Edgars Auziņš
Fall in love in a weekwe get by
“Elixirs,” he explained briefly. – Cause addiction and increase likelihood.
– What about without them? naturally?
“Then we’ll have to calculate the probability of seniority.”
– Whose seniority? – It seems that I didn’t understand anything at all.
– A boy, of course.
– Fifty-fifty, as far as I remember the school physiology course.
– In our world, you can change the ratio. But the result depends on too many factors.
–Who do you want? – I couldn’t stand it.
“I can’t choose,” it sounded irritated, but behind the irritation one could sense confusion. ?Well, never thought about it? At least… hypothetically! – And you?
“I want two,” I answered seriously. – Growing up alone… it’s sad, and then it’s also lonely. And it doesn’t matter who… that’s how it turns out. I won’t love my daughter less if I wanted a son. Or vice versa. So – why choose? It's men who always want someone specific. Or an heir, or a little princess.
– As you can see, not always. There are more severe cases.
“I see,” I smiled. – And honestly, I like that you can't choose.
“The eldest must be a boy,” Dougal said with conviction. – A younger sister is a reason to grow up with a sense of responsibility.
“Being an older sister is also useful.” It seems so to me.
We reached the openwork lattice and turned into the open gates of the park. It was now quiet and deserted, the spreading crowns rustled in the light wind, and the yellowish light of lanterns flooded the paths strewn with fine white sand. The roar of the surf came here as a faint echo, and some night birds screamed in the bushes.
We sat on a bench under a lantern. I leaned against Dougal's shoulder, and for some reason it felt easy and natural. And just as naturally, he put his hand on my shoulders, hugging me. Asked:
– Isn’t it time to change your dress to something warmer?
– No. I feel… good.
“Then let’s change something else.”
A small bottle fell into my palm, the glass was warm, and I was suddenly scared. But she immediately clenched her fingers tightly. She asked in a whisper:
– What's there?
– The result of yesterday's experiment. Will you take the risk?
– I'll take a risk. But I'm interested! Still no questions? – I clarified.
– Without. Just have a drink and imagine yourself…you. Your real self, the way you remember and know yourself, the way you are used to seeing in the mirror.
Myself? Sally… Freya? Not… not that damn Barbie?!
I drank it in one gulp and closed my eyes tightly. It was easy to imagine. Much easier than imagining clean cups or this dress. It was enough to remember. An ordinary morning. How I walk barefoot into the bathroom, look in the mirror, smooth my tousled hair with my fingers, but it only gets more shaggy… I wash my face and go to the kitchen to make coffee. I catch the reflection of my figure in the dark glass of the cupboard and wave my hand: “Good morning, Sally!”
Only now, belatedly, melancholy came over me. Previously, probably, there was simply no time for it. I wiped my tears. She turned to Dougal. I wanted to ask – why is all this?
But he looked at me… so strange. Attentively, intently and… tenderly? It was as if he was trying to remember every smallest detail and at the same time appreciate everything… in its entirety. From bare feet to a T-shirt with… ? God! An old, comfortable, beloved, already stretched out and slipping off the shoulder, T-shirt with Darth Vader! Sally, you're in your repertoire. But… It's true. Such as there is. I ran my fingers through my hair. Like in a dream. As always in the morning. Disheveled, uneven strands stick out in all directions. She sighed. God, what a blessing it is to feel… normal? Without that weight in your bra! Easy! Correct. Not a glossy doll with pouty lips.
Dougal moved closer, carefully, as if afraid that any of his movements would suddenly evaporate or melt, touched my cheek, and gently raised my chin. He looked without stopping, squinted, then said:
– Gray. Right?
I nodded silently. Suddenly my lips trembled. Dougal's face blurred before my eyes, and I still asked, sobbing:
– For what?
He pulled me towards him, I buried myself in his shoulder, my palm ran over my back, soothingly, affectionately.
