"Lost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maguire Gregory)

Lost - by Gregory Maguire

Contents
Stave One:
Somebody Else in the Vehicle
Stave Two:
At the Flat in Weatherall Walk
Stave Three:
From the Chimney Inside the Chimney
Stave Four:
As Dante in thePurgatorio
Stave Five:
For the Time Being


STAVE ONE
Somebody Else in the Vehicle
said the attorney-type into his cell phone. He wiped the wet from his face.
"There must be. It's in the carpool lane." He listened, squinting, and motioned
to Winnie: Stop. Don't open the car door yet . Already, other drivers were
slowing down to rubberneck. "Where are we, Braintree, Quincy? On 93 north,
anyway, a half mile beyond the junction with 128. Yes, I know enough not to move
anyone, but I'm telling you, you'll have a hell of a time getting an ambulance
through, what with rush hourЧthere'll be a backup a mile long before you know
it."
He listened again. Then, "Right. I'll look. Two or more, maybe."
Returning from a few quiet days on Cape Cod, Winifred Rudge had missed her
turnoff west and gotten stuck on the JFK toward Boston. Woolgathering, nail
biting, something. Focus was a problem. Late for her appointment, she'd
considered the odds: in this weather, what were her chances of being ticketed
for violating the diamond lane's two-riders-or-more rule? Limited. She'd risked
it. So she'd been at the right place on the downgrade to see the whole thing,
despite the poor visibility. She'd watched the top third of a white pine snap in
the high winds. Even from a half mile away, she'd noticed how the wood flesh had
sprung out in diagonal striations, like nougat against rain-blackened bark. The
crown of the tree twisted, then tilted. The wind had caught under the tree's
parasol limbs and carried it across three lanes of slow-moving traffic, flinging
it onto the hood and the roof of a northbound Subaru in the carpool lane. The
driver of the Subaru, four cars ahead of Winnie, had braked too hard and
hydroplaned left against the Jersey barriers. The evasive action hadn't helped.
Winnie had managed to tamp her brakes and avoid adding to the collection of
crumpled fenders and popped hoods. She had been the first out in the rain, the
first to start poking through dark rafts of pine needles. Mr. Useful Cell Phone
was next, having emerged from some vehicle behind her. He carried a ridiculous
out-blown umbrella, and when he got off the phone with the 911 operator he
hooked the umbrella handle around a good-size tree limb and tried to yank it
away.
"They said don't touch the passengers," he yelled through the rain.
Afraid her voice would betray her panic, she didn't even like to answer, but to
reassure him she managed to say, "I know that much." The smell of pine boughs,