Stiefvater Maggie - Lament.pdf - E-booki - różne - TAKIJA1

Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception

Maggie Stiefvater

Acknowledgments

This novel wouldn't have been possible without the help of several people: my generous and

charming editor Andrew, who believed in this novel back when it was a fugly duckling; my

friend Naish, who dropped everything for tireless editing sessions and fixed grammatical errors

that even drunk monkeys speaking English as a foreign language wouldn't have made; my sister

Kate, whose intense enthusiasm for Luke and Deirdre kept this story alive and who giggled with

me over the plotting process (one word, Kate: "splat-shmear"); my sister Liz, who threatened

me into beginning this story in the first place... no really, she did threaten me--I have it in

writing; my mom, because without her I wouldn't be here; my cyber-chums for their

enthusiasm, especially Wendy, who lives in a place where they stand upside down; and of

course my husband/love-slave Ed, whose long-suffering expression hides a true heart.

prologue

He didn't know how long he'd been clinging there. Long enough for the bone-cold water to

drive the feeling from his legs. Long enough for his fingers to tire of holding his head above

water. Somewhere in the distance, the eerie wail of the hounds quickened his heartbeat.

He closed his eyes, concentrating on keeping his hold on the old well's uneven sides, willing his

heart to slow. They can't smell you in here. They'll lose your scent in the stream and they'll never

find you here.

The water's chilly touch crawled farther up his neck and he tightened his grip, looking up to the

clear night sky. Sighed. Weary. How long had he been doing this? As long

viii

as he could remember. Above the well, the howls fell away; they'd lost the scent.

Just leave me alone. Haven't I paid enough? He prayed for Them to go back where They came

from, but he didn't expect an answer. God's attentions were for those with souls, a status he'd

lacked for a thousand years or more. He swallowed. Deep in his chest, he felt the soft and

curious rustling that meant They'd entered the cage room. He reached down through the water

to his pocket, withdrew two old, rusty nails, and held them tightly. All he had to do was not cry

out. He could do this.

Somewhere else, in a small, round, gray room of stone and moss soft as a fox cub's fur, a dove

beat furiously in a cage made of a net of the hair-fine wires. Wings crashed into the bars, and

claws scraped at the perch only to unsuccessfully seek purchase on the thin wire sides. It was a

frenzy not of a desire to escape--the cage had no door-- but rather of fear. It was the worst kind

of fear--the hopeless kind--and it sent the bird's eternal heart racing until it seemed it would

burst out of its breast.

Somehow, slender hands took the pale dove from where it trembled at the bottom of the cage

and held it out to a bright lady, oddly golden in this gray-green room.

When she spoke, her voice shimmered in the room, beautiful enough to draw tears. "The

wing," she said softly, holding up a candle. The fingers gently tugged the dove's wing outward

from its body and offered the prone bird to the lady. The candle she held reflected the colors of

the sun in the dove's eye.

The lady smiled thinly and held the pale flame beneath the bird's wing.

The boy in the well shuddered. Biting his lip, he pressed his forehead into his arms, willing

himself quiet. The pain in his chest gnawed and burned, squeezing his heart with a fiery touch.

As quickly as it began, it abated, and he gasped silently.

The lady in the gray room held the candle beside her face, illuminating her beauty: beauty that

looked at the beauty of a perfect summer day and scoffed that they should bear the same

description. "He always chooses the hard way, doesn't he?" The dove began to thrash wildly at

the sound of her voice. This time, she held the candle closer, and the flames seized the

feathers, twisting and blackening them like shreds of paper. The dove froze, beak parted in

silent pain, eyes fixed blankly on the ceiling.

In the well, the boy gasped again, audibly, and tried to remember to hold his head above water.

His heart writhed within him, and as he squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could, his

heartbeat stopped. Feeling curiously hollow, he slid silently under the water, fingers limp, the

nails he had been holding tracing a slow line into the dark below him.

His head jerked back, his neck seized in an inhuman grip. He was pulled into the night and

dropped to the clover-scented ground, water trickling from his mouth.

"You're not to die quite yet, old friend." The Hunter looked down at him, neither angry nor

happy with his captured quarry. The chase was done, so the entertainment was over. Hounds

milled around the body in the clover. "Work to do."

BOOK ONE

... you've left my heart shaken With a hopeless desolation, I'd have you to know It's the wonders

of admiration your quiet face has taken And your beauty will haunt me wherever I go.

--"Bridgit O'Malley"

one

You'll be fine once you throw up," Mom said from the front seat. "You always are."

Standing behind our dusty station wagon, I blinked out of my daze and tugged my harp case out

of the back, feeling nauseated. It struck me that Mom's statement was just about the only

reason I needed to avoid a career in public music performance. "Keep that pep talk coming,

Mom."

"Don't be sarcastic." Mom tossed me a cardigan that matched my pants. "Take this. It makes

you look more professional."

I could've said no, but it was easier just to take the sweater. As Mom had already pointed out,

the sooner I got

into the auditorium and threw up, the easier it would be. And once I got this over with, I could

return to my ordinary life until the next time she decided to take me out of my cage. I did

refuse Mom's offers to help me carry my harp, though plenty of the other students heading

inside had parental retinues. Somehow it was easier to be utterly insignificant without anyone

you knew watching.

