The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom

Author:Christopher Ransom
Language: ru
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2009-09-02T18:30:00+00:00

23

He was back in high school, aware that he hadn't been there for years. He was the older self but also the boy he had been. He was wandering through the halls looking for her. He found her in the cafeteria, sitting on a crackled brown leather couch in the corner. The lunchroom had been half-transformed into someone's house, a house party. He waded through the other students, ignoring them as he pressed forward, thinking of what he would say to her. He knew he had to get it right. Had to say the right thing or else he would scare her away.

When he arrived she looked up at him. She had the same flawless young face, all wide glowing cheeks and semi-flat nose.

Holly. Holy Girl.

He wiped his hands on his jeans. He was a mess, the older version. Wanted to hide this version. She wasn't supposed to see him this way.

'Holly,' he said.

'Shhhsh. Don't say anything,' she said in a whisper. 'She'll hear us.'

Conrad thought of Jo, a stab of guilt pressing into his belly. He turned around and the cafeteria behind him was a black wall. A terrifying black edifice. His fault it was here. He'd brought it with him, let her down. Had to save her. His heart slammed as Holly turned and her face changed--

He snapped awake in bed, in the house, blinking into the dark. He felt the blackness with him, in the room. He dared not sit up or move. If he did, it would come to the bed and devour him, end everything.

His eyes adjusted to the dark and still he saw only different shades of black against black. The curtains over the window. The open closet a funnel of black going blacker. The wooden sleigh bed curling like a wave at his feet. A blanket draped over the sleigh frame.

A shadow moved.

He did not move so much as his eyeballs.

At the foot of the bed, there was a body standing over him. She was tall. Not moving. She was watching something, looking down. Tall enough to be his wife.

Not real, he told himself.

Maybe she came home early.

Could not open his mouth to ask her anything. Impossible to act. The terror so great he thought he was dying while she loomed over him, staring down, willing his heart to stop.

Not real, he kept thinking. She's not real. Not real, not--

She moved.

Or maybe she had been moving all along. For he saw now that her arms were rocking back and forth, slowly. Holding something in her arms, her head tilting forward, her face and eyes invisible while she looked down at the bundle in her arms.

'Behbee,' she whispered. Her voice hoarse, deep. 'Ohmmma save the behbeeee.'

It was a full minute later, another interminable minute of watching her arms rocking, when she turned. Her body moved stiffly with grief away from him, out of the bedroom.

No footsteps in the hall. He felt rather than heard her departure and only then did he breathe. The bed shook as the tremors rippled through him.

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