"Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Past the Size of Dreaming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Nina Kiriki)

Terry and Galen turned toward the street. A tall, white-haired man cloaked in black stood on the
sidewalk, glaring at them. Galen snatched his hand back and tucked it into his pocket.
тАЬSorry,тАЭ he whispered. He pushed off from the pedestal and ran past Terry toward the street. The
man flapped his cloak open, wrapped it around the boy, spun, and both of them vanished.
тАЬSon of a bitch.тАЭ Terry leaned forward and touched the statueтАЩs pedestal again, wondering what had
brought the boy to life. It felt like stone. She used the see-better spell Galen had demonstrated, but the
stone stayed dull, flat, and unmagical, even to her improved vision.
HadnтАЩt she seen that white-haired man before? Somewhere, somewhen .... Sometime unpleasant.
Where?
She shook her head, then pulled her eveningтАЩs experimental spell out of her pocket. She had learned
to compress spells into tablets suitable for dropping into drinks. She was trying for a тАЬnice and obedientтАЭ
spell that didnтАЩt totally rob men of their minds, but she hadnтАЩt gotten the mix of ingredients right yet.
Maybe tonight.
She headed back inside the bar, looking for her crewcut buddy.

Chapter Two
IN the small Oregon coast town of Guthrie, the witch Edmund Reynolds laid an Oregon map on the
weather-silvered front porch of the haunted house and dropped to sit cross-legged in front of it.
Late-winter sun, cool and bright, glared off the mapтАЩs white background, almost drowned red and black
roads, blue rivers, dark dot-and-dash state lines in light. Sun gilded EdmundтАЩs brown curls, highlighted
dust on his green T-shirt and jeans, glowed in the pale hairs on his forearms.
Matt Black smiled. She had found Edmund three months earlier in a pioneer graveyard, and she had
stayed with him ever since, longer than sheтАЩd stayed with anyone else sheтАЩd met in more than two
decades of roaming. Across the wander years, she had let go of almost everything she had ever had
except her army jacket, and she had spent most of her time talking with things instead of people.
Buildings, streets, park benches, drinking fountains, trash cans, cardboard boxes, dishes, railroad tracks,
toys, cars, anything shaped by humankind might have a story to tell her. Things talked with her. They
liked her, and she liked them.
Maybe she had been ready for a change. It felt strange but nice to hang on to someone human.
Just now she thought Edmund looked like a god who had just been pulled out of a closet, bright and
shiny but not wiped clean yet. Everything about him made her happy.
Edmund glanced up at Matt. тАЬWatch what happens when I try a seek spell for Julio.тАЭ
тАЬOkay.тАЭ She sat down beside him. Salt breeze gusted through her short hair, riffled the edge of the
map. She set the toe of her sneaker on a corner of the map and leaned back, her hands flat on the porch
boards.
Edmund fished a lead weight on a piece of fishing line from his jeans pocket He murmured to the
weight and kissed it, then held the string between finger and thumb, let the weight dangle above the map.
тАЬJulio,тАЭ he murmured. тАЬJulio.тАЭ
The weight circled slowly clockwise above the map. Matt waited. She had seen Edmund do
search-dowsing before. The line would straighten in some direction or another, pointing them toward
their quarry.
The circles spun faster, though EdmundтАЩs grip on the line didnтАЩt shift at all. Presently, the line
stretched tight, the weight suspended toward the south. Matt nodded. Good. They had a line on Julio.
Maybe they could get going soon. She loved staying in the haunted house, but it had been three weeks,
and she was getting restless. Something inside her, stronger than anything else she knew, wanted her to
keep moving. She didnтАЩt know how to quiet it.
She had promised Edmund soon after she met him that sheтАЩd help him look up his old childhood
friends so he wouldnтАЩt have to face them alone when they realized how different he had become since
they last saw him.
This road was bumpy, but she had already helped him find the first two friends of four, Nathan, a