Sky Key. James Frey

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      “Tarki, Tarki, Tarki …”

      Clouds drift over the Himalayas, sun reflecting off their snowy slopes. Kanchenjunga, the world’s 3rd highest peak, looms over Gangtok. The city’s residents go about their day—working, shopping, eating, drinking, teaching, learning, laughing, smiling. One hundred thousand peaceful, unknowing souls.

      Little Alice struts across her back lawn, blades of grass tickling her toes, the smell of a brushfire rising from the valley. Her fists are at her hips and her elbows jut behind her like wings. Her knees are bent, her head forward. She moves her elbows together, apart, together, apart, clacking and cawing like a peacock. She calls, “Tarki, Tarki, Tarki,” which is what they call the old peacock that’s lived with her family for the last 13 years. Tarki eyes the girl and does a half turn and ruffles his bright neck feathers and clacks back. His tail fans, and Little Alice dances with glee. She runs to Tarki. He takes off, Little Alice chasing.

      The hard lines of Kanchenjunga are in the distance, hiding the Valley of Eternal Life below its frozen slopes.

      Little Alice knows nothing of this valley, but Shari knows it intimately.

      Little Alice follows Tarki to a rhododendron bush. She is less than a meter from the brilliant bird when he bows his head and blinks his eyes and scratches at something under the bush. The bird pushes into the leaves. Little Alice leans closer.

      “What is it, Tarki?”

      The bird pecks the dirt.

      “What is it?”

      The bird freezes like a statue, its head low but cocked, stares at the ground with one wide eye. Little Alice cranes forward. Something is there. Something small and round and dark.

      The bird makes a horrible sound—Creeeeaaaaaak—and bolts toward the house. Little Alice is startled but doesn’t follow. She holds out her hands and pushes the waxy leaves aside and wriggles into the bush, puts her hands on the ground, finds.

      A dark marble, half-buried. Perfectly round. Carved with strange markings. She touches it and it’s as cold as the void of space. She digs around it with her fingers, makes a small pile of dirt, pries the sphere free. She picks it up, turns it around and around, frowns. It is painfully cold. The light from the sky filters, changes, is suddenly bright bright beyond bright. Within seconds everything is white and the ground is shaking and a giant crash explodes over the hillsides, rattling the cliffs and the mountains, shaking the trees, the grass, the pebbles in the streams. The sound fills everything.

      Little Alice wants to run, but can’t. It’s as if the little marble has frozen her to the spot. Through the light and the sound and the fury, she sees a figure drifting toward her. A woman, maybe. Young. Petite.

      The figure draws closer. Its flesh is pale green and its eyes sunken, its lips curled. An undead corpse. Little Alice drops the marble but nothing changes. The ghost gets close enough so that Little Alice can smell its breath, which is excrement, burning rubber and sulfur. The air СКАЧАТЬ