"Charles de Lint - Make a Joyiful Noise" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

“And bee stings?”

“If you’re allergic–and humans can be allergic to pretty much anything–then, yes. It can kill them. Why do
you ask?”

I shrugged. “I met a boy who died of a bee sting.”

“A dead boy,” Lucius said slowly, as though waiting for a punchline.

“I meant to say a ghost.”

“Ah. Of course.”

“He’s not very happy.”

Lucius nodded. “Ghosts rarely are.” He paused a moment, then added, “You didn’t offer to help him, did
you?”

He didn’t wait for my reply. I suppose he could already see it in my face.

“Oh, Maida,” he said. “Humans can be hard enough to satisfy, but ghosts are almost impossible.”

“I thought they just needed closure,” I said.

“Closure for the living and the dead can be two very different things. Does he want revenge on the bee?
Because unless it was a cousin, it would be long dead.”

“No, he just wants to be remembered.”

Lucius gave a slow shake of his head. “You could be bound to this promise forever.”

“I know,” I said.
But it was too late now.


Part II
After leaving the Rookery, I flew up into a tree–not one of the old oaks on the property, but one further
down the street where I could get a little privacy as I tried to figure out what to do next. Like most
corbae, I think better on a roost or in the air. I knew just trying to talk to Donald’s mother wouldn’t be
enough. At some point, I’d still have to, but first I thought I’d try to find out more about what exactly had
happened to her children.

That made me cheer up a little because I realized it would be like having a case and looking into the
background of it, the way a detective would. I’d be like a private eye in one of those old movies the
Aunts liked to watch, late at night when everybody else was asleep except for Zia and me. And probably
Lucius.

I decided to start with the deaths and work my way back from them.