the stone steps inside the hill as fast as he could. At one point he imagined that there was something coming after him, but when he broke out of the top, into the Frobisher mausoleum, and he could breathe the cool dawn air, nothing moved or followed.
伯蒂以最快的速度沿着山体内的石阶上行，有那么一刻，他觉得身后有东西跟着他，可当他破顶而出，进入弗罗比歇陵墓，呼吸到黎明的凉爽空气时，身后就什么也没有了。
“He won’t mind,” said Bod. He took a step backward, walking toward the stone steps, avoiding the desiccated remains of people and animals on the floor.
“他不会介意的。”伯蒂后退一步，走向石阶，避开了地面上人和动物的干瘪残骸。
He called “Liza! Liza!” and looked around.
他一边大叫一边四处张望：“丽萨！丽萨！”
He wandered down the hill, taking all the shortcuts he knew, through the ivy tangle that covered the Bartleby family vault (and inside, the sound of the Bartlebys grumbling and readying for sleep) and on and over and through the railings and into the Potter’s Field.
他走下山，抄了近路——穿过巴特比家上头缠结的常春藤（坟墓里传来巴特比一家咕哝的声音，他们要睡觉了），继续走啊走，走啊走，穿过栏杆，进入陶工之地。
The stone was held in place by a black metal clasp, by something that looked like claws, with something else crawling around it. The something else looked almost snake-like, but it had too many heads. Bod wondered if that was what the Sleer looked like, in the daylight.
石头被固定在一个黑色金属扣环中，扣环像个爪子，上头盘绕着别的东西，看起来像是蛇，但有好多个头。伯蒂心想：这会不会就是杀戮者在日光下的样子呢？
“Good morrow, young lummox,” said Liza’s voice. Bod could not see her, but there was an extra shadow beneath the hawthorn tree, and, as he approached it, the shadow resolved itself into something pearlescent and translucent in the early-morning light. Something girl-like. Something grey-eyed. “I should be decently sleeping,” she said. “What kind of carrying on is this?”
“早上好啊，你个呆瓜。”丽萨的声音响了起来。伯蒂没看到她，但山楂树下的确多了一片阴影。他朝那边走去，阴影在清晨的阳光下如珍珠般透明闪亮，像个女孩子，长着灰眼睛。“我正睡得香呢。”她说，“你找我有什么事？”
“Your headstone,” he said. “I wanted to know what you want on it.”
“你的墓碑，”伯蒂说，“我想知道你想在上头刻什么。”
“Willyum the Conker ten sixty-six,” she sang, in the whisper of the dawn-wind in the hawthorn tree. “A big E if you please. And a big Haitch.”
“征服者威廉1066年。”在晨风拂过山楂树的轻响中，她的声音很悦耳，“再加一个大大的E和一个大大的H。”
“Did you have a job?” asked Bod. “I mean, when you weren’t being a witch?”
“你以前有工作吗？我是说，在你还不是女巫的时候。”
“My name,” she said. “It must have my name on it, with a big E, for Elizabeth, like the old queen that died when I was born, and a big Haitch, for Hempstock. More than that I care not, for I did never master my letters.”
“我的名字，一定要刻我的名字。一个大大的E，代表伊丽莎白[2]，就跟我出生时逝世的那位老女王一样，还要一个大大的H，代表赫姆斯托克。其他就算了，反正我也认不全字母。”【注：[2]丽萨（Liza）为伊丽莎白（Elizabeth）的昵称。】
It was nine in the morning, when all the world is sleeping. Bod was determined to stay awake. He was, after all, on a mission. He was eight years old, and the world beyond the graveyard held no terrors for him.
现在是早上九点，万物沉睡，万籁俱寂。伯蒂铁了心要保持清醒，毕竟他身负重任。他已经八岁了，坟场外的世界对他来说已经没那么可怕了。
“I done laundry,” said the dead girl, and then the morning sunlight flooded the wasteland, and Bod was alone.
“我洗衣服。”死去的女孩说。话音刚落，早晨的阳光洒满了这片废弃之地，伯蒂又成了孤身一人。
Clothes. He would need clothes. His usual dress, of a grey winding sheet, was, he knew, quite wrong. It was good in the graveyard, the same color as stone and as shadows. But if he was going to dare the world beyond the graveyard walls, he would need to blend in there.
衣服，他需要衣服。他通常身披一块灰色裹尸布，在坟场里这么穿是挺好的，和石头、阴影的颜色一样，但若到坟场外的世界去，这么穿就很惹眼了。他需要融入外界。
“What about dates?” asked Bod.
“日期呢？”
There were some clothes in the crypt beneath the ruined church, but Bod did not want to go down to the crypt, not even in daylight. While Bod was prepared to justify himself to Master and Mistress Owens, he was not about to explain himself to Silas; the very thought of those dark eyes angry, or worse still, disappointed, filled him with shame.
老教堂的地下室里倒是有几件衣服，但伯蒂不想去那里，即使在白天。他已经作好了向欧文斯夫妇解释的心理准备，但他不想向赛拉斯坦白。一想到那双黑眼睛冒出怒火，或更糟糕的情况——显露出失望，他就会满心羞愧。
There was a gardener’s hut at the far end of the graveyard, a small green building that smelled like motor oil, and in which the old mower sat and rusted, unused, along with an assortment of ancient garden tools. The hut had been abandoned when the last gardener had retired, before Bod was born, and the task of keeping the graveyard had been shared between the council (who sent in a man to cut the grass and clean the paths, once a month from April to September) and the local volunteers in the Friends of the Graveyard.
在坟场尽头有栋园丁的小屋，一栋小小的绿色房子，散发着机油的味道，里头放着一台老旧的除草机，锈迹斑斑，长久未曾使用，此外还有各种各样老旧的花园工具。当最后一任园丁退休后，小屋就弃置了，那时伯蒂还没出生。后来，管理坟场一事由坟场理事会和当地坟场之友组织的志愿者接管。从四月到九月，理事会派一人来锄草和清扫道路，每月一次。
A huge padlock on the door protected the contents of the hut, but Bod had long ago discovered the loose wooden board in the back. Sometimes he would go to the gardener’s hut and sit, and think, when he wanted to be by himself.
小屋门上有把硕大的挂锁，以防内部的东西丢失，但伯蒂早就发现小屋背后有块松动的木板。当他想独处时，有时就会进入这个小屋，坐下来静静思考。
Bod walked down to the main gate of the graveyard, and looked out through the bars. A bus rattled past, in the street; there were cars there and noise and shops. Behind him, a cool green shade, overgrown with trees and ivy: home.
他走向坟场的大门，透过栏杆向外望。大街上，一辆公交车隆隆驶过。一辆辆车，一家家店，人声嘈杂。他身后是一片凉爽的绿荫，长满了树木和常春藤：那是他的家。
As long as he had been going to the hut there had been a brown workingman’s jacket hanging on the back of the door, forgotten or abandoned years before, along with a green-stained pair of gardening jeans. The jeans were much too big for him, but he rolled up the cuffs until his feet showed, then he made a belt out of brown garden-twine, and tied it around his waist. There were boots in one corner, and he tried putting them on, but they were so big and encrusted with mud and concrete that he could barely shuffle in them, and if he took a step, the boots remained on the floor of the shed. He pushed the jacket out through the space in the loose board, squeezed himself out, then put it on. If he rolled up the sleeves, he decided, it worked quite well. It had big pockets, and he thrust his hands into them, and felt quite the dandy.
他知道小屋的门背后挂着一件劳工穿的棕色夹克，被遗忘或弃置在那里好几年了，此外还有一条沾满绿色斑斑点点的园丁牛仔裤。裤子对伯蒂来说太大了，他把裤腿卷起，直到露出脚来。他又用棕色的花园用绳给自己做了条皮带，绕在腰上。角落里有双靴子，他把双脚踩进去，可靴子太大了，还结了一层厚厚的泥巴和水泥，连拖着脚走都难——他迈了一步，可靴子仍粘在小屋的地板上。他先把夹克从松动木板的间隙推出去，接着自己也挤了出去，再穿上夹克，卷起袖子。他觉得一切进展得很完美。夹克衫有大大的口袋，他把手插进口袋，觉得自己很帅。
His heart pounding, Bod walked out into the world.
