"Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Here We Come" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Nina Kiriki)

NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN

HERE WE COME A-WANDERING

Matt met the moss man on Christmas Eve.

She was sitting on a stone bench in a pioneer cemetery, a wall of ivy-covered
brick at her back, and a brown paper bag full of past-their-expiration-date
cellophane-wrapped sandwiches beside her. The short cool daylight was fading,
mist breeding in the low spots and spreading. The damp in the air smelled like
winter, dead leaves, iced water, chill and no comfort. Matt was glad of her
thick olive-drab army jacket.

She liked the look of the old mossy gravestones, some tilted and some broken,
but all mute against the wet grass and vanishing distance. The people who had
come here to commune with the dead had all died, too; no fresh dreams troubled
the stillness. This was as close to nature as she liked to get, a tamed
wilderness only a short walk away from a town where she could go to find
warmth
and comfort after she had had her supper.

She unwrapped one of the sandwiches and sniffed it. Roast beef and yellow
cheese. It smelled fine. She took a sample bite, waited to see if her stomach
would tell her anything, and then ate the rest of the sandwich. The bread was
dry and the edges of the cheese hard, but it was better than a lot of other
things she had eaten.

Her stomach thanked her. She opened another sandwich, ham and swiss, tested
it,
and ate it.

She was sitting and feeling her own comfort when she noticed there was some
dreaming going on to her left, a quiet swirl of leafy images emerging from the
layers-thick ivy on the wall. She wondered if she were seeing the dream of a
plant. She had never seen a plant dream before. This seemed like a strange
time
to start seeing them. She turned to get a better look at the dream, and it
changed. The leaves wove together into green skin, the skin smoothed and
formed
a man, and then a man all green stepped away from the wall, shaking his head
slowly.

Some texture in the sound and smell of him told her he was no dream at all.

Matt grabbed the loose cellophane on the bench beside her and asked it if it
would cover the man's face if she threw it. It said yes. If he came at her . .
.
she touched the bench she was sitting on. It was too old and sleepy to
mobilize.
She put her feet on the ground and tensed to run.