“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t fall in love with a woman I’d never seen.” You are not Miss Blair. You don't match her looks. You can’t imagine the unbearable dissonance. What an annoying need to adjust and guess. Guess which assumptions are correct and which are not. That body is a distraction. Now you are real. Surprisingly correct.
– But I… can’t stay like this?
– And there’s no need. The puzzle is complete. The question has an answer, and it completely suits me.
I hugged him and asked him for some reason about something that had already become extremely clear:
– Is it true? And we… did we succeed? And all will be well?
“We won’t know until we survive the dawn and several hours after.” I'm sorry, I'm not used to… measuring my feelings with ephemeral definitions that cannot be touched and broken down into components.
“It’s nothing,” I said with conviction. – Is it true. I… I feel it. And you don't have to measure it at all.
– Let's see.
He froze, still hugging me. The night dragged on slowly. I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t want to do anything at all. And I didn’t want to ask Dougal how long his elixir would last. I was simply pouring magic into the illusion of the real me. Sounds strange. Sad. I didn't want Freya Sulliva? remained just an illusion. But… at least let it be like this. Better an illusion than nothing at all.
Whatever this dawn brought us, I wanted to meet it with myself. Not Charlotte. Dougal and I both deserve it.
–What will you be afraid of later? – he suddenly asked. – When all this is over.
I didn't have to think long.
– Charlotte's parents. That is, meetings with them. They are not my parents, I am not their daughter. All this… is dishonest! But something will have to be decided about this. I can't… like that.
– It wouldn't be fair if you lie. ?neither should know.
– Yes. But how will I tell them? How can you say this? I can't imagine.
– The truth is never better or worse. She just is. Nothing will change from the wording.
– Will you help me?
– Certainly.
I silently rested my forehead on his shoulder.
When the sky above the trees brightened, we, without saying a word, got up and went to the sea. The sand of the path, hot in the evening, now pleasantly cooled my bare feet. I just conjured up shorts and a sports T-shirt instead of a home shirt. The ones I ran in in the morning.
The park went right to the shore. The waves gently rolled onto the deserted beach. The ocean was smooth, pure blue, and above it was an equally clear sky. Only at the very horizon a narrow strip of clouds gleamed scarlet.
I shuddered when a voice sounded in my ear, which I had already forgotten to think about.
– Goodbye.
She squinted her eyes slightly. The ghost, barely visible, almost completely transparent now, the ghost of Charlotte hung nearby. And melted. And for the first time in all the time we knew each other, he seemed… happy?
“I don’t know, I can’t see your future from here, it’s just beginning from this dawn, but I can already leave.” It's all over. I'm sorry I couldn't be with you. But my intervention could have turned out to be the wrong thing. The man who knows the ways promised to show the right path. It’s no longer hard, it’s easy, you can get out. There are still things left for me to do. But you can finish them. The man who sees the invisible promised to help, to tell those who were dear to me about everything that happened. And about you. Through dreams. Tell Professor Norwood that Director Maskelyne knows that I am no longer here. I had to say goodbye to her too. Now she won't hold him back.
I managed to get out of the habit of her abstruse manner of expressing myself. By the time I realized it, the ghost had completely melted away. Only a barely noticeable piece of fog swayed in the air – and disappeared under the first rays of the sun.
– Something happened, right? – asked Dougal. “Magic background.” Not that it’s broken… Strange. It seems to me that I have already felt something similar. I don't remember when or where. “He fell silent, as if trying to find the right words to describe his own feelings.
– Charlotte. She said she could leave. Which is easy now. That our future is just beginning. And… she disappeared. Not like she disappeared before. It just evaporated.
“Easy,” Dougal repeated thoughtfully. – Exactly! Light, barely noticeable excitement. It looks like ripples on the water. It is now clear. I felt it at the academy. Close to you.
– She told me to tell you. Maskelyne knows she's gone. It means something? Something important?
– My contract. One of the points, she insisted on it. Miss Blair is my assistant. Violating anyone means freedom to me.
