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

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"At least he smiles." She went into the kitchen. Aunt Catherine, mashing potatoes, looked up at the
abrupt closing of the door. Carol sat down at the table and ruffled her hair with her hands angrily.
"I'm going to throw my comb and brush away. Then he'll really suffer."
He was quiet during dinner, keeping his eyes on his plate while Father Malory and Uncle Harold
discussed the church across the street through half the dinner until they were interrupted.
"I know the bell-tower was destroyed in a fire thirty years ago, which accounts for the different color of
the stones, but I don't believe the late Gothic style was altered any in the reconstruction," Father Malory
was
saying, and then the sudden shrill of whistling just beyond the windows broke his train of thought. He
looked toward it interestedly. "I never realized before how much a group of boys whistling sounds like
Irish banshees wailing for the souls of the dead."
"I didn't either," Uncle Harold said. "Bruce, why don't you go out and tell them you're eating before they
shatter all Mrs. Brewster's antique glassware. Bruce."
He blinked, and looked away from Father Malory. "What?"
"Please go and tell your friends you are having dinner," Uncle Harold said patiently. Bruce left. There
was a little silence. Carol swallowed a mouthful of chicken and cleared her throat.
"Uncle Harold?"
"Yes, Carol."
"DidтАФdid Miss Emily ever tell you about Susan?"
"Susan? Not that I recall. Why?"
"Oh, I remember Susan," Father Malory said suddenly. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and laid the
napkin down in the butter. "Susan the maid, who had a dreadful experience in the cellar and hysterics in
the study?"
"Heavens," Uncle Harold said. "I missed a good one."
"Yes," Carol said. She swallowed, as though she had a word stuck like a fish-bone in her throat. "And I
was wondering. I was wondering if she saw a ghost. In the
cellar. At homeтАФI've seen movies about old English castles and houses, and they have ghosts in them.
So maybe Susan saw a ghost."
"There are no such things as ghosts," Uncle Harold said firmly. "Whatever happened to Susan in the
cellar was either caused by another person or her own imagination. And whatever you have seen in the
cellar is probably the natural result of being for the first time in your life in a very old house that
happens to stand across the street from a graveyard."
"I've always wanted to see a ghost," Father Malory remarked placidly. "But nothing exciting ever
happens to me, not even when I go through the graveyard for midnight services."
Carol shivered. "I wouldn't do that for any reason."
The door opened. Bruce came back in and sat down quietly. He shifted the butter dish from underneath
Father Malory's napkin and set it aside. Aunt Catherine said thoughtfully:
"I wouldn't be surprised if there were a ghost down there. We have everything elseтАФmice, spiders,
batches of stray kittens. It's probably the ghost of some poor vicar who got burned in his bed using a bed-
warmer."
"A ghost down where?" Bruce said abruptly.
"Nowhere," said Uncle Harold.
"Did Carol see something in the cellar?"

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