"Duncan,.Lois.-.Summer.Of.Fear" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Lois)

"Leslie," Dad interrupted gently, "do you really think this is the time?" and Mother said, "No. No, of course it isn't. Julia, darling, I'm sorry. How thoughtless of me! This is to be a happy evening for you and here I am, reminding youЧ"
"That's all right," Julia told her.
It was all right. I looked into her eyes, and it was there, the look I had seen that first morning when I had wakened and glanced across and she had been lying on her back, gazing up at the ceiling. It was a quiet look, peaceful, pleased. A look of self-confidence that left no room for grief.
She doesn't care! TerribleЧincredibleЧthe knowledge swept upon me. Her parents are dead, and we're all so sorry for herЧbut to Julia, Julia herself, it doesn't matter! We think she's so brave, but she isn't braveЧshe just doesn't care!


Eight

When Mike arrived I did not stay to see him. Instead I went through to the kitchen and slipped out the back door into the yard. The moon hung huge and yellow about halfway up the curve of the sky, and by its light I could clearly see the tree to which Trickle was tied and his water bowl and the sad little heap that was Trickle himself. He had crept over to the edge of the hydrangea bush, but the rope wasn't quite long enough for him to get underneath it, and so he lay half in moonlight, half in the bush's shadow.
I said, "Trick?"
He lifted his tail politely and let it fall, but made no attempt to get up.
I went over to him and sank down beside him in the cool grass and stroked his back. His hair felt strange to my hand, lifeless and dry, and when I reached to scratch him behind his ears he raised his head and turned it to lick my hand. His nose felt warm and rough.
"You're sick," I whispered. "Poor little thing, I should have guessed it sooner. If you were feeling good you wouldn't have bitten anybody, even Julia. I'll take you to the vet tomorrow and get you dosed up with medicine. Then you'll be your old self again and you can come in the house and everything will be like it always was."
I sat with him a long time there in the moonlight, petting him and talking to him. When at last I went back into the house it was after ten. Mother and Dad were in the den, I could hear their voices, but I didn't stop to speak to them; I knew that if I heard either one of them comment on how pretty Julia had looked tonight and how brave and wonderful she was, I would not be able to stand it.
I went upstairs and put on my pajamas and got into bed to read. It was nice to have the room to myself again, as I had had it for so many years prior to Julia's arrival. As I reached over to get my book from the table between the beds, I was surprised to see that the base of the reading lamp, which was shaped like a cup, was filled with burnt matches.
"For gosh sakes," I said softly to myself. "Where could these have come from?"
I leaned over further and saw two empty match books stuck down on the far side of the lamp. They must be Julia's, I thought, but what could she have used them for? Could it be that Julia smoked? It seemed unlikely, for I had never detected the odor of cigarette smoke on Julia's person or in the room itself after she had been alone in it.
Still, why else would she be lighting matches?
I opened my book and tried to concentrate on the words on the page in front of me, but my mind would not focus. The question of the matches bothered me too much to let it drop. If Julia did have cigarettes she would have to keep them in the bureau, for there was nowhere else that she could store things. The bureau was, after all, mine as well as hers. Just because Julia kept her things in two of the drawers didn't exactly make them private drawers, being as how they were part of a piece of furniture that had been mine since childhood.
Hurriedly, before I could feel any guiltier about it than I did already, I laid my book aside and got out of bed and went over to the bureau and pulled open the top drawer. All I could see at first glance was a neat pile of underthings and a pair of pajamas. Gingerly I reached in and lifted the pile of clothing to run my hand underneath it.
There were no cigarette packs.
I was beginning to feel disgusted with myself, but having started the investigation I could not stop. I ran my hand down the side of the drawer to the back, and then I did feel something. It was smooth and hard and had the same feel as a candle.
I pulled it out and looked at it. It wasn't exactly a candle, for it had no wick, but it was a brown, waxlike substance which had evidently been melted and molded into an oblong shape with four stubby appendages forming a kind of stand for it. At one end there was another such protrusion, shaped somewhat like the head of an animal.
