"Brown,.Mary.-.Unicorn's.Ring.2.-.1994.-.Pigs.Don't.Fly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Mary)

though someone had just tossed a snake into our midst.
So they told me, in fits and starts: apologetically, belligerently, defiantly.
At first it was just as Mama had related it; there had been fever in the
village, the stranger had sought refuge at our cottage and they had enjoyed
their secret idyll. Then everything had gone wrong. Houses left empty by fever
deaths had been looted, and as they reasoned no one hi the village could have
been responsible, they had searched farther afield, and had found some of the
bulkier objects hidden in a sack at the rear of our dwelling. My father had run;
they had pursued him into the forest where a lucky arrow had brought him down.
Although he was dead they had had a ceremonial hanging in the village, then had
chopped him in pieces and thrown the pieces to the pigs.
So the man whose memory I had cherished, the father who my imagination had made
taller, handsomer and braver than anyone else in the world, was nothing more
than a common thiefl
"I don't believe you, any of you! You're all lying, and just because Mama isn't
here you'reЧyou'reЧ" I burst into tears. But I knew they were telling the truth;
they had no reason to lie, not after all this time. But the anger
PIGS DON'T FLY
27
and frustration would out, and I switched to another hurt. "And I won't have
Mama buried next to the midden! She must have a proper plot, a proper marker, a
decent service and committal, just as she deservesЧ"
"Now look here, girl," interrupted the butcher angrily. "Don't you realize we
have to pay for all this? Now your Ma's dead you have nothing, are nothing. Of
all the ungrateful hussiesЧ"
"Easy, Seth," said the clerk. "She's upset. None of this is her fault. It's up
to us to do the best forЧfor ... I'm sorry, girl, I don't think I remember your
name."
"My name?"
"Yes," said the tailor. "Always just called you 'girl,' as your mother did."
There were nods, murmers of confirmation from the others.
"Well?" said the priest.
I stared at them afl aghast. I could feel myself falling, ...
"I haven't the faintest idea...." I croaked, then everything went black.
CHAPTER FOUR
They brought me round with hastily sprinkled font water.
I nad never fainted before in my life and I felt stupid, embarrassed and
slightly sick. Their faces swam above me like great moons, in the light from the
miller's lantern. For a moment I could remember nothing, and then it came back
like a knife-thrust: Mama was dead, my father a thief, and I had no name. In a
way the last was the worst. Without an identity I was a blank piece of vellum, a
discarded feather, the emptiness that is a hole in the ground. I felt that if I
let go I should float up into the sky like smoke, and dissolve as easily. I was
deathly frightened.
Then somebody had a good idea. "You must have been baptized." Of course, else
would I not have been allowed to attend Mass.
They helped me to my feet and we all repaired to the vestry, where by the light
of the lantern and the priest's candle, the fusty, dusty, mildewy parish records
were dragged out of a chest.
"How old are you?"