"Gilman, Carolyn Ives - The Wild Ships Of Fairny" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilman Carolyn Ives)

She put one arm around Jumber's bulk and kissed him on the cheek, clutching the
boots in the other arm. He was watching her expectantly; he hoped for something
in return. Not sex; he knew he'd have that anyway. He wanted a commitment. And
that was just the thing Larkin couldn't bear to give.

She made a dash for the door then, hugging the boots tight. Through the tunnel
of cargo she ran, up the companion ladder into the sunlight, and across the dock
to Kittiwake. With a single movement she tossed the boots on deck and unlooped
the mooring lines. Jumping aboard, she seized the boathook and pushed off, then
scrambled to the mainmast and yanked at the halyard. The sheave at the mast top
screeched unwillingly, but the sail climbed and caught the wind. Larkin hurried
aft, catching up the sheet and tiller. Then, like a musician teasing the perfect
note out of the tension of opposing forces, she made Kittiwake swoop away from
the dock and out into the bay.

She stood there as the boat bucked across the choppy waves, trying to think only
of the strain of the line in one hand and the balancing tug of the tiller in the
other. For a while she played on them, feeling Kittiwake respond to each little
adjustment. She could almost imagine the boat was waking under her hands, freed
after the long winter ashore. If only it were true.

At the mouth of the bay the sharp cool of the ocean wind hit them; Kittiwake
heeled over, water bubbling past her hull. The lines creaked, stretching taut.
As a sheet of cold spray leaped skyward from the bow, Larkin laughed aloud,
feeling the wind in her teeth. She braced her feet apart and rode the tossing
deck.

This is where I belong, she thought. Not in Soris, among all those people with
their landlocked minds. And not in Fairny either, where everyone lost their will
to live when the ships left.

In Fairny Bay the sea had been indecisive, the waves just flopping around; but
out here they were hurrying west as if they knew something. Larkin sniffed the
wind and squinted across the gray landscape, trying to gauge the sea's mood. It
was a fretful time of year. The sea had a preoccupied look, as if something were
afoot.

She cleated the sheet loosely and secured the tiller in its collar, then went
below to fetch the carved wooden box that held her dreamweed. She stood on the
foredeck to toss a spring gift to the horned panther whose realm lay below the
sea. A wave bared foamy teeth and swallowed the offering whole.

She stooped and picked up the boots she had tossed on deck. They were already
spotted with salt water; she spit on them and tried to rub it off. Then she
carried them hack and stood with the tiller under one arm, the boots under the
other.

Jumber's offer was the best chance she would ever have to escape this desolate
island and the village that had been dying as long as she had been alive. Over