"Stephen Woodworth - Through Violet Eyes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Woodworth Stephen)

Baror; Greg Bear, Octavia Butler, Gordon van Gelder, Nancy Kress, and Gwyneth Jones, my
instructors at the 1999 Clarion West Writers Workshop, as well as Dave Myers, Leslie Howle, and the
whole Clarion West backstage crew; my fellow CW '99 alums Sarah Brandel, Christine Castigliano,
Duncan Clark, Sandy Clark, Monte Cook, Dan Dick, Andrea Hairston, Jay Joslin, Leah Kaufman,
Margo Lanagan, Ama Patterson, Elizabeth Roberts, Joe Sutliff Sanders, Tom Sweeney, Sheree Renee
Thomas, and Trent Walters; my family and friends; and, most of all, my dearest Colleague, Collaborator,
Soul Mate, Spouse, and Partner-in-All-Things, Kelly Dunn. I love you, sweetheart!

1

The Faceless Man

CROUCHING BEHIND THE WOODEN TOOLSHED along the back fence, the man watched the
little strawberry-blond girl at play in the yard. Perspiration blotched the featureless weave of the black
veil that obscured his face, and sweat oozed under the latex of his gloves as he flexed his fingers.

It hadn't rained in Los Angeles for almost six months, and the haze of accumulated smog cast an amber
pall over the pink bungalow house and its tiny backyard. The late September heat wave had dried the
grass to brittle yellow needles, and patches of bare dirt mottled the lawn like mange. An inflatable wading
pool decorated with Winnie-the-Pooh characters sagged in the center of the yard, and the girl squatted
in its shallow water, wearing a one-piece bathing suit with Tigger on the front. Her wispy hair hung in
horse-tail tangles about her freckled face as she made her naked Barbie doll swim in big circles around
her.

The man's breath quickened, the air hot and stifling underneath his mask of crepe. The child's mother was
at work, and the babysitter had gone into the house more than twenty minutes ago. It was the first time in
three days that the man had seen the girl left unattended. Nevertheless, he hesitated.

Then he saw her begin to twitch.

She dropped the doll in the water and clapped her hands over her ears. “Somebody's knocking!
Somebody's knocking!”

The man tensed and mouthed words under his breath. He imagined that he could hear the soundless
whispers now sifting into the girl's skull.

They had found her.

The girl stumbled out of the pool, still clutching her temples, jerking her head as if in the throes of a
seizure. “Somebody's knocking! Somebody's knocking!”

The man shot a wary glance toward the back door of the house and lunged toward her.

Seeing him, the girl yelped and broke into a zigzagging run toward the house. He blocked her, but she
dodged his grasping hands and doubled back on him, scrambling toward the backyard gate. When he cut
her off, she scampered to the chain-link fence that bordered the neighbors' yard, locked her fingers on its
wire mesh, and shook it, screaming.

As he took hold of her shoulders, though, a sudden exhaustion seemed to overwhelm her, and she
drooped against the fence. Her face pinched with concentration, she whispered the letters of the alphabet