"Bailey-TheMall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bailey Dale)

Ellis barely noticed. A warm flood of nostalgia suffused him. The Boy's Book of
Constellations, read the title; below it was a dusty watercolor of a boy and a
man looking into the night sky. The man held a book in one hand and pointed at
the stars with the other. The stars themselves had been connected with chalky
lines to form constellations: the Dippers, Virgo and Aquarius, others.

Ellis thumbed through the crumbling pages, stopping at last to study the central
illustration: a map of the night sky, with the constellations traced in glowing
lines against the darkness. Blackness rose like inky vapor from the pages,
encircled his wrists and flowed away to fill the air around him. The bookstore
receded slowly, becoming ghostly and faint. Finally, it disappeared altogether,
and he found himself in a rolling pasture. A full moon drenched the scene in
pale light. The rich heavy scent of cow manure, borne on a summer breeze, washed
over him.

Inhaling deeply, Ellis sat in the long grass. He plucked a single blade, and
chewed it idly as he stared up into the night sky. Stars stood out, bright and
unblinking against the darkness. He lay back and it seemed to him that he fell
into the sky, as if the earth had been inverted, gravity reversed. He drifted
without thought into blackness, into a night place where the constellations
stood out with clarity and order. He might have stayed there forever, had not
some importunate worry begun to tug at the base of his consciousness.

For a while, Ellis tried to ignore it, as he had sometimes tried to disregard
the sound of a television in the next room when he was reading a particularly
engrossing book. Concentrating with all his might on the stars that stood out
against the darkness above him, he almost succeeded. It was that knowledge, that
awareness of success which doomed him however, for with awareness returned the
persistent tug of worry.

What? he thought. What was it?

And then: Katie. The kids.

Suddenly, the stars drew away to glimmering points. The field tore apart,
shredding into dark rags that blew to the corners of his vision and disappeared.
He stood in the bookstore, a grassy taste lingering on his tongue. For a single
moment, Ellis thought he detected the scent of cow manure, half-familiar and
weighted with all his memories of that long-ago summer. And then it too was
gone, supplanted by the cloying odor of cotton candy. Ellis looked down at his
hands, clenched white about The Boy's Book of Constellations.

"Sir?" the girl said. "Are you all right sir?"

"I -- I have to meet my family," Ellis said. He forced his fingers to relax and
shoved the book under his right arm. He glanced at his watch. Two forty-five.
"I'd like this book, please," Ellis said. He placed it on the counter and
reached for his wallet.

"Oh no, sir. Take it. It's yours. Your money's no good here."