"Catherine Wells - Ghost Town" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells Catherine)

GHOST TOWN
by Catherine Wells

Catherine Wells is the author of Mother Grimm and several SF books and
short stories. Her latest novel, Stones of Destiny (Four OтАЩClock Press),
retells the Macbeth tale in its historical context. Readers can find out more
about her works at www.sff.net/people/catherine-wells. Catherine and her
husband live in Tucson, Arizona, where she runs a science and technology
library. The authorтАЩs first story for us, тАЬPoint of Origin,тАЭ appeared in our
August 2005 issue. She returns to our pages with a haunting look at why
you canтАЩt go home again, especially when home has become a...

****

A shiver slid over Kaye when she saw the bright yellow house on the edge
of town. It looked the same. What right did it have to look the same? The
trees had grown taller, of course, and the hedge had filled in, but the
toolshed still squatted by the garden patch, and the second-floor deck
clung like a scaffold to the eastern side. A person would never know her
parents no longer lived there, and hadnтАЩt for nearly ten years. How could it
be that her home was no longer her home?

Her rental car glided silently over the pockmarked pavement, ignoring
the defects caused by freezing winters and melting snow. Cars had not
been this quiet, nor this smooth, when she had left to join the first crewed
expedition to leave the solar system. Lowering her window, she listened for
the sounds she remembered: the call of a meadowlark, the creaking of
crickets, the crunch of tires on the gravel that spilled from dirt shoulders
onto the street. But the birds and insects were silent, and her rental car
rode on a plasma stream, not wheels. That had been new technology when
she left, fourteen years ago. Fourteen years for everyone sheтАЩd left behind.

Only two years for her.

The yellow house passed out of view, and she slowed to make the
turn into town. With less wind noise, she finally heard other sounds: a bird
call at last, a katydidтАЩs dry trill, the rustle of carrigana leaves as she passed
a large hedge. Yet it all seemed off somehow, as though the orchestra
were missing its woodwinds or its first violins. Where was the ambient
noise of a small community? The buzz of a lawn tractor? The slam of a
screen door? The voices of children at play?

Rounding the corner, she glanced at the quiet house there, a house
where she used to play with her friend Jocelyn. The willow tree wept as
profusely as ever, but the tree swing was long gone, the sandbox vanished.
Maybe there were no children here anymore. The local school had closed
while Kaye was still a child, and it was either home schooling orтАФas her
parents had chosenтАФa two-hour bus ride to a larger town. This wasnтАЩt the
place to raise children now. Not enough socialization. Not enough kids for a
softball game. Who still lived in this tiny village called Jubilee? Even her