"Stewart, Mary - Thorny Hold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mary Stewart - Thorny Hold)

inched its way up the stem till, parting with its reflection, it clung
clear of the water, exposed to the drying sun.

"What is it?"

"It's called a nymph. Watch now, Jilly. Just watch."

The creature moved. The ugly head went back, as if in pain. I did not
see what happened, but all at once there were two bodies there on the
stem, the split shell that had been the nymph, and, climbing from the
empty helmet of the head, another body, newly born, supple and alive, a
slimmer, bigger version of the first. It clung there, above the
wrinkled discard of its muddy skin, while the sunlight stroked it,
plumped it with liquid life, drew the crumpled silk of the wings out of
its humped shoulders and slowly pulled them straight, taut and shining
and webbed with veins as delicate as hairs, while from somewhere, it
seemed from the air itself, colour pulsed into the drab body till it
glimmered blue as a splinter of sky. The wings stretched, feeling the
air. The insect's body lifted, straightened.

Then into the light, like light, it was gone.

"It was a dragonfly, wasn't it?" I found myself whispering.

"It was. Aeshna Caerulea. Say it."

"Aeshna Caerulea. But how? You said it was an imp, but was there a
dragonfly inside?"

"Yes. The, nymph not 'imp' - lives at the bottom of the pond in the
dark, and feeds on whatever it can get, till one day it finds it can
climb out into the light, and grow its wings, and fly. What you've
just watched," finished Cousin Geillis cheerfully, "is a perfectly
ordinary miracle."

"You mean magic? Did you make it happen?"

"Not that, no. Some things I can make happen, but not that, apt though
it
was. Some day, if I'm right, something very like that miracle will be
needed. Another nymph, another way, another day." A quick, bright
glance.

"Do you understand me?"

"No. But you can make things happen? Are you really a witch, then,
Cousin Jilly?"

"What makes you ask that? Have they said anything at home?"