心怦怦直跳，伯蒂走向了外界。
Abanazer Bolger had seen some odd types in his time; if you owned a shop like Abanazer’s, you’d see them too. The shop, in the warren of streets in the Old Town — a little bit antiques shop, a little bit junk shop, a little bit pawnbroker’s (and not even Abanazer himself was entirely certain which bit was which) brought odd types and strange people, some of them wanting to buy, some of them needing to sell.
阿巴纳泽·博尔杰一辈子见过各式各样的怪人，如果你有一家和他一样的店，那你也有机会得以一睹。他的店铺地处老城区狭窄密集的街道上——有点像古董店，有点像二手店，也有点像当铺（连阿巴纳泽自己也说不准是哪种），引来了许多奇怪的人，有人想买东西，有人想卖东西。
Abanazer Bolger traded over the counter, buying and selling, and he did a better trade behind the counter and in the back room, accepting objects that may not have been acquired entirely honestly, and then quietly shifting them on. His business was an iceberg. Only the dusty little shop was visible on the surface. The rest of it was underneath, and that was just how Abanazer Bolger wanted it.
阿巴纳泽·博尔杰在柜台上买进卖出，不过在柜台后的里屋他有更好的生意。那儿会收购来路不正的东西，然后悄悄转手。他的生意就像冰山，表面上只是一家脏兮兮的小店铺，而表面之下另有乾坤，这正如他所愿。
Abanazer Bolger had thick spectacles and a permanent expression of mild distaste, as if he had just realized that the milk in his tea had been on the turn, and he could not get the sour taste of it out of his mouth. The expression served him well when people tried to sell him things. “Honestly,” he would tell them, sour-faced, “it’s not really worth anything at all. I’ll give you what I can, though, as it has sentimental value.” You were lucky to get anything like what you thought you wanted from Abanazer Bolger.
他戴着厚厚的眼镜片，总臭着张脸，仿佛刚尝到奶茶里的奶变质了，而嘴里那股酸味怎么去都去不掉。这副表情在他接待前来卖东西的客人时可让他得了不少好处。“说实在的，”他会苦着脸说，“这其实一点都不值钱，不过我会尽可能多出一点钱，毕竟有感情价值嘛。”无论你想要什么，你都能从阿巴纳泽·博尔杰那儿得到。
A business like Abanazer Bolger’s brought in strange people, but the boy who came in that morning was one of the strangest Abanazer could remember in a lifetime of cheating strange people out of their valuables. He looked to be about seven years old, and dressed in his grandfather’s clothes. He smelled like a shed. His hair was long and shaggy, and he seemed extremely grave. His hands were deep in the pockets of a dusty brown jacket, but even with the hands out of sight, Abanazer could see that something was clutched extremely tightly — protectively — in the boy’s right hand.
做这类生意会引来一些奇怪的人，但那天早上到访的男孩却是阿巴纳泽行骗一生以来见到的最奇怪的人。男孩看起来大约七岁，穿着爷爷的衣服，散发着一股牛棚的味道，头发又长又乱，脸上的表情极为严肃。他穿着一件积满灰尘的棕色夹克，手深深插进口袋，不用看阿巴纳泽都能猜到，他的右手正死死捏着某样东西，护宝心切。
“Excuse me,” said the boy.
“打扰了。”男孩说。
“I need something for a friend of mine,” said the boy. “And I thought maybe you could buy something I’ve got.”
“我需要钱，为了一个朋友。”男孩说，“我有个东西，也许能在你这儿卖点钱。”
“Aye-aye, Sonny-Jim,” said Abanazer Bolger warily. Kids, he thought. Either they’ve nicked something, or they’re trying to sell their toys. Either way, he usually said no. Buy stolen property from a kid, and next thing you knew you’d have an enraged adult accusing you of having given little Johnnie or Matilda a tenner for their wedding ring. More trouble than they was worth, kids.
“哎呀，小孩儿。”阿巴纳泽心怀戒备。小孩子，无非是来卖偷来的东西或自己的玩具，无论哪种，他一律拒收。从孩子手中买下东西，接下来你就要面对气势汹汹的家长上门控诉，说你仅仅用十英镑就从小约翰或小玛蒂尔达那儿买走了他们的结婚戒指。获得的价值比起招来的麻烦太不值了。小孩子嘛，就这个样。
Bod took his hand out of his pocket and put the brooch down on the grimy countertop. Bolger glanced down at it, then he looked at it. He removed his spectacles. He took an eyepiece from the countertop and he screwed it into his eye. He turned on a little light on the counter and examined the brooch through the eyeglass. “Snakestone?” he said, to himself, not to the boy. Then he took the eyepiece out, replaced his glasses, and fixed the boy with a sour and suspicious look. “Where did you get this?” Abanazer Bolger asked.
伯蒂伸出口袋里的手，把胸针放到满是灰尘的柜台上。阿巴纳泽瞥了一眼，目光便移不开了。他摘下眼镜，从柜台上拿起一个接目镜，凑近眼睛，转动调节焦距。他打开柜台上的一盏小灯，透过接目镜仔细观察这枚胸针。“菊石？”他自言自语。看完后他摘下接目镜，重新戴上眼镜，用一种阴郁而怀疑的眼神盯着伯蒂，问：“这是你从哪儿弄来的？”
“I don’t buy stuff from kids,” said Abanazer Bolger flatly.
“我不收小孩的东西。”阿巴纳泽一口回绝。
“You stole it. You’ve nicked this from a museum or somewhere, didn’t you?”
“这是你偷来的，从博物馆之类的地方，对不对？”
Bod said, “Do you want to buy it?”
“你想买吗？”伯蒂问。
“No,” said Bod flatly. “Are you going to buy it, or shall I go and find somebody who will?”
“没有。”伯蒂斩钉截铁地说，“你想买吗？你不想买的话我就去找别人了。”
Abanazer Bolger’s sour mood changed then. Suddenly he was all affability. He smiled broadly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just you don’t see many pieces like this. Not in a shop like this. Not outside of a museum. But I would certainly like it. Tell you what. Why don’t we sit down over tea and biscuits — I’ve got a packet of chocolate chip cookies in the back room — and decide how much something like this is worth? Eh?”
阿巴纳泽闷闷不乐的脸突然变得和蔼可亲，笑容灿烂：“真对不起，只是这东西实在太罕见了，除了博物馆很难在别的地方见到。不过我非常喜欢它。我们一起坐下来，喝杯茶，吃点饼干怎么样，我在里屋恰好有一包巧克力饼干，我们边吃边商量这东西值多少钱，好吗？”
Bod was relieved that the man was finally being friendly. “I need enough to buy a stone,” he said. “A headstone for a friend of mine. Well, she’s not really my friend. Just someone I know. I think she helped make my leg better, you see.”
见男人终于表现出友好的态度，伯蒂松了口气：“我需要足够买一块墓碑的钱，买墓碑给我的一位朋友，嗯，也算不上是真正的朋友，只是认识而已。我想是她让我受伤的腿没那么疼了。”
Abanazer Bolger, paying little attention to the boy’s prattle, led him behind the counter, and opened the door to the storeroom, a windowless little space, every inch of which was crammed high with teetering cardboard boxes, each filled with junk. There was a safe in there, in the corner, a big old one. There was a box filled with violins, an accumulation of stuffed dead animals, chairs without seats, books and prints.
