Rose Madder (1995) by Stephen King

Author:Stephen King [King, Stephen]
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-12-19T00:42:24.843000+00:00

10

Rosie walked slowly away from the stairs. At the head of the path leading back into the grove of dead trees, she sat down with the baby in her lap. All she wanted was to regain her breath, but the hazy sun was warm on her back, and when she raised her head again, some small change in the lie of her shadow made her think she might have dozed a little.

As she got to her feet, wincing at the pain that shot through the muscles of her right thigh, she heard the harsh, squabbling cry of many birds they sounded like a big family having a rancorous argument at Sunday dinner. The child in her arms made a soft snorting sound as Rosie shifted her to a more comfortable position, blew a little spit-bubble between her pursed lips, then fell silent again. Rosie was both amused by and deeply envious of her placid, sleeping confidence.

She started down the path, then stopped and looked back at the single living tree with its shiny green leaves, its bounty of deadly reddish-purple fruit, and the Classical Fables subway entrance standing nearby. She looked at these things for a long moment, filling her eyes and mind with them.

They're real,she thought. How can things I see so clearly be anything but real? And I dozed off, I know I did. How can you go to sleep in a dream? How can you go to sleep when you're sleeping already?

Forget it,Practical-Sensible said. That's the best thing, at least for the time being.

Yes, probably it was.

Rosie started off again, and when she reached the fallen tree blocking the path, she was amused and rather exasperated to see that her arduous detour around the snarl of roots could have been avoided: there was an easy path around the top of the tree.

At least there is now,she thought as she went around it. Are you sure there was before, Rosie?

The rocky babble of the black stream rose in her ears, and when she reached it, she saw that the level had already begun to drop and the stepping-stones no longer looked so perilously small; now they looked almost the size of floor-tiles, and the scent of the water had lost its ominously attractive quality. Now it just smelled like very hard water, the kind that would leave an orange ring around the tub and toilet-bowl.

The squabble of the birds You did, No I didn't, Yes you did started up again, and she observed twenty or thirty of the largest birds she had ever seen in her life lined up along the peak of the temple's roof. They were much too big to be crows, and after a moment she decided they were this world's version of buzzards or vultures. But where had they come from? And why were they here?

Without realizing she was doing it until the infant squirmed and protested in her sleep, Rosie hugged the baby tighter to her breast as she gazed at the birds. They all took off at the same instant, their wings flapping like sheets on a clothesline.

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