– And… what now? All?
– All. – He looked at the sun. A huge golden sun that slowly rose over the ocean. – Do you like happy endings, Miss Freya Sullivan?
– Adore!
– Then tell me – what is there at the end according to the laws of the genre?
“Happily ever after,” I smiled wider and wider. – Boy and girl. Sometimes there are all sorts of tests, but this is nonsense.
– It later. And at the beginning?
“At first…” I think I blushed. Truly, uncontrollably, brightly, as the naive girl Sally, who still believed in real miracles and true love, once blushed. – Kiss?
– I hate the laws of genres. – He turned around, and I froze, trying to understand: it seems that now I see the main, most impossible, incredible and unreal miracle of this magical world. Dougal smiled. Wide, reckless, completely boyish. Just as Dr. Norwood, a professor at the Panacea Academy, certainly couldn’t smile.
Did he step forward first, or did I hang on his neck first? What difference does it really make when I heard something as incredible as his smile:
– But I like this one.
EPILOGUE. One year later
It's amazing how everything around you changes when you don't have a fatal curse hanging over you. When your whole life is ahead – your life, your own, and not borrowed from a hysterical ghost. And you can learn magic, do what you love, discover a magical new world…
The year has flown by faster than that terrible week. Exciting, interesting, filled with new impressions and relationships.
A year… yesterday we celebrated Sabella’s birthday, and today I am again walking through her beautiful park, heading to the lake – the abode of the malicious “creature of ancient magic.” Ever since Kels accepted me as a member of the family and deigned to communicate without a “translator,” I loved visiting him. The ancient kelpie has an interesting view of the world. Inhuman, paradoxical and, perhaps, very sensible. Dougal even joked once that it was time to be jealous.
Today I have a strange topic of conversation. But more people understand kelpie magic, if only because he himself is concentrated magic, and feels it as clearly as people feel heat or cold. He felt then, at our first meeting, both the curse and the fact that Dougal and I had every chance to overcome it…
I couldn’t help but smile, remembering my return from Sydney. How Sabella and I laughed and cried in our arms, and then it was as if something was dragging me to the lake. And the neighing kelpie conveyed that one must be careful when speaking out loud promises backed by magic. And now he waits impatiently and really longs for me to start begging. If I start immediately, so be it, by the summer he will agree to take me for a ride.
And how Dougal had fun retelling his flowery images!
Kels is caring in his own way, although he will never stoop to show it. He knows that icy autumn water is not good for people, even if they are magicians. But then I was not a larva of a magician, but an embryo. No matter what Charlotte says about this…
I am still just learning. But I can maintain my true appearance without much difficulty and even without Dougal’s potion. After all, this potion is not a manifestation of the essence, as I thought then. It just stimulates the memory and helps to concentrate extremely much to create the desired illusion. Nothing that cannot be learned with desire and a good incentive. But I had an incentive, and not even one.
Not only the desire to see herself as real and the dislike of Charlotte’s body. As soon as I understood and believed that I would linger in this brave new world, the question arose – who would I be here? Charlotte Blair? It was unfair, it was wrong, my whole being was against it. And her parents are unlikely to be happy about this turn.
Freya Sullivan? ? who is she? Where did it come from? Why without documents, without that “paper trail” that leaves the life of any person: born, studied, applied to some institutions, spent money and topped up a bank account, bought tickets or ordered portals…
And what can you do with the fact that along with Charlotte’s body I inherited her magic? That very “magical aura signature” that verifies even an application to a bank or payment for an order by card, even magical oaths, contracts or vows.
What if this stranger-my-Charlotte’s magic doesn’t allow me to resign from the Academy?! Then Dougal will remain attached to her?! After all, his only chance to leave there by terminating the contract early is if the headmistress violates one of the clauses. We have the item "Miss Blair is Dr. Norwood's assistant." If you can’t “break” him, there’s no point in expecting new mistakes from Maskelyne.
