Bag of Bones   ::   Кинг Стивен

Lightning lit up the entire sky, scouring the room with purple light. In that glare the laboring trees looked like screaming fingers, and as the light raced across the sliding glass door to the deck I saw a woman standing behind us, by the woodstove. She was indeed wearing a straw hat, with a brim the size of a cartwheel.

“What do you mean, the river is almost in the sea?” Ki asked.

I sat down and handed her the cup. “Drink that up.”

“Why did the men hurt my mommy? Didn’t they want her to have a good time?”

“I guess not,” I said. I began to cry. I held her on my lap, wiping away the tears with the backs of my hands.

“You should have taken some sad-pills, too,” Ki said. She held out her cocoa. Her hair ribbons, which I had tied in big sloppy bows, bobbed.

“Here. Drink some.”

I drank some. From the north end of the house came another grinding, crackling crash. The low rumble of the generator stuttered and the house went gray again. Shadows raced across Ki’s small face.

“Hold on,” I told her. “Try not to be scared. Maybe the lights will come back.” A moment later they did, although now I could hear a hoarse, uneven note in the gennie’s roar and the flicker of the lights was much more noticeable.

“Tell me a story,” she said. “Tell me about Cinderbell.”

“Cinderella.”

“Yeah, her.”

“All right, but storyguys get paid.” I pursed my lips and made sipping sounds.

She held the cup out. The cocoa was sweet and good. The sensation of being watched was heavy and not sweet at all, but let them watch. Let them watch while they could.

“There was this pretty girl named Cinderella—”

“Once upon a time! That’s how it starts! That’s how they all start!”

“That’s right, I forgot. Once upon a time there was this pretty girl named Cinderella, who had two mean stepsisters. Their names were… do you remember?”

“Tammy Faye and Vanna.”

“Yeah, the Queens of Hairspray. And they made Cinderella do all the really unpleasant chores, like sweeping out the fireplace and cleaning up the dogpoop in the back yard. Now it just so happened that the noted rock band Oasis was going to play a gig at the palace, and although all the girls had been invited…”

I got as far as the part about the fairy godmother catching the mice and turning them into a Mercedes limousine before the Benadryl took effect.