anechka32: переводы

→“Yes,” said Loris Harrow with a rueful grin. “Could’ve used that last night.”

→“Or some of that willow bark tincture for pain,” said Doctor Hester, who was stumbling around blearssily, looking for a bag of herbs she’d left somewhere the evening before.

→Mrs. Murdo stirred a pot of corn mush in the kitchen. “Maybe this roamer will have some dried mushrooms,” she said. “That would make a nice change. Or some barley. Or walnuts.”

→Doon steadied his hand, but he’d felt a moment of panic at the flash and rumble. He remembered that someone had told him about a thing called lightning—a bolt of electricity that came sometimes in storms. He had not known how to picture a “bolt of electricity.” He thought maybe it would be a kind of shudder, like what he’d felt once when he touched the wires of a wall socket back in Ember. Maybe there would be some sparks with it, or some kind of twinkling.

→“It’s only lightning,” said Torren, as if he hadn’t jumped himself. “We’re having a thunderstorm.”

→Suddenly the windows of the room flashed white. Both Doon and Torren jolted the candles they were holding and dripped hot wax onto Doon’s father’s hand. Mrs. Murdo cried out, “What was that?” and a second later came a crack and a rumble, like the sky breaking apart.

→In the doctor’s room, Mrs. Murdo sat Doon’s father down and had him lay his arm on the table next to him. She bent over his hand. “I wish we had ice,” she said. “It might slow the bleeding.” But they had none. The last roamer carrying blocks of ice from the mountains had come through town seven weeks ago, and all that he’d brought was long melted. “There are splinters of glass in this cut,” Mrs. Murdo said. “Doon and Torsssren, hold your candles right here so I can see.”

→“Torren,” said Mrs. Murdo, “step aside, please. You and Doon get candles and come with me. Lina, I’ll need boiled water and clean rags. This way, Loris. We’ll do the best we can until Doctor Hester gets back.”

→Mrs. Murdo was at that moment descending the stairs. She had been Lina’s neighbor in Ember and now was like a mother to her and Poppy. She peered down, and when she saw Doon and his father, she quickly smoothed her hair and tucked in her shirt. Behind her came Torren, the doctor’s nephew, a boy a little younger than Lina, with a narrow face and a tuft of hair that stood up above his forehead as if the wind had lifted it and forgotten to put it back down. The two of them hurried to the new arrivals. Torren’s small blue eyes popped with curiosity. “What happened?” he said. “He hurt his hand? Can I see?” He crowded up close to Doon’s father. “Eeeww, so much blood!”

→“She’s not here,” said Lina. “She’s with a child who has a fever. But Mrs. Murdo can help.”

→“I’ve hurt my hand,” Doon’s father said. “I need the doctor.”

→Just seeing Lina’s face, alarmed though it was, made Doon feel a little better. Lina was his closest friend. Together they had found the way out of their dying city of Ember and brought the rest of Ember’s people out as well. Doon didn’t see Lina very often these days, since he lived at the Pioneer and she lived at Doctor Hester’s house. He thought she looked thinner since he’d seen her last.

→The doctor’s house was at the far end of town. By the time Doon and his father reached it, the rain was coming down hard. Doon pounded urgently on the door, and in a moment it opened, and there stood Lina Mayfleet, staring at them in astonishment. Her little sister, Poppy, clung to her leg, whimpering. “Oh!” Lina cried. “Come in! What’s wrong? You’re soaked!”

→They hurried on, pausing only twice more to mention the roamer to passersby.

→“Good,” said Mary. “Maybe he’ll have something we need. Go quick, now; that hand needs attention.”

→Doon’s father explained in a few words. “We’re going to the doctor’s,” said Doon. “And a roamer has just arrived at the Pioneer, so there’ll be trading tomorrow if the rain stops.”

→Now she frowned with concern at Loris Harrow’s wrapped hand. “What happened?” she asked.

→She turned and strode toward them. She was the strongest and most clear-headed of the town’s three leaders. Lately, with food supplies so short and a few citizens of Sparks starting to grumble about how everything would be better if those “strangers” were sent away, Mary had stood firm as a rock in defense of the Emberites. “We areall the people of Sparks now,” she’d declared, again and again. “That’s what we decided, and we’ll stick to it.”

→In a few minutes, they came to the town. People had drawn their curtains and closed their shutters against the wind, so the streets were dark, except for where a narrow line of candlelight showed here and there at a windowsill.

→The rain came harder. In the last rays of evening light, Doon saw the lines of water like silver pins in the air. He put up the hood of his jacket, shivering. When he was faced with troubles, Doon usually looked for solutions and took action. But tonight he was feeling disheartened. So much about the winter in Sparks had been hard. People were ill with coughs and fevers, and some of them had died; they were hungry nearly all the time; and there had been one accident after another. A candle flame caught a curtain and set a house on fire; a toddler wandered outside at night, fell into the river, and drowned; there was the hole in the Ark’s roof; and now this gash in his father’s hand. Misfortunes came from every direction, it seemed, and Doon could see no way to make things better.