Miledifire: переводы

→They say it together. “Itchy knee. Sun, she go.”

→She doesn’t know what it means or how he could possibly have known the words. She nods, but it’s more of a jerk of her head. “Itchy knee. Sun, she go.”

→“Itchy knee?” Bradwell repeats, and then as if he has unlocked the mysterious part of her mind, as if he knows her thoughts, he says, “Itchy knee. Sun, she go?”

→Can she talk? She thinks back to being a little girl crossing the river full of dead bodies. Could she talk then? She said words that no one understood. And, eventually, there were no words for the things she was seeing and feeling—the give of a body that bobs when you put your weight on it, bumping a body that exists beneath it. “Itchy knee,” she whispers now through chattering teeth.

→“Pressia? Speak to me. Can you talk?”

→She wants to tell him that she’d rather die here than without him in the cold river. She wants to tell him that if they die now, they might be locked together forever—ribs within ribs, frozen. And then there’d come the thaw—grass and weeds, the forest’s mossy floor covering them.

→Her ribs facing his, she imagines them locked together, ribs hooked to ribs. They breathe their quick breaths, white clouds rising from their red lips. Her cheek on his chest, he holds her, rubbing her back, her arms, but his movements are jerky and slow now. He pulls her cold, wet hair away from her skin. He says, “Stay alive. Say something. Talk.”

→He unbuttons her pants, his fingers shaking badly, and tugs them off her. He pulls her shirt over her head. Her arms feel brittle. He lies on his side—to avoid smothering the birds—absorbing the cold earth for her. He pulls the leaves in close around them and wraps his arms around her. The birds barely flinch, barely move.

→She nods. She sees his face in pieces—an eyebrow then his lips then his hands. She has to stay alive.

→Bradwell moves to a stand of trees surrounded by a thicket of underbrush and dense leaves. He digs in the leaves, lays her down. “You can’t stay in wet clothes. You’ve got to stay alive. Do you hear me? I can’t make it any farther.”

→Pressia hears Fignan’s motor. It keeps buzzing along. But she doubts he’ll be able to find anyone, much less bring them back here to save them.

→Bradwell falls again. This time he curses under his breath. He tries to lift her again, but he can’t. The ground is hard and cold. “Fignan,” he says. “Keep going. Follow this path to the outpost. Can you do that? Are you listening? Find someone. Get help.”

→She thinks of the moment he gave her the mechanical butterfly, the one he’d saved from her home, how he said that it seemed like a miracle—that something that beautiful could survive. He has a way of making her flush. It’s a memory of warmth, heat, goodness. She’d tell him if she thought she could form the words.

→“Don’t say you’re sorry.” He staggers then pitches forward. They land hard. He gets on his knees, lifts her again, rising unsteadily to his feet. He trudges on, his bare skin bright red. He says, “Pressia.” She looks at him—his firm jaw, his wet head, his dark eyes. “Think of something warm,” he whispers. “Think of heat. Think of something good.” Pressia can tell that he’s afraid. His breathing is ragged.

→They’re moving through the trees. Fignan lights the narrow path. Bradwell follows. He’s shaking too. She can feel the trembling in his arms, in the herky-jerky way he’s walking.

→“I’m sorry,” she says—for being a burden, but she can’t get the rest out. Her jaw is rattling. Her teeth chatter. She’s shaking so hard that it’s actually making it hard for him to carry her. Could she have been saved by the ghostly girls only to die of the cold? She knows that her body temperature has dropped. She was in the cold water for too long. The wind is too strong. Her clothes weighed her down and now they’re like cold compresses. When she was crossing that river of dead bodies as a little girl, all anyone wanted was a cold compress to the skin, and now this is how she will die.

→“I’m sorry,” she says again.

→“We have to get you out of the wind.” He takes her arm, wraps it around his shoulder, and pulls her to her feet. She can’t stiffen her knees to hold her own weight. He bends and lifts her, cradling her to his chest.

→She’s shaking. Her breaths are light and quick. “I’m okay,” she says, but the words feel slow and stiff in her mouth and she can’t feel him rubbing her arms. It’s as if her skin has grown rubbery like her doll head, her nerve endings almost deadened.

→“She’s okay, Fignan,” Bradwell says. “She’s alive.” He rubs her arms. “You were right. It was too cold.”