"Fear" - читать интересную книгу автора (McGarry Terry)

said, "Shay!"
He jumped up and down with obvious glee and then sat and pointed
systematically to everything around them. She understood that he was naming
things, but the sounds made less and less sense, and Bridget had stopped trying
to mentally catalogue when he pointed up and said, "Spare."
Her heart jumped as if he had uttered an obscenity, and she
automatically looked around for eavesdroppers. Then she stared at him. "Spщir,"
she said, pointing up. He nodded, encouraged, and held his hand at her head (it
was so filthy and crooked she flinched) and then high above it. "Colleen. Ban.
Colleen anish. Ban amawruck."
"Cailэn," she repeated slowly. "Girl."
"Colleen."
"Fear," she said, pointing to him, and as he nodded she visualized the
Irish spelling in her mind. "Fear! Man! You're trying to say you're a man in the
old language! Oh, but you say it so oddly. Is fear t·! Is cailэn mщ!"
He laughed, a hacking sound that would have frightened her had she not
been so pleased, and she began to laugh herself, the movements of the muscles
unfamiliar in her stomach, so long had it been.
Shay and Bridget sat laughing among the black stumps of the old
forest, repeating the shared words until the rain came.


***


She met Shay regularly the next few wakes--days, she learned to call
them, just as she learned to accept the coming and going of light without
switches. It was easy to slip away; the task of erecting shelters was heavy and
hurried, and she was told to keep out from underfoot.
In the beginning they shared vocabulary, since she knew only a few
full phrases. After a while they were able to carry on a simple conversation,
while munching on berries and strolling through the sparse woods. His Irish was
distorted, with distorted English mixed in, and all of it was garbled by his
queer crooked mouth, but it was easier to learn than Mam's because with Shay she
could speak aloud and often.
She did not tell her mother about Shay; she was not only jealous of
her secret but afraid. She had asked if there were others like him; nodding,
Shay had explained that he was alone because he was crippled and could not hunt
("the extra mouth to feed," David's words echoed in her mind), and he had hinted
darkly that the others would not be friendly.


***


They came on the fifth day. They were silent and terribly fast,
appearing just at twilight as Bridget started back for supper. The leaves did
not crackle under their feet, and the first sounds she heard were a sickening
thwack and Shay's yelp of pain. She turned as they were upon her and saw blood
on Shay's face, made more grotesque by rage and panic. He tried to wrest her