"Zenna Henderson - No different flesh" - читать интересную книгу автора (Henderson Zenna)

The People No Different Flesh
The Second Book of the People

By Zenna Henderson


1967


NO DIFFERENT FLESH


Meris watched the darkness rip open and mend itself again in the same
blinding flash that closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids the dark reversals
flicked and faded. Thunder jarred the cabin window where she leaned and
troubled her bones. The storm had been gathering all afternoon, billowing up
in blue and white thunderheads over the hills, spreading darkly, somberly to
snuff the sunset. The wind was not the straight-blowing, tree-lashing,
branch-breaker of the usual summer storm. Instead, it blew simultaneously from
several directions. It mourned like a snow wind around the eaves of the cabin.
It ripped the length of the canyon through the treetops while the brush below
hardly stirred a twig. Lightning was so continuous now that glimpses of the
outdoors came through the windows like vast shouts and sudden blows.
Lights in the cabin gasped, recovered, and died. Meris heard Mark's sigh and
the ruffle of his pushed-back papers.
"I'll get the lantern," he said. "It's out in the storeroom, isn't it?"
"Yes." Lightning flushed the whole room, now that the light no longer
defended it. "But it needs filling. Why don't we wait to see if the lights
come back on. We could watch the storm-"
"I'm sorry." Mark's arm was gentle across her shoulders. "I'd like to, but I
can't spare the time. Every minute-"
Meris pressed her face to the glass, peering out into the chaotic darkness of
the canyon wall. She still wasn't quite used to being interested in anything
outside her own grief and misery-all those long months of painful numbness
that at the same time had been a protesting hammering at the Golden Gates and
a wild shrieking at God. What a blessed relief it was finally to be able to
let go of the baby-to feel grief begin to drain away as though a boil had
been lanced. Not that sorrow would be gone, but now there could be healing for
the blow that had been too heavy to be mortal.
"Take good care of her," she whispered to the bright slash of the lightning.
"Keep her safe and happy until I come."
She winced away from the window, startled at the sudden audible splat of rain
against the glass. The splat became a rattle and the rattle a gushing roar and
the fade-and-flare of the outdoors dissolved into streaming rain.
Mark came back into the cabin, the fight in his hands flooding blue-white
across the room. He hung the lantern on the beam above the table and joined
Meris at the window.
"The storm is about over," said Meris, turning in the curve of his arm. "It's
only rain now."
"It'll be back," he said. "It's just taking a deep breath before smacking us