theMeadow: переводы

→Persephone crouched to look at a black leather mask with a long pointed beak. “You didn’t think she believed you about the dwarf movie, did you?”

→“She knows?” This was both Blue and Calla in unison.

→“I did let the stair squeak,” Persephone pointed out. “Maura said she’ll be back at midnight, so be done by then.”

→“Persephone,” Calla thundered. She’d gotten over her shock and was now merely angry at being shocked. “You should make some noise when you enter rooms.”

→“May I come up?” Persephone asked. It was an irrelevant question, as she was already “up.” Wearing a lace frock Blue had made her, she stood at the top of the stairs. Her hair was tied up tightly, which signaled that she was not afraid to get her hands dirty.

→Behind them, the stairs creaked, and both Calla and Blue leapt.

→Blue didn’t touch anything, but she did walk farther into the room, peering at a small statue of a woman with eyes in her belly. The entire room was giving her a crawling feeling. “She must be making a lot of curry.”

→Also, it was cold. The attic should not have been cold after the day’s heat.

→Now that Blue stood at the top of the stairs, she could see that Neeve had transformed the attic into something quite different from what she remembered. A mattress covered with throw rugs lay directly on the floor. Around the room, unlit candles of different heights, dark bowls, and glasses of water were gathered in groups. Bright painters’ tape made patterns on the floor between some of the objects. Beside Blue’s feet, a half-burned plant stalk rested on a plate dusted with ashes. In one of the narrow dormers, two full-length, footed mirrors faced each other, reflecting mirrored images back and forth at each other in perpetuum.

→Thinking of the horrid voice coming from Neeve’s mouth before, she wouldn’t be surprised by either.

→Calla eased by Blue and began to climb the stairs. The single lightbulb that illuminated the attic didn’t reach far down the stairs. “That’s more likely. Oh, it smells.”

→“I think we have an hour,” Calla said as Blue opened the attic door. “They should be back around eleven. Let me go first. In case …”

→So it was true. She really was the table at Starbucks everyone wanted.

→As it grew late, Blue had left Ronan, Adam, and Noah behind to discuss if it was possible to implicate their Latin teacher in Noah’s death, if the police had not already established a link. Adam had called only five minutes after she’d gotten home to tell her that Noah had vanished the instant she’d left.

→Blue had never been a big fan of the attic, even before Neeve moved in. Numerous slanting roof lines provided dozens of opportunities to hit your head on a sloping ceiling. Unfinished wood floorboards and areas patched with prickly plywood were unfriendly to bare feet. Summer turned the attic into an inferno. Moreover, there generally was nothing up there but dust and wasps. Maura was a die-hard not-collector and so anything unused was forced upon neighbors or Goodwill. There was really no reason to visit the attic.

→He wasn’t sure if Whelk was retreating or going for a flashlight. Gansey backed farther into the darkness. Then he waited there, his heart crashing in his ears, grass scraping at his cheek.

→Ducking his head, Gansey peered under the body of the Pig, which was ticking as it cooled down. He saw the slender silhouette of the gun between the rear tires, illuminated from behind by Whelk’s headlights.

→For a moment, Whelk was completely silent, and then, abruptly, he broke into a run, his footsteps softening as he made it back to his own car.

→In the far-off distance, an engine hummed. Another car, possibly, coming this way. A rescuer or, at least, a witness.

→By the road, Whelk swore again and again and again. The gravel crunched as he crouched by the car. He couldn’t find the gun. He swore again.