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

"I know. So will Mrs. Brewster. I wishЧ"
"I wish it could be a secret," Carol said. Her voice was soft, muffled by the stone. "It's so quiet Е like a piece of another world. And if we tell people, the first thing they'll say isЧ"
"However did you know?" Bruce said. "And then we'll get started on ghosts and Puritans and Madame Tussaud's waxworks, and Dad will tell us nicely but firmly that we didn't really see ghosts, which we did see. I think we found the tunnel, but we still haven't quite answered the riddle, and I'd rather keep it quiet until then."
"Which riddle?"
"Edward. Why the girl comes back at all. Why should she? What we should do isЧ"
"Open the tunnel," Carol said. "And the next time she says 'Come' we'll come."
Alexander smiled. "Follow a ghost. Right. I've always wanted to, but I never knew it." He drew another long slow breath. "Ghosts and a tunnel and a mystery. Such richness."
They worked straight through two more days. By the end of the third day there was a thin jagged hole in
Mrs. Brewster's cellar wall, almost big enough to squeeze through. They hid the hole, shoved the stones behind the table, and brushed themselves off, too weary even to speak. The house was empty when they went upstairs; Aunt Catherine and Uncle Harold had gone somewhere.
"Tomorrow," Bruce said. Alexander nodded, stifling a yawn. He went home. Carol went upstairs and washed the dust out of her hair. She brushed it dry beside her open window. Two long strips of the street next to the curbs were crumbled; they had begun to dig in one of them. The green truck was gone. She watched the sun slip behind the church spire, then behind the church. Then she saw Bruce come out with a wheelbarrow and hedge-clippers. He began to work slowly, letting the clippings fall heedlessly to the ground. He stopped once and looked down the long shaggy hedge that ran down the walk to the back of the house, where it curved upward into an arch that led to the side lawn. He yawned, scratching his head with the point of the clippers. Carol leaned back against the wall and watched him. The brush lay idle in her stiff aching hands. He blurred finally before her half-closed eyes, and she straightened, yawning, and began to brush again.
"What on earth have you been doing?" Aunt Catherine said at dinner. "You're both half-asleep in your plates."
Bruce blinked, stirring himself. "Oh. WeЧI've been
showing Carol a piece of Middleton. We were at it longer than we expected."
"What part did you see, Carol?"
She waved her hand vaguely. "That part across the field, where the farms are. I saw a bull. I've never seen one close before." She yawned in spite of herself.
Aunt Catherine looked at her, frowning a little. Then she said, "Well. A good night's rest will cure you. You've been so quiet, lately. I hope you're enjoying yourself."
"Oh, yes."
Uncle Harold cleared his throat. "I don't mean to nag," he said. "But there are dandelions all over the side lawn."
Bruce nodded. His hand lay lax around his milk glass, as though he were too tired to lift it. "I know. I'm sorry. I'll get to it. TomorЧTomorrow."
Alexander did not come the next morning. They worked on two final stones that jutted into the hole and stopped their passage. Bruce called his house at noon.
"He's not there," he told Carol as they waited after lunch for the drilling to start again. "His mother sent him out to buy some new window-screens, and he came back and went again and she wanted to know where he was because he was supposed to put the screens in."
Carol wiggled her aching shoulders. "I wonder where he is."
"I hope he's here by four."
They moved the final stone at three-thirty. Bruce sat down on one of them and brushed at his face. His hands shook. He smiled at her, and the dust cracked on his face like a mask.
"I'm scared," she said. "What ifЧBruce, what if we go through the tunnel and there's another century at the end of it. We'd be in the middle of a war."
"You can stay behind if you want. Then you can do all the explaining. What would you beЧa Royalist or a Roundhead?"
"I don't know. I don't want to fight anybody. That's why I never liked history. Every time you turn a page in a history book, there's a different war going on."
"I know. But whenЧwhen two people can't even keep from fighting, it's hard to expect whole groups not to fight. But if that's all people did, they wouldn't be here still. They do other things. They build churches. Make wax statues. Write poetry, when nobody's looking. They build houses and tunnels that last for centuries. They do quiet things."
The drilling, quiet while he spoke, started up again with a spurt of noise.
"I wonder where Alexander is."
"Mm. CarolЧ"
"What?"
"Let's go in the tunnel now. Then, when she comes, if she speaks to us while we're there, we'll know that she's talking to us and not Edward."
"All right. You first."
He grinned, and disappeared halfway into the hole. The other half of him followed with a little maneuvering, and he vanished a moment. Then he rose and looked back at her, framed by stones. She giggled.
"You look like you're being walled in."
"Come on. Don't forget the light."
She wiggled in. The earth was hard and damp under her feet. The stones were damp. They curved in a flawless, unbroken arch above her head. She looked back and saw the cellar room, bright against the dark stones, oddly unfamiliar, as though she were seeing it for the first time.
"What time is it?"
He flashed the light at his watch. "Three-forty. You don't have to whisper."
"Neither do you."
The minutes dragged by in their silence. She stuck her fingers under her arms to warm them. Bruce's eyes glinted in the light as he looked around. Far, far away, somewhere beyond the jagged hole, the drilling sounded, stopped, sounded again.
"I wonder," Carol whispered, "if that's the way she sees the cellar. Or does she see it with somebody else's things in it, or just empty. Е" A great black shape entered the hole as she looked, and the breath wailed from her. "BruceЧ" The light danced as she caught his arm.
"Let goЧ" He steadied the light. A pair of golden
eyes flashed at him and he laughed. "That catЧThrow it back outЧ"
She reached for it, but it flattened itself beneath her hands and vanished into the shadows.
"Oh, well. Was it Emily's cat?"
"No. It was that black catЕ ." Her mouth felt dry. "I thinkЕ . Bruce, turn around."
He turned. The man walked toward them down the tunnel, his footsteps soft, steady on the earth. The light winked off his sword. Bruce swallowed. He shifted aside; the man passed between them without a glance. They saw as he passed through the stones, the sunlight on the back of his black cape, on the broad brim of his hat. He stood just beyond the stones, listening, his head turning faintly in the direction of some sound.
He turned finally and came back through the stones, and as he passed them his stride quickened. Bruce held the light on him until he reached the edges of it and the shadows enveloped him. Even then they could hear the soft beat of his steps. Bruce turned back. The girl came toward them through the sunlight. They saw her face through the hole in the stones. She turned briefly before she entered, and they heard her voice.