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

movie screen, the way the house could. Some nights it left her alone, but some nights it took a human
formтАФnot the same shape as Nathan, but a person, someone tall, comforting, welcoming, who walked
beside her on a dream version of the Guthrie beach and talked about things Matt couldnтАЩt remember
when she woke up. House-as-person seemed more motherly than MattтАЩs mother had ever been.
Matt figured seeing the house as human was a natural extension of her relationship with inanimate
objects. She knew things had souls and ideas, histories, memories, and desires, voices that only she
seemed able to hear. Why not see a lively thing like the house as a person?
Matt closed her eyes, pulled the covers up to her chin, and settled into her sleeping position on her
back.тАФDid you think about what I said?тАФshe thought.
тАФYes,тАФwhispered the house.тАФThis is JulioтАЩs story, but itтАЩs mine, too, because some of it
happened to me. Matt, Julio knew me and Nathan the way you do, for different reasons. I donтАЩt think
heтАЩll mind if I tell you. At least, not this part of it. It happened fifteen years ago. Ready?тАФ
MattтАЩs breathing slowed. She fell down into sleep, and opened her eyes somewhere else.

Chapter Three

Fifteen Years in the Past
FRIDAY afternoon, after the other high-school students had gone homo for the weekend, Julio Rivera
lifted the violin to his shoulder and attacked for the fourteenth time a tricky piece of bowing in a fiddle
tune called тАЬWilsonтАЩs Clog.тАЭ He had found the tune on a record of fiddle tunes heтАЩd bought for a quarter
at a yard sale. It was a great tune, with lots of bounce, though it wasnтАЩt classical. Mr. Noah, JulioтАЩs music
teacher, frowned on less-than-classical music pieces, but Julio loved them. Julio hadnтАЩt heard many kinds
of music he didnтАЩt end up loving.
He couldnтАЩt figure out how to bow тАЬWilsonтАЩs ClogтАЭ so the ups and downs worked out the same
every time; he kept getting stuck bowing up on triplets where he wanted to bow down. He tried a variety
of attacks, slurring some notes and not others, then switched. Finally, he locked it down. He played the
piece through with the bowing heтАЩd established, and the tune danced on the air, so inviting he wanted to
dance himself. How could Mr. Noah not like this? Julio would play it for him. One of these days Mr.
Noah would cave.
Well, Julio had better get back to his real practice. He stroked a long, pure note out of the violin with
the bow. Eyes closed, he listened to the note. He willed grace into his joints as he drew the bow across
the string and strove for a sound that stayed true for its whole journey.
Only when the sound ended and silence completed the note did he realize someone watched him.
He hadnтАЩt heard the door of the high-school music room open or shut. It made a distinctive shriek, E
flat, whenever anyone came in or out. He knew some people who could get in and out of places without
using doors. Who was here now? One of his friends who had that ability? Or someone else who could
do it, someone unknown?
He frowned, then lifted the bow and played a Latino valse his mother had taught him when he had
started playing violin at seven, one of the few pieces of her childhood she had shared with him, and so
deeply learned that he could play it without thought or concentration. What had the watcher seen before
Julio knew he was being watched? Julio lived a guarded life, full of other peopleтАЩs secrets; one of his best
friends was a witch, another was a ghost, and the remaining two had things they never told anyone, things
he knew but never gave up. He was sensitized to secrecy.
The muscles at the back of his neck tightened.
He opened his eyes and glanced across the music room, usually empty of everyone but Julio after
hours. Mr. Noah had given Julio keys to come here whenever he liked. Julio often couldnтАЩt practice in
the small apartment he shared with his mother; too many near neighbors, too-thin walls. He could
practice at the haunted house, but many of the instruments he used lived here.
An older man stood near the door. He wore his silver hair short. His pale eyes had a peculiar heat,
his unlined features unnatural stillness. His arms crossed over his chest, the hands hidden in the crooks of