阿巴纳泽对伯蒂的念叨充耳不闻，他示意伯蒂到柜台后头来，接着打开了储藏室的门。储藏室很小，没有窗，每一寸空间都塞满了摇来晃去的纸板箱，箱子里全是废品。角落里有个又大又旧的保险箱，还有个装满了小提琴的盒子、一大堆填充了防腐材料的动物尸体、几把没有坐板的椅子和一些书及印刷品。
There was a small desk beside the door, and Abanazer Bolger pulled up the only chair, and sat down, letting Bod stand. Abanazer rummaged in a drawer, in which Bod could see a half-empty bottle of whisky, and pulled out an almost-finished packet of chocolate chip cookies, and he offered one to the boy; he turned on the desk light, looked at the brooch again, the swirls of red and orange in the stone, and he examined the black metal band that encircled it, suppressing a little shiver at the expression on the heads of the snake-things. “This is old,” he said. “It’s”– priceless, he thought –“probably not really worth much, but you never know.”
门边上有张小桌子，阿巴纳泽·博尔杰拉出唯一一把能坐的椅子，坐了下来，让伯蒂站着。他拉开一个抽屉。伯蒂瞅见抽屉里有一瓶剩下一半的威士忌。翻找一番后，阿巴纳泽拿出一袋几乎见底的巧克力饼干，拿出一片递给伯蒂。他打开桌上的灯，再次细细观察胸针，欣赏石头里流转的红色和橙色，琢磨环绕石头的黑色金属扣带。见到那形如蛇头的图案时，他努力抑制住身子的轻微颤抖。“这东西旧了。”他说，“它——（是无价之宝，他心想）可能不值几个钱，但也说不准。”
Bod’s face fell.
伯蒂的脸拉了下来。
Bod shook his head. He munched on his cookie.
伯蒂摇摇头，大口大口地吃着饼干。
Abanazer Bolger tried to look reassuring. “I just need to know that it’s not stolen, though, before I can give you a penny. Did you take it from your mum’s dresser? Nick it from a museum? You can tell me. I’ll not get you into trouble. I just need to know.”
阿巴纳泽努力装出一副童叟无欺的样子，说：“在我给你一点钱之前，我得确认这是不是你偷来的。这是你从妈妈的梳妆盒里偷来的吗？或从一个博物馆？你可以放心告诉我，我不会揭发你，我只是想知道一下。”
Bod said nothing.
伯蒂不吭声。
Abanazer Bolger did not want to put down the brooch, but he pushed it across the desk to the boy. “If you can’t tell me,” he said, “you’d better take it back. There has to be trust on both sides, after all. Nice doing business with you. Sorry it couldn’t go any further.”
阿巴纳泽·博尔杰虽不想放下手中的胸针，可他还是把胸针推向桌子对面的男孩，说：“如果你不肯告诉我，那你还是拿回去吧。毕竟双方没有信任就达不成合作。很高兴能和你打交道，但很抱歉交易到此为止。”
“Then where did you get it?”
“那这东西是从哪儿来的？”
Bod said, “If you don’t want to buy it, I’ll find someone else. Thank you for the biscuit.”
“如果你不想买的话，我就去找别的买主了。谢谢你的饼干。”
Bod looked worried. Then he said, “I found it in an old grave. But I can’t say where.” He stopped, because naked greed and excitement had replaced the friendliness on Abanazer Bolger’s face.
伯蒂露出担忧的神色。过了一会儿，他说：“我是在一个古墓里找到的，但我不能说具体在哪里。”他没再说下去，因为阿巴纳泽眼中的友善已转变为赤裸裸的贪欲和兴奋。
“And there’s more like this there?”
“这类东西在那里还有很多吗？”
Bolger said, “You’re in a hurry, eh? Mum and dad waiting for you, I expect?”
“你很着急？你爸妈是不是在等你？”
The boy shook his head, then wished he had nodded.
伯蒂摇了摇头，但他立刻后悔了，刚刚应该点头才好。
“I don’t remember,” said Bod.
“我不记得了。”
He got up and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. He locked it with a large metal key.
他起身走出房间，带上门，用一把金属大钥匙把门锁死。
“Too late for that,” said Abanazer Bolger. “Suppose you have a little think for a bit about where it came from. Then, when you’ve thought, we’ll have a little chat, and you’ll tell me.”
“现在说已经晚了。看来你需要时间来好好回忆你发现它的地点。等你想好了，我们再谈谈，你会告诉我的。”
“Nobody waiting. Good.” Abanazer Bolger closed his hands around the brooch. “Now, you tell me exactly where you found this. Eh?”
“没人等你，很好。”阿巴纳泽用双手合拢胸针，“那么，你能告诉我你发现这个东西的具体地点吗？”
He opened his hand and looked at the brooch and smiled, hungrily.
他张开手掌，看着胸针，唇角勾起微笑，目露贪光。
There was a ding from the bell above the shop door, to let him know someone had entered, and he looked up, guiltily, but there was no one there. The door was slightly ajar though, and Bolger pushed it shut, and then for good measure he turned around the sign in the window, so it said CLOSED. He pushed the bolt shut. Didn’t want any busy-bodies turning up today.
店门口的铃铛响了一声，阿巴纳泽心里咯噔一下，有人进来了。他心虚地抬头看，却见门口没有人，不过店门半开着。他关紧店门，插好门闩，还将窗上的牌子翻为“停止营业”，不希望今天有任何人前来打扰。
The autumn day had turned from sunny to grey, and a light patter of rain ran down the grubby shop window.
时值秋日，阳光变得灰暗阴沉，小雨吧嗒吧嗒，打在小店脏兮兮的窗户上。
“Paydirt, Tom,” he said. “Get over here, soon as you can.”
“好东西上门了，汤姆。”他说，“赶紧过来。”
Abanazer Bolger picked up the telephone from the counter and pushed at the buttons with fingers that barely shook.
阿巴纳泽·博尔杰拿起柜台上的电话，用微微颤抖的手指拨打电话号码。
Bod realized that he was trapped when he heard the lock turn in the door. He pulled on the door, but it held fast. He felt stupid for having been lured inside, foolish for not trusting his first impulses, to get as far away from the sour-faced man as possible. He had broken all the rules of the graveyard, and everything had gone wrong. What would Silas say? Or the Owenses? He could feel himself beginning to panic, and he suppressed it, pushing the worry back down inside him. It would all be good. He knew that. Of course, he needed to get out…
听到锁门声，伯蒂当即意识到自己被困住了，他用力拉门，可怎么都拉不动。他觉得自己真是太愚蠢太轻信了，这么轻易就被骗了进来，没有相信自己最初的直觉——远离这个苦着脸的男人，越远越好。他违背了坟场的规则，一切都偏离了正轨。赛拉斯会怎么说？欧文斯夫妇呢？伯蒂心里腾起恐慌，但他努力将之压入心底。天无绝人之路。当然，他得先出去…
He opened the desk drawer, finding nothing but small pots of paint (used for brightening up antiques) and a paintbrush. He wondered if he would be able to throw paint in the man’s face, and blind him for long enough to escape. He opened the top of a pot of paint and dipped in his finger.
他拉开桌子的抽屉，里头只有几小罐颜料和一支画笔（用来把古董变得更加光鲜亮丽）。他暗自思忖，能不能把颜料泼到那个男人脸上，让他一时看不见，自己趁机逃跑。他打开一罐颜料，把手指伸了进去。
He examined the room he was trapped in. It was little more than a storeroom with a desk in it. The only entrance was the door.
他细细查看困住自己的房间。房间比一般的储藏室大一些，有一张桌子，只有门这么一个出口。
“Why?”
“为什么？”
She said, “There’s rules for those in graveyards, but not for those as was buried in unhallowed ground. Nobody tells me what to do, or where to go.” She glared at the door. “I don’t like that man,” she said. “I’m going to see what he’s doing.”
“那规则是针对坟场里那些人的，对埋在不洁之地的人不适用。没人能对我去哪里、做什么指手画脚。”丽萨看向小屋的门，“我不喜欢那个男人，我去看看他在做什么。”
“Nothing,” said Bod, screwing the top on the paintpot, and dropping it into one of the jacket’s enormous pockets.
“没什么。”伯蒂拧紧颜料盖，把颜料罐丢进夹克衫的一个大口袋。
“It’s his shop. I was trying to sell him something.”
“这是他的店，我有东西想卖给他。”
“None of your beeswax.”
