"Mckinley,.Robin.-.Sunshine" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)
I made a noise that under other circumstances might have been a laugh. УBeauty and the Beast,Ф I said.
УTell me that one,Ф he said.
УWhat?Ф
УTell me the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast,Ф he said.
УOh. Yes. Um.Ф IТd learned to tell this one myself almost first of all, because the pictures of the Beast in the storybooks always annoyed me, and I didnТt want any kids under my influence to get the wrong idea about him. I wondered if any even-more-than-usually-misguided illustrator had ever tried to make him look like a vampire. УWell, there was this merchant,Ф I began obediently. УHe was very wealthy, and he had three daughtersЕФ
How to tell a storyЧhow to make it go on and on to fill the timeЧhow to get interested in it yourself so it would be interesting to your listeners, or listenerЧall that came back to me, I think. It was impossible to know, and presumably vampires have different tastes in stories than little boys. I thought of a few car journeys weТd had on those holidays to the ocean, when I would tell stories till I was hoarse. There was a lot you could do with the story of Beauty and the Beast, and I had done most of it, and I did it again now. I watched the arc of the sun over my left shoulder. The light crept across the floor, and the vampire had to move to stay out of it. First he had to move in one direction, sliding along the floor as if all his joints pained him (how could he both look as if every movement were agony, and still retain that curious fluid agility?), and then he had to slide back againЧback again and farther still, nearer to me. I moved to stay in the sun as he moved to stay out of it. I went on telling the story. There was no spot on the floor that he could have stayed in all day, and stayed out of the light. Vampires, according both to myth and SOF, did something like sleep during the day, just as humans sleep at night. Do vampires need their sleep as we do? So it wasnТt only food and freedom Bo was depriving this one of?
HeТd said it wasnТt hunger that would break him. It was daylight.
I wondered dispassionately if I might be getting a sunburn, but I rarely burned anyway, and the idea in the present state of affairs, like worrying about a hangnail while you are being chased by an axe murderer, seemed so ludicrous I couldnТt be bothered.
The sun was sinking toward the end of day, and my voice was giving out. I had drunk several more mouthfuls of water in the course of the story. (If you havenТt seen a vampireТs lips touch the mouth of your bottle, do you have to wipe it off first?) I concluded in a vividЧ not to say luridЧscene of all-inclusive rejoicing, and fell silent.
УThank you,Ф he said.
My tiredness was back, tenfold, a hundredfold. I couldnТt keep my eyes open. I had to keep my eyes openЧthis was a vampire. Was this one of the ways toЧpersuade a victim? Had he been killing two birds with one stoneЧso to speak? Make the day pass, make the victim amenable to handling? But didnТt they like them unamenable? I couldnТt help it. My eyes kept falling shut, my head would drop forward, and I would wake myself up when my neck cracked as my chin fell to my breastbone.
УGo to sleep,Ф said his voice. УThe worst is overЕfor meЕtoday. There are five hours till sunset. I amЕharmless till then. No vampire canЕkill in daylight. Sleep. You will want to be awakeЕtonight.Ф
I remembered there had been a blanket in the sack. I crawled over to it, pulled it out, put my head on the sack and the remaining loaf of bread, and was asleep before I had time to argue with myself about whether he was telling the truth or not.
I dreamed. I dreamed as if the dream was waiting for me, waiting for the moment I fell asleep. I dreamed of my grandmother. I dreamed of walking by the lake with her. At first the dream was more like a memory. I was little again, and she was holding my hand, and I had to skip occasionally to keep up with her. I had been proud of having her for a grandmother, and was sorry that I only ever saw her alone, at the lake. I would have liked my school friends to meet her. Their grandmothers were all so ordinary. Some of them were nice and some of them were not so nice, but they were all sort ofЕsoft-edged. I didnТt know how to put it even to myself. My grandmother wasnТt hard or sharp, but there wasnТt anything uncertain about her. She was unambiguously herself. I admired her hugely. She had long hair and when the wind was blowing off the lake it would get into a tremendous tangle, and sometimes she would let me brush it afterward, at the cottage. She usually wore long full skirts, and soft shoes that made no sound, whatever she was walking on.
My parents split up when I was six. I didnТt see my grandmother for the first year after. It turned out that my mother had gone so far as to hire some wardcraftersЧsmiths, scribes, spooks, the usual rangeЧand on what money I donТt knowЧto prevent anyone in my dadТs family from finding us. My father hadnТt wanted to let us go, and while his family are supposed to be some of the good guys, itТs very hard not to do something you can do when youТre angry and it will get you what you want. After the first year and a day he had probably cooled off, and my mom let the fancy wards lapse. My grandmother located us almost at once, and my mother, who can drive herself nuts sometimes by her own sense of fairness, agreed to let me see her. At first I didnТt want to see her, because it had been a whole year and IТd been sick for a lot of it, and my mother had to tell meЧ that sense of fairness againЧwhat sheТd done, and a little bit, scaled down to my age, of why. I was only seven, but it had been a bad year. That conversation with my mother was one of those moments when my world really changed. I realized that I was going to be a grownup myself some day and have to make horrible decisions like this too. So I agreed to see my gran again. And then I was glad I did. I was so happy to have her back.
