A Guardian Angel
Oscar Wilde Award. Playing Another Reality
Alexandra Kryuchkova

Translated by Alexandra Kryuchkova

Cover illustration licensed by Shutterstock.com

Illustrations Pixabay.com

Type Font Serif Buratino 10 Centered

© Alexandra Kryuchkova, 2026

ISBN 978-5-0069-5681-0

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

A GUARDIAN ANGEL
A novel from “Playing Another Reality” series

                                     Awards of the book:

                                 “Literary Olympus”
                    (League of the Writers of Eurasia, 2014)

                                    “Silver Angel”
                             Françoise Sagan award
                     (Open Literary Club “Response”, 2015)

                        “Wings of the 21st Century”
                                Oscar Wilde award
                             (Moscow City Organization
                        of the Union of Writers of Russia
                           & NP “Literary Republic”, 2021)

                                        Moscow, 2026

ABOUT the BOOK

T. Troubnikova, “Guardian Angels do exist!”

“A Guardian Angel” by Alexandra Kryuchkova, winner of the awards: “Wings of the 21st Century” of Oscar Wilde (Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, Literary Republic, 2021), “Silver Angel” of Françoise Sagan (Open Literary Club “Response”, 2015), and “Literary Olympus” (League of the Writers of Eurasia, 2014), is a very unusual, stunningly deep and naked novel-revelation, based on real events.

From the first lines you think of Paulo Coelho and Bernard Werber, but reading on, it reminds you of Carlos Castaneda and the dream hackers, and somewhere, of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Vadim Zeland. The real facts of the unique destiny of the writer are so closely interconnected and harmoniously interwoven with Another Reality and the Worlds of Mist and Dreams, as well as their representatives, guardian angels and ghosts, that space-time borders are erased completely and irrevocably, and all the events are wholly and completely perceived by the reader as one and indivisible whole – the only-possible and truly real one.

In the non-linear and non-trivial storyline – about love, of course! – including time pigtails and dizzying, roller-coaster-like journeys in the Space of Options, because the Future is not predetermined and hence can be rewritten, the music of refrains is playing – meetings, feelings, visions and dreams repeat recreating the spiral of existence and lulling the mind, making ripples in the water. But a charade plot with a taste of detective really keeps the readers in suspense till the last, and all their versions fall away as they approach the denouement, and it seems impossible to connect the disparate links into a single chain of events, which leads the main character Alice to her own death in Venice, the puzzle won’t be put together! But… “it only seems that way”!

Venice, the mystical city to which, according to the Italians, a trip together with the loved one threatens eternal separation, appears in the novel as a sinister black city, mourning ghosts. The description of the cardboard Moon in the sky and its cardboard reflection in the cardboard (!) water make a strong impression – like plunging into madness at the moment when, experiencing the main character’s feelings, you become aware of shifting edges in your own head.

However, despite the drama of the events, the writer managed to describe the dark side of her life quite easily and in some moments even ironically and to look at herself from the outside – through the eyes of her Guardian Angel, joking about herself, which is typical of a wise and bright person who has gone through fire, water and cooper pipes, but not embittered by the world.

“Everyone has their own Devil”, but the worst thing is to lose oneself. Wandering in the World of Mist, Alice has to visit the Library of the Universe, get to the right pages in the Tablets of Astral Light, enter the House of Life and find the reason in the Labyrinth of Subconscious for what is happening to rewrite the script.

Unlike other novels by A. Kryuchkova, “A Guardian Angel” is written in Russian in the spirit of script – in the Present Tense, perhaps as a subtle hint to the reader that it’s important to live here and now rather than dwell on the Past and the Future. The prose includes also poems by Kryuchkova, as delightful illustrations, bright flashes of accents like the red poppies on the white dress of the protagonist, who won “The King of Poets” competition (Union of Writers of Russia, 2013) and the imperial “Heritage” competition (Russian Imperial House & RSP, 2014).

The positioning of Alice as a poet is also curious. Referring to the three masters of the Silver Age poets – A. Blok, M. Tsvetaeva and A. Akhmatova – who are inhabitants of the Library of the Universe and characters of the novel, Alice doesn’t compare herself to them, but asks for help and receives it in critical situations. Thus, she comes to Marina Tsvetaeva in Elabuga before a serious surgery, and before the car accident on Anna Akhmatova’s birthday she rereads a volume of poems by Alexander Blok, her favorite book in childhood.

