"Charles de Lint - Spirits in the Wires" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

I saw her when I first came in, sitting to the right of the door at a window table, nursing a
tall cup of chai tea. She’d been writing in a small, leather-bound book, fountain pen in one
hand, the other holding back the spill of blonde hair that would otherwise fall into her eyes.
She looked up when I came in and showed no sign of recognition, but since then she’s been
studying me whenever she thinks I’m not paying attention to her.
“You do know me,” I tell her. “I’m pieces of your boyfriend—the ones he didn’t want when
he was a kid.”
She gives me a puzzled look, though I can see a kind of understanding start up in the back
of those pretty, sea-blue eyes of hers.
“You—are you the woman in his journals?” she asks. “The one he calls Mystery?”
I smile. “That’s me. The shadow of himself.”
“I didn’t…”
“Know I was real?” I finish for her when her voice trails off.
She shakes her head. “No. I just didn’t expect to ever see you in a place like this.”
“I like coffee.”
“I meant someplace so mundane.”

file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/de%20Lint,%20Charles%20-%20Spirits%20in%20the%20Wires%20(v1.0).html (5 of 346)8-12-2006 23:50:50
SPIRITS IN THE WIRES by Charles de Lint


“Ah. So you’ve made note of all those romantic flights of fancy he puts in those journals of
his.” I close my eyes, shuffling through pages of memory until I find one of them. “ ‘I can
see her standing among the brambles and thorns of some half-forgotten hedgerow in a green
bridal dress, her red hair set aflame by the setting sun, her eyes dark with mysteries and
stories, a wooden hare’s mask dangling from one languid hand. This is how I always see her.
In the hidden and secret places, her business there incomprehensible yet obviously perfectly
suited to her curious, evasive nature.’”
I get a smile from Saskia, but I don’t know if it’s from the passage I’ve quoted, or because
I’m mimicking Christy’s voice as I repeat the words.
“That’s a new one,” she says. “He hasn’t read it to me yet.”
“You wait for him to read them to you?”
“Of course. I would never go prying…” She pauses and gives me a considering look. “When
do you read them?”
I shrug. “Oh, you know. Whenever. I don’t really sleep, so sometimes when I get bored late
at night I come by and sit in his study for awhile to read what he’s been thinking about
lately.”
“You’re as bad as the crow girls.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Mmm.” She studies me for a moment before adding, “You don’t read my journals do you?”
I muster a properly offended look, though it’s not that I wouldn’t. I just haven’t. Yet.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Of course you wouldn’t. We don’t have the same connection as you
and Christy do.”
“Does that connection bother you?”
She shakes her head. “That would be like being bothered by his having Geordie for a
brother. You’re more like family—albeit the twin sister who only comes creeping by to visit
in the middle of the night when we’re both asleep.”
I shrug, but I don’t apologize.
“I’m only his shadow,” I say.
She studies me again, those sea-blue eyes of hers looking deep into mine.