Dougal then only shook his head after listening to my chaotic reasoning. Said:
– Leave it to me. I know what to put pressure on and what to threaten with. She doesn't need any fuss about the death of the professor's assistant within the Academy. If she tries to keep us, she will get everything she fears and even more. I will ensure close public interest and a massive outflow of students.
I will probably never forget this wonderful scene with Dougal the Menace and me as Freya Sullivan in Maskelyne’s office. But, perhaps, we must give the headmistress her due. She knew how to lose with dignity. Moreover, the publicity of the reasons and conditions of Dougal’s contract, either now or later, also categorically did not suit her. But Dougal promised to remain silent if she immediately canceled both contracts, both with him and with me. Maskelyne agreed. And as a “gesture of goodwill,” or rather, so that the truth about Charlotte’s death would remain true only for a narrow circle of people and would not in any way affect the good name of Regan Maskelyne, she herself offered to talk to Mr. Blair.
– He is a sensible person. The loss of his daughter, of course, will be a terrible blow for him, but I think we will find a solution that will suit everyone. He probably won’t want anything to do with the woman who has taken over the body of his “dear Charlotte.” And you, as I see, have already found a solution. Temporary, I guess?
“I hope it becomes permanent,” I assured. – I have no desire to walk in someone else’s guise and use someone else’s name.
Mr Blair insisted on talking to me – he wanted to make sure for himself that his daughter was no more. A painful meeting. How would I have survived it without Dougal's support? We swore an oath of secrecy – Mr Blair, Maskelyne, myself and Dougal. I received new documents, I don’t know how Mr. Blair got them, and Charlotte received a different fate, about which I know nothing.
– She is alive. The rest doesn’t concern you,” he said, and I, of course, did not object.
That evening, Dougal and I spontaneously, without saying a word, reached out to each other, as if we both needed a good dose of human warmth and affection. As a cure for the chilling cold that reigned in my soul after meeting Charlotte’s father and the headmistress. But the “medicine” very quickly turned into pleasure, and that night was the first of many – we felt good together, very good. It was then that the fear that now, freed from the curse, we would look at each other differently disappeared. And the last doubts disappeared.
And two weeks later there was a wedding. Quiet, chamber ceremony: Dougal said that the noise around his name would be enough for him for several years to come, and I knew almost no one here at all. Chester is the best man, Elsa is the bridesmaid, and the only spectator is Sabella. The ring on my finger felt… strange. Finally, but not as “it’s all over”, but as “now it all begins.” Happiness with a taste of anticipation…
No, everything did not become easy, simple and wonderful, as if by magic. But Dougal and I wouldn’t want to end up in a cloudless fairy tale. Is it possible to enjoy the sun if it shines around the clock?
“Dougal and I”… Yes, with him it was easy and natural to move from “mine” and “yours” to “we” and “ours”. Not in everything, of course – it’s still “your work and mine”, but this does not interfere with anything. Quite the contrary.
Mrs Freya Norwood has not yet made a name for herself as a journalist. It doesn't happen that quickly. I get to know the world, gain impressions, and at the same time explore interesting topics. Honestly, it’s much more difficult than it was at home, because here I’m interested in everything. Even alchemy conferences, which I went to several times with Dougal. And even though I still only understand prepositions and individual words in reports, conversations on the sidelines are something! You won’t hear anything there, from debates about the advisability of creating the philosopher’s stone (here, by the way, it is considered not a legend of alchemy, but a paradoxical scientific curiosity) to a caustic discussion of the unforgettable “tidal pebbles.”
And Dougal Norwood is a world-famous scientist, one of the leading experts of the Patent Commission, the inventor of one and a half dozen fundamentally new potions and one and a half hundred successful modifications of well-known recipes. Honorary member of five Academies, which does not include the Panacea Academy. Maskelyne bites his elbows in frustration, but cannot do anything. She has no access to Sabella’s house, much less to our London apartment. And when they happen to meet in public, Dougal only bows to her mockingly and politely and suppresses any attempts to start a conversation.
