"Kate Wilhelm - The Girl Who Fell into the Sky" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

difficult. It seemed that the last four miles were the longest miles of
all. Then she saw the house and drew in a sigh of relief. The road
ended at the house.
 Finding the key was easier than finding her flashlight in the
mess she had made of her belongings in the car. When she opened
the back door, hot air rushed out. She entered, searched for lamps,
switches. The electricity was on. She lighted rooms as she entered
them to open windows, open the front door, open everything that
could be opened. The house was not very big, two bedrooms, a
spacious living room, another room off it that might have been a
bedroom once but seemed a storeroom for dead furniture now, and
a very large kitchen with dinette space and all electric appliances.
No wood out here, she thought, nodding. Everything was neat and
clean. Her sister had said that the lawyer had hired people to come
in and see to things. Lorna plugged in the water heater and
refrigerator and put water in the ice trays and then sat down at the
kitchen table too tired to pay any more attention to her
surroundings.
She roused herself enough to bring her cooler inside, make
herself a sandwich, then go back out to find her sleeping bag. All
she could think of now was a shower and sleep.


She dreamed of distant music and voices raised in song, laughter,
more song. She found herself singing along, in her dream:
In Scarlet town, where I was born,
There was a fair maid dwellin
Made evтАЩry youth cry тАЬwell-a-way;тАЭ
Her name was BarbтАЩra Allen.
All in the merry month of May,
When green buds there were swellinтАЩ,
Young Jemmy Grove on his death-bed lay,
For love of BarbтАЩra Allen.
Suddenly she came wide awake and sat up. She was shivering. At
last the night was cooling off. She strained to hear something,
anything. Far away a lone coyote yipped. As she drifted into sleep
again, the refrain played itself through her head over and over:
тАЬHenceforth take warning by the fall of cruel BarbтАЩra Allen.тАЭ


It was after nine when she woke up again. She blinked at the
ceiling, sky-blue, not a motel-room color. There was a silence so
deep it was eerie, other-worldly. She thought of all the things the
silence excluded: maids with cleaning carts, automobiles revving
up, trucks shifting gears, showers runningтАж She hugged herself
and ran to the outside kitchen door where she came to an abrupt
stop and caught her breath sharply, then walked very slowly out
onto the porch barefoot, in her flimsy short gown. The world had
turned blue and gold while she slept.
Everywhere golden grass stretched out under a sky so blue it