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

"Crackers," Alexander said. "Over here you go crackers. Words are funny. Do you want to come for a ride on my bicycle and help me look for Bruce?" "No."
"Oh." He removed himself from the doorway with a sigh. "Right. If you see him, tell him I was here."
But she did not see him until long after dinner, until Aunt Catherine and Uncle Harold sat sipping tea in the living room while the sky beyond the church steeple turned blue-grey with the late summer twilight. Carol sat curled on the window-seat, watching the twilight outline the tree leaves and freeze them into a motionless pattern. Something danced once past the window, too big to be a moth, flickering too much to be a bird. "A bat," said Uncle Harold. She jerked back. Then
she saw Bruce slip like a shadow through the gate.
The back door closed softly a moment later. Uncle Harold put his cup down. He rubbed his eyes with his fingers. The stairs began to creak.
"Bruce!"
The creaking stopped. It descended slowly. The living room door opened. Bruce stood mute in the doorway, his mouth set while they stared at the rainbow-colored bruise on one eye that clashed awesomely with the scarlet scratches.
"What happened now?" Uncle Harold said feebly.
"I fell off my bike."
"Oh, Bruce. Your bicycle is in two pieces on the back porch."
His hands rose suddenly in an angry desperate gesture. They were shadowed grey. The blunt ends of pencils stuck out of his pockets. "Can't you leave me alone? All rightЧI was fighting. But that's my affair! I have to work it out for myself!"
In the silence came the soft futile tap of moths against the bright window. Uncle Harold said softly, "I'm sorry. I won't meddle."
Bruce's mouth opened, then closed. His head dropped; his hand moved back and forth across the door knob. "I'm sorry I'm late. I didn't want to come home." He closed the door as he left.
Uncle Harold looked down at his teacup. He picked it up and held it without drinking. He put it down abruptly; it clattered in the saucer.
"I never know how much to say!" "I know," Aunt Catherine said gently. The comers of her mouth were tight. "It's hard to know." She put her knitting aside and rose. "I'll make a cold-pack for his eye."
Uncle Harold picked up his cup and followed her into the kitchen. Carol heard the murmur of their voices behind the closed door. She leaned her head against the windowpane, feeling the glass cold against her face. She rose finally and went into the hall.
A sheet of paper lay on the grey stones. She picked it up. It was coarse drawing paper. On the other side of it was a picture of the church. She stared at it, moving slowly up the stairs. The church rose brilliant against the rising sun, its shadow swept back to uncover hunched worn gravestones. In the dim hall light she could see the delicate stonework ornamenting the lean arched windows, the patterning of glass in one great window that opened like a rose to the sunlight. And in one corner of the graveyard, curving with a tuft of grass, she found Bruce's name.
She swallowed, something inside of her fluttering with excitement and fear. She went up the stairs to the closed door at the end of them. She knocked softly. She heard the sudden roll of bedsprings and the creak of floorboards. The door opened to Bruce's face, twisted painfully into a scowl. It melted a little into surprise. She held out the drawing.
"You must have dropped it when you came in."
He looked down at it without moving. Then his face moved, and he reached out for it. He held it, his breath still, the color rising slowly in his lowered face.
"I didn't know," Carol whispered. "I never knew before that when you see a beautiful drawing, there's a person who has done it."
His face rose. The unbruised eye looked at her, uncertain, unguarded. He said hesitantly, "I got up, before the sun rose. I climbed on the roof, so the trees weren't in the way."
"Is that how you got your black eye? Falling off the roof or something?"
His brows pulled together. He looked away from her. "No. I was sitting in a field drawing a cow." He opened the door, and his eyes came back to her face. "I think ЧThere's something else I'd like to show you. Come in."
He went to his window-seat. It opened like a chest, and he reached into it for a tablet. He sat down on the floor, leafing through it. Carol watched the pictures flicker between his fingers.
"How long have you been drawing?"
"Three years."
"And nobody knows? Doesn't Uncle Harold know?"
His hands paused. "No."
"But he likes pictures."
"He likes facts. I just want to do things my own way, without being bothered orЧor teased by anyone." His mouth tightened suddenly. He looked down at the tab-
let, turning drawings without looking at them. Carol watched him for a moment, her brows crinkled. She drew a silent breath, and said tentatively, "Is thatЧis that what happened? They teased you?"
His eyes rose surprisedly. "How did you know?"
"If you had got kicked by a cow, you would have said so."
"Mm. I wish I'd thought of it." He leaned back against the window-seat and said wearily, "They came Чthey came so suddenly I didn't even have time to hide things. And they did whatЧwhat we always do to peopleЧwhat we did to you. There was a picture of flowersЧthat's when I tried to stop them, when they teased me about that one. I was so angry I couldn't see. I don't know who I was righting withЧI didn't care. I never want to see any of them again. I didn't want to see anyone. So I drew until it was too dark to see, and I had to come home." He caught his breath in a slow sigh and turned pages slowly in the notebook. "It's hard to get a proper perspective with only one eye workingЕ . Here it is. This one, I drew a few months ago, just after we moved in." He held it out to her. Something brushed feather-light down her back as she looked at it. Her mouth opened, closed again, wordless. Her voice came finally, small, tight.
"Then I'm not nuts."
IV.
OUT OF THE TAUT VIVID MASK OF BRUCE's FACE, HIS
good eye gazed at her, wide and steady. "You did see him then. You did see him. I thought you had, but I wasn't sure, and I wasЧI didn't want to ask you straight out if you'd seen a ghost in the cellar walking through wallsЧdid you see him walk through the wall?"
"Yes."
"I thought I was going barmy. I tried to tell Dad, but Dad would haveЧhe believes in facts. Things happen for a reason; things can be proven. I didn't tell him. But one dayЧone day I brought him down with me to see itЧhe nearly walked right through it. I was scared. I've been scared in this house ever since we moved in last winter, but Dad loves it. So I'm never home much."
Carol hugged her knees. She rested her head on them a moment. "WhatЧwhat's he doing down there? Is he a vampire?"
"A vampire?"
"They wear black. They live in cellars."
"Oh." He picked up the picture and studied it. "I never thought of that. Е I don't think so. Vampires don't exist, anyway."
"Oh. Just ghosts."
"Well, he hasn't bitten anybody, has he? Look." She raised her head. "Look at his clothes. I've never seen a vampire dressed like that."
"He's got a black cloak on."
"I know, but it only goes to his knees. And he has a white collar and white cuffs. And that hat like a cowboy hat with a high crown. And he doesn't act like he sees us, butЕ . More like he's waiting, looking for somebody from his own time."
"When was his own time?"