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

my face, a ribbon of light reaches for me, and I feel fingertips. I canтАЩt explain it, Julio. I havenтАЩt seen this
sort of manifestation before. If you imagined eyes for yourself ...тАЭ
Julio imagined he could see. He remembered what the haunted house looked like. With Edmund,
Deirdre, and Susan, he stopped off there after school most days. Downstairs, dust, dirt, cobwebs, curling
strips of wallpaper, water stains, scratchy stretches of empty space; suggestive shadows that your mind
could turn into terrors, shaped and aided by NathanтАЩs haunting. Upstairs, bedrooms with old furniture
and new objects Edmund, Deirdre, Susan, and Julio had brought in. Nathan and the house had given
them each a space to claim, a haven away from their homes. тАЬWhere am I?тАЭ Julio asked, and reached
out. He felt rough metal with one hand, explored, discovered the ornamented face of the old woodstove
in the kitchen. With his other hand he touched the doorway.
 тАЬThe kitchen,тАЭ Nathan said, just after Julio figured it out.
Julio visualized the kitchen. The stove stood against one wall, and the doorway into the dining room
was ten feet from it.
How could he feel both at once?
He pulled back into himself, frightened and startled. What was he?
A pillar of light.
A pillar of light that could stretch across a room.
He was something not caged in a body, not trapped by size or race or gender. Something not even
human.
Whoa. There could be an upside to this.
Suppose f had a thousand hands?
He spread out, touched surfaces in all directionsтАФwindow glass, floor, ceiling, woodstove, sink,
faucets, doorway. He reached through the doorway into the dining room and touched the far wall there,
felt HouseтАЩs energy under the surface. A thousand hands, five thousand fingertips, a body that could
expand to fill a whole room; a flood of sensations, a knowing of surfaces as though he were putty
pressed up against everything, with Nathan somehow in the middle of him, a dragonfly in amber. Behind
every surface he touched, the house touched him back, laughing as though tickled.
Somewhere inside the house lurked the memories of musical instruments from the past. With a
thousand hands, he could playтАФ
Now was not the time to think about that.
If I imagined eyes. Julio tried to imagine being able to see everything he touched, but vision didnтАЩt
come.
тАЬI canтАЩt seem to imagine eyes,тАЭ Julio said. тАЬOuch! Sorry!тАЭ His voice came from everywhere and
seemed much too loud. Although, given time, he was sure he could come up with something to use a
voice like that for. Maybe his voice wasnтАЩt trapped either. Could he sing four-part harmony with himself?
Why not sixтАФor eight-part harmony? Why not be an orchestra?
He pulled himself together until all he felt was the floor beneath what he thought of as feet. тАЬSorry.тАЭ
тАЬItтАЩs all right,тАЭ Nathan said again. He sounded like he was laughing. Then he said in a sober voice,
тАЬBut we had better think about this. We need to put you back together. Who knows whatтАЩs happening to
your body without you in it? Did the man give you a reason for doing this to you?тАЭ
тАЬPunishing me for not talking.тАЭ
тАЬI need some witches.тАЭ Nathan said. Then, тАЬEdmundтАЩs coming.тАЭ
Julio listened, but heard nothing. He reached out and touched a wall, pushed into it. HouseтАЩs warm
energy enveloped his hand. тАЬHere,тАЭ it said, and let Julio into its sensory network so that he was all
through the house, out into the yard, and under a small slice of street. Rock beneath, roots above, and
footsteps traveling from an edge toward the center.
тАЬIтАЩll be back in a moment,тАЭ Nathan said somewhere above him. Julio sensed him flickering from one
place and reappearing in another. Julio had never had nerves like these, a skeleton like this. The house
fed him more information and helped him sort it. Nathan stood on the porch. Edmund and Deirdre,
talking, strode the path through the blackberry thickets toward the house.