She and I had been meeting at the lake every few weeks for a little over a year when one afternoon she said, УI donТt like what I am about to do, but I canТt think of anything better. My dear, I have to ask if you will keep a secret from your mother for me.Ф
I looked at her in astonishment. This wasnТt the sort of thing grown-ups did. They went around having secrets behind your back all the time about things that were horribly important to you (like my mom not telling me sheТd hired the wardcrafters), and then pretended they didnТt. ThereТd been a lot of that that nobody explained to me before my parents broke up, and I hadnТt forgotten. Even at six or seven I knew that my momТs wardcrafters were the tip of an iceberg, but I still didnТt know much about the iceberg. I didnТt know, for example, that my father might have been a sorcerer, till years later. And sometimes grown-ups said things like УOh, maybe youТd better not tell your parents about this,Ф which either meant get out of there fast, now, or that they knew you would tell anyway because you were only a kid, but then they could get mad at you when you did. (That this had happened several times with some of my dadТs business associates is one of the reasons my mom left.) But I knew my gran loved me and I knew she was safe. I knew sheТd never ask me anything bad. And I knew that she really, really meant it, that I had to keep this secret from my mother.
УOkay,Ф I said.
My gran sighed. УI know that your mother means the best for you and in many ways sheТs right. IТm very glad she got custody of you, and not your dad, although he was very bitter about it at the time.Ф
I scowled. I never saw my dad. Once my gran had found me he started writing me a lot of postcards but I never saw him. And the postmarks on the cards were always blurry so you couldnТt see where theyТd been sent from. All the postmarks were blurry. Two or three a week sometimes.
УBut sheТs wrong that simply keeping you ignorant of your fatherТs heritage will make it as if that heritage doesnТt exist. It does exist. You can choose to be your motherТs daughter in all things, but it must be a choice. I am going to provide you with the means for making that choice. Otherwise, some day, that heritage you know nothing about may get you in a lot of trouble.Ф
I must have looked frightened, because she took my hands in hers and gave them a squeeze. УOr, perhaps, some day you will be in a lot of trouble and it will get you out of it.Ф
We were sitting on the porch of the cabin by the lake. WeТd been walking earlier, and had picked a little posy of wildflowers. SheТd fetched a mug from the kitchen and filled it with water, and the flowers were standing in that, on the rickety little table that still sat on the porch. WeТd been walking in the sun, which was very warm, and were now sitting in the shade of the trees, which was pleasingly cool. I could feel the sweat on my face drying in the breeze. My gran pulled one of the flowers out of the mug, put it between my two hands, closed my hands together over it so it was invisible, and put her hands over mine. УNow, what have you got in your hands?Ф she said.
This was a funny sort of game. I said, smiling, УA flower.Ф
УUmЧa feather?Ф I said.
УA feather. Good. Now, think feather.Ф
I thought feather. I thought a small, gray-brown-white feather. A sparrow, something like that. There was an odd, slightly buzzy sensation in my hands, under her hands. It was a little bit sick-making, but not very much.
УNow open your hands.Ф
She took hers away from mine, and I opened them. There was a feather, a little gray-brown-white feather there. No flower. I looked up at her. I knew that one of the reasons my mom had left my dad was because he wouldnТt stop doing spellworking, and doing business with other spellworkers. I knew he came from a big magic-handling family, but not everybody in it did magic. I had never done any. УYou did that,Ф I said.
УNo. I helped, but you did it. ItТs in your blood, child. If it werenТt, that feather would still be a flower. It was your hands that touched it, your hands that carried the charm.Ф
I held up the feather. It looked and felt like a real feather. УWould you like to try again?Ф she said. I nodded.
She told me that we only wanted to do little things this first time, so we turned the feather into a different kind of feather, and then we turned it into several kinds of flower, and then several kinds of leaf, and then we turned it into three unburned matchsticks, and then we turned it into a tiny swatch of fabricЧyellow, with blue dotsЧand then we turned it back into the flower it had been to begin with. УFirst rule: return everything to its proper shape if you can. unless there is some compelling reason not to. Now weТve done enough for one afternoon, and we want to say thank you, and we also want to sweep up any rubbish weТve leftЧlike sweeping the floor and wiping the counters after youТve been making cookies.Ф She taught me three words to say, and lit a small bar of incense, and we sat silently till it had burned itself out.
УThere,Ф she said. УAre you tired?Ф
УA little,Ф I said. I thought about it. УNot a lot.Ф
УAre you not? That is interesting. Then I was right that I had to show you.Ф She smiled. It was a kind, but not a reassuring smile. She was also right that I couldnТt tell my mother.
