"Hoffman-Airborn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Abbie)

NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN

AIRBORN

*
As this issue goes to print, Nina Kiriki Hoffman's popular story from our
January 1995 issue, "Home for Christmas," sits atop the preliminary Nebula
ballot. She has had a good year. Her novel. The Silent Strength of Stones, has
received critical acclaim, and at the end of 1995, she sold two more books.

*
Many of Nina's characters recur in her work. Tasha and Terry, the twins in this
self-contained novella, also appear in two delightful novels (which are among
the handful of books Nina has in her office awaiting rewrites). "Airborn" also
inspired our beautiful Bob Eggleton cover.

IF I HAD TO PICK MY FAVORITE way of going home, I wouldn't choose the one I was
traveling now. It would be more fun to come home for Christmas -- where I could
look forward to spending time with my twin sister and my parents, and the
emotional atmosphere would be hey, let's have fun, let's do all the traditional
things and enjoy each others' company. And afterward I could leave again,
heading back to my own place.

Not like now. Scooting up Oregon back roads in my tiny antique Honda, I had most
of my independence squirreled around me; my clarinet case bumped my heels
whenever I took my feet off the pedals. I was going home in half-defeat. I had
moved away from home at seventeen, finding an apartment in Spores Ferry, a major
town an hour away from the small town of Atwell where I grew up. I wasn't even
eighteen yet, and I had to move back to my parents' house.

I had made a promise to the powers of air that I would learn about them and
become their disciple if they helped me through something I couldn't have
survived myself, and they had delivered. The teacher I needed lived in Atwell.

So: I was on my way home, on my way back to school.

Cultivated fields spread out from the road, their green skirts bordered by
woods. I slowed at the top of Sourgrass Hill to look at the Crooks Farm produce
stand. It was autumn, and fruits and vegetables were ripe. Maybe I should bring
Mom some apples as a hostess gift. It would reinforce my guest status in the
house where I had grown up, be a pledge that I planned a visit, not a lifetime.

A man stood beside the road, his thumb out. He wore moccasins, dusty leather
pants, and a fringed leather jacket. A beat-up narrow-brimmed hat sat low on his
head. His scraggly dark hair came down to his shoulders, and his face, as tanned
as the leather he was wearing, made his pale green eyes look like lights at
night. H e stared at me and I heard a whisper of music in my mind, the faint
squeal of a fiddle. I felt sparks traveling along my muscles My hands gripped