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

come-to fill the emptinesses.

Somewhere in the timeless darkness of the night she was suddenly awake,
sitting bolt upright in bed. She pulled the bedclothes up to her chin,
shivering a little in the raw, damp air of the cabin. What had wakened her?
The sound came again. She gasped and Mark stirred uneasily, then was
immediately wide awake and sitting up beside her.
"Meris?"
"I heard something," she said. "Oh, Mark! Honestly, I heard something."
"What was it?" Mark pulled the blanket up across her back.
"I heard a baby crying," said Meris.
She felt Mark's resigned recoil and the patience in his long indrawn breath.
"Honest, Mark!" In the semi-obscurity her eyes pleaded with him. "I really
heard a baby crying. Not a tiny baby-like-like ours. A very young child,
though. Out there in the cold and wet."
"Meris " he began, and she knew the sorrow that must be marking his face.
"There!" she cried. "Hear it?"
The two were poised motionless for a moment, then Mark was out of bed and at
the door. He flung it open to the night and they listened again, tensely.
They heard a night bird cry and, somewhere up-canyon, the brief barking of a
dog, but nothing else.
Mark came back to bed, diving under the covers with a shiver.
"Come warm me, woman!" he cried, hugging Meris tightly to him.
"It did sound like a baby crying," she said with a half question in her
voice.
"It sure did," said Mark. "I thought for a minute-Must have been some beast
or bird or denizen of the wild-" His voice trailed away sleepily, his arms
relaxing. Meris lay awake listening-to Mark's breathing, to the night, to the
cry that didn't come again. Refusing to listen for the cry that would never
come again, she slept.

Next morning was so green and gold and sunny and wet and fresh that Meris
felt a-tiptoe before she even got out of bed. She dragged Mark, protesting,
from the warm nest of the bedclothes and presented him with a huge breakfast.
They laughed at each other across the table, their hands clasped over the
dirty dishes. Meris felt a surge of gratitude. The return of laughter is a
priceless gift.
While she did the dishes and put the cabin to rights, Mark, shrugging into
his Levi jacket against the chill, went out to check the storm damage.
Meris heard a shout and the dozen echoes that returned diminishingly from the
heavily wooded mountainsides. She pushed the window curtain aside and peered
out as she finished drying a plate.
Mark was chasing a fluttering something, out across the creek. The boisterous
waters were slapping against the bottom of the plank bridge and Mark was
splashing more than ankle-deep on the flat beyond as he plunged about trying
to catch whatever it was that evaded him.
"A bird," guessed Meris. "A huge bird waterlogged by the storm. Or knocked
down by the wind maybe hurt " She hurried to put the plate away and dropped
the dish towel on the table. She peered out again. Mark was half hidden behind
the clumps of small willows along the bend of the creek. She heard his cry of