My mother had stopped bringing me out and taking me back after the first few visits, although she made me wear a homecoming charm. I realized later that this might have looked like the most colossal insult to my gran, but my mother wouldnТt have meant it that way and my gran didnТt take it that way. I hung it on a tree when I arrived and only took it down again when I was leaving. My gran walked me out to the road and waited till the bus came into sight, made sure the bus driver knew where I was going (the charm wouldnТt have stopped the bus for me if IТd forgotten to pull the cord, and I was still only a kid), kissed me, and watched me climb aboard. УTill next time,Ф she said, which is what she always said.
We played that game many times. I was soon doing it without her hands on mine, and she showed me how to do certain other things too, some of which I could do easily, some of which I couldnТt do at all.
One afternoon she pulled a ring off her finger, and gave it to me. УIТm tired of that red stone,Ф she said. УGive me a green stone.Ф
There were, of course, rules to what I had at first thought was a game. The more dense the material, the harder to shift, so stone or gem is more difficult than flower or feather. Anything that has been altered by human interference is harder than anything that hasnТt been, so a polished, faceted stone is more difficult than a rough piece of ore. Worked metal is the worst. It is both heavy and dense and the least decisively itself. Something that is handled and used is harder than something that isnТt, so a tool would be harder to shift than a plaque that hung on the wall, and a stone worn in a ring is going to be harder than a decorative bit of rock that stood on a shelf. It is easier to change a thing into something like itself: a feather into another feather, a flower into another flower. A flower into a leaf is easier than a flower into a feather. But worked metal is always hard. Even a safety pin into several straight pins is difficult. Even a 1968 penny into a 1986 penny is difficult.
She hadnТt told me any of the details, that first day, when I turned a flower into a bit of fabric. It showed how good she was, that she could create not just human-made fabric, but smooth yellow fabric with blue dots, instantly, with no fuss, because thatТs what I was trying to do, and she wanted me to have a taste of what she was going to teach me, without fluster or explanation. But that had been nearly a year ago, and I knew more now.
The ring was warm from her finger. I closed my hands and concentrated. I didnТt have to do anything to the setting, to the worked metal. Changing the stone was going to be big enough. I had only ever tackled lake pebbles before, and they were pretty onerous. IТd never tried a faceted stone. And this was a ring she wore all the time, and she was a practicing magic handler. Objects that have a lot of contact with magic, however peripherally, tend to get a bit steeped. But I should still be able to do it, I thought.
But I couldnТt. I knew before I opened my hands that I hadnТt done it. I tried three times, and all I got was a heavy ache in my neck and shoulders from trying too hard. I felt like crying. It was the first time I had failed to change something: transmuting was the thing I was best at. And she wouldnТt have asked me to do something I shouldnТt have been able to do.
We were sitting on the porch again, in the shade of the trees. УLet us try once more,Ф she said. УBut not here. Come.Ф We stood upЧI still had the ring in one handЧand went down the steps to the ground, and then down to the shore, and into the sunlight. It was another hot, bright day, and the sky was as blue as a sapphire.
I wasnТt ready for what happened. When I closed my hands around the ring again and put all my frustration into this final attempt, there was a blast of somethingЧI shuddered as it shot through meЧ and for the merest moment my hands felt so hot it was as if they would burst into flame. Then it was all over and my hands fell apart because I was shaking so badly. My gran put her arm around me. I held up my unsteady hand and we both looked.
Her ring had a green stone, all right, and the setting, which had been thin plain gold, had erupted into a thick wild mess of curlicues, with several more tiny green stones nested in their centers. I thought it was hideous, and I could feel my eyes filling with tearsЧI was, after all, only nine years oldЧbecause this time I had done so much worse than nothing.
But she laughed in delight. УItТs lovely! Oh my, itТs soЧdrastic, isnТt it? No, no, IТm truly pleased. You have done splendidly. I have wonderedЧlisten, child, this is the important thing for you to rememberЧyour element is sunlight. ItТs a little unusual, which is why I didnТt spot it before. But you can probably do almost anything in bright sunshine.Ф
She wouldnТt let me try to shift it back. I thought she wouldnТt let me because she knew I was too tired and shaken, that sheТd do it herself after we parted. But she didnТt. She was wearing it as IТd changed it the next time I saw her. WeТd never left anything changed before, weТd always changed it back. I didnТt know the words you said over something you werenТt going to change back. Perhaps I should have asked her; but I thought of that ring as a mistake, a blunder, and I didnТt want to call her attention to it, even though every time she moved that hand it called my attention to it. I couldnТt even beg her to let me try to shift it back because I was afraid IТd only do something even uglier.
I might have asked her some day. But I only saw her a few more times after I changed her ring. We had been meeting nearly every month, sometimes oftener, through my tenth year. After my tenth birthday I only saw her once more. All the grown-ups knew the Wars were coming, and even us kids had some notion. But I never thought about the Wars coming to our lake, or that I might not see my grandmother again.
| © 2025 Библиотека RealLib.org (support [a t] reallib.org) |