"Rog Phillips - Involuntary Immortals" - читать интересную книгу автора (Phillips Rog)

twenty I was so long, long ago.
What could it mean? Without turning her head she was aware of the presence of her
daughter, Agnes, at her shoulder тАУ hating, hating the mother who had borne her, who
remained a vibrant, youthful twenty in every respect except years, while Agnes was
growing old at forty.
You're still young because in some secret vampirish way you suck the life of those
around you, mother. That thought, in Agnes' hate-filled voice, spoke in Helen's mind
as it had spoken in actuality so many times these past few years. So much vitriol in
that one word, "mother"! A word that should mean so much, and with all the
meaning curdled into hate and jealousy. The jealousy of a woman growing old for a
woman who never seemed to grow old at all.
Carl opened his faded eyes and looked up at Helen, loving her even now while the
pains of death tore at his heart and mind. He was speaking. She bent close to hear
his almost inaudible words.
"I've been a very lucky man," he was saying, his lips trembling with effort. "The
bloom of youth has never left you, Helen. I pray to God that it never will."
"It's your love for me that has kept it so," she soothed him. "And something strange
that makes me afraid."
"I know," he said. "I've often wondered about it myself. But I say now that you
should not fear it, whatever it may be. Nothing but good can ever come of it. Some
day you will know what it is."
His strong face contorted in a spasm of pain. He dropped back on the pillow. Helen
touched his forehead gently, with the palm of her hand, and knew he was gone. She
bit her lip and turned away, feeling something depart from her heart that left it vacant.
"He's gone!" Agnes' shuddering whisper held disbelief. "He's gone!" Conviction
turned her voice into a shrill scream.
"It was you, mother," Agnes accused. "You killed him by drawing his life into your
own body just as you are doing to mine and all those around you!"
The words, full of hatred, pelted Helen's ears like hail and echoed painfully in her
now-lonely heart, mocking its emptiness. There was nothing she could say to
comfort her deluded daughter. Nothing she could do.
She didn't know. Agnes could be right; maybe Helen did drain the life from those
around her in some unknown way to preserve her youth.
Maybe I did! It was her own despairing thoughts accusing her now. Maybe I do!
She moved into the outer room. As she stepped through the door, waiting relatives
drew away from her. A wide-eyed youth hid behind his mother's skirt, peeking at her
with an owlish stare. He was Carl's nephew, and he believed her to be a witch or
vampire because she was still twenty after forty years as Carl's wife.
If they knew how old you really are! Her thoughts were torturing her again. She had
lied when she married Carl. How could she tell him she was over a hundred even
then?
She had told Carl once and he hadn't believed her, had laughed as if it were an
absurd joke. She had finally joined in with his laughter and silently resolved to keep
her secret. On the marriage certificate she had placed her age as twenty. Each year
she had added another year to that twenty while her body, her face, her eyes, and her
spirit had remained the same.
If I only knew why! She had said this to herself so often. She didn't know why. She
had never been any different than her own sisters and brothers, except that they had
grown up, grown old and died long ago, while she had just grown up and stopped
changing.