"Lee Killough - Deathglass" - читать интересную книгу автора (Killough Lee)

"Gone." He turned to smile at me again. "And you should be going, too. You have your work. So do
I."
Could he really be the anguished brother of yesterday? "What did you see in the glass?"
He hesitated only a moment. "Freedom. Come on, finish up. I'll help you pack and walk you to the
cabletrain station."
 We walked, joking and laughing with an ease we had not enjoyed for years. It was a beautiful
morning, I remember, cool and golden. I left him on the platform, luminous with contentment.
***

A month later Claudia called again to tell me Garrett had died of a self-administered barbiturate
overdose.
He willed me the studio "...in the hope you'll stop squandering your talent on the sterility of laboratory
glass and produce something more worthy of your blood."
I turned in my resignation and took possession of the studio.
And even before unpacking the suitcases, I headed for the kitchen. The shoe box no longer sat on the
shelf where I had seen Garrett put it, however. I swore. Now I would have to search the entire house
and studio.
"That isn't necessary," a voice said behind me. "I took it to keep the police from finding it."
I had not heard her come in, but it did not surprise me to find Aletheia there. I turned to look into
amethyst eyes. "You must not have gone far."
"I am never very far away." She handed over the shoe box.
My hands shook a bit as I laid it on the counter and opened it. Tissue wrapped the object inside. I
stripped it off... and caught my breath.
Garrett had spent that night making a goblet, blown in the same streaky amber glass as the Road Race
coupe, and he had put a face on it, but not his. The empty eye sockets and lipless mouth of a sculpted
death's-head leered at me from the glass.
I looked up from it to Aletheia. She smiled past me, radiating light, eyes askance as ever... but
somehow no longer looking mad.
Slowly, I looked down at the goblet again and turned it to the position the shape of the rim would
force a drinker to use. That put the death's-head on the opposite side, where the skull cast a shadow
through the glass. Tilting the goblet, though, the skull softened into a face, sexless but... attractive,
friendly... compassionate. What did you see in the glass? I whispered in memory. Freedom, Garrett's
voice replied. Perhaps he should have said victory. Tipping the goblet farther, the face vanished,
replaced by an almost blinding--
A hand took the goblet away. "You don't need that truth yet," Aletheia said.
I drew in a breath. "Will I?"
She looked up at me, into me, smiling faintly. "You don't really want to know." Her hand touched mine
as she handed back the goblet. "For the time you may, however."
I rewrapped it and put the box up in the cupboard. When I turned back around to thank her, Aletheia
had vanished.
Published by Alexandria Digital Literature. ( http://www.alexlit.com/ )

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