"What in the world!" I exclaimed, regarding the little wax figure with bewilderment. It was the sort of thing one might expect from a child modeling with clay, but the wax had melted and run together so that the shape was indistinct. As I turned it over and over in my hands I saw something else strange. Several long, white hairs were embedded in the wax.
I was still examining it when through the open window I heard the sound of a car pulling into our driveway. Guiltily I thrust the wax figure back into the spot in which I had found it and shoved the drawer closed. I was in bed with my book in my hands when footsteps sounded on the stair. One pair of footsteps.
One?
I lay still, listening, as they came opposite the door and continued on down the hall. I recognized those footsteps, and they were not Julia's.
Shoving back the covers, I got up again and went to the bedroom door and opened it. At the far end of the hall, Peter was entering his own room.
I said, "Pete?"
He paused, but he did not turn around.
"Peter," I said, "where's Julia? I thought you were going to be the one to bring her home."
"Yeah. I thought so too." He did turn now and looked not at me but past me, as though by not meeting my eyes he could conceal the hurt in his own. "I guess my horn wasn't cool enough to make up for the rest of me. When the dance was over I went to find her, and she wasn't there. They took off during intermission."
"They?"
"Julia and Mike, who else? That's some great boyfriend you've got, I'll tell you. I thought he was going to introduce her around and see she met a bunch of people. They never spoke to anybody all evening, and when I went over to the table at the first band rest they were so wrapped up in each other they acted like they didn't even know I was there."
"No," I said. "I don't believe that. Mike just took her tonight because I asked him to do it as a favor. You're just telling me this becauseЧbecauseЧ"
But there was no ending for the sentence. There was no reason for Peter to tell me this if it was not true. Besides, the pain in his voice was equal to my own.
"I'm sorry, kid," he said and opened his door and went into his room, and I went back into mine.
Julia did not come in until close to dawn, and when she did I lay quiet with my back toward her, feigning sleep, because there was nothing I could say to her that would help in any way, and I knew if I tried to speak I would start to cry.
When I think back, I don't think I slept at all that night. I was aware of all the soft night noisesЧa tree rustling outside the window, a lone car passing along the street in front of the house, Julia's heavy, even breathing in the bed across from me, for she fell asleep at once and never stirred again.
I did not sleepЧand yet, I think I dreamed. Is that possible? No, of course not, and so I must have slept a little without realizing it, for in the dream I was running along the edge of a winding road. There were stark, red cliffs on one side of me and on the other there was a drop-off into a deep valley. My legs ached and my breath was coming in gasps, and I cried to Mike who was running beside me, "Will we get there in time? Can we get there before it happens?"
He said, "Are you crazy, Rae? If you'd only explainЧ"
"I can't!" I cried. "There's no time!"
Up ahead, far far ahead, a tiny reflection of the bright noon sunlight signalled the approach of a car coming directly toward us down the road.
"Stop!" I screamed. "Stop!" And in the dream I ran straight into the middle of the road with my arms outspread. The car came roaring toward me, and I was able to look directly into the eyes of the driver, wide, familiar eyes that recognized me as I did them.
Then, as with most dreams, before the ultimate climax occurred the dream was gone, and I was lying stiffly in bed, watching the sky outside the window lighten and turn pale and soften into pink and brighten into orange and burst at last to shining gold as the sun appeared above the ragged edges of the Sandia Mountains. Birds began to sing in the trees outside the window as though someone had suddenly pressed a button to bring them to life, and I thought, it's morning. The long night is over, and it's morning, and I haven't slept at all.
I lay there a while longer, until the sun had risen into the branches of the elm tree. Then I got up and dressed. The face that looked back at me from the mirror over the bureau was my normal face, no longer splotchy and bloated. The hives were gone as though" they had never existed. I was Rachel again.
I went down the stairs and through the silent house and outside into the backyard. Trickle was still sleeping in the grass beside the hydrangea bush. I could see him there, a soft shadowy mound, curled just as I had left him the night before.
I crossed into the Gallaghers' yard and went up and rapped on the kitchen door.
Mrs. Gallagher opened it. She was a bright, cheerful woman, a little on the plump side, with Mike's blue eyes.
"Hello, Rae," she said with a smile. "You're up bright and early for a girl who was out most of the night. Does your mother need to borrow something for breakfast?"