“不关你的事。”
“I can’t. He’s locked me in.”
“我回不去，那人把我锁起来了。”
She sniffed. “Well,” she said, “you should get on back to the graveyard.”
丽萨哼了一声：“好吧，不过你最好快点回坟场。”
Liza Hempstock looked at him, unimpressed. “Why are you in here?” she asked. “And who’s old bag-of-lard out there?”
丽萨·赫姆斯托克面无表情地看着他，问：“你为什么在这里？外头那个大胖子是谁？”
He shook his head. “I can’t. I can only do it at home because they gave me the Freedom of the Graveyard when I was a baby.” He looked up at her, under the electric light. It was hard to see her properly, but Bod had spent his life talking to dead people. “Anyway, what are you doing here? What are you doing out from the graveyard? It’s daytime. And you’re not like Silas. You’re meant to stay in the graveyard.”
伯蒂摇摇头：“不行，我只有在家才能穿墙，因为他们在我还是个小孩时给了我在坟场自由行动的权利。”他抬头看向灯光下的丽萨，要看清很难，可他毕竟从小到大都在和死人交流，“话说，你在这儿做什么？你在坟场外头做什么？现在是白天，你又不像赛拉斯，你应该待在坟场里。”
“‘Course you can. Just slip through the wall –“
“怎么可能回不去？你只要穿墙而过——”
“What’re you doin’?” asked a voice close to his ear.
“你在干什么？”有人对他耳语。
The boy…
那个男孩…
In the cluttered darkness of Bolger’s Antiquities, Abanazer Bolger looked up suspiciously, certain that someone was watching him, then realized he was being foolish. “The boy’s locked in the room,” he told himself. “The front door’s locked.” He was polishing the metal clasp surrounding the snakestone, as gently and as carefully as an archaeologist on a dig, taking off the black and revealing the glittering silver beneath it.
在凌乱而黑暗的小店里，阿巴纳泽·博尔杰狐疑地抬起头，总觉得有人在看他，可随即又觉得自己犯了糊涂。“男孩被锁在里屋，”他自言自语，“前门也锁上了。”他擦拭着环绕菊石的金属搭扣，动作如挖掘古物的考古学家般轻软柔和，小心翼翼。黑色被抹去，露出闪闪发光的银色。
He was beginning to regret calling Tom Hustings over, although Hustings was big and good for scaring people. He was also beginning to regret that he was going to have to sell the brooch, when he was done. It was special. The more it glittered, under the tiny light on his counter, the more he wanted it to be his, and only his.
他开始后悔将汤姆·胡斯廷叫来了，尽管胡斯廷块头大，吓唬别人正好。他也开始后悔他终究不得不把这枚菊石卖掉。它很特别，它在灯光下的每一次闪烁，都让阿巴纳泽更想把它占为己有——不与任何人共享。
A flicker, and Bod was alone in the room once more. He heard a rumble of distant thunder.
一阵闪烁，伯蒂又成了屋里唯一的一个人。远处传来一声隆隆雷鸣。
There was more where this came from, though. The boy would tell him. The boy would lead him to it.
但这东西来自何处，应该大有名堂。那孩子会告诉他。那孩子会带领他到那里去。
An idea struck him. He put down the brooch, reluctantly, and opened a drawer behind the counter, taking out a metal biscuit tin filled with envelopes and cards and slips of paper.
一个想法忽然冒了出来。阿巴纳泽不情不愿地放下胸针，打开柜台后的一个抽屉，拿出一个装满信封、卡片和纸条的饼干桶。
He reached in, and took out a card, only slightly larger than a business card. It was black-edged. There was no name or address printed on it, though. Only one word, handwritten in the center in an ink that had faded to brown: Jack.
他把手伸进饼干桶，取出一张卡片。卡片只比商务名片大一点儿，边缘是黑的，但上头没有印名字或地址，只有一个用墨水写在中心的单词，颜色已褪成褐色。那个单词是——杰克。
“Hurry up,” called Tom Hustings, “it’s miserable out here. Dismal. I’m getting soaked.”
“快点。”汤姆·胡斯廷喊道，“外面难受死了！惨啊，我都要淋成落汤鸡了！”
On the back of the card, in pencil, Abanazer Bolger had written instructions to himself, in his tiny, precise handwriting, as a reminder, although he would not have been likely to forget the use of the card, how to use it to summon the man Jack. No, not summon. Invite. You did not summon people like him.
在卡片背面，阿巴纳泽用自己微小而细致的字体写了几句话，以作备忘，不过他不太可能忘记怎么使用这张卡片，怎么用它召来杰克。不，不是召，是请，你不能把那号人物给召来。
Bolger unlocked the door and Tom Hustings pushed his way in, his raincoat and hair dripping. “What’s so important that you can’t talk about it over the phone, then?”
阿巴纳泽打开门，汤姆·胡斯廷推门进来，雨衣和头发都在滴水。“出了什么天大的事，电话里都不能说？”
A knocking on the outer door of the shop.
商店的外门传来敲门声。
Bolger tossed the card down onto the counter, and walked over to the door, peering out into the wet afternoon.
阿巴纳泽把卡片扔在柜台上，走到门口，通过门缝望见潮湿的午后。
“Our fortune,” said Abanazer Bolger, with his sour face. “That’s what.”
“我们要发了。”阿巴纳泽的表情一贯地阴郁，“这就是原因。”
“From pagan times,” said Abanazer. “Before. From Druid times. Before the Romans came. It’s called a snakestone. Seen ’em in museums. I’ve never seen metalwork like that, or one so fine. Must have belonged to a king. The lad who found it says it come from a grave — think of a barrow filled with stuff like this.”
“是异教徒时代的东西。”阿巴纳泽说，“那是很久以前，在罗马人到来之前，德鲁伊特人所在的年代。这东西叫菊石，博物馆里能看见，但我从没见过这样的工艺，或者说精细到如此地步的作品。这一定属于某位国王。发现这东西的家伙说这是从一座坟墓里找到的——你想想，一座装满了这类东西的古坟。”
“Treasure,” said Abanazer Bolger. “Two kinds.” He took his friend over to the counter, showed him the brooch, under the little light.
“财宝。两个财宝。”阿巴纳泽把朋友带到柜台边，借着微弱的灯光给他看胸针。
“Might be worth doing it legit,” said Hustings, thoughtfully. “Declare it as treasure trove. They have to pay us market value for it, and we could make them name it after us. The Hustings-Bolger Bequest.”
“也许能走正当的途径，”胡斯廷若有所思地说，“宣布这是无主财宝，他们就会付市场价给我们，我们就能用自己的名字为其命名。胡斯廷—博尔杰…”
Hustings took off his raincoat and hung it on the back of the shopdoor. “What is it? Something good fell off the back of a lorry?”
胡斯廷脱下雨衣，挂在店门背后：“什么东西？天上掉了什么馅饼？”
“It’s old, isn’t it?”
“这东西年代很久远吧。”
“Bolger-Hustings,” said Abanazer, automatically. Then he said, “There’s a few people I know of, people with real money, would pay more than market value, if they could hold it as you are”– for Tom Hustings was fingering the brooch, gently, like a man stroking a kitten –“and there’d be no questions asked.” He reached out his hand and, reluctantly, Tom Hustings passed him the brooch.
“是博尔杰—胡斯廷，”阿巴纳泽不假思索地说，“我认识一些人，真正腰缠万贯的人，能出比市场价更高的价钱。如果他们也像你一样亲手拿起它——那这笔生意一定能立马拍板。”此时胡斯廷正在用手指轻轻触摸菊石，像在爱抚一只小猫咪。阿巴纳泽伸出手，胡斯廷很不情愿地把菊石递给他。
“The way I heard it,” said Abanazer Bolger, “the other party is a boy.”
“我听说，另一帮人是一个小男孩。”
Abanazer Bolger picked up the black-edged card, held it out for his friend’s inspection. “Do you know what this is?”
阿巴纳泽·博尔杰拿起那张黑边卡片，送到胡斯廷眼前，说：“你知道这是什么吗？”
His friend shook his head.
