-About vampires? — I asked mechanically, although everything is good to hear. Apparently, I wished that I had missed something. When such unprecedented, existing in the distant nowhere things you hear from the mouth of an adult, although with views of the fool, man, wish that it was flat joke, well, at worst, a clumsy attempt to frighten.
-About real vampires. Vampires. Bloodsuckers.
-So what? My presence of mind was somewhere disappear, because suddenly it seemed that Ivan Noodles will say now: "And that's it!", — with a good appetite and bloodthirsty champing at my throat.
-And what Peter — ghoul.
From this, spoken in whispers proposals large goose bumps peacefully пасшиеся on my back suddenly rushed down somewhere together and raced together and raced and shoulders, as if by invisible winds. Eyes shepherd burned triumphantly. Apparently, it reached the produced effect on me.
In the back layfon, if someone is pierced her icy gaze of the near standing trees. I hardly overcome stiffness, turned around, and here it seemed to me that in the undergrowth, among погружающихся in предвечерние soft pink and Golden twilight the bushes and bushes of hazel flashes here and there rapaciously smiling face Peter-defunct выслеживающего moment had to grab my neck. However, it turned out that it play a recent falling into the lower layers of the forest of the rays of the low sun descended welcome here and there on its way gleaming, отблескивающие leaves.
-We can not now appear together in the village. Varvara can notice. But you go on, Ivan Noodles speaking rapidly all the same frightening breath, " go, get into the attic to a fortune Pelagiya. There are a lot of old books. Among them is one such, covered with red velvet with оттиснутым gold intricate character. She's fat, page it along the edges of the gilded, and the cover is closed on a big brass buckle. This book open and read. Everything is written there. You will understand... come on.
The shepherd let go of me and began to push in the back. I walked away, trying to get out of her daze, but it didn't, and there was such a feeling as if I were not whole, and part of me the light and agile already somewhere carried away by itself. In pursuit still heard the voice of Ivan Noodles:
And look, the door today, nobody is opened. Пелагею warn. It got like, grandmother churchy. Let the candle in front of the icon will light, lamp shines, and prays let praying... Tell her sure. And itself on the attic... And the doors don't open...
Day quickly subsided, and I all sat at the window, feeling everything inside me cooled, and blood was viscous and barely flowed through his veins. Pelageya was engaged in стряпней, something growling to himself, and, when she walked out into the yard, I felt terribly wanted to someone kind, a great and strong was now near and said something tender and warm, what would be scary and light at heart. But only grandma came back into the house and притворяла for the crash the door into the hall, as the desire of the disappeared and instead remained emptiness and shrill, a clear understanding that this warm and large cannot be next, because there isn't one, and has the same helpless and vain, fearful, and thirsty in spite of all peace and happiness in their understanding of people, and among them, such as myself, small and тщедушных no one who has dispelled my loneliness, loneliness is not something suddenly and once нагрянувшее, was as gloomy cloud on the sun, which is as fast, even with the nostalgic regretfully had to go, and the feeling of another afoot to me, as a tireless and evil companion, for life, the receding, lagging a few steps in the coming very close, why, how now, was a particularly difficult and depressing.
Time is always slow and lazy in the evening hours, inexorably was carried away away like finding a deterrent measure space ккую the dimensionless the loophole, and I barely two or three times was about to start with Pelageya serious conversation about this mythical, but suddenly became real , almost physically tangible, he only had to imagine that somewhere near wanders ghoul, danger, but then postponed his hesitating and the faint sensation, for a completely darkened, and became really scared.
Only I thought that it is necessary to gather Ghost and begin to speak, as the door of the house, someone knocked. Those who broke loose from the sleepy silence sharp, loud and bold strokes, I screamed involuntarily so that "Пантелеиха", gazing back at me, crossed myself, "Holy, Holy, Holy!" apparently, it still somehow passed on to my anxious mood.
"Don't open. Don't open! — I asked Пелагею.
'What is it?! She said angrily, moving meanwhile Kryukov beam-bolt, which on the night locked the door.
In the shadow of the entered Alena.
-Good evening! — Hello girl and came to me with a question. — You тятьку not seen?
-What тятьку?
-'t play stupid with me not. Know it all! Тятьку, I say, not seen, Alena did not even led, brilliantly after exposure.
