Ardath Mayhar The Clarrington Heritage (pdf)

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energy.
Then she made coffee and put it in a Thermos. She brought out cookies
left from Evan's last visit and put them into a canister, which she tucked
under her arm. Cups and spoons, sugar ... she packed them into a small basket
with napkins.
Her heart had begun to race, thudding with dread or excitement or fear,
she wasn't sure which. Basket in hand, she went up the stairs to the first
landing. Then she paused and set her burdens down.
"I almost forgot," she exclaimed, feeling in the pocket of her jumpsuit
for her keys. Hurrying down again, she unlocked the front door and went out
onto the entry porch for the first time in years. The night air was warm and
humid, but it seemed intoxicating.
For ten years she had not set her foot on the steps or the walk beyond
them. She touched the iron gate. Then she set her own key in its lock and
turned it gently, silently, and heard the tumblers move smoothly to unlock the
stout barrier. She didn't push it open but left it, held shut by the latch.
She cocked her head to stare at the sky, which still held a trace of
light in the west, although it was somewhere near nine o'clock. A faint smear
of stars was visible, even through the reflected lights of the town. A breeze
rustled down the street, moving the stiff crepe myrtles that gave it its name.
Marise felt suddenly giddy with this sudden freedom from the
confinement of those stone walls. She felt as if she had dissolved into the
night and the breeze and the asphalt-scented air.
Now that she was outside, she hated to return through the carved door
into the musty space of the house. She knew she must, for her duty lay there,
for as long as she was alive to perform it.
She turned, her steps slow and reluctant. The thud of the closing door
behind her gave her a feeling of entrapment she had thought lost, years
before, when she chose this strange imprisonment. She stood for a moment in
the entry hall, remembering once again her arrival there.
It had not changed, though the carpet was a bit worn, perhaps, the
paint now less than fresh. But the mirror in the hall tree winked in the light
of the overhead fixture as she moved toward it and bent to peer into theclouded glass.
The fairy forest was still there, blurred into the old mercury
of the backing. Her face stared back at her, its lines of strain and age
erased in that magical mirror.
"Ben!" The name was jerked from her, but she closed her eyes, held her
breath and endured until the need to cry left her.
Marise straightened and went up the stairs, right up, past her waiting
basket, her own landing, to the third floor. Down the hall she went, around
the turn to Penelope's door, which she had left open on her last visit. The
flower basket lamps were bright enough to show her the way as she examined the
bolts, the sockets into which they slid, and the lock. Nothing had settled out
of plumb enough to disengage any of them. They were still capable of securing
this prison.
She leaned her head against the wall and now the tears came, but the
fit of weeping was short. She straightened, listening. Had there been a sound
below?
No, it was too early. Traffic still moved on the street. Young people
zipped past in cars, their radios so loud she could hear them even inside her
stone walls. He wouldn't come yet. Not before midnight, she felt with strange
certainty.
She knew now that she should have cleaned these rooms, as well as those
below, but she hadn't been able to force herself past the door. It might not
-- surely it would not! -- be used at all. This was just an aberration of her
own that made her consider such a use to be possible. She had to be wrong.
Suddenly she yawned. She was exhausted, and there would be time to
sleep before anything would happen. She could set her alarm, so as to wake in
time.
It didn't occur to her as she went back down, got her basket, and
entered her own quarters, that to be able to sleep at such a time was not
truly sane.
--------
INTERLOG: The Watcher
He waited impatiently as the evening dragged past. Once in a while his
landlady came to his door with offers of hot tea or cough syrup, and her good
intentions irritated him past bearing. He managed to sound properly grateful
and hoarse and sleepy, and at last she left him alone.
People wandered in and out until it seemed the house had to be some
sort of way station for the restless. He ground his teeth.
Eleven o'clock came at last. Eleven thirty. Don Glass would be coming
back at about one, he thought, unless there was some sort of emergency. The
watcher wanted to wait for him to come, for if he took his medicine from the
policeman's hand it would be proof he had been here all night.
Midnight came. The traffic in the halls and on the stairs began to
slow. By twelve-thirty, things were quiet. At a quarter of one there was no [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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