Читать книгу The Cup of Galfar. Alderosa's Daughter - Alexander Pererva - Страница 7

Allie opened her eyes and closed them again: the golden sun was shining straight in her face. Trying to hide from it, she sat up in bed. Yes, she was on a bed, or, rather, a small wooden settee with a nice carved back. It sat by a window in a spacious sunlit room with the same kind of carved wooden furniture. The window was cracked open, and the lacy curtain was moving slightly in the fresh morning breeze. The golden sunray broke through its delicate pattern and cheerfully danced on the pillow.

“That’s what woke me up”, Allie thought and smiled. She felt peaceful and rested. Looking around, she noticed that her clothes were clean, dry, and neatly folded on a chair near her bed. Allie dressed quickly and went over to the table by the other window. There was a skillet with steaming fried eggs and pink juicy-looking ham. Next to the skillet she saw a big sliced loaf of fresh golden-yellow bread with an appetizingly crunchy crust, a big mug of milk and a bowl of jam. Only then, looking at this bountiful spread and inhaling its divine aromas, Allie realized how starved she was. Unable to wait any longer, she sat down and dug in. She reasoned that since she’d been so well taken care of, then surely the breakfast was meant for her, too.

When she was full, the girl came up to the window, drew the curtain aside and opened the window wide. For a moment she froze in astonishment and delight: the window faced a real garden, but what a garden it was! There were flowers of all shapes and colors right by the window. A little further down, there were short bushy trees, some of them covered in blossoms, others – in young green fruit, and still others bent down their heavy branches laden with ripe fruits. The fruits were of unusual kinds: round, diamond-shaped, flat like a wheel, pear-shaped, and even some that looked like big striped doughnuts.

The garden was filled with such fragrant aromas that Allie felt a little dizzy. She went to the opposite window and stopped, stupefied: it was the land’s end. That is, she could see an empty grassy area with some shrubbery here and there. It ended about two hundred feet away, and there was nothing else beyond it, only a strangely-colored sky.

Just then Allie realized that she’d been hearing the familiar rhythmic breathing she’d first heard the night before. Only now it sounded like the breathing of some big, good-natured creature. The girl was struck by a sudden epiphany. She ran out of the room, down the porch and toward the land’s end. The breathing sounded louder, and the sky came nearer. Then Allie stopped – she couldn’t run any further. Entranced, she was looking at the thing in front of her. Here it was, alive and breathing, huge as the sky. The sea!

“The sea!” Allie yelled in delight and waved her arms to greet it.

She had been at the sea before. Her parents had taken her there twice to treat her ear infections, but she was too little then and didn’t remember much. Most of her knowledge of the sea came from books and movies. And now she was looking at it, up close.

The cliff she was standing on was quite tall, about a hundred feet above the sea level, but its slope was gradual enough to go down without breaking one’s neck. Allie saw a path that went down to the wide beach that stretched along the sea from left to right. The sand of the beach was bright yellow, almost orange. Here and there rusty-red smooth stones peeked out of the sand.

Yellows and oranges dominated the landscape. Th sky was blue only in the west; straight overhead it was yellowish green and turned bright yellow toward the east around the large sun. Right at the horizon it melted into rosy caramel.

Taking a good look, Allie realized something: the sun wasn’t as bright as always, so she could easily gaze directly at it. But it was clearly larger than normal. There was something uncanny, even unearthly about it all.

Nevertheless, the view that stretched before Allie was indeed splendid. The most marvelous thing of all was, naturally, the sea. It was dark navy in the distance, turned delicately azure towards the shore, and right at the shoreline blended together many hues of green, from bright grassy green to an almost transparent bottle-glass green. Gentle waves rolled lazily towards the shore. The golden-orange sun was playing on their glossy backs. They curled up with foamy pinkish white-caps near the beach, then spilled onto the sand with a quiet hissing sound and left wisps of foam all over. It didn’t have time to melt as the new wave brought more foam. This went on contunuously.

Allie couldn’t help herself any longer. She ran down the path and toward the sea, her feet sinking in the sand. The sun, albeit not very bright, was hot, and, although it was still morning, the sand had already heated through. It looked like it was high summer season.

