"Doranna Durgin - Seer's Blood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Durgin Doranna)

Dacey nodded at the horse and plow. "Why don't you let me take those lines. It'll make me feel better
about eatin' at your table."

Blaine looked to her daddy for guidance, and he gestured to Dacey. "Give 'im the lines, Blaine, and go
help your mommy with the meal."

Blaine's expression did not indicate she thought this was any great trade. But she handed over the lines
with a warning that the horse liked a light touch, and walked the furrow to the edge of the garden. Mage
followed, knowing enough to get out of the way, and sat at the corner of the garden, patience in his very
posture. Dacey gave him a half grinтАФaffection for the dog, an acknowledgment to the watching girl that
he did indeed set such store by the animalтАФand turned to the work at hand.
***

He knows there're strangers here.Otherstrangers. He calls it Annekteh Ridge.Not Anneka Ridge, as
everyone in Shadow Hollers named it, even though the long-abandoned ridge lay just north of them and
they should know better. But then, they didn't have her book to read from . . . not even the incomplete
remnants of her book.

Blaine hesitated on the porch and watched the man plow with her daddy, handling the tight turns on the
sloped ground almost as well as she did. And my, did he care for that dog. And that last smile he'd given
her . . .

Five-year-old Sarie eyed Dacey shyly from the house, then came out onto the porch and tugged Blaine's
skirt. "Mommy says t' get taters from the springhouse."

Blaine made the exaggerated face that always gave Sarie the giggles. "That nasty old place." But she
quickly disentangled her skirt from Sarie's clinging fingers, leaving the child on the porch while she
hastened to do her mother's bidding. Lottie would be harried enough, what with another mouth to feed
and them at the end of their winter rations, and no new crops save the greens.

She selected the least wrinkled of the potatoes, even if theywere going to be cut up and fried, and ran
them back to the house where she was set to work peeling and slicing them. Three womenтАФLottie,
Lenie, and Blaine herselfтАФworked in the too-small kitchen alcove while Sarie ran in and out with table
things, imagining herself important as she set and reset the table.

Though the heat of the cookstove warmed Blaine after the cold yard, she quickly found the house
oppressive, and didn't waste any time finishing her task. Unlike Lenie, she hated being shut indoors; she
found the fuss with stove dampers and cook surface hot-spots tedious instead of challenging. Setting the
potato fry pan on the cookstove where Lottie could keep an eye on it, she escaped to the porch, where
she lowered herself into the swing. She pushed herself back and forth on her toes and watched Dacey
handling the workhorse. Prince had gone to playing dumb, and she smiledтАФhalf amusement, half
sympathy.

Soon after, wiping her face with her apron and pushing stray wisps of hair back into the knot at the back
of her head, Lenie joined her. Hers wasn't a severe bun like her mother's, but a loose imitation thatтАФas
she had explained to BlaineтАФgave her maturity while at the same time didn't look too old. "Grow out of
those braids and try it," she told Blaine, far more often than Blaine cared to hear it. If Blaine wanted she
could make plenty of comments about Lenie's age and single status, but it wasn't Lenie's fault her
intended had been killed in a logging accident, and it certainly wasn't seemly to tease her about it.