"Diana Wynne Jones - The Game" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

pen moved northwards to golden threads growing like grass over
Europe and Asia. Grandad shook his head. “Golden apples all over.
They cause death and eternal life and danger and choices. They
must be important. But none of them combine. None of them spiral
and harden. I don’t know why.”
“If they’re real,” Hayley said, “can a person go and walk in them,
or are they like germs and atoms and too small to see?”
“Oh, yes,” Grandad said, frowning at the threads. “Only I don’t
advocate walking in the spirals. Everything gets pretty fierce out
there.”
“But nearer in. Do you walk or float?” Hayley wanted to know.
“You could take a boat if you want,” Grandad said, “or even a car
sometimes. But I prefer to walk myself. It’s—”
But here Grandma came storming in and seized Hayley by one
arm. “Really! Honest to goodness, Tas!” she said, dragging Hayley
away from the screen. “You ought to know better than to let
Hayley in among this stuff!”
“It’s not doing her any harm!” Grandad protested.
“On the contrary. It could do immense harm—to us and Hayley
too, if Jolyon gets to hear of it!” Grandma retorted. She dragged
Hayley out of the room and shut the door with a bang. “Hayley, you
are not to have anything to do with the mythosphere, ever again!”
she said. “Forget you ever saw it!”



3
«^»
Being ordered to forget about the mythosphere was like being
ordered not to think of a blue elephant. Hayley could not forget
those beautiful swirling, drifting, shining threads. She thought
about the mythosphere constantly, almost as often as she stood on a
chair and stared at the young, happy faces in her parents’ wedding
photo. It was as if the mythosphere had cast a spell on her.
Something tugged at her chest whenever she remembered it, and
she felt a great sad longing that was almost like feeling sick.
It was a few days later that she met the musicians properly for
the first time.
She knew one of the musicians by sight anyway. She saw him
every time the latest maid took her round by the shops instead of
out on the common. Martya, the newest maid, always nodded and
smiled at him. Martya was a big strong girl with hair like the white
silk fringes on Grandma’s parlour furniture—soft, straight hair
that was always swirling across her round pink face.
Unfortunately, Martya’s face did not live up to her beautiful hair in
any way. Grandma sniffed and called Martya “distressingly plain,”
and then sighed and wished Martya spoke better English. When she
sent Martya and Hayley round by the shops, Grandma always had
to give Martya a list written in big capital letters because Martya
didn’t read English very well either. This, Grandma explained to