"Kathleen Ann Goonan - The Bones of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

palms across a brilliant blue lagoon. Kaiulani was filled with
dazzling light as these visions passed through her one after another
like waves, as if her body were made of light like them, permeable
and fluid, frighteningly without a center, an ocean of time filled
with images and pain without end, without a beginning. She cried
out, but it,was like the voice of someone else, falling on her own ears
like the muffled bird cries outside the sealed windows.
The kahuna was still holding her hand to the bones when her
mother spoke, and the swirl of images became shadowed. Likelike’s
words fell into the dark room like bright stones tossed into a deep
pool, shimmering then receding into darkness while ripples spread
endlessly outward. She spoke in a harsh whisper; the words were
sharp and precise and offered singly, slowly, charged with
inevitability. “You will live far away,” Likelike said. “You will never
marry. You will never be queen.”
Shaking, struggling for breath, Kaiulani yanked her hand from
the bones, from the kahuna’s dry strong grasp. She took two steps
across the ornate designs woven into the rug, strange abstract
turrets and passageways that stood out for her somehow in the
slowed and awful moment.
At her mother’s bedside, she saw the sick woman’s eyes were
closed. Her chest—was it?…
Yes, it still rose and fell. Barely.
Barely. Kaiulani touched Likelike’s cheek, but those dear eyes
remained shut. She felt the itch of sweat rolling down her face. She
grasped her mother’s narrow shoulders with both hands. And shook
her. Just a bit. Wake her up. It didn’t work. She shook harder.
“Wake up, Mama. Wake up!”
“Princess!” shouted the nurse, and Kaiulani struggled against the
strong arm around her waist, hauling her backward. The door
slammed open and her father rushed in, heavy boots thudding.
“What has happened? Is she… ?” He whirled to face the kahuna,
shouted at him, “Get out of here!”
Kaiulani had never once heard him shout before.
The kahuna stood and chanted, in slow, beautiful Hawaiian.
It was a passage chant, words to build a bridge to the otherworld
for her mother’s spirit.
She ran from the room and rushed down the wide, polished
hallway, through the great room cluttered with chairs and tables
where her mother had so recently played cards with the German
ambassador and his wife, her shining dark hair piled high and
laced with flowers.
Holding up her long skirt, Kaiulani burst into the bright
sunshine, ran toward the strip of bright blue ocean that shone at the
end of the leafy lane, away from the terrible visions, the
conflagrations, the barely glimpsed deaths of loved ones, each of
whom went into the fearsome dark alone.
Princess Likelike, the sister of King David Kalakaua and
Liliuopkalani Dominis, neither of whom had children, died at four
o’clock that afternoon.