"M Rickert - The Girl Who Ate Butterflies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rickert Mary)

Quetzl stopped at the edge of the meadow and lay down too. At some distance,
Emma stood in the shadow of trees that bordered the meadow.

Lantanna lay still. Her arms raised. Her hands like little white stars fallen
into the grass. He could only see moments of her face. A small butterfly flitted
in the bush nearby, but she did not turn her head or move, only lay there as
still and disinterested as a flower. More butterflies flitted nearby. A small
orange one lit on her wrist. A tiny blue hovered at her lips but he blinked and
in that moment it was gone. Passion rose in him like Jesus's winged heart in the
picture over his grandmother's bed.

From her distance it is as if Emma is suddenly sainted, a person who sees
spirits and changes in the soul. Seeing nothing that can be described like this,
she knows Quetzl has fallen in love with Lantanna. She feels a particular
response in her own chest. An expansion of desire, the way flame swells to
explode.

Lantanna, in the meadow, knows nothing of those who watch. Lying in the grass,
her white arms extended like stems her hands flower, her little mouth open with
one small lilac bloom on her tongue, parched to swallow, dry in the hot sun, her
heart beats like the quick wings of the sleepy orange that flits about her and
finally lights on her wrist. A small blue hovers at her lips, darts in and out,
in a maddening tease before it rests on the lilac bloom. Quickly, she closes her
mouth, tastes the fluttering wings. She chews and hears the vaguest crunch of
its small body and, treasuring its quick flavor minced with the lilac, swallows.
Sighing, she lets her tired arms fall. Eyes closed, she feels the hot sun, the
vague itch of meadow grass, hears the insect hum. But the pulse of her heart is
the loudest and most vibrant sensation, as if it is filled with all the
butterflies she's swallowed since she was a little girl. Wings beating in a
blood cocoon. Bursting to be free.

WHEN LANTANNA rises from the meadow grass and turns to walk home, Quetzl
follows. But Emma does not follow them. She waits until they are out of sight
and then walks to the meadow which is bright at the edge of summer with wild
flowers and butterflies, alive with an energy she can describe with only one
metaphor. Emma stands at the edge of the meadow, at just about the spot, she
estimates, Quetzl lay in. Where the grass looks flattened she bends to touch it,
as if it is a holy space, as if by placing her palm where he lay she can touch
him. She closes her eyes. Yes, she thinks, she can feel his heat. Then, she lies
there too, turns her head to see his vision through the grass, the spear of
blades at crosshatch, the flitting of colors, wings and petals. Here, she knows,
he lay and watched Lantanna. Lantanna! Emma rises quickly when she realizes she
has been lying in the meadow just like that space cadet. She forgives Quetzl for
this. He is bewitched, it is obvious. Everyone knows Lantanna comes from a
family of witches.

Emma comes from a family of fire fighters. Her father was a volunteer fireman
for the Oakdale Fire Department before he mysteriously disappeared on his way to
work two years ago. Almost exactly two years ago, Emma thinks. She remembers the
hot tears, the new pain in her mother's eyes. She remembers the first