As Sergey Yesenin said, nothing worthwhile can be achieved without a message to Death, and he was right! Alice is not afraid to look into the eyes of her own death, moreover, she looks even through it, and not just believing in the posthumous existence, but exploring it in borderline states. At the same time, Alice has a panicked fear of… life! – Yes, there he is, her Man in Black, known by Esenin, Pushkin and Mozart. Thus, the mysterious death of the protagonist in Venice appears in a completely different light: it’s not the Man in Black who kills Alice, but her own fear of the Future, since it can cause pain.

And here the phrase “we all come from childhood” is confirmed by the writer 100%: in search of strength to overcome the fear of the Future, the wandering soul of Alice the adult, first of all returns to her tragic Past, reliving its most dramatic fragments and turning to Alice the child, to support herself in a hard moment. And this diving headlong down to the bottom of the ocean of Subconscious with memories of the burnt-out house and early dead parents, with conversations with her mother in reality and in dreams is scary and poignant, touching to the point of tears.

In the beginning of the novel, we clearly hear the voices of the invisible Guardians of people – the Angels who agree with each other to help their wards make the right step in one direction or another. However, chapter by chapter, their speech becomes weaker and weaker, giving way to the power of the human Spirit. And finally, on the background of exciting ordinary and completely unbelievable events, the most important actor appears, that’s Divine Love, reaching its climax in the finale: at the last second of a terrible car crash Alice is given the right to choose… But should she return from Another World to become a Guardian of the man who betrayed her and because of whom she wished to die in that crash?

Like all novels by A. Kryuchkova, “A Guardian Angel” is worthy of a luxury movie! Well, a sequel to the story follows! “Confession of a Ghost”, a new philosophical-mystical novel in the “Playing Another Reality” series, has already been awarded the prizes of D.L. Andreev “Creator of Worlds” (Open Literary Club “Response”, 2019) and F. M. Dostoevsky “Life suffocates without purpose” (Union of Writers of Russia, 2021). I sincerely join in congratulations to the writer and look forward to read her next novels!

Tatiana Troubnikova,

writer and screenwriter,

member of the Union of Writers of Russia

“Literary News” No. 11—12 (197—198), November-December 2021

B. Mikhin, “Angels and stars. Marina Tzvetaeva, Evgeny Rein and Alexandra Kryuchkova”

The novel “A Guardian Angel” by Alexandra Kryuchkova is a multifaceted work in which everyone will see something different. For me personally, it’s not just an unusual novel about the search for earthly love and the passions of a love triangle with a detective flare, astrological handwriting and charming self-irony of the writer. By the way, as Peter Guldedava, the honored writer of the Union of Writers of Russia, remarked in a review (hereafter I quote the preface to the previous edition of the novel in “RIPOL Classic”, 2015), “For my taste, there’s too little earthly. By extolling the idealized image of the beloved half-ghost, the protagonist seems to emphasize her own inaccessibility, while the average reader aims for the accessible.”

Celestial aftertaste from reading the novel was also left by the Orthodox writer-publicist Inna Butorina, “A real diary of an angel! An exclusive rarity, fragile jewel. A breath of pure spring water for each wayfarer exhausted by life. A book you will remember forever…”

“A Guardian Angel” for me is not even so much a fascinating and enlightening “Playing Another Reality” (as the title of the series suggests), due to which the reader certainly penetrates the Subtle Spheres, including the worlds of angels, ghosts and dreams, to overcome their own fears and complexes and rewrite a multi-variant Future, what is legitimately admired by Irina Lejava, a science fiction writer, “By no means a trivial plot! Beyond the love triangle there is the abyss of Subconscious, the world of Dreams, the Valley of Mist, the endless halls of the Library of the Universe, the pages of Astral Tablets, the rustling wings of ironic Guardians and the cosmic Soul of the writer, whose mission on Earth is to bring Light to people!”

For me, “A Guardian Angel” by A. Kryuchkova, on the one hand, is a splendid novel about a lady with strong Spirit (obviously not the iron lady), who is balancing, like a circus performer, on a thin thread, stretched over the abyss of Non-existence, and dancing with Death. Death either retreats, taking a step back, or pounces on Alice suffocating her in its passionate embrace. This novel is about the struggle with Death in its different guises, not even of a particular person, but of Life itself.

Almost the same was said by the writer Elena Gramenitskaya, “The power of Love of the main character, mesmerized by Death, but insanely eager to live, is able to destroy and revive worlds, it creates a powerful vortex flow, which takes your breath away! I missed my underground stop, reading the novel, having completely fallen into Another Reality.”

