"Jo Walton - Relentlessly Mundane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Walton Jo)

"I don't think so," Jane said, grim. "There's probably one of those for me at my
parents', and for you too, Mark. Have you been home to see?"


"No," Mark sighed. "That case dragged on and on for years. I thought they'd
given up. Do they think we're some kind of serial killers or something?"
"I suppose they do." Jane shook her head, thinking of Kay. "We didn't have any
sort of explanation, after all. The four of us went into the wood, lots of people
saw us. Ten minutes later, from their way of looking at it, three of us came out,
torn and bedraggled and a year older, except they didn't notice the year older
bit."


"Nobody ever did," Mark said, "Funny, really. Even Father just said I'd grown."


"I never even thought that they'd miss Kay," Tharsia said, dreamily. "When I
read the stars. It was just completely obvious that Kay couldn't come home --
after all, statues can be alive there, and they can't here. If you die somewhere
and get your life back magically it isn't going to stay the same if you go home
again."


"Kay wanted to stay anyway," said Jane, comfortingly. "None of us could have
done anything to change that, nothing could have dragged Kay back here if there
was any chance of staying, flesh or stone."


"If we'd thought of it--" Mark began.


"Oh shut up with that broken record," Tharsia snapped at her brother. "Yes, if we
had we could have said that Kay had mentioned suicide and gone off to the lake,
but they dragged the lake twice as it was."


"I almost thought they'd find Tamarren's sword," Jane said, smiling. She set her
cup down. "It was the same lake in the same wood, even if it was in a different
world. I wonder what they'd have thought if they did."


"You two are both as bad as each other," Mark said. "You with your survival kit
and fitness training and you, Ter-- Tharsia, with your fake Porphylian styles and
magic. You both want to go back. Well I'm glad I'm in this world with comfort
and technology and no evil creatures trying their best to kill me." He sounded
sincere, and Jane wondered if he still woke in the night weeping. They were none
of them untouched by that year out of time.


"We'll just stick to the story we gave them, then," Jane said. "We don't know