"Kim Wilkins - The Autumn Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilkins Kim)

I shelved my plans for a mother-doll or a wife-doll, partly because I was a mere boy with no idea how to
build an automaton, but also because soon after this occasion I saw my first faery, and it had such a
profound effect upon me that most childish thoughts were permanently driven from my mind.

My parents had told me about faeries, and about the special connection our family had with them. I had
taken for granted that one day I would meet one, and perhaps thank him or her for our good fortune. I
imagined they would look like the faeries in the books in my bedroom: tiny people with little wings and
sparkly eyes. I didn't know then, as I do now, about the many different breeds of faeries and how vastly
they differ from one another; the complexities of their bodies that I now understand so intimately.

On this day, on the day I saw a faery for the first time, I was playing with my toy boat in a puddle on the
banks of the Weser. It was the first fine day in a week, and the grass and trees were clean, washed. I
was concentrating hard on the boat in front of me. In my imagination, I was making an Atlantic crossing.
A shadow fell across me and I looked up to see a man smiling at me.

"Hello," he said, "that's a nice boat."

My body had never before performed such a complex reaction to the mere sight and voice of another
being. My eyes dilated, my skin grew warm, my body felt stiff, and a fist of nausea pushed up inside me.
I opened my mouth to scream, and only a low groan came out.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Don't be afraid." And then he knelt down across the puddle from me and
reached out to touch my boat. I could smell him then, I could smell his bones deep under his skin, and
such a thrill of revulsion shuddered through me that I felt I might actually lose control of my body, that I
might explode or die. Instead, I took a deep breath and called at the top of my lungs, "Mama!"

The stranger stood immediately and took two steps back. "I didn't mean to frighten you," he said.

"Mama!"

But it was my father who heard my calls and emerged from the house, peering across the narrow road at
me. "Immanuel?"

"Immanuel," the stranger said. "That's a fine name."

I sprang to my feet and ran to my father, locked his right leg between my arms and buried my face in his
soft stomach. "Papa, that man is strange," I managed to say. Then I heard the stranger's voice. He had
followed me.

"I didn't mean to frighten him," he said in a soft, tender voice.

Then my father's voice, rumbling deep in his stomach. "Oh, you're a faery. That's why he's frightened.
He's never met one before."

Now I looked around, glared up at the stranger. So this was what a faery looked like. I was
disappointed and disgusted. While he was near me, I felt as though my skin might be sick.

"How do you know?" the stranger said.