And for me, reading Kryuchkova’s books is like meditating. Both Alexandra’s poetry and her prose – no less poetic! – have an inexplicable magic effect, as noted in the reviews by Elena Tallenika (“The Island of Charon”), by Konstantin Bely (“A Trap for a Thought-Form”), by Peter Guldedava (“The Moon Cat” and “A Guardian Angel”). This magic, quite unobtrusively, but persistently and powerfully influences the reader, making him think not only about mortal things, while every novel by Kryuchkova is a discovery, a clear non-standard, a break of the patterns, a puzzle, a charade, something unusual.

I agree with Vadim Shiltsyn, writer and critic, “Kryuchkova’s prose is as unique as a fingerprint. A rare combination of writing talent and esoteric knowledge. The easiest way is to compare her ‘Guardian’ to Bernard Werber and Paulo Coelho, but Kryuchkova has such a vivid sense of this world that the works of Werber and Coelho cannot even compete with her Another Reality. ‘A Guardian Angel’ is a fascinating reading and a fine script for a stunning film to win at the Venice Film Festival!”

On the other hand, “A Guardian Angel” represents a cross-section of an entire decade, our literary history with the star names of the era, that emerges before the reader’s eyes, since the writer describes real events taking place in the literary circles of the early 21st century. The reader takes part in the Tsvetaeva’s bonfire in Elabuga, wanders through book exhibitions in Paris and London, goes to the seminars of Eugene Rein and Viktor Erofeev at the Booker Laureates’ School in Milan, travels to Venice to the grave of Joseph Brodsky, visits the 3rd International Poetry Festival in Hungary, oversees preparations for and holding “The King of Poets” tournament in the Central House of Writers in Moscow, acquaints with the imperial “Heritage” and plans a trip to the festival “I Love This World!” in Bulgaria.

In my opinion, it’s interesting, because, first of all, these events are not ordinary, but significant for their time, and second, the writer was directly involved in them, so the reader has the opportunity to plunge into the real literary environment and touch the celebrity personalities, which is much nicer than reading dry information from encyclopedic reference books.

What about the writer? What is her role in the events described?

Since 2001 Alexandra Kryuchkova has actively participated in literary events in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and her first performance abroad was on 11 April 2010 at the invitation of Carte Blanche Czech Republic, with pianist Philippe Subbotin, Director of the Gradus ad Parnassum music school at the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Prague (Czech Republic). It was a three-hour musical and poetic concert at the St. Mary’s Church in Prague (Kostel Panny Marie Snezne) with a video broadcast on Russian television in Prague.

In September 2011, thanks to the Union of Writers of the 21st Century and its President Evgeny Stepanov, Alexandra Kryuchkova represented Russia at the 3rd International Poetry Festival in Hungary, organized with the support of the international cultural and creative foundation E.O.S., headed by poet and translator Aron Gaal. After performances in Budapest, Szentendre and Isáseg, she was announced as the winner of the Festival and had her book translated into Hungarian in Budapest published free of charge. Her name was engraved on a memorial stone in the Park of Stars on the Walk of Fame. She was awarded the Order of G.R. Derzhavin by the Union of Writers of Russia. After the publication of her book “Ez a – Szerelem!” (“This is Love!”), a selection of poems translated into Hungarian by A. Gaal, Alexandra was awarded the international Hungarian prize “New Pleiades” 2012 for her merits in the field of literature.

Later Kryuchkova, as a poet and writer, represented Russia as part of the delegation of the Union of Writers of Russia at the book fair in Paris (2012), where indeed, as in the novel, she spoke with the French Minister of Culture. The she was a speaker at the conference “The New Russian Revolution in Literature” organized by Edizioni Spirali Italian Publishers in Milan (2012); held master classes at the Literary Festival in Varna (Bulgary) and read poetry at the Union of Bulgarian Writers, where she met the legendary Bulgarian poet and translator Elka Nyagolova, who had translated Kryuchkova’s poetry into Bulgarian. Alexandra performed at the book fair in London (2013) and led a literary tour in Italy (2014) as the head of the delegation of writers and poets. She was the initiator of the international projects of the Moscow State Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia such as Russia-Czech Republic, Russia-Germany, Russia-Hungary, Russia-Spain, Russia-Italy, Russia-Greece. Each of her foreign performances and international projects were awarded diplomas of the Moscow State Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, and her works were partially translated into English, German, Italian, Bulgarian and Hungarian. The book “Without a Mask” mentioned in the novel was indeed published in Germany by Stella-Verlag publishing house.