"We'll park the car, then. And find a seat. Call if you need us?" Mom patted her dove-blue

purse, which matched her plunging dove-blue top. "And Delia should be here soon, too."

The thought of my diva-aunt pushed me slightly closer to the vomit end of the sick scale. Oh

Deirdre, she would say loudly, can I help you run through those scales? You really are a bit flat

on the upper range. And then I would throw up on her. Hey, maybe that wasn't a terrible plan

after all. Though, knowing Delia, she'd probably correct my form. Deirdre, dear, really, you need

a better puke arc if you're going to ever blow chunks professionally.

"Great," I said. My parents waved and left me to find the competitors' area. I shielded my eyes

and scanned the broad concrete side of the high school. Shining brightly in the early afternoon

glare was a huge canvas sign that said Competitors' Entrance. I'd sincerely hoped I wouldn't

have to return to the school until my junior year started. Yeah. Farewell, mine dreams.

Man, it was hot. I glared up at the sun, eyes narrowed, and my eyes were drawn to the moon

hanging in the sky next to the sun. For some reason, this appearance of the ghost of

the moon gave me an odd prickle in my stomach--nerves of a different kind. It had a sort of

magic, magic that made me want to stay and stare at it until I could remember why it

enchanted me. But staying outside in the heat wasn't helping my nervous stomach, so I left the

pale disc behind and I hauled my harp over to the "Competitors' Entrance."

As I pushed through the heavy doors, it occurred to me that, before my mother mentioned it, I

hadn't wanted to puke at all. I hadn't even been thinking about the competition. True, I'd had

my familiar glassy-eyed, all-attention-devoted-to-not-hurling look on my face on the drive over,

but not for the reason my mother assumed. I had still been lost in last night's dream. But now

that she'd brought it up, and with the competition in sight, all was right again with the world

and my stomach was a disaster.

A woman with two chins and a clipboard asked for my name.

"Deirdre Monaghan."

She squinted at me--or maybe that was her normal expression. "Someone was looking for you

earlier."

I hoped she meant James, my best (only) friend. Anyone else, I wasn't interested in them

finding me. I wanted to ask what they looked like, but I was afraid that if I talked much, I'd lose

my tenuous control over my gag reflex. Mere proximity to the competition area was definitely

antagonizing the whole bile thing.

"Tall, light-haired woman."

Not James. But not Delia, either. Puzzling, but not really a priority, all things considered.

The woman scribbled something next to my name. "You'll need to pick up a packet at the end

of the hall."

I held a hand over my mouth and asked carefully, "Where can I practice?"

"If you go down the hall past where you get the packet, the big double doors on the--"

I couldn't wait much longer. "Right. The classrooms down there?"

She wagged her chins. I took that as a "yes" and walked farther inside. My eyes took a minute

to adjust to the light, but my nose operated immediately. The familiar smell of my high school,

even without any students nearby, pricked my nerves. God, I was so dysfunctional.

My harp case rang. The phone. I fished it out and stared. A four-leaf clover was stuck to the

back of it, damp and fresh. Not one of the ones where the fourth leaf is stunted, either, and you

can obviously see it's just a mutation of a three-leaf clover. Each of these leaves was perfectly

formed and spread.

Then I remembered that the phone was ringing. I looked at the number, hoping it wasn't Mom,

and flipped it open. "Hi," I said tightly, peeling the four-leaf clover off the phone and putting it

in my pocket. Couldn't hurt.

"Oh," James said sympathetically, picking up on my tone. Though his voice was thin and crackly

over the line, it still had its usual calming effect. The bile in my throat momentarily retreated. "I

should've called earlier, huh? You're puke-a-rella already."

"Yeah." I headed slowly toward the double doors at the end of the hall. "Distract me , please."

"Well, I'm running late," he said cheerfully. "So I'm probably going to have to tune my pipes in

the car and then run in shirtless and half-dressed. I've been lifting weights. Maybe they'll score

high for a defined six pack, if they aren't awed by my mere musical genius."

"If you manage just your skirt, at least the judges'll give you Braveheart points."

"Don't mock the kilt, woman. So, did you have any entertaining dreams last night?"

"Uh..." Even though James and I were just friends, I hesitated to tell him. My intensely detailed

dreams were usually a source of great amusement for us--two nights ago, I'd dreamt I was

being interviewed by a Harvard college counselor who was up to her neck in cheese (Gouda, I

think). The mood of last night's dream still lingered with me, in a sort of appealing way. "I

couldn't really sleep well enough to dream," I finally said.

Oh. The moon. It suddenly occurred to me that my dream was where I had seen a moon in a

daytime sky--that was where the sense of déjà vu came from. I was disappointed that it was

something so normal.

"Well, that's typical," James was saying.

"Delia's coming," I told him.

"Oh, so it'll be the whole sister-on-sister catfight thing today, huh?"

"No, it's the whole 'my kid's more talented than you are' thing."

"Neener neener," James added helpfully. "Oh, damn. I really am late now. I have to get my

pipes into the car, but I'll see you soon. Try not to spaz out."

Stiefvater Maggie - Lament.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: