"Downer, Ann - Spellkey 01-03 - The Spellkey Trilogy 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Downer Ann)

sucking the burn.

Then her countenance changed, and she smiled a tooth-
less smile.

"Give it me!" she crooned. "Sweet childling, give it to
your 'Batha, your old gran, who has cared for you this
many a long year. Can you grudge her it? It is a cheap
bauble, a nothing. Give it me!"

This speech, so against Abagtha's nature, terrified the
girl more than would have an unreasoning rage. She fled.

She crept back that evening, driven home by cold and
hunger. Her keeper extended a civil greeting, and set
before her hot mutton broth and barleycakesЧunimagined
delicacies. The girl ate, too starved to be wary, the firelight
picking out the stone where it lay nestled in the hollow
of her neck. A white cinder appeared in each of Abagtha's
eyes as she cracked her toes with quiet glee.

The girl's spoon clattered to the floor, and the room
rippled and swam. Flushed and numb, she slid senseless
to the floor.

"The pepper! The pepper!" chortled Abagtha. "A subtler
herb, that." The old woman knelt by the girl and unknot-
ted the cord of hair, depositing the charm tenderly in a

box of carved horn. She then wrapped the box in a bit of
rag and hid it in her bosom.

The girl came to a great while later, the arm twisted
under her all pins ana needles. Her hand went to her
throat and found it bare, and she sat up with a cry. She
went to Abagtha's chamber and found the old woman in
her bed, the blankets clutched under her chin. Her eyes
were staring, their malice replaced by bright fear. The box
of horn lay open on the covers, and she held the catstone
in her hand, worrying it ceaselessly with her thumb. She
did not resist when the girl pried it gently from her grasp.

After she had replaced the catstone around her neck,
the girl steeped herbs for poultices and nursed the tiny
form in the bed. But Abagtha no longer had the will to
live: she seemed intent on some distant vision, and the
girl could not interest her in food, not even in cakes of
millet and honey, perfectly round.

Inside a week the sibyl was dead. The girl without a