Alexandra Kryuchkova is a three-time winner of the League of Writers of Eurasia “Literary Olympus” in the prose category, including the novel “A Guardian Angel” (2014), but a special role in her creative destiny was played by poets Evgeny Borisovich Rein and Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva. It’s no coincidence that in her acknowledgements, she mentions E. B. Rein first. The novel is also dedicated to A. Akhmatova and A. Blok. At the same time, E.B. Rein is a real character of the novel, while Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova and Blok help the main character from a parallel world by meeting her in the Library of the Universe.

Alexandra intersects with E.B. Rein three times both in life and in the novel. In March 2012, she attended a course of his poetry seminars at the Booker Laureates’ School in Milan (Italy), and was announced the winner (she was awarded a diploma, the Order of S.A. Yesenin “Golden Autumn” and a publication of her poetry book by the Union of Writers of Russia). Together with a group of seminarians, they travelled to Venice to visit the places of Joseph Brodsky. In autumn 2012, Alexandra performed on TV channel “Culture” (“Aloud. Poems about Myself. How to rise above graphomania?” program), with Alexander Kushner and Evgeny Rein on the jury. Kryuchkova was declared the winner of the program. In April 2013, she took another poetry course of E. B. Rein at the Union of Writers of Russia and received a diploma.

A book of her poems with the provocative title “Marina. Anna. Alexandra”, repeatedly mentioned in the novel and submitted simultaneously with the book “A Scream to the Unanswered” to the judgment of E.B. Rein, was published by “RIPOL Classic” in 2009. It would seem logical to assume that the link between Rein and Kryuchkova is Anna Akhmatova (Rein knew Akhmatova well and is traditionally, along with Brodsky, considered a pupil of Akhmatova), and in the novel (as in real life) the main character Alice is involved in a fatal car crash on Akhamatova’s birthday. However, in a difficult moment of life and on her own birthday Alice (as the writer) goes to Elabuga, and Marina Tsvetaeva, unlike Anna Akhmatova, appears in almost all novels by Kryuchkova.

The protagonist of “A Guardian Angel” tells us a lot of nuances that make her similar to Marina, and in the next novel, “Confession of a Ghost”, periodically repeats the phrase, “I am not Akhmatova”. It’s significant, in my opinion, that despite a lot of opportunities, Kryuchkova has never taken part in Akhmatova’s competitions, but she did win in “The Gallery of Selected Poetry” in the nomination of M. Tsvetaeva “Women’s Cosmos” for the poem “1m and 58 sm” (October 2010), and in the competition “Tsvetaeva’s Bonfire” 2013 (getting the first place with the award of a statuette “M. Tsvetaeva” and a certificate for a free book publishing). On several occasions, Alexandra read poetry and hosted literary evenings at the House Museum of M. Tsvetaeva in Borisoglebsky Lane in Moscow, and with the literary foundation “Svetoch” performed at the School-Gymnasium V.P. von Dervis, where M. Tsvetaeva had studied.

Kryuchkova visited Elabuga three times, two trips are described in “A Guardian Angel”. By decision of the management of Elabuga State Museum-Reserve of M. Tsvetaeva (EGMZ), she received the right to light the 11th Tsvetaeva’s Bonfire in Elabuga on October 5, 2013 and open poetry readings. Her speech and interview for regional TV was widely covered by the mass media (“Tatmedia”, “New Kama”, “Evening of Elabuga”, “Elabuga without format”, “Common Literary Newspaper” and others). In October 2020, Alexandra came to Tsvetaeva’s Bonfire for the second time as the head of the delegation of the Moscow State Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia. She got a diploma signed by the director of the EGMZ and the chairman of the Union of Writers for participation in the Tsvetaeva’ Bonfire and awarded the medal “Tsvetaeva’s Bonfires”.

“A Guardian Angel” includes Kryuchkova’s poems as illustrations, adding the final touch to her portrait: yes, she is a master! As the winner of “The King of Poets” tournament (the Union of Writers of Russia, 2013), she appeared in Dmitry Silkan’s Literary Lounge and Natalia Osipova’s Cultural Layer program on the “Russian World” radio and TV. In 2014, “RIPOL Classic” published her book of poems, “The Queen of Poets”, and then Alexandra, one of the few to be awarded the Order of the Holy Great Martyr Anastasia by the Russian Imperial House of Romanovs for the contribution to Russian culture, became a winner of “Heritage” national literary award. Thus, the last page of “A Guardian Angel” is flooded with spotlight from the “Heritage” Award ceremony in the Great Hall of the Central House of Writers.

