Читаем The Book Of Lost Things полностью

He stomped away from the table, leaving his dinner unfinished. He was still hungry, but the stew was mainly vegetables with some nasty pieces of cheap sausage spread through it to break the monotony. He knew that he’d have to eat the rest of it tomorrow, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t going to taste any worse reheated than it did already. As he headed for his room, he expected to hear his father’s voice demanding that he return and finish his food, but nobody called him back. He sat down hard on his bed. He couldn’t wait for the summer holidays to be over. A place had been found for David in a school not far from the house, which would at least be better than spending every day with Rose and Georgie.

David was not seeing Dr. Moberley quite as often, mainly because nobody had time to take him into London. Anyway, the attacks had stopped, or so it appeared. He no longer fell to the ground or experienced blackouts, but something far stranger and more unsettling was now occurring, stranger even than the whisperings of the books, to which David had grown almost accustomed.

David was experiencing waking dreams. That was the only way he could find to describe them to himself. It felt like those moments late in the evening when you were reading or listening to the radio and you grew so tired that for an instant you fell asleep and started dreaming, except obviously you didn’t realize you’d fallen asleep so that the world suddenly seemed to become very strange. David would be playing in his room, or reading, or walking in the garden, and everything would shimmer. The walls would disappear, the book would fall from his hands, the garden would be replaced by hills and tall, gray trees. He would find himself in a new land, a twilight place of shadows and cold winds, heavy with the smell of wild animals. Sometimes, he would even hear voices. They were somehow familiar as they called to him, but as soon as he tried to concentrate on them, the vision would end and he would be back in his own world.

The strangest thing of all was that one of the voices sounded like his mother’s. It was the one that spoke loudest and clearest. She called to him from out of the darkness. She called to him, and she told him that she was alive.

The waking dreams were always strongest near the sunken garden, but David found them so disturbing that he tried to stay away from that part of the property as much as possible. In fact, so troubled was David by them that he was tempted to tell Dr. Moberley about them, if his father could make time for an appointment. Perhaps he would finally tell him about the whispering of the books too, David thought. The two might be linked, but then he thought of Dr. Moberley’s questions about David’s mother and remembered once again the threat of being “put away.” When David talked to him about missing his mother, Dr. Moberley would talk in turn about grief and loss, about how it was natural yet you had to try to get over it. But being sad about your mother dying was one thing; hearing her voice crying out from the shadows of a sunken garden, claiming to be alive behind the decaying brickwork, was quite another. David wasn’t sure how Dr. Moberley would respond to that. He didn’t want to be put away, but the dreams were frightening. He wanted them to stop.

It was one of his last days at home before school recommenced. Tiring of the house, David went for a walk in the woods at the back of the property. He picked up a big stick and scythed at the long grass. He found a spider’s web in a bush and tried to tempt the spider out with fragments of small sticks. He dropped one close to the center of the web, but nothing happened. David realized it was because the stick wasn’t moving. It was the struggles of the insect that alerted the spider, which made David think that perhaps spiders were a lot cleverer than anything so small had a right to be.

He looked back at the house and saw the window of his bedroom. The ivy growing on the walls almost surrounded the frame, making his room look more than ever like a part of the natural world. Now that he saw it from a distance, he noticed the ivy was thickest at his window and had barely touched any of the other windows on this side of the house. It had not spread across the lower parts of the wall either, the way ivy usually did, but had climbed straight and true along a narrow path to David’s window. Like the beanstalk in the fairy tale that led Jack to the giant, the ivy seemed to know precisely where it was going.

Перейти на страницу:

Похожие книги

Утес чайки
Утес чайки

В МИРЕ ПРОДАНО БОЛЕЕ 30 МИЛЛИОНОВ ЭКЗЕМПЛЯРОВ КНИГ ШАРЛОТТЫ ЛИНК.НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫЙ БЕСТСЕЛЛЕР ГЕРМАНИИ № 1.Шарлотта Линк – самый успешный современный автор Германии. Все ее книги, переведенные почти на 30 языков, стали национальными и международными бестселлерами. В 1999–2023 гг. снято более двух десятков фильмов и сериалов по мотивам ее романов.Несколько пропавших девушек, мертвое тело у горных болот – и ни единого следа… Этот роман – беспощадный, коварный, загадочный – продолжение мирового бестселлера Шарлотты Линк «Обманутая».Тело 14-летней Саскии Моррис, бесследно исчезнувшей год назад на севере Англии, обнаружено на пустоши у горных болот. Вскоре после этого пропадает еще одна девушка, по имени Амели. Полиция Скарборо поднята по тревоге. Что это – дело рук одного и того же серийного преступника? Становится известно еще об одном исчезновении девушки, еще раньше, – ее так и не нашли. СМИ тут же заговорили об Убийце с пустошей, что усилило давление на полицейских.Сержант Кейт Линвилл из Скотланд-Ярда также находится в этом районе, но не по службе – пытается продать дом своих родителей. Случайно она знакомится с отчаявшейся семьей Амели – и, не в силах остаться в стороне, начинает независимое расследование. Но Кейт еще не представляет, с какой жутью ей предстоит столкнуться. Под угрозой ее рассудок – и сама жизнь…«Линк вновь позволяет нам заглянуть глубоко в человеческие бездны». – Kronen Zeitung«И снова настоящий восторг из-под пера королевы криминального жанра Шарлотты Линк». – Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung«Шарлотта Линк – одна из немногих мировых литературных звезд из Германии». – Berliner Zeitung«Отличный, коварный, глубокий, сложный роман». – Brigitte«Шарлотте Линк снова удалось выстроить очень сложную, но связную историю, которая едва ли может быть превзойдена по уровню напряжения». – Hamburger Morgenpost«Королева саспенса». – BUNTE«Потрясающий тембр авторского голоса Линк одновременно чарует и заставляет стыть кровь». – The New York Times«Пробирает до дрожи». – People«Одна из лучших писательниц нашего времени». – Journal für die Frau«Мощные психологические хитросплетения». – Focus

Шарлотта Линк

Детективы / Триллер
Агент на месте
Агент на месте

Вернувшись на свою первую миссию в ЦРУ, придворный Джентри получает то, что кажется простым контрактом: группа эмигрантов в Париже нанимает его похитить любовницу сирийского диктатора Ахмеда Аззама, чтобы получить информацию, которая могла бы дестабилизировать режим Аззама. Суд передает Бьянку Медину повстанцам, но на этом его работа не заканчивается. Вскоре она обнаруживает, что родила сына, единственного наследника правления Аззама — и серьезную угрозу для могущественной жены сирийского президента. Теперь, чтобы заручиться сотрудничеством Бьянки, Суд должен вывезти ее сына из Сирии живым. Пока часы в жизни Бьянки тикают, он скрывается в зоне свободной торговли на Ближнем Востоке — и оказывается в нужном месте в нужное время, чтобы сделать попытку положить конец одной из самых жестоких диктатур на земле…

Марк Грени

Триллер