Throwing off her clothes, Allie carefully touched the waves with her toes. The water was warm, and the girl threw her doubts aside and dove into the sea. She played in the pink foamy waves, forgetting about everything else in the world, even about the fact that she only had eight more days to save her Mom and Dad.

When she had played in the water to her heart’s content, Allie found herself a spot on a warm rock. The girl basked in the sun, soaking up its gentle warmth. The waves broke against the rock, and Allie could feel their pleasantly cool spray on her hot skin and taste the salt on her lips. A light breeze was playing with her already dry hair. The sea sparkled in the sun. Allie was taking in the sight of this shimmering emerald-colored marvel and couldn’t get enough of it. It mesmerized her; she forgot about time and felt like she could sit there forever.

Looking at this peaceful sea, Allie had a hard time believing that just a few hours before that awful storm was raging. The very thought of it made Allie shudder. There was only one reminder now: far away at the horizon, where the sky met the sea, she could see a ridge of black stormclouds. They didn’t look scary but rather picturesque at this distance, especially that one spot where the biggest stormclouds towered high above the rest of them. There was a rosy golden halo of sunlight around the clouds, so this stormy mass looked almost dreamlike, and the green and orange lightnings that lit up the clouds from time to time only added to the impression. In the light of one especially bright flash Allie noticed a swarm of black dots in the sky.

“Must be seagulls,” she thought.

Engrossed in this fabulous view, Allie didn’t pay attention to her surroundings. That’s why she didn’t notice when a stranger approached the rock she was sitting on. It was a short stout man dressed in a light-colored loose tunic and matching short trousers. His gray hair hadn’t been cut in a long time and stuck out in wisps. A shaggy curly beard framed his round smiley face. He looked old at first sight, but his smooth tan skin and merry blue eyes under the bushy eyebrows belied the impression.

“Aha, I thought I’d find you here,” he said in a pleasant low voice.

Allie started and looked at the stranger, feeling uneasy. But his open good-natured look soon put her at ease, and she smiled back.

“Good morning, sir. You must live in that house over there?”

“That’s right,” said the bearded man and sat down beside her. “Call me Uncle Zand. And what might your name be? And how did you get here, little traveler?”

“My name is Allie, sir. I’ll tell you everything, but first tell me, how did you find me? And did you see anyone else? The thing is, my companions were a cat and a monkey.”

“That’s right, a cat!” exclaimed Uncle Zand, slapping his forehead. “Of course, it was a cat! Why didn’t I realize that? Well, it’s one thing to see a picture, and quite another – to see a live one. Well, it was that cat who woke me up last night and brought me to the spot where you’d decided to take a nap. But there was no monkey.”

“My dear Lemonade,” whispered Allie, moved. “It was you who saved me.”

She suddenly felt ashamed that she’d completely forgotten her friends as she played on the beach.

“Uncle Zand, where is the cat now?”

“Early in the morning, while you were still asleep, he got up, had breakfast and left. But you promised you’d tell me your story.”

“Yes, of course.” Allie gathered her thoughts. She decided to tell him everything, or almost everything that had happened over the last few days. She didn’t seem to have much choice. Also, she felt she could be candid with her new friend.

“Well, it all began with a fish,” Allie sighed and began her story.

As she talked, Uncle Zand listened with attention and looked her straight in the eye. At the very beginning of the story he began to seem concerned. His good-natured serene face suddenly showed signs of surprise. Then he got up and started pacing restlessly around the rock. Finally he raised his arms in the air and stopped the girl:

“Hold on, little girl! Wait. Where did you live before you got here?”

Allie told him his address.

“No, no. Not that. I mean, which sphere is your home?”

Seeing her puzzled face, Zand added impatiently:

“Well, what is your planet?”

“Earth,” Allie said in a dismal voice.

Zand looked at her intently, then nodded and sat down again, suddenly regaining his composure.

“You can continue.”

Allie continued her sad and fantastic story. Any minute she was expecting him to laugh at her words, but Uncle Zand was listening with great seriousness and never interrupted her. Allie finished her story with her falling down in a faint in the middle of a storm-torn forest the night before.

