"John W. Randal - Bad Animals" - читать интересную книгу автора (Randal John W)

Everything is quiet. Her fingers relax on the Harlow book. Jenner gave her this one. It is Magdalene's
favorite. Jenner's eyes had almost been apologetic when he'd flopped the book onto Magdalene's bed that
autumn. The girl's mother (a slim, feverish woman who spoke often of God's love but who never went outside
during daylight) had just died. The woman had been pregnant when she'd met Jenner. For some reason
Magdalene could not fathom, the grim-faced man had stayed with Lizz and Magdalene's mother.
Jenner never talked about it.
Magdalene had been born first, the swelling in her mother's belly lessening but not fading. Three months
later, Lizz was born.
Magdalene thinks that Jenner never forgave their mother for giving birth to Bad Animals, instead of real
people. But he never told. At least he didn't do that. Everyone knew what sometimes happened to Bad
Animals.
She remembers the little antlered boy that she and Lizz had found out in the gloomy, moss-hung woods
one summer. His small body was so smooth and still, arms out-flung, legs crooked in a motionless run. His
narrow chest feathered with hunting arrows. It looked almost posed, artistic... lovely in a horribly quiet way.
Silent and empty, surrounded by reverent greenery, the boy called to mind a martyred saint. Perfect now in
death.
Magdalene blinks, looking over at the sleeping shape of her sister.
"We're not Bad Animals," Lizz murmurs, before slipping into dreams.
Magdalene says nothing. She opens Harlow's book again, and strains to read in the TV's glow:
She is so small that I carry her out to the dusky beach. And shrinking still. We walk. She is warm, in the
crook of my arm. Oh baby. That is what I call her. And that is what she is. Now.
We're all God's creatures.

Milius Harlow had roamed the country, documenting the new world-even as one of the emergent viruses
turned his brain into a violet jewel. That gem was now in the Smithsonian, glittering silently behind glass.
But the man's books lived on. Travels was his most famous work.
So much had changed in the world, and things were still changing. The wreckage of the Ventus Gateway
still glowed in orbit, raining strange energies onto the earth below. It was a ring of glittery rubble that you
could sometimes see in the night sky. The artistry that the Wet Labs had unleashed also roamed the streets
and forests of the new world-as well as far more intimate cellular landscapes.
Harlow had fallen in love as he traveled, documenting the changes (and his own gradual ossification). Her
name had been Calliope-a Bad Animal.
Magdalene sits in a tire swing, reading his book:
A cool drink of water, as she kisses me. Her tongue hot and slippery-wet between my lips. And I keep
thinking: A cool drink of water. Wet.
Love and doomed romance shimmer in Magdalene's mind. The cold grace of predestined tragedy. She
sighs. Milius and Calliope. Above her, white puff clouds roll in deep azure. The trailer park chatters with
activity: kids laughing, battered radios playing tunes. The arm-thick rope that connects the tire swing to the
tree under which she hangs creaks slightly, as Magdalene sways in the loop of black rubber. The sunlight is
warm on the back of her slender neck.
The whistle of one of the nearby mills unintentionally announces the breathless arrival of Lizz. Her cornsilk
hair swirls around her flushed face, vivid eyes aglitter. "Thomas Umbral and some of the other boys have a
bunch of pop pods. They're going to light them off over by Wilson's. Come on, Mag!" Her gloved hand
stretches out excitedly.
Magdalene sighs and closes the Harlow book. The mill whistle wails brightly, scaring flashy pin-wheel
birds from the tree-tops. The older girl hops out of the tire swing and takes her sister's hand. Lizz leads
Magdalene to the weedy lot that lies empty behind Wilson's trailer. A bunch of kids are there, including
Thomas Umbral, who smiles openly at Lizz, raising a deeper flush on the girl's cheeks.
Jimmy Horus waves to the sisters. He is still clutching his jar of light. The glow of the bugs is a
washed-out rainbow during the day, needing night to fully shine.