JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 364 из 425Her small hand was still poised over the little cluster of caplets.
“Sadness medicine,” I said. “Can you swallow pills, Ki?”
“Sure. I taught myself when I was two.”
She hesitated a moment longer—looking at me and looking into me, I think, ascertaining that I was telling her something I really believed.
What she saw or felt must have satisfied her, because she took the caplets and put them in her mouth, one after another. She swallowed them with little birdie-sips from the glass, then said: “I still feel sad, Mike.”
“It takes awhile for them to work.”
I rummaged in my shirt drawer and found an old Harley-Davidson tee that had shrunk. It was still miles too big for her, but when I tied a knot in one side it made a kind of sarong that kept slipping off one of her shoulders. It was almost cute.
I carry a comb in my back pocket. I took it out and combed her hair back from her forehead and her temples. She was starting to look put together again, but there was still something missing. Something that was connected in my mind with Royce Merrill. That was crazy, though…
wasn’t it?
“Mike? What cane? What cane are you thinking about it?”
Then it came to me. “A candy cane,” I said. “The kind with stripes.”
From my pocket I took the two white ribbons. Their red edges looked almost raw in the uncertain light. “Like these.” I tied her hair back in two little ponytails. Now she had her ribbons; she had her black dog; the sunflowers had relocated a few feet north, but they were there.
Everything was more or less the way it was supposed to be.
Thunder blasted, somewhere close a tree fell, and the lights went out.
After five seconds of dark-gray shadows, they came on again. I carried Ki back to the kitchen, and when we passed the cellar door, something laughed behind it. I heard it; Ki did, too. I could see it in her eyes.
“Take care of me,” she said. “Take care of me cause I’m just a little guy. You promised.”
“I will.”
“I love you, Mike.”
“I love you, too, Ki.”
The kettle was huffing. I filled the cup to the halfway mark with hot water, then topped it up with milk, cooling it off and making it richer.
I took Kyra over to the couch. As we passed the dining-room table I glanced at the IBM typewriter and at the manuscript with the cross-word-puzzle book lying on top of it. Those things looked vaguely foolish and somehow sad, like gadgets that never worked very well and now do not work at all.
“Sadness medicine,” I said. “Can you swallow pills, Ki?”
“Sure. I taught myself when I was two.”
She hesitated a moment longer—looking at me and looking into me, I think, ascertaining that I was telling her something I really believed.
What she saw or felt must have satisfied her, because she took the caplets and put them in her mouth, one after another. She swallowed them with little birdie-sips from the glass, then said: “I still feel sad, Mike.”
“It takes awhile for them to work.”
I rummaged in my shirt drawer and found an old Harley-Davidson tee that had shrunk. It was still miles too big for her, but when I tied a knot in one side it made a kind of sarong that kept slipping off one of her shoulders. It was almost cute.
I carry a comb in my back pocket. I took it out and combed her hair back from her forehead and her temples. She was starting to look put together again, but there was still something missing. Something that was connected in my mind with Royce Merrill. That was crazy, though…
wasn’t it?
“Mike? What cane? What cane are you thinking about it?”
Then it came to me. “A candy cane,” I said. “The kind with stripes.”
From my pocket I took the two white ribbons. Their red edges looked almost raw in the uncertain light. “Like these.” I tied her hair back in two little ponytails. Now she had her ribbons; she had her black dog; the sunflowers had relocated a few feet north, but they were there.
Everything was more or less the way it was supposed to be.
Thunder blasted, somewhere close a tree fell, and the lights went out.
After five seconds of dark-gray shadows, they came on again. I carried Ki back to the kitchen, and when we passed the cellar door, something laughed behind it. I heard it; Ki did, too. I could see it in her eyes.
“Take care of me,” she said. “Take care of me cause I’m just a little guy. You promised.”
“I will.”
“I love you, Mike.”
“I love you, too, Ki.”
The kettle was huffing. I filled the cup to the halfway mark with hot water, then topped it up with milk, cooling it off and making it richer.
I took Kyra over to the couch. As we passed the dining-room table I glanced at the IBM typewriter and at the manuscript with the cross-word-puzzle book lying on top of it. Those things looked vaguely foolish and somehow sad, like gadgets that never worked very well and now do not work at all.