"Stephenie Meyer - Twikight 02 - New Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meyer Stephanie)

I love you, too.



These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which, as
they kiss, consume.

Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene VI

PREFACE


I FELT LIKE I WAS TRAPPED IN ONE OF THOSE TERRIFYING nightmares, the one where you
have to run, run till your lungs burst, but you can't make your body move fast enough. My legs seemed to
move slower and slower as I fought my way through the callous crowd, but the hands on the huge clock
tower didn't slow. With relentless, uncaring force, they turned inexorably toward the endтАФthe end of
everything.

But this was no dream, and, unlike the nightmare, I wasn't running for my life; I was racing to save
something infinitely more precious. My own life meant little to me today.

Alice had said there was a good chance we would both die here. Perhaps the outcome would be
different if she weren't trapped by the brilliant sunlight; only I was free to run across this bright, crowded
square.

And I couldn't run fast enough.

So it didn't matter to me that we were surrounded by our extraordinarily dangerous enemies. As the
clock began to toll out the hour, vibrating under the soles of my sluggish feet, I knew I was too lateтАФand
I was glad something bloodthirsty waited in the wings. For in failing at this, I forfeited any desire to live.

The clock tolled again, and the sun beat down from the exact center point of the sky.

1. PARTY



I WAS NINETY-NINE POINT NINE PERCENT SURE I WAS dreaming.

The reasons I was so certain were that, first, I was standing in a bright shaft of sunlightтАФthe kind of
blinding clear sun that never shone on my drizzly new hometown in Forks, WashingtonтАФand second, I
was looking at my Grandma Marie. Gran had been dead for six years now, so that was solid evidence
toward the dream theory.

Gran hadn't changed much; her face looked just the same as I remembered it. The skin was soft and
withered, bent into a thousand tiny creases that clung gently to the bone underneath. Like a dried apricot,
but with a puff of thick white hair standing out in a cloud around it.

Our mouthsтАФhers a wizened pickerтАФspread into the same surprised half-smile at just the same time.
Apparently, she hadn't been expecting to see me, either.