胡斯廷摇摇头。
“And if it is him?”
“如果真的是他呢？”
“… and here comes a chopper to chop off your head,” concluded Tom Hustings, thoughtfully. “But look you. If we call the man Jack, we lose the boy. And if we lose the boy, we lose the treasure.”
“也有屠夫来取你人头。”汤姆·胡斯廷接了下半句，“可你想，如果叫来了杰克，我们就失去了男孩；如果失去了男孩，我们就失去了财宝。”
“There’s boys everywhere,” said Tom Hustings. “Running all around. Getting into trouble. I can’t abide them. So, there’s a party looking for a particular boy?”
“小男孩到处都是，跑来跑去，调皮捣蛋，讨厌得要死。所以说，有一帮人在寻找一个男孩？”
“This lad looks to be the right sort of age. He’s dressed — well, you’ll see how he’s dressed. And he found this. It could be him.”
“那家伙年纪差不多符合，穿得——嗯，你一会儿就能见到了。就是他找到了这东西。很可能是他。”
“So?”
“所以？”
“You said two kinds of treasure,” said Hustings. “What’s t’other?”
“你说有两件财宝。”胡斯廷说，“另一件呢？”
Abanazer Bolger picked up the card again, by the edge, and waved it back and forth, slowly, as if running the edge along an imaginary flame. “Here comes a candle to light you to bed…” he began.
阿巴纳泽再次捏住卡片边缘，拿起来，来回慢慢摇晃，仿佛正使之于虚幻的火苗中游移。“这儿有蜡烛哄你入睡…”
Abanazer put the card down on the counter. “There’s a party is looking for another party.”
阿巴纳泽把卡片放在柜台上：“有一帮人在寻找另一帮人。”
And the two men went back and forth on it, weighing the merits and disadvantages of reporting the boy or of collecting the treasure, which had grown in their minds to a huge underground cavern filled with precious things, and as they debated Abanazer pulled a bottle of sloe gin from beneath the counter and poured them both a generous tot, “to assist the cerebrations.”
两人不停衡量上报男孩出现的消息和收集财宝的利弊，在他们的脑海中，珍宝所在地已变成一个塞得满满当当的地下大洞穴。争论不休之际，阿巴纳泽从柜台下拿出一瓶黑刺李杜松子酒，满上了两大杯。“聊以庆祝。”
Liza was soon bored with their discussion, which went back and forth and around like a whirligig, getting nowhere, and so she went back into the storeroom, to find Bod standing in the middle of the room with his eyes tightly closed and his fists clenched and his face all screwed up as if he had a toothache, almost purple from holding his breath.
两人的对话像旋转木马一样绕了一圈又一圈，来来回回，没个定论。丽萨听腻了，便回到储藏间，看到伯蒂站在房间中心，闭紧双眼，捏紧拳头，脸扭成一团，仿佛牙疼似的，几乎都憋紫了。
“What you a-doin’ of now?” she asked, unimpressed.
“你在干什么？”丽萨淡淡地问。
He did, holding his breath even longer this time.
伯蒂照做，这回屏气的时间更长了。
“Stop that,” she told him. “Or you’ll pop.”
“快停下。”丽萨说，“不然你会爆炸的。”
Liza sniffed. “Try again,” she said.
丽萨哼了一声：“你再试一次。”
He opened his eyes and relaxed. “Trying to Fade,” he said.
伯蒂睁开眼，松了口气：“我在尝试隐身术。”
Bod took a deep breath and then sighed. “It doesn’t work,” he said. “Maybe I could hit him with a rock, and just run for it.” There wasn’t a rock, so he picked up a colored glass paperweight, hefted it in his hand, wondering if he could throw it hard enough to stop Abanazer Bolger in his tracks.
伯蒂深吸了一口气，接着长叹一声，说：“没有用。我还不如拿块石头砸他，然后趁机逃跑呢。”这儿没有石头，他就拿起了一块彩色玻璃镇纸，掂了掂重量，思考自己有没有足够的力量扔出去，把阿巴纳泽给镇住。
“There’s two of them out there now,” said Liza. “And if the one don’t get you, t’other one will. They say they want to get you to show them where you got the brooch, and then dig up the grave and take the treasure.” She did not tell him about the other discussions they were having, nor about the black-edged card. She shook her head. “Why did you do something as stupid as this anyway? You know the rules about leaving the graveyard. Just asking for trouble, it was.”
“外头有两个人。”丽萨说，“如果一个人没能抓住你，还有另一个。他们说要胁迫你带他们去你找到胸针的地方，然后挖开墓穴，把宝藏掠夺一空。”丽萨没说起另一段谈话，没说起那张黑边卡片。她摇了摇头。“你为什么要做这种蠢事呢？你知道关于离开坟场的规矩。你呀，真是自找麻烦。”
Bod felt very insignificant, and very foolish. “I wanted to get you a headstone,” he admitted, in a small voice. “And I thought it would cost more money. So I was going to sell him the brooch, to buy you one.”
伯蒂觉得自己一无是处，愚蠢至极。“我想给你弄块墓碑。”他小声说，“我想那要花很多钱，就想把胸针卖给那人，换钱给你买墓碑。”
She didn’t say anything.
丽萨什么也没说。
She shook her head. “It’s the first nice thing anyone’s done for me in five hundred years,” she said, with a hint of a goblin smile. “Why would I be angry?” Then she said, “What do you do, when you try to Fade?”
丽萨摇了摇头。“这是五百年来第一次有人为我做好事。”她露出一丝顽皮的笑容，“我怎么会生气呢？对了，你想隐身时是怎么做的？”
“What Mr. Pennyworth told me. ‘I am an empty doorway, I am a vacant alley, I am nothing. Eyes will not see me, glances slip over me.’ But it never works.”
“按彭尼沃斯先生教我的那样。我是空门，我是空巷，我是虚无。眼睛看不到我，目光从我身上滑过。可就是没有用。”
“Are you angry?”
“你生气了吗？”
He took a step towards her, in that tiny room, and she put her cold hand on his forehead. It felt like a wet silk scarf against his skin.
在狭窄的房间里，伯蒂朝她迈了一步，丽萨将冰冷的手放在他的前额，如同一块湿润的丝巾贴上了皮肤。
She hugged herself tightly, moving her body back and forth, as if she was debating something. Then she said, “It’s because of me you got into this… Come here, Nobody Owens.”
她紧紧环抱住身子，前后摇晃，仿佛在作什么思想斗争。片刻后，她说：“你是因为我才陷入了这种困境…过来吧，诺伯蒂·欧文斯。”
Be night, be dark, be wish, be mind,
化作夜，化作暗，化作愿望，化作心智，
“Be hole, be dust, be dream, be wind
化作洞，化作尘，化作梦，化作风，
Now slip, now slide, now move unseen,
滑动，溜走，变得无影无踪，
“It’s because you’re alive,” said Liza, with a sniff. “There’s stuff as works for us, the dead, who have to fight to be noticed at the best of times, that won’t never work for you people.”
“因为你是个活人。”丽萨轻哼一声，“那玩意只对我们这种死人才管用，而死人大多数时间都是想拼了命地获取别人的注意。对你们，这一套不管用。”
“Now,” she said. “Perhaps I can do a good turn for you.” And with that, she began to mutter to herself, mumbling words that Bod could not make out. Then she said, clear and loud,
“现在，也许该由我来为你做件好事了。”说罢，丽萨开始喃喃自语，伯蒂听不清她在说什么。随后，她用清晰的口齿大声念道：
Something huge touched him, brushed him from head to feet, and he shivered. His hair prickled, and his skin was all gooseflesh. Something had changed. “What did you do?” he asked.
有什么巨大的东西触到了伯蒂，从他的头扫到他的脚。他浑身一颤，头发直立，起了一身鸡皮疙瘩。有什么东西改变了。“你做了什么？”
“Just gived you a helping hand,” she said. “I may be dead, but I’m a dead witch, remember. And we don’t forget.”
