"Patricia A. McKillip - The House on Parchment Street" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

walk, her knees bent, her head hidden in her arms. "I'm sorry," she said after a moment. Her voice was
muffled. Aunt Catherine spun the bicycle wheel. Light danced endlessly from one spoke to another.
"I'm not," she said reflectively.
Carol went to curl up again on her window-seat. She rested her chin on her knees and stared outside and
saw nothing. The house was quiet around her, as though it were drowsing in the afternoon. Light fell in a
changeless pool on her floor boards. She stirred restlessly, hunched against herself, and saw the
fishpond, open water lilies burnished in the sunlight. The trees were motionless beyond it. She hugged
her knees in a tighter grip, and loosed her breath in a slow weary sigh. Then she uncurled, her feet

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hitting the floor with a thump. She went aimlessly downstairs, sliding down the banister when the stairs
began to crack sharply. She sat a moment on the end of the banister, her chin in her hand, staring at
nothing. The living room door opened so abruptly she jumped.
"Harold! Oh, Carol. I'm glad you're still here. Father Malory is coming to dinner tonight, and I haven't
been able to use the stove, besides forgetting I even asked himтАФWould you mind going down to the
cellar and getting a blackberry pie out of the freezer? Thank you, dear. Harold!" She touched the top of
her neat hair lightly in despair. Carol dismounted. She heard Uncle Harold's shout back, as she opened
the cellar door and over it, Aunt Catherine's voice calling up-
stairs. "Bruce! I need some flowers!"
She found the freezer in the room beyond the coal cellar and shifted things in it until she found a pale pie
in a plastic bag, neatly labeled. A shadow leaped onto the freezer lid as she closed it, and she jumped,
then laughed. The great black cat slipped through her hands so sleekly she barely felt it. She followed it
into the last room where it scratched its claws a moment on Mrs. Brewster's table, then began threading
a private maze on the floor, through boxes, stacks of mildewed books, dusty figurines, until it leaped up
on the table and then into the window-ledge, brushing as it leaped the dark crown of the broad-brimmed
hat of a man.
He stood still as though he were listening for a sound in the quiet house. Beyond the thick stones church
bells tolled four o'clock, distant, leisurely, as from another world. His face was a still cold silhouette
beneath the flow of sunlight from the cracked window. He turned abruptly, a drawn sword in his hand,
and walked into the wall.
III.
CAROL LEANED AGAINST THE CELLAR DOOR, HER HEART leaping against her ribs, her mouth
dry as if she had been running. She reached behind her and pushed the bolt that locked the door. Then
she eased down to the floor and rested her face against her knees, the pie bag in one limp hand at her
side. Her heartbeat slowed gradually; she began to hear sounds about her: the rattle of pans in the
kitchen, the back door closing, footsteps in the hall. They stopped in front of her. She jumped, but
instead of a strange, dark, somber face, she saw only Bruce's face, patterned with scratches. He held a
handful of daisies. She swallowed the dryness away from her throat. He was quiet a moment. Then he
drew a breath, as though to speak. Uncle Harold came out of the study, and Bruce closed his mouth.
"What in heaven's name," Uncle Harold said, "did
that to your face?"
"A blackberry bush. I rode into it."
"It looks very painful. Did you put something on it?"
"No. IтАФNo."
"There must be something in the houseтАж ." He turned Bruce slowly, surveying the damage, and Bruce's
shoulder jerked under his fingers. "It looks like you dove into it headfirst."
"I think I did."
"Come upstairs; we'll find something." He looked down at Carol, sitting on the floor. "What's the