JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 82 из 425“What? What did I say?”
“Her name is Kia? Did—” Before I could say anything else, the most extraordinary thing happened: my mouth was full of water. So full I felt a moment’s panic, like someone who is swimming in the ocean and swallows a wave-wash. Only this wasn’t a salt taste; it was cold and fresh, with a faint metal tang like blood. I turned my head aside and spat. I expected a gush of liquid to pour out of my mouth—the sort of gush you sometimes get when commencing artificial respiration on a near-drowning victim. What came out instead was what usually comes out when you spit on a hot day: a little white pellet. And that sensation was gone even before the little white pellet struck the dirt of the shoulder. In an instant, as if it had never been there. “That man spirted,” the girl said matter-of-factly. “Sorry,” I said. I was also bewildered. What in God’s name had that been about? “I guess I had a little delayed reaction.” Mattie looked concerned, as though I were eighty instead of forty. I thought that maybe to a girl her age, forty is eighty. “Do you want to come up to the house? I’ll give you a glass of water.”
“No, I’m fine now.”
“All right. Mr. Noonan… all I mean is that nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I was hanging sheets… she was inside watching a Mighty Mouse cartoon on the VCR…
then, when I went in to get more pins…” She looked at the girl, who was no longer smiling. It was starting to get through to her now. Her eyes were big, and ready to fill with tears. “She was gone. I thought for a minute I’d die of fear.” Now the kid’s mouth began to tremble, and her eyes filled up right on schedule. She began to weep. Mattie stroked her hair, soothing the small head until it lay against the Kmart smock top. “That’s all right, Ki,” she said. “It turned out okay this time, but you can’t go out in the road. It’s dangerous. Little things get run over in the road, and you’re a little thing. The most precious little thing in the world.” She cried harder. It was the exhausted sound of a child who needed a nap before any more adventures, to the beach or anywhere else. “Kia bad, Kia bad,” she sobbed against her mother’s neck.
“No, honey, only three,” Mattie said, and if I had harbored any further thoughts about her being a bad mother, they melted away then. Or perhaps they’d already gone—after all, the kid was round, comely, well-kept, and unbruised. On one level, those things registered.
“Her name is Kia? Did—” Before I could say anything else, the most extraordinary thing happened: my mouth was full of water. So full I felt a moment’s panic, like someone who is swimming in the ocean and swallows a wave-wash. Only this wasn’t a salt taste; it was cold and fresh, with a faint metal tang like blood. I turned my head aside and spat. I expected a gush of liquid to pour out of my mouth—the sort of gush you sometimes get when commencing artificial respiration on a near-drowning victim. What came out instead was what usually comes out when you spit on a hot day: a little white pellet. And that sensation was gone even before the little white pellet struck the dirt of the shoulder. In an instant, as if it had never been there. “That man spirted,” the girl said matter-of-factly. “Sorry,” I said. I was also bewildered. What in God’s name had that been about? “I guess I had a little delayed reaction.” Mattie looked concerned, as though I were eighty instead of forty. I thought that maybe to a girl her age, forty is eighty. “Do you want to come up to the house? I’ll give you a glass of water.”
“No, I’m fine now.”
“All right. Mr. Noonan… all I mean is that nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I was hanging sheets… she was inside watching a Mighty Mouse cartoon on the VCR…
then, when I went in to get more pins…” She looked at the girl, who was no longer smiling. It was starting to get through to her now. Her eyes were big, and ready to fill with tears. “She was gone. I thought for a minute I’d die of fear.” Now the kid’s mouth began to tremble, and her eyes filled up right on schedule. She began to weep. Mattie stroked her hair, soothing the small head until it lay against the Kmart smock top. “That’s all right, Ki,” she said. “It turned out okay this time, but you can’t go out in the road. It’s dangerous. Little things get run over in the road, and you’re a little thing. The most precious little thing in the world.” She cried harder. It was the exhausted sound of a child who needed a nap before any more adventures, to the beach or anywhere else. “Kia bad, Kia bad,” she sobbed against her mother’s neck.
“No, honey, only three,” Mattie said, and if I had harbored any further thoughts about her being a bad mother, they melted away then. Or perhaps they’d already gone—after all, the kid was round, comely, well-kept, and unbruised. On one level, those things registered.