Pelageya passed by as if you hadn't listening to what we speak, though it could not interested in this late visit and the theme of our conversation. At least the word "тятька", spoken quite loudly.
I have not seen, — he did not know why I lied to her.
"You're lying! — The tone of voice of the girls was too familiar, and I knew she was extremely excited, otherwise she would not have allowed myself such.
At this her scream Pelageya turned around, and I realized that the old very carefully listening, though they pretend that it's all the same.
Maybe the cows still hovering?
-What a cow! Look: a night! — Appeal Alena became increasingly bizarre. She was being lectured me as нашалившего boy, is increasingly raising his voice less ashamed of presence of anyone else.
-Yes, I don't know! — I was able to fire up the answer, as I thought that it really did not know where the shepherd: he told me nothing except that... — Say — I don't know!
"But you saw today? — Already more conciliatory " the girl asked, and I gave up:
-Well seen! Thought: "In fact, why hide it?!"
I think now is the best time to open their cards and tell grandmother and girl all that I know, and that asked me to make sure Ivan Noodles, although about Alena her father did not spread and forgot to warn me if she had something to tell.
In a few words, referring to the fact that very little, that have understood from the stories shepherd, I explained the essence, saying that allegedly Peter — an extraordinary dead, and tonight will stagger through the village, knock on the door and look in the window, and therefore open them in any case impossible, and, moreover, would do well to pray for greater reliability.
Pelageya loudly laughed, but still went and opened занавесочку in the corner, had lit a lamp and began to quietly pray, standing to his full height, crossing himself and seemed to hesitate when we kneel.
I approached her and stood, staring at the images and icons, with a pyramid filled the corner. Pelageya interrupted the prayer, putting his hand to his chest, and her eyes I lost any desire to pray with her, though at just that moment a clear necessity to turn to God visited me.
-Are you a believer? — The question of its cooled my religious impulse.
-Baptized.
-So little that baptized-that is, do Not bother me.
I went away, thinking that God will hear my sincere desire to turn to him, and went to Alena, who was sitting in a loss on the bench, lost in meditation.
"You go home? I asked her, with a touch on his shoulder, to the girl woke up from his reverie.
-And what?.. Ah, home. I don't know. I don't feel like it.
-Then went with me to the attic.
Alena looked at me with distrust and only shook her head negatively.
-What are you gonna do?
The girl stayed at a loss and, apparently, was so exhausted shocks that only wearily lowered her eyes and began to consider their fingers. I touched her shoulder, having a warm, sad-sweet feeling akin to compassion, and however, the tenderness, but she led them forward, and hand slid off.
"Don't touch me — I heard her soft voice.
"You want us to stay? Asked Alain coming at this time Pelageya.
I don't know, " replied the girl, raising his eyes continuing to poke hands.
-Well, stay, come, I'll put you to sleep.
"Пантелеиха held the girl to the chest at the window, where it is almost a month I slept, and had a bed for her there.
"Good night, I would'alene.
"Good night, " she said. — And where you sleep you?
-Yes, anything, I'll find me where to go.
Pelageya задернула blind, отгородив improvised couch from the room, and I, making sure that it went to my room, went into the hall, where the attic led narrow, attached to the wall sloping ladder of poles, taking a kerosene lamp.
In the attic on the knee it is piled dry hay, so we have been very careful with керосинкой not to cause fire. Here all запылившегося junk, junk and useless things like a chair with отломленной leg and cracked a large clay pitcher there were so many that the midst of it there was no way we had to move with great caution, to avoid making noise, caught accidentally one of наваленных to the roof of the mountains of junk for some thingy hanging out there. Involuntarily impression that this musty the closet, in which the careless, lazy the owner puts their поломавшиеся things in the hope that someday someone he's fixed them, or he himself takes up this matter, sleeves rolled up, and all at once remodel, leaving nothing broken, and yet... but Pelagiya could forgive such a desolation: the grandmother was lonely , too old and, see, not raised here already ten years in a row., because the layer of dust covered everything around exactly grey virgin snow, concealing the outlines of objects and producing the impression of unreality sham scenery. Besides, judging on subjects such as an old gramophone with a copper plaque "Mechanical заводъ Mr. Zubkov" on the side, over the cluttering of the attic employed generations of owners of this house. Could only wonder how under the weight of these things, converted into an antique garbage, ceilings of the rooms in the house were still in good condition and did not fall down. Apparently, the house was solidly made.
