"Lisa Goldstein - Fools Road" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldstein Lisa)

LISA GOLDSTEIN

DOWN THE FOOL'S ROAD

And then they were all around her, surrounding her, five or six or thirteen of
them. Lights like candles were coming on against the dusk; the darkening street
was set out before her like a banquet. "What?" Amanda said. "Who -- ?"

"Come on," one of them said, laughing. "Come follow us."

"Come on, come follow," they said. They fell about her like autumn leaves.

"But who are you?" she asked.

"Oh, you don't know us," said one.

"We assure you," said another.

"Don't know us."

"I have to get --" she said.

"-- to work," said one. "We know. We know. Come follow."

She worked at night, in a gleaming tower that shone like a beacon from a mile
away. Phones jangled, printers whirred, fax machines chuckled softly to
themselves. In the morning someone she had never met would come and collect the
work she had done. "I can't just --" Amanda said.

"You can. Say yes."

"No, I need the money --"

"We'll give you countless riches," said one.

"Lemony gold," said another. "Silver like fishes' scales. Sapphires as blue as
the skin of strangled men. Say yes."

"I don't believe you," she said.

"No, no, don't believe us. We're terrible liars."

"Dreadful."

"We're lying right now, in fact."

She laughed, a little despairingly. "Then why should I come with you?"
"No reason at all, really."

The men and women ringed about her, pressed in close. They were short, and