"Kate Wilhelm - April Fools' Day Forever" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

not to. She didn't really think the mailman had been there yet,
anyway. Usually Mr. Probst blew his whistle to let her know that he
was leaving something and she hadn't heard it. She took off the
heavy clothes then and went through the house checking windows,
peering at the latches of the storm windows. There had been a false
spring three weeks ago, and she had opened windows and even
washed a few before the winds changed again. The house was
secure.
What she wanted to do was call Martie, but she didn't. His boss
didn't approve of personal phone calls during the working day. She


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breathed a curse at Hilary Boyle, and waited for Martie to call her.
He would, as soon as he had a chance. When she was certain that
there was nothing else she should do, she sat down in the living
room, where one log was burning softly. There was no light on in
the room and the storm had darkened the sky. The small fire glowed
pleasingly in the enormous fireplace, and the radiance was picked
up by pottery and brass mugs on a low table before the fireplace.
The room was a long rectangle, wholly out of proportion, much too
long for the width, and with an uncommonly high ceiling. Paneling
the end walls had helped, as had making a separate room within the
larger one, with its focal point the fireplace. A pair of chairs and a
two-seater couch made a cozy grouping. The colors were autumn
forest colors, brilliant and subdued at the same time: oranges and
scarlets in the striped covering of the couch, picked up again by
pillows; rust browns in the chairs; forest-green rug. The room would
never make House Beautiful, Julia had thought when she brought in
the last piece of brass for the table and surveyed the effect, but she
loved it, and Martie loved it. And she'd seen people relax in that
small room within a room who hadn't been able to relax for a long
time. She heard it then.
When the wind blew in a particular way in the old house, it sounded
like a baby crying in great pain. Only when the wind came from the
northwest over thirty miles an hour. They had searched and
searched for the minute crack that had to be responsible and they
had calked and filled and patched until it seemed that there couldn't
be any more holes, but it was still there, and now she could hear the
baby cry.


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Julia stared into the fire, trying to ignore the wail, willing herself