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

Carol went up to see Bruce in the afternoon. She opened his door quietly, peeked in, and found him awake, looking at her.
"Oh, it's you," he said. His brows were drawn in a dark line. He waved at the chair beside his bed. "Sit down. I'm sorry you had to do all the explaining."
"Alexander helped." She moved a water glass and the medicine off the chair and sat down. Bruce picked at threads in his cover.
"Did he believe you?"
"He believed us. I'm not sure if he believed the ghosts."
"How can he believe us and not believe in them? He must think we're either barmy or lying. Did he call Mrs. Brewster?"
"Yes."
"What did she say?"
She hesitated. He watched her, his eyes steady under his frown, and she said finally, "She's not sure."
"Not sure? Is she coming to see it? She is, isn't she?"
She shook her head, her throat burning again. Bruce stared at her; he shifted impatiently, trying to sit up.
"Carol, what did she say?"
"She saidЧsheЧBruce, why did you have to bother
her so much! We did all that work for nothing, and all because you probably rode circles around her one day, and now you could draw the most beautiful picture in the world and she still wouldn't like it because you did itЧ"
Bruce dropped back on the pillows. "She wants it closed," he said levelly. His eyes were black in his white face.
"Yes, because Sandy ruined her flowers, and she thinks you and Alexander did it because you're always doing thingsЧ"
"I suppose you've never done anything wrong in your lifeЧ"
"Of course I have! And I'm wishing now that I'd never done anything, ever, that hurt anybody, because it just ends in people being killed, or hurt inside so much that they don't trust people, or they can't think straight enough to even like priest tunnels that other people dig up for them."
Bruce sighed. He dropped a hand over his eyes. "Oh, well," he said, and the weariness of his voice startled her.
"Oh well what?"
"I don't know. I don't know what to do. I can't think. My thoughts won't lie still. There's nothing we can do."
"There must be."
"It's her cellar, her priest tunnel."
"We opened it. Bruce, that girl might have to haunt
the cellar for another three hundred years if we close it
now."
"She might just do it anyway." He stirred restlessly. "I don't want to think about it. Carol, go away, or stop lecturing me, or something. I can't think now. I'll think tomorrow."
She stood up. Then she looked down at him, seeing his heavy eyes and the taut pull of his mouth, and her clenched hands opened. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I forgot what it's like to be sick. I'm not sick very often. The last time I had to stay in bed, it was because I fell off a skate-board into a brick geranium planter and broke my ankle. I hated it. It wasn't funny."
"It sounds like something that could only happen to you. I'll think of a way out. I promise. But everything happened so fast, it's all jumbled in my head. And I didn't even get the hedges cut. You'd think I could do something right for a change, now that I'd like to."
The door opened softly. Aunt Catherine came in. She went to Bruce and felt his forehead. "Are you hungry?"
"No. I'm thirsty, though. Are there any lemons?"
"I'll get some. You try and sleep."
Carol followed her out. She paused at the foot of the stairs, thinking. "I think I used my last lemons in a pie. Would you go over and see if Emily has some to lend me?"
Emily Raison opened her front door even before Carol opened the gate. Her face was wrinkled with
anxiety. "Oh, my dear, is he all right? Does Catherine heed something? Come in a moment and sit down; you've been running. What is it, then?"
Carol stepped into her neat parlor. She sank into a fat chair, catching her breath. "Aunt Catherine wants to know if she can borrow some lemons, because Bruce wants some lemonade. He's all right. He's sick, but he'll live."
"Oh, I'm so glad. You sit there, and I'll find some. I'll be back directly." She disappeared into her kitchen. Carol rose, prowling restlessly around the room, picking up china what-nots and putting them down again. Geraldine the cat lifted her head from the depths of a chair and yawned. The room was silent, full of old things without a speck of dust on them, each with its own particular spot. There were doilies on the armchairs and glass flowers and candlesticks on a tiny table and dark, framed photographs on the walls and on the mantel. She looked at the stem faces, wondering if they had ever smiled. She turned, and something above the piano caught her eye. She went toward it, not breathing, and knelt on the piano bench, staring at it where it hung in its own place on the wall.
"There," Emily Raison said. "I didn't use them after all. Here you are, my dear. Tell your auntЧ"
"Who did that?"
"What?" She looked at the wall. "Oh, the needlework? Mrs. Brewster did that when she was a little girl. She copied it from the painting in the study."
"I know, but why did sheЧ" She stopped abruptly, shaking her head. The girl looked down at her, blurred a little by uneven stitching, and behind her was not a dark arch but a smooth wall of unbroken grey stone. Carol felt something in her throat too wide to swallow. "I wonder Е" she whispered. "I wonderЕ ."
"Yes, it is nice, isn't it? She gave it to me as a memento when I left service. She was very good with a needle when she was small. Here are the lemons."
Carol took them. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you, Emily Raison."
IX.
BRUCE WAS ASLEEP WHEN SHE GOT BACK. HE SLEPT fitfully through the night. She woke once at his sudden shout and struggled out of bed to stand blinking in the hall light until Aunt Catherine came out of his bedroom.
"He said he was dreaming about the hedges," she said, puzzled. Carol yawned.
"He didn't get them cut."
"But it doesn't matter," Aunt Catherine said. She shook her head and went back to bed. He did not wake again until lunchtime, and then they heard his voice, faint down the stairs, demanding food.
Carol took him a tray. He maneuvered carefully to a sitting position, and she put it on his knees. He looked down at it.
"What's that?"