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

pleasures in life tasted bitter after such sweetness.
In time, the hated obeah priest succeeded in dimming the Ixtabay's
teasing, haunting voice, until her song was only a hollow echo in my memory.
Pronounced fit in mind and body, I married Chikki and built a small house for
her, well away from the forest's edge. We had children who, like the seasons,
ripened and eventually bore fruit of their own. And had I never heard the
voice of the Ixtabay, I would say that mine had been a happy life.
Now I am old, and my daughter tells my grandchildren to ignore my
strange stories and warnings.
"You must stop filling their ears with such nonsense," she snaps at me.
"Duendes, three-legged dogs, the Ashi de Pompi, and the Sisimito. Hah! These
are modern times. No one believes that foolishness anymore."
Yes, these are modern times, but once in a while, a dog disappears
without a trace, except for the strange footprints which mingle with his in
the damp earth. And every so often, a young man returns from the jungle with a
haunted soul that makes him rave until death claims him. Modern times
disappear when night descends upon the forest.
And so I tell my grandsons, "Beware the Ixtabay, beware that dainty
demon!" I want them to know more peace than I have known during the tens of
thousands of nights that I have endured without her.
Chikki has joined the ancestors now, and I am alone when darkness
falls. Now, when the village is silent in sleep, when the hungry growl of the
jungle cools to a soft murmur of satiation, when my heart is open to the
spirit voices that rule the night -- then do I hear the Ixtabay again, calling
to me across the void of years. And I know that soon, at last, I will enter
the night once more and join her forever in that other realm.
-- The End --

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