"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - The Room of Lost Souls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

I can lie and say I hadn’t thought about any of it. I can be blunt and say
that I want nothing to do with the Room of Lost Souls.

Or I can be truthful and say that her words have played through my
head for the last three days. Tempting me. Frightening me.

Intriguing me.

At odd moments, I find myself wondering how I would see the place
after all my years of wreck diving, after all the times I’ve risked my life, after
all the hazards I’ve survived.

“You have,” she says with something like triumph.

I continue to eat, but I’m no longer savoring the taste. I almost push
my plate away—it’s a crime not to taste this squid—but I don’t.

I don’t want her to see any emotion from me at all.

“But you have questions,” she says as if I’m actually taking part in this
conversation. “You want to know how I found you.”
 The hell of it is that I do want to know that. Hardly anyone knows I
survived the Room of Lost Souls. I can’t say that no one knows because
the crew on my father’s ship knew. And I have no idea what happened to all
of them.

“I have people who can find almost anything,” she says.

People. She has people. Which means she’s rich.

“If you have people,” I say with an emphasis on that phrase, “then
have them go to the Room themselves and have them ‘recover’ your
father.”

Her cheeks flush. She looks away, but only for a minute. Then she
takes a deep breath, as if she needs courage to dive back into this
conversation.

“They don’t believe that anyone can get out. They think that’s as much
a myth as the Room itself.”

I don’t know how I got out. My memory is fluid and try as I might to
recover that moment, I can’t.

When it becomes clear that I am not going to confirm or deny what
happened to me, she says, “Your father is still alive.”

I jolt. I had no idea the old man had made it this long.

“Have you ever asked him about the Room?”