“That’s all. And then I woke up in your house. Thank you for everything, sir.”

“Well, thank you’s can wait,” said Zand with a concerned look. “Everything’s not that simple about this whole thing.”

He stared at the sea and stroked his beard, silent. Allie didn’t want to interrupt his thoughts and was sitting quietly and looking at the stormclouds on the horizon.

“Looks like a fairy castle,” she said in a low voice, as if to herself.

“Huh? What castle?” Zand shook himself and, following her gaze, nodded.

“Oh, that thing. You are not too far from the truth. Castle or not, but there is something interesting there. I’ll show you. Follow me.” He rose and walked toward the cliff.

Allie quickly put on her jeans and T-shirt, grabbed her shoes and sweater and ran after Zand.

“Uncle Zand,” asked Allie when she caught up with him, “what’s this sea called?”

He looked back over his shoulder:

“This one? It’s the Forsifian.”

“What’s that? For-sif-i-an? Never heard of it.”

“Hmm, never heard of it. Does this lead you to any conclusions?”

“I think I know.” Allie stopped, and then burst out, “We are not on Earth, are we?”

“You are a smart girl,” said Zand kindly. “And also brave. Well, that makes it easier for me to explain some things.”

Talking like that, they walked up the path to the top of the cliff. When they got there, Allie saw the neat little house made with rather large blocks of pinkish stone with golden streaks. The flat sloped roof made the house look like any regular modern cottage on Earth.

To the left of the house was the garden that Allie had seen from the window; to the right there was a tall round tower. It was no less than ten feet in diameter, and at least fifty feet tall. Not far from the house was the edge of the forest where Allie had wandered the night before. Further to the right she could see forested hills that gently sloped up towards picturesque rocky mountains.

The tower was made of the same kind of stones as the little house. A sturdy metal steeple on the very top held a big windmill with slowly rotating blades. Just under the tower roof there was a glass-sided observation deck.

And then Allie saw something that made her give a happy yelp and run toward the house. There, on its porch, sat Lu and Lemonade. They looked rather beaten up, especially Lu. She was covered with mud, one side was torn with the stuffing sticking out, her left arm was barely hanging on one thread. All in all, she looked so pitiful that Allie was ready to cry. She picked up the monkey and held her tight, whispering comforting words in her ear.

After the initial excitement had subsided, Allie cleaned Lu with a hard brush that Uncle Zand had found. He also found a needle and some thread, so Allie didn’t have any trouble patching up the monkey.

While she was busy doing that, Lu and Lemonade hurried to tell her what had happened to them the night before. It turned out that they had been pinned down by a large boulder. They didn’t know whether it was the same boulder they together had pushed out of the tunnel or a different one. They just felt that they were falling into the darkness and held on tight to each other. That was what saved them. When the heavy stone crashed on top of them, the monkey was on top and softened the blow for Lemonade. He was just pushed into some loose gravel.

When he came to his senses, Lemonade began to dig himself out from under the boulder. The storm was raging all around them. The cat was trying to call Allie, but realized it was all in vain in such noise. Then he tried to dig the gravel from under the boulder to set Lu free. She was unable to move, but other than that inconvenience didn’t feel any pain or discomfort. She and Lemonade could even easily talk to each other. That is why when Lu heard the cat digging, she insisted that he go find Allie first. She assured Lemonade that she’d be just fine, while Allie could be in grave danger at that moment. Lemonade found her arguments quite convincing and, making no delay, rushed to find the girl.

He spent a long time wandering through the dark groaning forest and finally, thanks to his night vision and keen sense of smell, found the girl lying senseless on a forest clearing. He himself couldn’t help the girl; fortunately, he smelled a human dwelling in the vicinity and didn’t hesitate to rush there, led by a pet’s instinct. That’s how he found Uncle Zand’s house, woke him up and led him to Allie…

When the girl was out of danger, Lemonade drank some buttery sweet milk and fell asleep in the big soft chair. But he woke up with the first gleam of sunlight. He didn’t want to wake Allie up, because she needed more rest, and went to rescue Lu by himself. He easily found his way back to the mountain and the boulder. It was only a matter of time to dig Lu out…