"Zenna Henderson - Pilgrimage2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Henderson Zenna)

coffee. She left them both untasted and wandered back into the bedroom. She
fingered the strange nightgown she was wearing and then, in a sudden
breathless skirl of action, stripped it off and scrambled into her own
clothes.
She yanked the doorknob. It wouldn't turn. She hammered softly with her fists
on the unyielding door. She hurried to the open window and sitting on the sill
started to swing her legs across it. Her feet thumped into an invisible
something. Startled she thrust out a hand and stubbed her fingers. She pressed
both hands slowly outward and stared at them as they splayed against a
something that stopped them.
 She went back to the bed and stared at it. She made it up, quickly,
meticulously, mitering the corners of the sheets precisely and plumping the
pillow. She melted down to the edge of the bed and stared at her tightly
clasped hands. Then she slid slowly down, turning and catching herself on her
knees. She buried her face in her hands and whispered into the arid grief that
burned her eyes, "Oh, God! Oh, God! Are You really there?"
For a long time she knelt there, feeling pressed against the barrier that
confined her, the barrier that, probably because of Karen, was now an inert
impersonal thing instead of the malicious agony-laden frustrating,
deliberately evil creature it had been for so long.
Then suddenly, incongruously, she heard Karen's voice. "You haven't eaten."
Her startled head lifted. No one was in the room with her. "You haven't
eaten," she heard the voice again, Karen's matter-of-fact tone. "You haven't
eaten."
She pulled herself up slowly from her knees, feeling the smart of returning
circulation. Stiffly she limped to the other room. The coffee steamed gently
at her although she had poured it out a lifetime ago. The bacon and eggs were
still warm and uncongealed. She broke the warm crisp toast and began to eat.
"I'll figure it all out sometime soon," she murmured to her plate. "And then
I'll probably scream for a while."

Karen came back early in the afternoon, bursting through the door that swung
open before she reached it.
"Oh, Lea!" she cried, seizing her and whirling her in a mad dance. "You'd
never guess-not in a million years! Oh, Lea! Oh, Lea!" She dumped the two of
them onto the bed and laughed delightedly. Lea pulled away from her.
"Guess what?" Her voice sounded as dry and strained as her tearless eyes.
Karen sat up quickly. "Oh, Lea! I'm so sorry. In all the mad excitement I
forgot.
"Listen, Jemmy says you're to come to the Gathering tonight. I can't tell
you-I mean, you wouldn't be able to understand without a lengthy explanation,
and even then-" She looked into Lea's haunted eyes. "It's bad, isn't it?" she
asked softly. "'Even Stilled, it comes through like a blunt knife hacking,
doesn't it? Can't you cry, Lea? Not even a tear?"
"Tears-" Lea's hands were restless. " 'Nor all your tears wash out a word of
it.' " She pressed her hands to the tight constriction in her chest. Her
throat ached intolerably. "How can I bear it?" she whispered. "When you let it
come back again how can I even bear it?"
"You don't have to bear it alone. You need never have borne it alone. And I
won't release you until you have enough strength.