Читать книгу Elinor. The Deserted Valley. Book 1 - Mikhail Shelkov - Страница 37

One night, as Fao, Ina, Nome, and Komos all suffered from insomnia, they decided to communicate quietly – almost in a whisper – so as not to wake the others. Only the solitary hoot of owls accompanied their conversation and gave it an ominous color.

“And remember,” said Fao, “how they frightened us with the six-fingered? Like, lock all the windows and doors for the night, otherwise the six-fingered will come and drag you away! And now? We already slept three times six nights on naked moss in the darkest thickets – and nothing! We were frightened by fairytales!”

“It’s strange,” Nome began to argue. “Tales or not, the images of these six-fingered came from somewhere, didn’t they! Why do they scare kids with them? My grandmother told me a fairytale about a swamp monster that could swallow a bear, and I was so scared! Just imagine what this monster is like, if it can swallow a bear!”

“They say the Goddess of Death, whom the Taurs worship, is also six-fingered!” Ina reminded the group.

“There is no Goddess of Death!” snapped Fao.

“Maybe not the Goddess of Death,” Nome suggested. “But Ayduen existed. Yes, even if she is a six-fingered, she just gathered the squad once and left Swa-Ioledea, as we did! Henceforth, the elders called her the Goddess of Death! To take revenge!”

“Aha, and now the Goddess of Death is called Faolabre!” giggled Ina.

Fao slapped her hand, “Why not Inaonomose?”

“Wait,” said Komos, who had been silent before. “Maybe there have been many six-fingered ones. Only they lived a long time ago and looked like people, but they had six fingers. They were very, very evil, and they killed everyone. People eventually defeated them, but the fear remained,” he said quietly. The Vedich girl shivered, as though she had become frightened by her own intonation. Fao and Ina stopped laughing at once.

And then the owls began to grow louder. Everyone became uncomfortable.

“You scare us,” Fao whispered.

“And I heard a story,” Nome continued in a serious tone, “that somewhere far away in the west of our forest, in one village, a baby with six fingers was born. His parents were so scared they immediately killed him.”

“Well, I won’t fall asleep now!” confessed Ina.

And then Fao felt something fall on her shoulder. She froze with fear.

Somebody’s hand!

Fao seemed to feel six fingers on her shoulder. She immediately screamed and jumped to her feet.

A huge bat flew from her shoulder and disappeared into the night mist.

Fao looked around, embarrassed. Now the entire camp was awake, as the younger comrades stared at her in bewilderment.