“不过是助了你一臂之力。”丽萨说，“我人虽然死了，但好歹也是个死了的女巫。女巫不会忘记自己的法术。”
Above, beneath, betwixt, between.”
上天，入地，居于天地之中。
“But –“
“可是——”
“Hush up,” she said. “They’re coming back.”
“嘘，他们回来了。”
The key rattled in the storeroom lock. “Now then, chummy,” said a voice Bod had not heard clearly before, “I’m sure we’re all going to be great friends,” and with that Tom Hustings pushed open the door. Then he stood in the doorway looking around, looking puzzled. He was a big, big man, with foxy-red hair and a bottle-red nose. “Here. Abanazer? I thought you said he was in here?”
钥匙在储藏室的锁里叮铃作响。“来吧，好伙计，”一个伯蒂没听过的声音说，“我想我们一定能成为好朋友。”汤姆·胡斯廷推开门，站在门口扫视房间，一脸困惑。他是个非常高大的男人，头发红得像狐狸，鼻子红得像红酒瓶塞。“是这儿吗，阿巴纳泽？我记得你说他在这里。”
“I did,” said Bolger, from behind him.
“没错。”阿巴纳泽的声音从他身后传来。
The two men walked into the little room, and Bod stood stock still between them and thought of Mr. Pennyworth’s lessons. He did not react, he did not move. He let the men’s glances slide from him without seeing him.
两人走进小房间，伯蒂正巧站在两人中间，回想着彭尼沃斯先生的课：不回应，不移动，让两人的目光从自己身上滑过。他们什么都看不见。
“Well, I can’t see hide nor hair of him.”
“可我连他的一根毛也没看见。”
“You’re going to wish you’d come out when I called,” said Bolger, and he shut the door. “Right,” he said to Tom Hustings. “You block the door, so he can’t get past.” And with that he walked around the room, peering behind things, and bending, awkwardly, to look beneath the desk. He walked straight past Bod and opened the cupboard. “Now I see you!” he shouted. “Come out!”
“你会后悔没在我叫你时乖乖出来的。”阿巴纳泽关上门，对汤姆·胡斯廷说，“你去把门堵上，这样他就跑不了了。”说着他环绕房间走了一圈，看了看每样东西的后面，还有些吃力地弯下腰，观察桌子下方。他从伯蒂身边走过，拉开柜橱，大声说：“我看到你啦！出来吧！”
Bolger’s face appeared behind the ruddy man’s and he peered into the room. “Hiding,” he said, staring straight at where Bod was standing. “No use hiding,” he announced, loudly. “I can see you there. Come on out.”
阿巴纳泽的脸从面色红润的男子身后探出来，仔细瞅着房间。“藏起来了啊。”他直勾勾地盯着伯蒂所站的地方。“没用的。”他大声说，“我看到你了，出来吧。”
“I didn’t hear nothing,” said Abanazer Bolger.
“我什么都没听到。”阿巴纳泽·博尔杰说。
“Your brooch, Abanazer? Your brooch? Our brooch, you mean.”
“你的胸针？阿巴纳泽，你的胸针？你不是说那是我们的胸针吗？”
Liza giggled again. Then she put her lips together and blew, making a noise that began as a whistling, and then sounded like a distant wind. The electric lights in the little room flickered and buzzed, then they went out.
丽萨又笑了笑，嘟起嘴巴吹了起来，一开始听上去像口哨，后来变得像遥远的风。小房间里的电灯忽明忽暗，嗡嗡作响，接着骤然熄灭。
The key clicked in the lock, and Liza and Bod were left alone in the room.
钥匙咔嗒一响，屋里又只剩下丽萨和伯蒂两个人。
A pause.
一时无言。
“He’s got away,” said Abanazer Bolger. Bod could hear him now, through the door. “Room like that. There wasn’t anywhere he could have been hiding. We’d’ve seen him if he was.”
“他跑了。”透过门，伯蒂听到阿巴纳泽在说话，“居然从那样一个房间里跑了。那里头根本没有藏身之地，可如果他没跑，我们肯定能看见他。”
“What was that?” asked Tom Hustings, spinning round.
“什么声音？”汤姆·胡斯廷连忙环视四周。
“Who’s going to tell him?”
“谁说要告诉杰克了？”
Liza giggled.
丽萨咯咯笑了起来。
“Here. Tom Hustings. Where’s the brooch gone?”
“我说，汤姆·胡斯廷，胸针呢？”
“Mm? That? Here. I was keeping it safe.”
“呃？那东西？在我这儿，看得好好的呢。”
“Bloody fuses,” said Abanazer Bolger. “Come on. This is a waste of time.”
“他妈的保险丝，”阿巴纳泽骂骂咧咧，“走吧，真是浪费时间。”
“Keeping it safe? In your pocket? Funny place to be keeping it safe, if you ask me. More like you were planning to make off with it — like you was planing to keep my brooch for your own.”
“看得好好的？在你的口袋里？真搞笑，放那地方能叫看得好好的？我想你是想偷偷带走，把我的胸针占为己有吧。”
“The man Jack won’t like that.”
“这不会是杰克想看到的。”
“That boy that you couldn’t even keep safe for the man Jack, you mean? Can you imagine what he’ll do, when he finds you had the boy he was looking for, and you let him go?”
“你是说你没为杰克看好的那个男孩？你有没有想过，倘若他发现你放走了他找寻良久的男孩，他会怎么做？”
“Ours, indeed. I don’t remember you being here, when I got it from that boy.”
“我们的？呵，我可不记得我从男孩那儿得到这枚胸针时你在边上啊。”
The storeroom door was unlocked, and Abanazer entered, holding a walking stick and a flashlight, looking even more sour of face than before.
储藏室的门锁被打开了。阿巴纳泽走了进来，拿着一根手杖和一个手电筒，脸色比先前更加阴郁。
“If you’re still in here,” he said, in a sour mutter, “don’t even think of making a run for it. I’ve called the police on you, that’s what I’ve done.” A rummage in a drawer produced the half-filled bottle of whisky, and then a tiny black bottle. Abanazer poured several drops from the little bottle into the larger, then he pocketed the tiny bottle. “My brooch, and mine alone,” he muttered, and followed it with a barked, “Just coming, Tom!”
“如果你还在里头，”他没好气地说，“那就别指望能侥幸逃走。我已经叫警察来抓你了。”他在一个抽屉里翻找了一阵子，找出一瓶半满的威士忌和一个小黑瓶。他从小黑瓶里倒了几滴到威士忌里，接着把小黑瓶丢进口袋。“我的胸针，只属于我一个人。”喃喃自语完，他大吼一声，“汤姆，我马上就来！”
“Probably not the same boy. Lots of boys in the world, what’re the odds it was the one he was looking for? Out the back door as soon as my back was turned, I’ll bet.” And then Abanazer Bolger said, in a high, wheedling voice, “Don’t you worry about the man Jack, Tom Hustings. I’m sure that it was a different boy. My old mind playing tricks. And we’re almost out of sloe gin — how would you fancy a good Scotch? I’ve whisky in the back room. You just wait here a moment.”
“也许不是同一个男孩。世上的男孩多了去了，这恰好是那一个的概率能有多大？没事的，我打赌。”阿巴纳泽高声劝哄，“汤姆，不用担心杰克，我确定这不是他要找的男孩。我年纪大了，脑袋糊涂了。黑刺李杜松子酒快喝完了，你想来一杯上等的苏格兰威士忌吗？里屋就有一瓶，等我一下。”
“Cheap muck. Aren’t you drinking?”
“便宜货。”汤姆·胡斯廷说，“你不喝吗？”
He glared around the dark room, staring past Bod, then he left the storeroom, carrying the whisky in front of him. He locked the door behind him.
他看了一圈黑暗的房间，目光从伯蒂身上扫过，随后拿起威士忌，出门上锁。
Silence.
一时寂静。
“But the door’s locked.” He looked at her. “Is there something you can do?”
“可门上锁了，”伯蒂看着她说，“你有什么办法吗？”
Liza said, “Quickly now. Let’s get you out of here.”
