"Brooks, Terry - A Knight Of The Word" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brooks Terry)

Of course, the Petersons still lived next door and Mildred Walker still lived down the street. Reverend Emery still conducted services at the First Congregational Church, and a few of her grandfather's old cronies still gathered for coffee at Josie's each morning to share gossip and memories. Once in a while, she even saw Josie, but she could sense the other's discomfort, and understanding its source, kept her distance. In any event, these were people of a different generation, and their real friendships had been with her grandparents rather than with her.

There was always Pick, though. And, until a year or so ago, there had been Wraith . . .

Robert left the roadway to cut through the rows of markers, bearing directly for the gravesites of her grandparents. Isn't it odd, she thought, trailing distractedly in his wake, that Hopewell should feel so alien to her? Small towns were supposed to be stable and unchanging. It was part of their charm, one of their virtues, that while larger communities would almost certainly undergo some form of upheaval, they would remain the same. But Hopewell didn't feel like that to her. It felt altered in ways that transcended expectation, ways that did not involve population growth or economic peaks. Those were substantially the same as they had been five years earlier. It was something else, an intangible that she believed might have influenced only her.

Perhaps it was her, she pondered. Perhaps it was she who had changed and not the town at all.

They walked up to her grandparents' graves and stopped below the markers, looking down at the mounds that fronted them. Gran's was thick and smooth with autumn grass; the grass on Old Bob's was still sparse and the earth less settled. Identical tombstones marked their resting places. Nest read her grandmother's. EVELYN OPAL FREEMARK. BELOVED WIFE OF ROBERT. SLEEP WITH ANGELS. WAKE WITH GOD. Old Bob had chosen the wording for Gran's marker, and Nest had simply copied it for his.

Her mother's gravestone stood just to the left. CAITLIN ANNE FREEMARK. BELOVED DAUGHTER & MOTHER.

A fourth plot, just a grassy space now, was reserved for her.

She studied it thoughtfully for a moment, then set about dividing up the flowers she had brought, arranging them carefully in each of the three metal vases that stood on tripods before the headstones. Robert watched her as she worked, saying nothing.

'Bring some water,' she said, pointing toward the spigot and watering can that sat in a small concrete well several dozen yards off.

Robert did, then poured water into each vase, being careful not to disturb Nest's arrangements.

Together, they stood looking down at the plots, the sun streaming through the branches of the old shade trees that surrounded them in curtains of dappled brightness.

'I remember all the times your grandmother baked us cookies; Robert said after a minute. 'She would sit us down at the picnic table out back and bring us a plate heaped with them and glasses of cold milk. She was always saying a child couldn't grow up right without cookies and milk. I could never get that across to my mother. She thought you couldn't grow up right without vegetables'

Nest grinned. 'Gran was big on vegetables, too. You just weren't there for that particular lecture:

'Every Christmas we had that cookie bake in your kitchen. Balls of dough and cookie sheets and cutters and frosting and little bottles of sprinkles and whatnot everywhere. We trashed her kitchen, and she never blinked an eye'

'I remember making cookies for bake sales.' Nest shook her head. 'For the church, for mission aid or something. It seemed for a while that I was doing it every other weekend. Gran never objected once, even after she stopped going to church altogether:

Robert nodded. 'Your grandmother never needed to go to church. I think God probably told her she didn't have to go, that he would come to see her instead'

Nest looked at him. 'That's a very nice thing to say, Robert'

He pursed his lips and shrugged. 'Yeah, well, I'm just trying to get back into your good graces. Anyway, I liked your grandmother. I always thought, when things got a little rough at home, that if they got real bad I could move in with you if I really wanted to. Sure, you and your grandfather might object, but your grandmother would have me in an instant. That's what I thought'

Nest nodded. 'She probably would have, too.

Robert folded his arms across his chest. 'You can't sell your house, Nest. You know why? Because your grandmother's still there'

Nest was silent for a moment. 'I don't think so:

'Yes, she is. She's in every room and closet, in every corner, and under every carpet, down in the basement and up in the attic. That's where she is, Nest. Where else would she be?'

Nest didn't answer.

'Up in Heaven playing a harp? I wouldn't think so. Too boring. Not floating around on a cloud either. Not your grandmother. She's in that house, and I don't think you should move out on her.'

Nest wondered what Robert would say if he knew the truth of things. She wondered what he would say if he knew that Gran's transgressions years earlier had doomed her family in ways that would horrify him, that Gran had roamed the park at night like a wild thing, that she had run with the feeders and cast her magic in dangerous ways, that her encounter with a demon had brought about both her own death and the death of Nest's mother. Would he think that she, belonged in an afterlife of peace and light or that perhaps she should be consigned to a place where penance might be better served?