"Robert Holdstock - Mythago Wood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

startled.

'What does that mean, Chris? Gone where?'

'She's just gone, Steve,' he snapped, angry and cornered. 'She was father's girl, and she's gone, and that's
all there is to it.'

'I don't understand what you mean. Where's she gone to? In your letter you sounded so happy . . .'

'I shouldn't have written about her. That was a mistake. Now let it drop, will you?'

After that outburst, my unease with Christian grew stronger by the minute. There was something very
wrong with him indeed, and clearly Guiwenneth's leaving had contributed greatly to the terrible change I
could see; but I sensed there was something more. Unless he spoke about it, however, there was no way
through to him. I could find only the words, 'I'm sorry.' . 'Don't be.'

We walked on, almost to the woods, where the ground became marshy and unsafe for a few yards before

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 Mythago Wood

vanishing into a musty deepness of stone and root and rotting wood. It was cool here, the sun being
beyond the thickly foliaged trees. The dense stands of rush moved in the breeze and I watched the rotting
boat as it shifted slightly on its mooring.

Christian followed my gaze, but he was not looking at the boat or the pond; he was lost, somewhere in his
own thoughts. For a brief moment I experienced a jarring sadness at the sight of my brother so ruined in
appearance and attitude. I wanted desperately to touch his arm, to hug him, and I could hardly bear the
knowledge that I was afraid to do so.

Quite quietly I asked him, 'What on earth has happened to you, Chris? Are you ill?'

He didn't answer for a moment, then said, 'I'm not ill,' and struck hard at a puffball, which shattered and
spread on the breeze. He looked at me, something of resignation in his haunted face. 'I've been going
through a few changes, that's all. I've been picking up on the old man's work. Perhaps a bit of his
reclusiveness is rubbing off on me, a bit of his detachment.'

'If that's true, then perhaps you should give up for a while.'

'Why?'

'Because the old man's obsession with the oak forest eventually killed him. And from the look of you,
you're going the same way.'

Christian smiled thinly and chucked his reedwhacker out into the pond, where it made a dull splash and
floated in a patch of scummy green algae. 'It might even be worth dying to achieve what he tried to
achieve . . . and failed.'

I didn't understand the dramatic overtone in Christian's statement. The work that had so obsessed our
father had been concerned with mapping the woodland, and searching for evidence of old forest