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Kage Baker: Dark Mondays

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Kage Baker Dark Mondays

Dark Mondays: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Kage Baker, celebrated creator of the Company novels and the standout collection now brings together pirates, primates, eldritch horrors, maritime ghosts, and much more in . This captivating new collection of fantastic short fiction is sure to cement her reputation as one of the most original storytellers working in the fantasy and speculative fiction genres today. Whether spinning tales of the mysterious young woman and the dreadful pirate captain Henry Morgan in the original novella “The Maid on the Shore,” the tiny California beach community assaulted by Lovecraftian terrors in “Calamari Curls,” or the girl menaced by a haunting photograph and a trio of aspiring vampires at the heart of “Portrait, With Flames,” Kage Baker distinguishes herself throughout as a storyteller extraordinaire, crafting intricately-woven plots, compelling characters, and captivating settings filled with convincing detail. As likely to shock and surprise as it is to fill you with a sense of weird wonder and delight, will entrance you with its inventive prose, astound you with its action, and seduce you with its style.

Kage Baker: другие книги автора


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Then she went back into the house. She took a box from a cupboard and carried it outside again. Walking the perimeter of the garden fence, she laid down a line of white powder, very carefully. When she had drawn an unbroken circle around her home, she went back indoors.

The sky was just getting light in the east. She blew out the candles. The smoke rose, coiled.

* * *

The other old woman, in her house down the hill, woke a little while later. She dressed herself and, kneeling at her corner shrine, said a rosary. Sometimes her gaze was on the Blessed Mother’s kind, inscrutable face; sometimes on the framed photograph of the old man, sitting in after-dinner ease with a grandchild on either knee, and the ash falling from his cigar caught by the camera in midair forever.

But as she told her beads, the other old woman became aware of a sound. It could be heard above the diesel motors rumbling to life in the harbor, the raucous screaming of gulls following the trawlers out. After a moment she identified it as someone hammering, irregularly.

It continued as she rose and went to the kitchen. It counterpointed the rocking of the wooden bowl as she kneaded dough. It was still going, three taps and a pause, three taps and a pause, as she sliced potatoes and set them to fry in bacon grease.

At last she turned from the stove and went to the window above the sink. Parting the checked curtain, she squinted in the direction of the sunrise. There was her sister’s house, on its high ridge. She peered, rubbed her eyes, retrieved a pair of spectacles from her apron pocket and slipped them on. She saw a man on a ladder, putting new shingles on her sister’s roof. The sun, just now reaching him, lit him up in gold.

The other old woman nodded in approval, and went back to the stove.

After a moment, though, she frowned. She looked out the window again, wiping her hands on her apron. At last she turned down the heat and left the kitchen, walking through the house.

Marco’s bed was empty, neatly made, because he was away at boot camp. Danny was still asleep on his side of the room, snoring. The other old woman shook her head at the sport jacket lying where it had been thrown, the cigarette butts on the floor, the guitar. She picked up his discarded socks and went on.

Margaret Mary was in her room, sound asleep under the sultry gaze of Elvis on her tacked-up posters, and the other old woman spared her no more than a glance in before moving on. She looked in on the twins by habit, and caught them awake and clandestinely eating Halloween candy. One basilisk stare was all it took and they scrambled back into bed, huddling there as she retrieved tiny underwear and socks from their hamper.

Celia woke when she opened the door, though John slept through it. The other old woman left without a word, and had the first laundry load going when Celia shuffled into the kitchen in her bathrobe.

The hammering was still going on. Tap tap tap, pause.

“The wind’s changed. It’s coming from inshore, can you feel it? Going to be hot today,” said Celia.

“Mm,” said her mother.

“Mama,” said Celia, clearing her throat, “you don’t have to fry up so much linguica in the morning. The kids want Corn Pops.”

“Danny likes it,” said her mother. “Did you tell Rosalie to get Jerry to fix Tia Adela’s roof?”

“No, Mama.” Celia yawned, and got a can of coffee down from the cupboard. “I told you, Danny’s going to do it. He promised me.”

“Well, somebody’s up there now,” said her mother, parting the curtain once again. Celia blinked, came and stared.

“Who’s that?”

“Not Danny,” said her mother.

“Huh,” said Celia, troubled. But she went to the breadbox, methodically laid out sandwiches for the school lunches: Peanut butter for the twins, tuna salad for Margaret Mary. Three brown paper bags, three oranges, three dimes for milk. Rituals for the living.

Not another word was said on the subject of Tia Adela’s roof, as the household was fed, as the children were sent to school, as John went to work at the boatyard, as Danny was coaxed out of bed, bullied into eating linguica and onions despite his hangover and sent on his way to the new job at the fish market, as the clean, wet clothes went out on the line to dry.

But when the house was quiet and well-ordered again, the other old woman looked meaningfully at her daughter and pulled on her shawl. Celia followed her out the door, fanning herself with a piece of newspaper.

“Mama, it’s hot,” she complained. “You don’t have to wear that thing.” But her mother ignored her, and they were silent the rest of the way up the hill to Tia Adela’s house.

The hammering was still going on. They could see the edge of the ladder poking up over the roofline, but they could not see the workman until they walked out to the edge of the street and turned.

The other old woman said nothing, but she made the sign of the cross involuntarily. Celia shaded her eyes against the sun with her newspaper. “I’m sweating to death, Mama,” she muttered, studying the workman. Nobody she knew, though he was certainly good-looking: long lean back bronzed by the sun, a mermaid tattooed on his right arm. His hair was a little long; his wool trousers were a little tight.

“Hello?” she called. “Mister?”

He did not reply. He did not even turn his head; just reached over and took the last tarpaper shingle from its box, and tacked it in place.

“Hey!” Celia called, when he paused to wipe his forehead. He did not appear to notice her. His lips were moving as though he were singing to himself, though he was not making a sound. He dropped his hammer, climbed briskly down the ladder and walked out of sight behind the house.

“I wonder if he’s deaf?” said Celia. “I’ll bet that’s what it is, Mama. She’s hired one of those handicapped guys from St. Vincent de Paul’s, huh? Danny would have gotten around to it,” she added plaintively. “Gee, now I feel bad.”

Her mother did not reply.

“Mama, maybe we should knock on the door, see if Tia Adela’s okay,” said Celia. “Some of those guys are a little crazy, you know?”

“No,” said her mother. “We’re going home.”

She said it in such a way Celia knew there was no point arguing. They walked back down the hill.

* * *

Once or twice, at night, the hot wind brought the lowing of cattle from the big ranch far up the canyon. By day, the twins and Margaret Mary sweated in their blue woolen school uniforms. Rosalie, miserable in the heat, fled her tiny apartment and walked up the street to sit on the porch swing with her mother. The radio blared from the house behind them.

“Did you throw up every damn morning like this?” she asked querulously, raising her voice to be heard over Perry Como.

“Only with you and Marco,” Celia replied. “All I could eat for a month was green grapes and crackers. It’ll get better, sweetie.”

“I sure hope so,” sighed Rosalie. “Were you bothered by smells too? I opened a can of sardines, and I swear I nearly died.”

“Good thing Jerry’s not in port right now, then,” joked her mother, but Rosalie did not smile.

“I miss him already,” she said, staring out at the sea in resentment. “I had bad dreams last night. It’s too late in the year to go out so far, don’t you think?”

“It’s still summer,” said Celia, waving at the electric fan. “Summer in November, for God’s sake. And they have to make money while they can, you know.”

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