丽萨说：“快，快想办法出去。”
And then there was shouting, and several crashes, and loud bangs, as if heavy items of furniture were being overturned…
接着是尖叫声，几下什么东西撞碎的声音。砰的一声巨响，像是某个大件家具翻倒了…
“What if I did? I could read on your face what you was planning, Tom Hustings. Thief.”
“那又如何？你那点小心思全写在脸上呢，汤姆，小贼。”
“Here you go,” came Abanazer Bolger’s voice through the door. “Give us your glass then, Tom. Nice drop of Scotch, put hairs on your chest. Say when.”
“来吧。”阿巴纳泽·博尔杰的声音从门后传来，“汤姆，把你的杯子给我。口感上佳的威士忌，能让你更有男人味。够了和我说一声。”
… then silence.
接着是沉寂。
“That sloe gin’s gone to my innards. Give it a minute for my stomach to settle…” Then, “Here — Tom! What have you done with my brooch?”
“黑刺李杜松子酒流入我的五脏六腑，我的胃一直在翻腾，得歇息一会儿。”阿巴纳泽说，“嘿，汤姆！你把我的胸针怎么了？”
“Your brooch is it now? Whoa — what did you… you put something in my drink, you little grub!”
“怎么又成你的胸针了？啊呀——你干了什么…你在酒里下毒了，你个卑鄙小人！”
“Me? I don’t have any magics will get you out of a locked room, boy.”
“我？我可没有魔法能把你从一个上锁的房间弄出去。”
Bod crouched, and peered out through the keyhole. It was blocked; the key sat in the keyhole. Bod thought, then he smiled, momentarily, and it lit his face like the flash of a lightbulb. He pulled a crumpled sheet of newspaper from a packing case, flattened it out as best he could, then pushed it underneath the door, leaving only a corner on his side of the doorway.
伯蒂弯下腰，透过锁孔往外看：锁孔被堵上了，钥匙就插在锁孔里。想到这点，他笑了，脸如同被灯光瞬间照亮。他从箱子里拿出一团揉皱的报纸，铺展平整，从门下推出去，只留一个角在储藏室这一边。
There was a muffled clunk as the key was pushed out, as it dropped from the lock onto the newspaper. Bod pulled the paper back under the door, now with the key sitting on it.
钥匙被推了出去，从锁孔掉到报纸上，发出沉闷的碰撞声。伯蒂把门下的报纸拉回来，钥匙就躺在上面。
“What are you playing at?” asked Liza, impatiently.
“你要弄什么花样？”丽萨有点不耐烦地问。
“I need something like a pencil. Only thinner…” he said. “Here we go.” And he took a thin paintbrush from the top of the desk, and pushed the brushless end into the lock, jiggled it and pushed some more.
“我需要一个类似铅笔的东西，最好细一点…有了。”他从桌上拿起一支细长的画笔，把末端捅进锁孔，轻轻抖了抖，又往里推了一点。
Liza laughed, delighted. “That’s wit, young man,” she said. “That’s wisdom.”
丽萨眉开眼笑：“真聪明，年轻人。这就是智慧。”
Bod put the key in the lock, turned it, and pushed open the storeroom door.
伯蒂把钥匙插进锁孔，扭转，推开储藏室的门。
There were two men on the floor, in the middle of the crowded antiques shop. Furniture had indeed fallen; the place was a chaos of wrecked clocks and chairs, and in the midst of it the bulk of Tom Hustings lay, fallen on the smaller figure of Abanazer Bolger. Neither of them was moving.
狭小逼仄的古董店里，尽是翻倒的家具、摔破的钟和椅子，一片狼藉。地板上躺着两个人，大块头汤姆·胡斯廷和小个子阿巴纳泽·博尔杰，两人都一动不动。
“Are they dead?” asked Bod.
“他们死了吗？”伯蒂问。
On the floor beside the men was a brooch of glittering silver; a crimson-orange-banded stone, held in place with claws and with snake-heads, and the expression on the snake-heads was one of triumph and avarice and satisfaction.
在两人身边的地板上，躺着一枚银光闪闪的胸针：深红与橙黄相映生辉的宝石，被爪子和蛇头一样的花纹所环绕，蛇头的神情或是胜利，或是贪心，或是满足。
“No such luck,” said Liza.
“没那么好的运气。”丽萨说。
Bod dropped the brooch into his pocket, where it sat beside the heavy glass paperweight, the paintbrush, and the little pot of paint.
伯蒂把胸针放入口袋。他的口袋里还装有沉重的玻璃镇纸、画笔和一小罐颜料。
“Take this too,” said Liza.
“把这个也带上。”丽萨说。
“You can’t leave it here with them,” said Liza. “They were going to use it to hurt you.”
“你不能把这东西留在他们这里。”丽萨说，“他们会用它来伤害你。”
“No!” Liza gasped. “Don’t do that. You mustn’t do that.”
“不！”丽萨倒抽了口气，“千万别！千万别这么做！”
Bod looked at the black-edged card with the word Jack handwritten on one side. It disturbed him. There was something familiar about it, something that stirred old memories, something dangerous. “I don’t want it.”
伯蒂看着一面上有杰克亲笔字迹的黑边卡片，心烦意乱。这张卡片搅动了他过去的记忆，透着熟悉的气息，让他毛骨悚然。“我不想要。”
“I don’t want it,” said Bod. “It’s bad. Burn it.”
“我不想要。这是不好的东西，烧了它。”
Two hundred miles away, the man Jack woke from his sleep, and sniffed the air. He walked downstairs.
两百英里外的地方，杰克之一从睡梦中醒来，嗅了嗅空气。他走下楼梯。
“Then I’ll give it to Silas,” said Bod. And he put the little card into an envelope so he had to touch it as little as possible, and put the envelope into the inside pocket of his old gardening jacket, beside his heart.
“那我把它交给赛拉斯。”伯蒂说完，把小卡片放入一个信封，尽可能不与它接触，再把信封放进老旧的园丁夹克的内袋，离他的心脏贴得很近。
“What is it?” asked his grandmother, stirring the contents of a big iron pot on the stove. “What’s got into you now?”
“什么事？”他的祖母一边搅动炉子上一口大铁锅里的东西一边问，“你怎么了？”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Something’s happening. Something… interesting.” And then he licked his lips. “Smells tasty,” he said. “Very tasty.”
“不好说。发生了一件事，非常…有趣。”杰克之一舔了舔嘴唇，“闻起来很好吃，非常好吃。”
Lightning illuminated the cobbled street.
雷电照亮了铺着鹅卵石的街道。
“Silas,” he said.
“赛拉斯。”
Bod hurried through the rain through the Old Town, always heading up the hill toward the graveyard. The grey day had become an early night while he was inside the storeroom, and it came as no surprise to him when a familiar shadow swirled beneath the street lamps. Bod hesitated, and a flutter of night-black velvet resolved itself into a man-shape.
雨中，伯蒂飞速穿过老城区，奔向山顶上的坟场。在他被困在储藏室的这段时间，灰蒙蒙的天已经入夜。当看到在街灯下旋动的熟悉阴影时，他并不惊讶。他怯懦地放慢脚步，看着扑闪的夜色天鹅绒化作一个人形。
“I know. I’m sorry.” There was rain on the boy’s face, running down like tears.
“我知道，对不起。”雨水打在伯蒂脸上，如泪水般滑过脸颊。
Silas stood in front of him, arms folded. He strode forward, impatiently.
赛拉斯站在他面前，双臂环胸，烦躁地向前迈了一步。
“Well?” he said.
“嗯？”他说。
“I’m disappointed in you, Bod,” Silas said, and he shook his head. “I’ve been looking for you since I woke. You have the smell of trouble all around you. And you know you’re not allowed to go out here, into the living world.”
“我对你很失望，伯蒂。”赛拉斯摇了摇头，“我一醒来就在到处找你，你身边一直环绕着不祥的气息。你知道的，你不能离开坟场，到活人的世界去。”
Bod said, “I’m sorry, Silas.”
