"Walter M. Miller - The Best of Walter M. Miller" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Walter M)

"If you ain't crazy, you're `witched,' and talkin' to the dead."
"He ain't dead. He's Outside."
Lucey's eyes flickered quickly to the door.
"And he's comin' backтАФsoon." The boy chuckled. "Then he'll make me like him, and it won't hurt to
listen."
"You talk like he wasn't a man. I seed him, and you didn't. Your pa was just a man, Doodie."
"No, Mama. He showed you a man because he wanted you to see a man. Next time, he'll come the
way he really is."
"Why would your pa come back," she snorted, sum-moning courage to stir the pot. "What would he
want here? If you was right in the head, you wouldn't get fits, and you'd know you never seed him.
What's his name? You don't even know his name."
"His name is a purple bitter with black velvet, Mama. Only there isn't any word."
"Fits," she moaned. "A child with fits."
"The crawlers, you mean? That's when be talks to me. It hurts at first."
She advanced on him with a big tin spoon, and shook it at him. "You're sick, Doodie. And don't you
carry on so. A doctor's what you need . . . if only Mama had some money."
"I won't fuss with you, Mama."
"Huh!" She stood there for a moment, shaking her head. Then she went back to stir the pot. Odorous
steam arose to perfume the shack.
The boy turned his head to watch her with luminous eyes. "The fits are when be talks, Mama. Honest
they are. It's like electricity inside me. I wish I could tell you how."
"Sick!" She shook her head vigorously. "Sick, that's all."
"If I was all like him, it wouldn't hurt. It only hurts because I'm half like you."
"Doodie, you're gonna drive your old mother to her grave. Why do you torment me so?"
He turned back to the window and fell silent . . . deter-minedly, hostilely silent. The silence grew like
an angry thing in the cabin, and Lucey's noises at the stove only served to punctuate it.
 "Where does your father stay, Doodie?" she asked at last, in cautious desperation.
"Outside ..."
"Gitalong! Wheah outside, in a palmetto scrub? In the cypress swamp? "
"Way Outside. Outside the world. "
"Who taught you such silliness? Spirits an' such! I ought to tan you good, Doodie!"
"From another world," the boy went on.
An' he talks to you from the other world?" Doodie nodded solemnly.
"


Lucey stirred vigorously at the pot, her face creased in a dark frown. Lots of folks believed in spirits,
and lots of folks believed in mediums. But Lucey had got herself straight with the Lord.
"I'm gonna call the parson," she grunted flatly.
тАЬWhy?тАЭ
Christian folks don't truck with spirits."
"


He's no spirit, Mama. He's like a man, only he's not. He comes from a star."
"


She set her jaw and fell grimly silent. She didn't like to remember Doodie's father. He'd come seeking
shelter from a storm, and he was big and taciturn, and he made love like a machine. Lucey had been