"Laura Resnick - Enter the Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Laura)

kindling everywhere believing that one might start spontaneously. If drawn to
a man's fire, the Sisimito would stare at it until the embers grew cold, then
eat them. Besides children, the Sisimito loved capturing women and would steal
maidens and young wives who ventured away from home after dark. Luckily, my
grandfather taught me how to escape from the Sisimito.
"His feet point backward," the old man explained to me. "So when you
see him, just hide behind a bush very quickly. Confused, he will look around
for you. When he sees his own footprints, he'll think they're yours and follow
them, going back the way he came."
A healthy boy with a well-developed sense of self-preservation, I
feared all these creatures. But there was nothing I feared as much as the
Duendes. They were dwarves with flat, yellow faces, long arms, thick legs, and
heavy shoulders, and their bodies were covered with short brown hair. Duendes
had only four fingers and were jealous of anyone who had five, so my
grandfather taught me to salute them with my thumb concealed in the palm of my
hand.
Among their hideous deeds, Duendes were said to carry away dogs. I knew
it was true, for in my twelfth year, my beloved pet Dog-Dog disappeared for a
whole night. He crawled out of the jungle at dawn, barely alive and missing
one leg. I knew the Duendes had torn it off when I searched the jungle south
of the village and found their pointed-heel footprints mingled with his blood.
The ancient ones knew about these creatures, too, carving their images
into the stone walls of their temples and palaces. One day my three-legged dog
and I uncovered strange carvings in the ruined city, and Dog-Dog barked wildly
at the portraits of naked, four-fingered, pointed-heeled dwarves grinning
maliciously and wearing banana fronds on their heads.
But by my seventeenth year, not even the fear of Duendes could keep me
from answering the call of the Ixtabay.
****
There was a girl named Chikki in the village downriver from us. I had
never seen such a girl, and my soul was consumed with wonder. No girl in the
world had hair so black, lashes so long, teeth so white, skin so golden. She
beckoned to me with a shy, promising smile that spoke of mysteries so
fantastic they blurred my vision, made my hands clumsy, and numbed my ears to
my mother's questions and my grandfather's warnings.
Her family did not approve of me -- a fatherless boy from upriver, with
a crazy grandfather, a three-legged dog, and no prospects to speak of -- and
forbade Chikki to see me. So we met secretly amidst the whispering stones of
the Mayan ruins, hiding in the shadows and listening for the approach of boys
who played like wild animals. But the touch of her hand on mine, the glow in
her eyes, the honeyed sound of her voice dulled my senses to all else,
including the sound of footsteps; and so her eldest brother caught us one day.
Chikki's movements were watched so closely after that day that it was
impossible for us to meet again. Happily, her younger sister found our
predicament wildly romantic and offered to carry messages between us. Our
words were brief and to the point. We would run off and get married, and then
no one could keep us apart ever again. We agreed to meet in the jungle after
nightfall, where there was no chance of anyone seeing us. I chose a spot very
near her village so she wouldn't have to go far alone; though many young men
my age had long since ceased believing in the orphans of the night, I