Here is the lake – a magically blue surface under a cloudy sky, a sunny glare, although the sun is not visible behind the clouds. Kels is curious and has already sensed my presence. We still have to wait out his usual water show with special effects, but I know how to speed up the conversation. It is enough to recall the incident that I want to talk about.
I was looking for something unusual as a gift for Sabella. As light, sonorous and magical as she herself. I don’t know how I ended up in an art gallery—a painting would have been the last option I thought of. If only because I don’t understand painting at all.
There I saw… him.
The same portrait.
She froze, clenching her fists painfully, convincing herself that it seemed to me, I imagined it. This is not a dream… not that creepy dream with the “portrait in blue.” But when I managed to breathe and take a step, I saw it myself – and the portrait was not the same. Not so…otherworldly. Without the frightening landscape of the astral world, without ghostliness in the image. Just the face of a girl, very similar to Charlotte and slightly like Sally, in the bluish moonlight, on the ocean shore. Disturbing, yes – but nothing more.
"Jacob Hughes. “The echo of someone else’s fate,” I read and closed my eyes. Jacob. Jake. The same artist and drunken Australian night that I dreamed about. Just a dream. Does this even happen? At least in the magical world, at least not?
Kels's mocking neigh jerked him out of his memories. Kels communicated with Dougal in colorful, visible images, but more often he sent me phrases, spoken in Dougal’s voice and with his most poisonous intonations. I suspect this is one of the kelpies' ways of brightening up eternity by having fun with people.
“You have already been answered. Some bipeds are given the ability to see and know more than others. If they also understood what exactly they see and know, I wouldn’t have to explain the obvious.”
And it’s true… when I showed the purchased portrait to Dougal and Sabella and told about that dream, Dougal just shrugged and replied:
– Inspiration. The thing is extremely unscientific because it is inexplicable. But it happens to some.
“It happens to everyone,” Sabella smiled. – Especially often with creative people. Ideas, pictures, words just come. And no one knows where. Doesn't that happen to you, Freya?
“Probably,” I admitted. – Sometimes.
Kels suddenly appeared very close, snorted in the face, splashing him with cold spray. The purple eyes sparkled with fire.
“You were one step away from the Brink. A pitiful, lost, loving creature who wanted to live, but did not believe in life. “He did show me an image, probably the same one that so amused Dougal a year ago: a young, sickly pale mermaid sobbing bitterly, irritably scraping faded scales from her tail and sobbing again. – Eternity watched over you, the curse pushed you in the back. If it weren’t for the connection that had managed to form… – the picture changed, now I saw Dougal and myself, sheets of paper with a field for a “naval battle”, myself on the floor of the buffet and later, in the evening, in Dougal’s arms. – You could have left at any moment. You people are funny. One touch of your consciousness was enough for me to understand. And for some reason you waited until the last minute. You love to suffer too much. “He snorted again, and a cold wave washed over my feet. “Sit down, I’ll take you for a ride.”
– To the middle of the lake? – I dried myself off and cast a warming charm. – Thank you, Kels, I definitely don’t like suffering in icy water. Let's wait for summer. But still, what does Jake have to do with it? How did he know? How can you meet a real person in a dream?
“How can you inhabit someone else’s body?”
“There are many things in the world, friend Horatio,” I chuckled.
“Kels, this is my wife.” Find yours and talk half to death as much as you like.
– Dougal! – I threw myself on his neck, he grabbed me by the waist, lifted me, pressing me tighter. It's good that I came back earlier today!
Against the background of my laughter, Kels’s intonations suddenly seemed not sarcastic, but grumpily sad:
“Wives don’t fly to me from other worlds. But this one is boring.”
–You're too old to have fun. And envy is a bad feeling.
“Get out. Both. And don’t even think about returning without foals. Stupid people, you always waste time on things that are not really important.”
Well, of course, Kels always has the last word. Although he usually turns out to be right.
End
