Электронная книга - «The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection». Краткое содержание книги:
This acclaimed series, winner of numerous World Fantasy Awards, continues its tradition of excellence with scores of short stories from such writers as K. W. Jeter, Karl Edward Wagner, Terry Bisson, S. P. Somtow, Charles de Lint, Kobo Abe, Jane Yolen and many others. Supplementing the stories are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantastic fiction, Edward Bryant's witty roundup of the year's fantasy films, and a long list of Honorable Mentions—all of which adds up to an invaluable reference source, and a font of fabulous reading.
He still said nothing as I took a book from the stack on the nightstand and sat down in the chair by the window, positioning myself with my back to the room. The words on the pages looked funny, symbols for something I no longer knew anything about.
The mattress creaked as Jim got up and I heard him changing his clothes. I didn’t want to look—after all, it wouldn’t matter what I saw—and still not wanting to, I put the unreadable book aside and turned around.
The incision was actually very crude, as if it had been done with a jagged shard of glass. I wanted to feel bad at the sight, I wanted to feel sorry and sad and angry at the destruction, I wanted of feel the urge to rush to him and offer comfort. But as Sandor had pointed out, in the absence of pain, no comfort was necessary.
Abruptly, Jim shrugged and finished dressing, and I realized he’d been waiting for something, maybe for me to show him my own. But I had no desire to do that yet.
“I’m going for a walk up the promenade,” he said, heading for the door. “You can come if you want.” He didn’t look back for a response.
“Do you think,” I heard myself say just before he stepped out into the hall, “they’re everywhere? Or if we could just get home somehow ...”
“Jess.” He almost smiled. “We are home.”
I followed him at a distance. He didn’t wait for me, walking along briskly but unhurriedly, and I didn’t try to catch up with him. The sky seemed darker and duller, the sounds of the people on the promenade quieter, more muffled. The trams didn’t run.
I stayed out until dark. The dying-stars show was especially spectacular, and I watched it until Sandor finally got around to coming back for me.
PISH, POSH, SAID HIERONYMUS BOSCH
Nancy Willard
Nancy Willard, whose short story “Dogstar Man” is published elsewhere in this volume, is also the author of deliciously magical poetry such as “The Ballad of Biddy Early” and the poem on the following pages.
“Pish, Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch” introduces the harried housekeeper of Hieronymus Bosch, a Dutch artist of the fifteenth century known for his brilliantly bizarre and fantastical paintings. Willard’s poem is reprinted from a sumptuous children’s picture-book edition, beautifully illustrated by Leo, Diane, and Lee Dillon.
—T.W.
Once upon a time there was an artist named Hieronymus Bosch who loved odd creatures. Not a day passed that the good woman who looked after his house didn't find a new creature lurking in a corner or sleeping in a cupboard.To her fell the job of feeding them, weeding them, walking them, stalking them, calming them, combing them,scrubbing and tucking in all of them—
until one day . . .
“I’m quitting your service, I've had quite enough of your three-legged thistles asleep in my wash, of scrubbing the millstone you use for a dish, and riding to shops on a pickle-winged fish.”
“Pish, posh,”said Hieronymus Bosch.
“How can I cook for you? How can I bakewhen the oven keeps turning itself to a rake, and a beehive in boots and a pear-headed priest call monkeys to order and lizards to feast?
“The nuns were quiet. I’d rather be bored and hang out their laundry in sight of the Lord, than wrestle with dragons to get to my sink while the cats chase the cucumbers, slickity-slink.”
“They go slippity-slosh,” said Hieronymus Bosch.
“Take us under your wing, take us up on your back,” they howled, while the claws murmured, “clickety-clac.”
“They’re not what I wished for. When women are young they want curly-haired daughters and raven-haired son. In this vale of tears we must take what we’re sent,feathery, leathery, lovely, or bent.”
That night she awoke to a terrible roar.Her suitcase yawned and unleashed on the floor a mole in a habit, a thistledown rabbit, a troop of jackdaws, a three-legged dish,the pickle-winged fish, and a head wearing claws.
With a pain in her back and a fog in her head, she walked twenty-two miles and collapsed into bed.
She packed her fur tippet, her second-best hat.(The first was devoured by a two-headed bat.)
“I don’t mind the ferret, I do like the bee.All witches’ familiars are friendly to me.I’d share my last crust with a pigeon-toed rat, and some of my closest relations are cats.”
“My aunt was a squash,”said Hieronymus Bosch.
Hieronymus rose from a harrowing night,saw salvation approaching, and crowed with delight.
With her suitcase and tippet secure on the dish, she clambered aboard the pickle-winged fish.
“The dragon shall wear a gold ring in his noseand the daws stoke the fire and the larks mend our clothesforever and ever, my nibble, my nosh,till death do us part,” said Hieronymus Bosch.
“My lovey, my dear, have you come back to stay?Let the crickets rejoice and the mantises pray, let the lizards do laundry, the cucumbers cook.I shall set down new rules in my gingerbread book.”
THE ASH OF MEMORY, THE DUST OF DESIRE
Poppy Z. Brite
Another young, talented writer whose stories first appeared in small-press horror magazines, Poppy Brite started winning attention with the publication of stories like “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood” in the first Borderlands anthology. Her first novel, Dead Souls, has been published in a limited edition by Borderlands Press and will be appearing in a mass-market edition in October.
