"Charles De Lint - Jack, The Giant-Killer" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

night was quiet and she was sober enough to indulge in
one of her favorite pastimes: looking in through the lit
windows of the houses she passed to catc’h brief
glimpses of other people’s lives.
Other people’s lives. Did other people’s boyfriends
leave them because they were too dull?
She’d met Will at her sister Connie’s wedding three
months ago. He’d been charmed then, by the same things
that had sent him storming out of her life earlier this
evening. Then it had been “a relief to find someone who
isn’t just into image.” A person who “valued the quiet
times.” Now she was boring because she wouldn’t do
anything. But he was the one who’d changed.
When they first met, they’d made their own good
times, not needing an endless tour of parties and bars. But
quiet times at home weren’t enough for Will anymore,
while she hadn’t wanted a change. Had that really been
what she’d wanted, she asked herself now, or was she just
too lazy to do more?
She hadn’t been able to answer that earlier, and she
couldn’t answer it now. How did other people deal with
this kind of thing?
She looked in back yards and windows, as if expecting
to find an answer there. The houses that fronted Belmont
Avenue and backed onto the park where she was walking
were mostly brick or wood-frame, dating back to the
fifties and earlier. She moved catlike in the grass beside
them, not going too close to the lit windows, not even
stepping into their back yards, just stealing her glimpses as
she moved slowly by. Here an overhead fixture lit a huge
oil painting of a Maritime fishing village, there subtle
lighting gleamed on two marble statues of birds—an eagle
and an owl, the light behind them hiding their features, if
not their profiles, and making soft halos around their
silhouettes.
She paused, smiling at the picture they made, feeling
almost sober. She moved on, then tensed, hearing a sound
in the distance. It was a deep-throated growl of a sound
that she couldn’t quite place.
 She looked around the park, then to the house beside
the one with the two marble birds. Its windows were dark,
but she had the feeling that someone was standing there,
looking out at her as quietly as she was looking in.
Catsoft. Silent against the rumble of sound that was
getting louder, steadily approaching. For a long moment
she returned the gaze of the hidden watcher. She swayed
and shivered, sobriety and warmth leaving as she paused
too long in one spot. Then she caught a glimpse of
movement at the far end of the park.
It looked like a young boy—no more than ten or