"Douglas Smith - Spirit Dance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Douglas)

nurse said it looked more like beatings." Ed looked grim, then thoughtful.
"Far as I know, he leaves the girl alone."
"From what I saw," I said, picking up my supplies and moving to the door,
"pushing Leiddia too far would be very inadvisable. He might wake
something."
Ed's eyes narrowed. "What'd you see in her?"
"She has the Mark," I said quietly. Opening the door, I stepped out into
the street after Gelert, not waiting for Ed's reply.

The first frost had come to Wawa early. Gelert and I hiked back through
fall colors, crisp air, and no mosquitoes, reaching our campsite
overlooking Deer's Pond just before sunset.
That night, spirits of the firelight danced around me through the trees as
the rising moon silvered the smooth surface of the water. With Gelert
snoring softly beside me, other spirits danced through my thoughts.
I didn't want them to dance. I didn't want them to even exist. But spirits
have their own views on these matters, and are very persistent when they
feel it's time for a performance. These ghosts went back fifteen years.
The prompting for tonight's tango was much more recent.
Dance, spirits.
Three days before, I had been many miles north. That day, I had stood by
the heavy wooden railing of the broad stone promenade running the length
of Cil y Blaidd, watching a small sea plane shatter the glass of the lake
below. Part carved, part hung from a rocky slope of forest, Cil y Blaidd
is a sprawling wood and stone structure overlooking a lake in far northern
Ontario. The name is Welsh, for Wolf's Lair.
Built to my design years ago as an occasional retreat from civilization,
recently it had become my permanent home. Or perhaps it was my act of
retreat that had become permanent.
Accessible only by sea plane, Cil y Blaidd is invisible from the air.
Those who had built it had been flown in at night, stayed until
completion, and then were flown out again at night. I had piloted the
plane.
Only three other people knew its location. As I watched the plane taxi to
shore, I wondered which of the three it carried.
The plane pulled up to a long dock hidden from above by arching willow
branches. A huge male figure emerged and strode along the dock to stone
steps carved from the cliff face.
Well, it's not Estelle, I thought, ignoring the resentment this brought
even after fifteen years. Too far to see if it was Robert or Michel. My
visitor looked up, searching the slope as he climbed. Our eyes met and he
raised a meaty hand to remove and wave a cloth cap, revealing a mass of
red curls.
"Lo, Mitch," I called down as I waved back, wondering briefly at my
feeling of relief. Turning from the railing, I headed through the house to
greet Michel Ducharmes, the Red Bull, and current head of the Circle of
the Herok'a.
Opening huge oaken front doors, I stepped out onto a graveled path as he
emerged from the woods trailed by two great stags, their antlers barely
missing trees on either side. As Mitch shoved out a hand to me, the stags