“对不起，赛拉斯。”
“First of all, we need to get you back to safety.” Silas reached down, and enfolded the living child inside his cloak, and Bod felt the ground fall away beneath him.
“先带你回安全的地方再说。”赛拉斯俯下身，把伯蒂罩在自己的斗篷下。伯蒂霎时觉得脚下一空。
Silas did not answer.
赛拉斯没有回应。
“The witch. From the Potter’s Field.”
“女巫，陶工之地的那个女巫。”
“Liza?” Silas’s voice was sharp.
“丽萨？”赛拉斯厉声问。
“I was a bit scared,” he said. “But I knew you’d come and get me if it got too bad. And Liza was there. She helped a lot.”
“我有些害怕。”伯蒂说，“但我知道如果情况太糟糕的话，你一定会来找我。刚才丽萨来了，她帮了我很多。”
“Yes. She especially helped me with my Fading. I think I can do it now.”
“对，她还帮助我隐身了呢。我想我现在能隐身了。”
Silas grunted. “You can tell me all about it when we’re home.” And Bod was quiet until they landed beside the chapel. They went inside, into the empty hall, as the rain redoubled, splashing up from the puddles that covered the ground.
赛拉斯哼了一声：“到家后你再把发生的事全部告诉我。”伯蒂不再作声，直到两人降落在教堂边。他们走进空荡荡的教堂。此时雨势更大了，遍地的水坑中溅起无数的水花。
Silas looked at it. Then he opened it, removed the card, stared at it, turned it over, and read Abanazer Bolger’s penciled note to himself, in tiny handwriting, explaining the precise manner of use of the card.
赛拉斯看了看信封，打开，拿出卡片，凝视片刻，接着翻到背面，阅读阿巴纳泽·博尔杰用小字记录下的卡片的准确用法。
“Tell me everything,” he said.
“把一切都告诉我。”他说。
Bod produced the envelope containing the black-edged card. “Um,” he said. “I thought you should have this. Well, Liza did, really.”
伯蒂拿出装着黑边卡片的信封，说：“我想我应该把这个交给你，嗯，其实是丽萨这么说的。”
“And you say she helped you?”
“你说她帮了你？”
Bod told him everything he could remember about the day. And at the end, Silas shook his head, slowly, thoughtfully.
伯蒂把这一天记得的事一五一十地讲了一遍。最后，赛拉斯缓缓摇头，若有所思。
Bod pulled the jacket up over his head, and clambered up the slippery paths to the top of the hill, to the Frobisher mausoleum. He pulled aside Ephraim Pettyfer’s coffin, and he went down, and down, and still further down.
伯蒂把夹克衫向上拉，盖住头，沿着湿滑的小路吃力地爬上山顶，来到弗罗比歇陵墓前。他推开以法莲·佩蒂弗的棺木，钻进洞里，向下，向下，再向下。
“Nobody Owens,” said Silas. “You are indeed in trouble. However, I believe I shall leave it to your parents to administer whatever discipline and reproach they believe to be needed. In the meantime, I need to dispose of this.”
“诺伯蒂·欧文斯。”赛拉斯说，“你有大麻烦了。不过，我想应该由你的父母来行使管教和批评的权利，他们认为怎么做正确就怎么做。与此同时，我得去把这个处理掉。”
He replaced the brooch beside the goblet and the knife.
他把胸针放回酒杯和刀的旁边。
“Here you go,” he said. “All polished up. Looking pretty.” IT COMES BACK, said the Sleer, with satisfaction in its smoke-tendril voice. IT ALWAYS COMES BACK.
“好了。”他说，“都擦亮了，看起来很漂亮。”它会回来的。杀戮者用如烟如蔓的声音满意地说，它总会回来的。
It had been a long night.
这是一个漫长的夜晚。
The black-edged card vanished inside the velvet cloak, and then, in the manner of his kind, Silas was gone.
黑色卡片消失在天鹅绒斗篷下，接着，赛拉斯以他的方式消失了。
“Am I in trouble?” asked Bod.
“我有麻烦了吗？”伯蒂问。
Bod was walking, sleepily and a little gingerly, past the small tomb of the wonderfully named Miss Liberty Roach (What she spent is lost, what she gave remains with her always. Reader be Charitable), past the final resting place of Harrison Westwood, Baker of this Parish, and his wives, Marion and Joan, to the Potter’s Field. Mr. and Mrs. Owens had died several hundred years before it had been decided that beating children was wrong and Mr. Owens had, regretfully, that night, done what he saw as his duty, and Bod’s bottom stung like anything. Still, the look of worry on Mrs. Owens’s face had hurt Bod worse than any beating could have done.
伯蒂睡意蒙眬、小心翼翼地走在路上，路过名字耐人寻味的黎蓓黛·罗奇[3]小姐（她所消耗的已永远消失，她所给予的将伴她永存。望见此者予以善意与仁慈）的墓，路过教区面包师哈里森·威斯伍德及他的两位妻子——玛丽恩和琼的墓，来到陶工之地。打孩子是不对的——问题是在这一观念为世人所认可的几百年前，欧文斯夫妇就去世了。因此这一夜，欧文斯先生满心歉疚地履行了他的职责。伯蒂的屁股火辣辣地疼，然而，欧文斯太太脸上担忧的神情远比挨揍更来得让他受伤。【注：[3]黎蓓黛·罗奇：原文为Liberty Roach，字面义为自由·蟑螂。】
Nothing.
依旧没有回应。
“Hullo?” he called. There was no answer. Not even an extra shadow in the hawthorn tree. “I hope I didn’t get you into trouble, too,” he said.
“你在吗？”他喊道。没人回应，山楂树下连个阴影也没出现。“我希望我没有给你添麻烦。”
He reached the iron railings that bounded the Potter’s Field, and slipped between them.
伯蒂来到陶工之地边的铁栏杆，钻了过去。
He dipped the brush into the paint and carefully painted, in brown paint, on the surface of the paperweight, the letters…
他用画笔蘸了棕色的颜料，小心翼翼地在镇纸表面写下：
When he had gone to the shed to return the jeans, he had taken a small hand-scythe from the wall where it hung, and with it he attacked the nettle-patch in the Potter’s Field, sending the nettles flying, slashing and gutting them till there was nothing but stinging stubble on the ground.
去园丁小屋放牛仔裤时，他从小屋的墙上拿了一把小镰刀。他用镰刀向陶工之地的荨麻丛发起了进攻，砍得荨麻到处飞舞，劈了砍，砍了劈，直到地上只剩下一截截短秆。
He had replaced the jeans in the gardener’s hut — he was more comfortable in just his grey winding sheet — but he had kept the jacket. He liked having the pockets.
他已经把牛仔裤放回了园丁小屋，身穿灰色裹尸布让他更自在，不过他把夹克衫留了下来，他喜欢口袋。
From his pocket he took the large glass paperweight, its insides a multitude of bright colors, along with the paint pot, and the paintbrush.
他从口袋里拿出那枚大大的玻璃镇纸，玻璃内部流光溢彩。他还拿出了颜料罐和画笔。
“Not bad,” said a pert voice from the Potter’s Field, behind him. “Not bad at all.”
“不错啊。”后方的陶工之地传来一个活泼的声音，“真不错。”
and beneath them he wrote…
他又在下方写下：
we don’t forget
永不忘怀
He put the paperweight down on the ground that had once been a nettle-patch, placed it in the place that he estimated her head would have been, and pausing only to look at his handiwork for a moment, he went through the railings and made his way, rather less gingerly, back up the hill.
他把镇纸放在原先的荨麻地上，放在可能是丽萨的脑袋所在的地方。他只停下来看了自己的作品一眼，就穿过栏杆向山上原路返回，不再像来时那么小心翼翼。
E. H
E.H。
But when he turned to look, there was no one there.
可当伯蒂回头看，却没见一个人影。
Bedtime, soon, and it would not be wise for him to be late to bed for some time to come.
马上到就寝时间了，不按时睡觉可不明智，他的屁股没准会再挨一顿打。
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