"House On Parchment Street" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

Alexander put his hammer and chisel on the table. He ran his fingers along a crack in the mortar, but it was only a few inches long. He whistled softly.
"It's no wonder Mrs. Brewster never found it. I say, when she asks you how you knew it was there, what are you going to tell her?"
"I don't know. I haven't thought up a good lie yet." He steadied his chisel in the crack Alexander had investigated and gave it a solid thump with the hammer. A chip of mortar flew out. "She'd never believe the truth. Are you just going to stand there?"
"It looks solid. Perhaps I should go borrow some explosives."
"We'd have Uncle Harold dropping in on us," Carol said. She began working on the other end of Bruce's stone. "Maybe we should just take one out first. Then we can see what's behind it, and if there's just dirt, we can put it back."
"We can glue it back in," Alexander said. "Shove over and let me have a comer."
"It would look funny," Bruce said, "just sitting there without any mortar. But better one stone than three. One will take awhile anywayЧthis one looks about a foot deep." He lowered his arms a moment, flexing his fingers. His face was speckled with ancient mortar. He stared doubtfully at the wall.
"Think of Christopher Columbus discovering America," Alexander said, his voice breaking with the powerful, rhythmic blows of his hammer. "Think of Marco Polo discovering China. Think ofЧ"
"Think of my mother coming down to put something in the freezer and discovering us."
"Let's not think," Carol said.
When the drilling stopped at noon, they had chipped the mortar as far as they could reach, and
their chisels almost disappeared in the crevice that had formed around the stone. The noon bells drifted sweetly across the silence. They dropped their arms and slid to the floor.
"We'll have to find something longer," Bruce said. His bones cracked as he straightened his arms. "Spikes or something. I'll look in the tool-shed. Your faces are all white. Carol, your hair turned white."
"That's all right," she said tiredly. "I never liked it red."
"Why? It's a beautiful color. Vermilion, with touches of yellow ochre."
She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. "It sounds like a disease."
"Red-gold," Alexander said, yawning. "If you're going to compliment somebody, you should do it in English."
"That wasn't a compliment. It was just a fact." He got to his feet and began to brush himself. "Come on. Let's go find some lunch."
Aunt Catherine was making sandwiches in the kitchen when they came in.
"Hello. What have you been up to?" She gave Carol a sandwich on a plate. Then she frowned puzzledly and brushed lightly at Carol's hair.
"We've been investigating," Alexander said.
"What? A chalk factory?" She opened the kitchen door and called down the hall, "Harold! Lunch!" They heard Uncle Harold's shout back. She turned
and said irritably, "Bruce, will you sit down and give your food a fighting chance?"
Bruce sat down, chewing. They were silent, staring at their plates as they ate, until Alexander said, "That was good. May I have another?"
Bruce stood up. "I'll go to the tool-shed and get what we need."
"What are you doing?" Aunt Catherine said as he left. Alexander disposed of a quarter of his sandwich in a bite.
"Investigating antique stones," he said finally. "It's sort of archeology with a bit of geology thrown in. Like a fossil-hunt. We needed some chisels."
"Oh."
Uncle Harold came in. "What were you shouting? OhЧfood. Good." He took a sandwich and peered into it. "Peanut butter?"
"Mine," said Aunt Catherine, rescuing it. She gave him another. "Yours."
"Is this lunch, or a lesson in possessive pronouns?"
The back door closed softly. Bruce passed them quickly, rather stiffly. Carol went out and joined him. He opened the cellar door quietly. She looked at what he was carrying.
"Isn't that a crowbar?"
"Sh. I thought we might need it. I got some long files and a big screwdriverЧthey should reach."
Alexander joined them a few minutes later. They waited until the drilling started again, and then they
worked steadily all afternoon. The mortar chips filled the space they had opened, and white dust filmed their faces when they tried to blow it out. They gpt in each other's way and scraped mortar in each other's hair, and the space around the stone grew deeper and deeper. It seemed to hang suspended in its place in a mortar of air. Alexander stopped finally, after a long silent attack. He rubbed his face on his sleeve, and sweat and dust made a paste on his shirt.
"There's an end to it somewhere. Everything has an end. I was thinking: when it finally becomes un-glued, we should have something underneath itЧ cardboard or a thin boardЧso we can pull it out more easily. Preferably something on wheels. Though I don't know yet how we're going to lift it down, once we've got it loose."
Bruce looked around vaguely. His face was a stiff white mask. 'I'll flatten one of Mrs. Brewster's book boxes." He dropped his tools and stretched. Carol sat down on the floor and leaned her head against the stones. The drilling sounded monotonous and familiar as the buzzing of an insect. Bruce began to unpack one of the boxes beneath the table, his hands moving as though he were half-asleep. The church bells tolled the hour.
"Four o'clock," Alexander said. He yawned. "Four hours without aЧ" His voice stopped. They heard the clink of his tools on the stone.
A man stood beside him with a drawn sword in his
hand. His head turned as though he had heard a sound; his grim eyes rested briefly on Alexander's face. Alexander stared back at him, expressionless, motionless. Then, an instant before the man turned toward him, he jerked himself away in one quick turn. The man passed through the stones where he had stood.
"You saw himЧ" Carol whispered.
Alexander sat down beside her. She heard the shaking of his breath. "He would have walked straight through meЧthrough my private bonesЧ" He ran his hands down his face. "Blimey, there's another oneЧ"
The girl came toward him through the sunlight, her skirt whispering softly in the silence. She turned before she reached the stones and looked down at Alexander.
"Edward. Come," she said. And then she walked through the wall, her collar melting into the stone they had been chipping loose. As she passed, the front of the stone settled downward with a small decisive thud.
Alexander closed his mouth. He looked at Carol wordlessly. Then he looked at Bruce.
"Did you see that?"
УYes.Ф
"I'm glad. When was the first time you saw them?" "Last winter, sometime after we moved inЧI don't
remember exactly whenЧI saw the man. I didn't wait