I gradually deepened further and further, carefully облазя and stepping along the way blockages, but accidental touches raising clouds of heavy dust, обваливающейся down and then rising higher and higher. Among the mass of rubbish find anything was hopeless, especially because I don't know why climbed up here. Ivan Noodles not give any further explanation, and maybe really hung me noodles on the ears, for he was a fool. Having reached one edge of the roof, then to the other, to the third, I felt like a real ass, which cheats village idiot, забавясь secret in the quiet joy alone their mischief and how to manage him подурачить sensible, not like him, a man, and thinking of come up with more to continue its dirty with легковерной and frightened victim.
Imagine such a clear picture, I angrily spat, remembering shepherd all the unkind words which only got near me this minute, and started to descend from the attic. Already going down and trying to get a toe on a thin жердочку, I put a stick and, leaning on something, covered with dust, he felt suddenly that depart from under my fingers in different directions, to fall into the trap and my foot, failing to find support, rushed in прогал between жердянками, and in the next second, describing unimaginable arc and making a somersault, my body is hung on a ladder between heaven and earth in a ridiculous pose upside down, stumbling over something, under the noise.
Chapter 17.
The people at the station was a dime a dozen, and I until midnight stood in line at the cash register. The tickets were only on a train in the morning, eleven o'clock, and I had the whole night проволынить the loud, crowded station.
Seats were tightly crammed with passengers, who has not enough chairs, huddled here, on your product, примащивая as soon as possible to children on their bags, baskets and bags. Hardly any place freed, he immediately rushed from different sides and then long and angrily argued about who it must be. Finally someone prevailed, but sometimes it nearly came to blows.
After watching this show, I realized that it was useless something to wait for, and I very much like to me someone shouted. The prospect remained gloomy: all night to spend on their feet, hanging out on the huge building of the hall, studying kiosk with Newspapers, funny expensive trinkets in private stalls brought enterprising operators of the hill" and from time to time for a variety of push in the queue for bread rolls and coffee, so at least thus deceive sleep and fatigue.
Motley Vokzalnaya crowd, not decreasing, but, on the contrary, only arriving, густеющая night, gave food for observations. Among road Luda, tortured persons whose ugly mask been imprinted confusion, close to the capitulation of the plight of the endless road and fatigue disorder and need constant vigil over my belongings and possessions, were infinite number of thugs and crooks, not how much стесняющееся rare guards, lazily вышагивающих among the dozing of the mass, and even entering sometimes in the open squabble with the latter, the outgoing eventually swift flee and disappearance monotonically going crowd. The toilets were flocks of short-haired teenagers in jackets for growth, it is important to elegantly, though in the most expensive restaurant, Smoking cheap cigarettes, business blowing smoke up and trying to impress. They use foul language, accustomed to, that no one pays attention to them, either because of fear, fatigue, and зыркали the visitors institution prickly, arrogant, thriftily обшаривающими views of small empty eye, in which there was nothing but fight and readiness to violence. "These cubs!" "I thought, when such a view slashed at me, and then for a long time, standing in a stall, couldn't do anything and tried to portray that I cannot find and unbutton his trousers, feeling cold on the back, you can count me come back to your eyes.
At the corners of the halls, in the darkest places with big bales are settled the whole Roma camps, постеливших right on the dirt floor of the new Terry towels of such a size, which is in my life before had ever seen, and laid them side by side side by his numerous grimy cubs. Gypsy immediately stuck to the unlucky onlookers, who dared to go by, набиваясь tell fortunes and tell the "whole truth". Other traded junk. Bearded, hairy men asleep or gathered in a small handful of something talked and argued in his strange language.
For fun in one of these places I stopped to discreetly, from afar to see how the Gypsy earns his living, облапошивая unsuspecting customer. She showed the palm of their hand, finger, energetic, colorful жестикулировала, smiling, whined, looking in the eyes and then suddenly seriously pouted and again appealed to the palm. The client continually climbed into his pocket and laid them on the palm of one by one for the money, fine, but sometimes larger.
