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

The woman rose, taking the reflection with her. Jane thought her tall and fair, and
stopped to wonder why she, at a good foot taller than Jane herself, could navigate
dense branches and burrs without pause.
"I am," the woman said softly, her eyes on some distant spot, "alone, Jane. The
last of my kind. I am understanding, slowly, yours. I ... miss my kin, Jane, but I will
not see them again until I face what mortals face. And even then, I do not know, our
lives are so different. What happens when the mountains are worn away by sand and
sea in the course of time? Are they reborn in their glory in any afterlife of mortal
making? I think not. I think perhaps it is merely truth that I will never see them again.
"The fox," she said, turning to the young girl, "is a form that I learned in my youth,
but although I understand it well, I do not often wear it." Her smile was quiet. "It is a
mortal form. The world is bounded by mortal forms.
"For that reason, the pelt is yours to keep, Jane, if you will but leave the life you so
dislike now and explore my world with me in the days and years to come. I have
much to teach you, and you have much to learn; you are not happy as you are, and
I, I have much to teach, I think. Will you accept this?"
Why not? Jane thought. Any life had to be better than the one she was living.
"Where are you going?"
"As I said, to tour my forest. Come."
"But-but that leads to the city."
"Does it indeed?" The woman smiled. "Then you must learn to see your city with
the eyes I have lent you."
It was still hard to look at the silver-haired woman, but it was also hard to look
away. Jane had never seen anything so close to perfect, no, so perfect, in her life.
"Who are you?" Her voice was a tickle that came from a tiny fox's chest as she
walked slowly, getting use to four light feet.
 The woman smiled almost sadly. "I was called many things. There are stories that
survive that still hold grains of truth, although they change to fit their time and their
place, as 1 have done. I ruled, and I served, in my time; I played my game of iron
and steel, I stood in shadow while the bells of man tolled; perhaps I even-" and here,
her smile was momentarily sly, "carried away their children to realms that do not age
them so." She turned toward the east and stared at the sky as if she could see
beyond it. "But that was in a different land, and a different time. They are gone
now."
There was a quiet longing in the words that made Jane's throat tighten. "Why-why
are you here? I mean, why didn't you stay?"
"We do not always have the choice," she replied gravely. "I gave my word, long
before your birth, to travel the wise man's road. I have been learning about human
forests, about human people." She smiled. "But I have also been searching the
forests of the world for others of my kind."
"Did you ever find them?" Jane asked, cocking her head to one side.
"Come. Let us explore the wilds while we have the time."
Jane thought there would be magic, but there wasn't; there were houses and
storefronts and cars and pedestrians.
"Yes, there are those," the woman said softly, as if she could hear every thought.
"But there is magic as well. You expect magic to feel a certain way, to look a certain
way, to taste a certain way. You expect light and sound, a movement of mountains,
some gout of fire. I'm not sure why, but it is the way of your kind. Magic is subtle,
Jane, and it takes the context of the form it touches. If you wish fire, you must be
fire; if you wish light, you must be light. If you wish the wildness, then you must be