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

"Welcome," she said. If lightning had a voice, this was it; a flash of brilliance that
lingered in the air long after the actual light had passed.
Jane opened her mouth to speak, and nothing came out, although if a toad or a frog
had climbed out of her lips, it wouldn't have surprised her much. Compared to the
silver-haired woman, Jane was everything ugly and awkward.
"Come, Jane Thornton. You found me for a reason. I am not a danger to you, nor
you to me. Come."
Jane scraped her way through the fork of the tree and landed with a clumsy thump
on her knees. The woman offered her a hand, and after a moment, Jane took it; she
looked down and saw her bleeding and scraped skin against the perfect whiteness of
light.
"W-who are you?"
"I am a companion, of sorts. Come, walk a while with me in my forest."
Jane looked over her shoulder, seeing the highway and the bridge that towered
overhead.
The woman laughed, and her voice was the brook that trickled in silence. "It has
taken me many years to understand it, Jane, it is more difficult than I or my distant
kin realized it could be. But wilderness is more than isolated forest, and a forest is
more than trees." She turned and started to walk and Jane began to amble awkwardly
behind her, stubbing her toes and hurting her knees when she fell. Finally, the woman
stopped.
"You are Jane Thornton. I have been waiting, I think, for you. It is our, my, way, to
wait; to be sought rather than to seek. I am hidden, always, to those who will not
look, who don't know how to look. They are many." Her smile was distant for a
moment, cool as the winter white of her hair. Sun caught both.
"You are the first to find me in many years, and it means what it means, Jane
Thornton. You could not see me if you did not seek a new life, a new beginning."
She held out a hand and pulled Jane up from the ground; her hand was cool and
strong. "You do not walk well here, but this is only the first time that you've come. It
will get easier, I promise you that. Until then, let me aid you." She reached into the
swirling folds of her skirts and from them pulled a glorious silver pelt. "You are too
large for this walk. Put this on. You will have to remove your old clothing and set it
aside."
What'll get easier, Jane wanted to ask, her suspicion struggling to assert control
over the little-girl awe that she knew she was in the grip of, but couldn't quite shake.
She even opened her mouth but the pelt seemed so perfectly made, so warm and so
soft, that she reached for it as if she had never wanted anything else in her life. And
as she picked it up, her hands and feet began to tingle.
"It really is safe," the woman said, smiling.
So Jane put it over her head, matching the tip of her nose with the tip of its nose;
she touched the edge of its forepaws with the tips of her fingers, and the edges of its
hind paws with the balls of her toes. The light in front of her eyes blurred; she cried
out in surprise; there was no pain. And the woman smiled and knelt before her. "Do
you see what you've become?" She pulled a silvered glass from the swirl of her
skirts, just as she had pulled the pelt.
Jane looked into it and saw the reflection of a beautiful silver fox.
"You see?"
"Yes," Jane said, and found that her voice, too, was changed. She fell silent
immediately as she saw that the mouth, with its white sharpness of teeth-that had
moved with the words she tried to speak were the fox's.