Для "Сonceptis Puzzles"
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«… Maria was dismissed. She put the cup in her bag. At the door, she turned to say goodbye but Kat was gone; the grotesque exhibits seemed to regard her mockingly.

She stood in the doorway but as she released the door she felt something brush against her legs: a black cat at her feet, perfectly still, gold-green eyes staring.

She stepped into the street. The gas lamps were islands of light in a sea of gloom. The wind had shifted direction but not intensity -- it was urging her back the way she had come. No wedding dress today. Maybe no wedding dress at all, she thought, the idea both frightening and liberating. She gathered herself and allowed the wind to speed her along.

The wind dropped as she reached the end of the street. She was back in the world of automobiles and electricity, of people doing what was expected of them -- traveling through life as if on rails. Was she one of them? Or was there another plan for her?

She looked back towards the little passageway, but not a light was burning: the street had been swallowed by shadows. And there in the margin between the little street and the city sat the black cat, its green-gold eyes glowing fiercely back at her. …»