"Patricia A. McKillip - The Gorgon in the Cupboard" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

"Of course I did! I looked for you in every female face I passed. I didn't see you anywhere." Except, he thought, in
McAlister's garden, where Her eyes had immobilized him once again. "You aren't easy to find," he added, speaking
now into the shadows. "You're a very complex matter."
"Yes, I am, aren't I?" she murmured complacently. "Harry, why don't you let me out?"
"I can't. What if someone sees?"
"Well, I don't intend to pass the time of day with Mrs. Grommet, if that's what worries you."
"No, butтАФ"
"Hang a cloth over my face or something. Pretend I'm a parrot."
"I don't think so," he sighed, sitting down on the floor because he had been standing much of the day. A lamp on
the wall above his head spilled some light into the open cupboard; he could see the edge of the canvas, but not the
moving mouth. Less afraid now, lulled by wine and company, he asked her curiously, "Where do you think I should
look for you?"
"Oh, anywhere. You'll know me when you see me."
"But to see you is to beтАФ"
"Yes," she said, laughing a little. "You'll recognize your model when she turns you, for just a tiny human moment,
into stone."
"Only One can do that," he said softly.
"Maybe. You just keep looking."
"But for what? Are youтАФwere you, I mean, really that terrible? Or that beautiful? Which should I be searching
for?"
 "Oh, we were hideous," she answered cheerfully, "me and my two Gorgon sisters. Stheno and Euryale, they were
called. Even in the Underworld, our looks could kill."
"Stheno?"
"Nobody remembers them, because nothing much ever happened to them. They didn't even die, being immortal.
Do you think anyone would remember me if that obnoxious boy hadn't figured out a way to chop my head off without
looking at me?"
Harry dredged a name out of the mists of youthful education. "Perseus, was it?"
"He had help, you know. He couldn't have been that clever without divine intervention. Long on brawn, short on
brains, you know that type of hero."
"That's not what I was taught."
"He forced our guardian sisters, the gray-haired Graie, to help him, you must have heard. He stole their only eye
and their tooth."
"They had one eye?" Harry said fuzzily.
"They passed it back and forth. And the tooth. Among the three of them." She gave an unlovely cackle. "What a
sight that was, watching them eat. Or squabble over that eyeball. That's what they were doing when they didn't see that
brat of a boy coming. He grabbed their goods and forced them to give him magic armor and a mirror to see me in, so
he wouldn't have to meet my eyes. Then he lopped my head off and used me to to kill his enemies. Even dead, I had an
effect on people."
"He doesn't sound so very stupid."
"He had help," she repeated with a touch of asperity. "Anyway, it was loathsome, gray-haired old biddies who
armed him to fight me. Not lissome, rosy-fingered maidens. You remember that when you paint me."
"I will." He added, brooding over the matter, "If I can find you."
"Oh, you will," she said more cheerfully. "Never fret. I do wish you would take me out of here and let me watch,
though."
"No."
"I could advise you."
"You'd scare my model."
"I wouldn't talk, I promise you! And if I forget, just cover me up. Please, Harry? After all, I have inspired you.
You could do me a favor. It's awfully dark in here."
"Well."