"Cat Magic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Strieber Whitley)

as the druggist married the grocer's daughter, slipping apart
when he died, becoming knotted when she also passed on,
and so on, the cloth never finished, its invisible patterns
ceaselessly shimmering and changing.

Only one of the townspeople, Constance Collier, had both
the wisdom and inclination to sit occasionally at the sacred
loom and maneuver the threads around a bit, perhaps grant-
ing some indigent follower of hers a little good fortune or
causing the business affairs of one of her adversaries to come
unraveled.

She never touched the thread connected to the mythical
cat's imaginary ear, and hadn't since she had first tied it, a
deed she had done on a soft spring day when she was still
full of hope,

4 Whitley Strieber

Many long years had passed since then, while Constance
had plotted and spelled and hexed and waited. But she had
never needed to call the cat. She had gone from being a
beautiful young woman to a wise old one, and had become
patient with her lifetime of waiting.

If the thread was pulled, it would bring the cat back to Stone
Mountain, and down into innocent, unsuspecting Maywell.
There was, however, only one reason to do this appalling thing.

Of late Constance had known renewed hope. There was
a chance, after all, that the final chapter in a very old
story would at last be written.

Constance, Dr. Walker, Brother Pierce—three of the main
characters are in place. There remains only one more, and
she is already approaching the town, chugging along in her
ancient Volkswagen Beetle. Even more promising, it is jammed
with luggage and easels.

An observer of the invisible could see that the particular
thread that is tied to the cat's ear has wafted down and fallen
across Morris .Stage Road. The old Volks wheezes, its gears
grind, and it moves closer.

Hidden breezes blow the thread about, entangling it in the
lower limbs of an autumn-fired birch. Now the thread is tight.

Closer and closer the car comes, its blond young driver
peering out. There are no exit markers here. She has been
told to take the third right after the big crossroads. She is