"Nina Kiriki Hoffman - F2 - The Silent Strength of Stones" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Nina Kiriki)

The first time I saw Willow disappear was a couple of days after I met her, and she didnтАЩt know I
was watching herтАФnot unless she was a lot more devious than I thought she was, and as a master of
deviousness, I was pretty sure I would know.
It was almost by chance that I saw her disappearтАФbut not quite. I was watching her on purpose.
WillowтАЩs family had rented one of the Lacey cabins partway around the mountain lake from my fatherтАЩs
dream come true, his crystal clear ice/piping hot coffee/firewood/nightcrawlers/fishing gear/all-round
general store and six-room motel out back, the Venture Inn. IтАЩd spent half my life on Sauterelle Lake in
the Oregon Cascades, doing chores around the business or ducking work to spy on visitors. I usually
knew where to find people to watch.
The community was mighty thin of interest in the winters, when most of the lowlanders went back to
their valley towns, and I had to take an hour-and-fifteen-minute bus ride just to get to school, except
when we were snowed in and I didnтАЩt go to school at all. But right now it was late spring, prime viewing
time, with summer people moving in. I liked to check the long-termers out early on, get a feel for their
habits and figure out which people I would spend the most time studying. There were lots of overnighters
and two-weekers, too, so there were always new people to examine.
The Lacey cabins had the most interesting people in them. They were upscale fancy; the grounds held
tennis courts, a four-star restaurant, a lounge, a swimming pool for those who couldnтАЩt stand lake slime,
and a community room where people could gather for barbecues or videos. People with money used the
LaceyтАЩs as a hideout, some of them people whose pictures I had seen in magazines. If they had a reason
for hiding out, I figured I had a reason to be interested in them, even though I never told anybody any of
the things I discovered.
Some of the more run-down lodgings around Sauterelle Lake were popular with people who thought
they wanted to make love out in nature or under the moon or by a crackling fire, not figuring on bugs,
poison oak, jumpy sparks, or splintery floors. I had watched enough of those people already and usually
just checked to make sure they were that sort of people before dropping them from my spy route.
I met Willow at the store, same way I met most people. That was why I liked cash register duty. A
grin and a тАЬHi, my name is Nick Verrou. YтАЩall enjoying our lake?тАЭ would usually get them talking.
Willow was a small dark person, probably about my age, seventeen, where youтАЩre not allowed to
call them a girl anymore, but she didnтАЩt strike me as a woman yet. There was something soft about her
face, like she didnтАЩt have any idea how pretty she was, with those amber eyes and that soft short black
hair and not a touch of makeup.
тАЬIтАЩm Willow. The lake is wonderful,тАЭ she said. Her voice was deeper than I had expected it would
be, with an edge of honey in it. тАЬThe skilliau are so strong here.тАЭ
Before I could say, тАЬHuh?тАЭ she smiled, put out her hand for change from the bill sheтАЩd given me for a
Mars Bar, accepted the money, and left.
I went to the window and peeked past all the taped-up notices of community affairs, decals about
soft drinks, and neon about beer. She was climbing into the back of an old black Ford truck, late thirties
vintage, where two dark-haired teenage boys and a thin, red-haired preteen girl already sat, all of them in
sloganless white T-shirts and blue jeans. The girl had her arm around a very furry white dog, or maybe it
was a wolf. None of the others reached out to help Willow in, though she ended up sitting awfully
closeтАФkissing closeтАФto the older of the two boys.
A thin-faced man in the passenger seat up front leaned out the window and looked back, then said
something to the driver. The dusty truck started up. It rattled away down the road past MabelтАЩs
Backwoods Cafe, taking the left turn toward the Lacey cabins and the Hidaway Motel. The driver was a
heavier man with shoulder-length hair. I thought for sure they were Hidaway types. The truck didnтАЩt say
anything like enough money for LaceyтАЩs.
But the next morning before opening time and after my first sets with the barbells, when I had dipped
my fingers in the lake in my morning greeting and had walked part of my regular spy route, I saw the old
black truck parked in front of the most remote Lacey cabin, the one closest to my secret forest path from
the store, and farthest from the road.