"Freda Warrington - A Taste of Blood Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Warrington Freda)

"Get yourself to bed, m'dear," he said with a sort of affectionate
irritation. "You're no use to man nor beast in this state, spreading
your germs everywhere. Go on, I'll send Mrs M up with a hot drink."
Mrs Maple dosed her with aspirin and briskly tucked her into bed as
if she were five years old. She was all business, no tenderness about
her at all. Charlotte was glad when she had gone.
This is really quite funny, she thought as she lay sweating and
shivering in bed, staring at the dark-panelled walls of her room.
Only I could be glad to catch the flu. Now I shan't be able to go to
father's lecture to the Royal Society, and it will be the first one I've
ever missed… But I wanted a reason not to go, because I am too


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much of a coward to meet this gentleman friend of Maddy's. If I
ignore him, will he go away?
She fell asleep. The fever extended its web of tendrils into her
dreams, distorting every anxiety into a palpable enemy.
When she closed her eyes she could hear a weird, rhythmic noise
coming at her from a great distance. She stood on a brooding,
desolate shore; a sooty beach and an iron-grey ocean, separated
from a watery black sky by the inkline of the horizon. She felt tiny
and vulnerable under the sweep of the sky, helpless before the
crashing power of the waves. And there were birds, flying slow and
straight towards her, with a steady whump-whump-whump of wings.
That was the hideous, monotonous sound she could hear.
Wingbeats. Featherless primeval creatures with long, long teeth like
razors. The only specks of colour were their blood-red tongues
which slithered and hissed in cages of fangs. Steadily and malignly
they flew towards her. Even though she knew they were only in her
mind she could not make them go away. The terror of anticipation
was a physical pain, unbearable, but there was nothing she could do
to end it…
David was beside her. The beach was a sort of battlefield and as
they waited for the birds to come he was cheerfully giving her
instructions: "Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes, old
girl." She looked round and saw a bright green meadow sheened red
with poppies behind them and she cried, "David, I've found a way
out!" and she began to run and run towards the brilliance.
But he was not with her. She tried to turn back for him but couldn't,
there was a vast trench in front of her and he was on the other side,

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with Anne, Fleur, Madeleine and Father. They were stranded.