"Michelle West - Under The Skin" - читать интересную книгу автора (West Michelle)

were. I have enjoyed your company, Jane, and I have learned a little from you. Take
the pelt, which is a thing of mortals, and when you need to remember what you are
capable of, look at it."
Jane's smile was strained. "You know what'll happen if I try to put it up anywhere
in the house, don't you?"
"No," the woman said gravely.
"My mother will think I've gone out and skinned her dreams."
The woman did not laugh; Jane did.
And then she scooped up fur that no longer made her hands and feet tingle, and
turned away from the woman. Because she was strong, Jane Thornton, and didn't
need to cry.
And then, because she was stronger, and didn't need to hide, she turned and the
woman was watching her, as if tears were a salute, some gesture of greatness that
only Jane could grant.
She bowed, then, left, then.
This was the hardest thing to understand, and she thought, in the dell of her
choosing, that she could see a glimmer of it every time someone made a choice like
Jane's, a choice of magic over freedom, a thing of grace and beauty.
What, after all, was this humanity, but a huddled desire for companionship, for
love? Who had she loved in her life as they loved in theirs, short and brief? She
thought, if she understood it truly, she might find her mortality and lose her fear of it.
Could she but accept it, she knew that she might be free. The mountains, she
thought, and she turned toward the east, and watched them as the sun rose.