As Nadezhda Schlesiger, a writer and a fan of Marina Tsvetaeva, wrote about “A Guardian Angel”, “Kryuchkova is walking on the edge of genius. Her poems sprout in your soul, striking you with sincerity and depth of thought. Her prose surprises both in form and content, and, of course, the Power of the Spirit. Her Another Reality is the truth of life suffered out…”

However, I’d like to conclude my review about “A Guardian Angel” with the words of Peter Guldedava, the head of the “Fresh Look” literary association, already quoted at the beginning, who, despite his reproach for the excessive heavenliness of the protagonist, continues his review as follows, “But it is in the pure spirituality that the power of the impact of Kryuchkova’s works, the key of her creativity at a high level, is revealed. Whatever she talks about, every word is a word of love, faith and hope, radiating magic charm of talent and beauty. Unfortunately, people have forgotten to appreciate their close contemporaries, because they have two eyes to see, two ears to hear and one mouth that apart of speaking clever words demands their daily bread. It’s difficult for them to bring their level of objectivity to degrees equal to the great gifts of their fellows. Especially if God let them hide their own obtuseness behind an abundance of rhyming quotations of well-known truths and paraphrased statements of acknowledged authorities. Perhaps time must pass and only descendants will be able to discern the true scale of the Master’s greatness from a distance of decades. Following an infectious example and paraphrasing Franz Liszt’s words about Pauline Viardot, I’d like to state with full responsibility, Alexandra Kryuchkova is not simply a Russian literary figure. She is a cultural phenomenon, and one day the turn for the precious wines of her inimitable work will come!”

Boris Mikhin,

poet, member of the Union of Writers of Russia,

laureate of literary awards

“Foreing Notes”¹ magazine No. 1 (47), 2022²

L. Kuzminskaya, “Venice in the works of Alexandra Kryuchkova”

Venice is one of Alexandra Kryuchkova’s favorite cities, as she tells us in her novels in the “Playing Another Reality” series. In particular, Venice is practically a character in the novel “A Guardian Angel”. Alexandra has visited Venice many times, both on business trips and for creative performances, “I’ve just come back from a business trip there,” I sighed, still looking at the paintings. “My favorite city. I often go to Venice. On business and on my own. There is something magical about the city that keeps me coming back.”³

The author’s most important trip to Venice, described in “A Guardian Angel”, took place in March 2012. It was a tour from the Booker Laureates’ School in Milan, where Alexandra was taking a poetry seminar of Evgeny Rein, a friend of Joseph Brodsky. Together with E. Rein, the seminarians also visited Brodsky’s grave in the San Michele cemetery⁴.

“I found myself at the cemetery! Surrounded by tombstones! I came up to one of them and read, ‘Joseph Brodsky’. ‘How did I end up in Venice? What am I doing here? Perhaps it’s just a dream.’ Some voices were heard in the distance. They were calling me. I caught up with them and… Suddenly, I remembered joyfully that I was there with a group of writers and poets, at the seminars of E. B. Rein and V. Erofeev! Dmitry Nemelstein, a poet and historian, came up to me, ‘Alexandra, don’t be sad! You’ll succeed!’ ‘I’m not sleeping! Yes! Exactly! He addressed me by my earthly name! We were there for a tour of the places of Brodsky!’ My memory returned, I gradually remembered how we had left Milan by bus, got to the pier of San Marco and arrived by boat to the cemetery island of San Michele.”⁵

Italians have a superstition. You shouldn’t come to Venice with your loved one, otherwise, after the trip, you’ll break up for one reason or another.

“You should go to Venice with your loved one!”

“I thought so, too. But an Italian, the CEO of the factory, with whom we communicate at work, said that Venice was considered in Italy to be an unhappy city for lovers, bringing eternal separation. He gave me some examples from his own life and the lives of his friends. Even engagements had been canceled after such trips, and one girl had even died!”⁶

Perhaps that’s why Venice appears in Kryuchkova’s poems as a city of ghosts, and in her prose as a theatrical stage with cardboard decorations, where even “the Moon in the sky is cardboard”⁷, and is reflected in “cardboard water”⁸, “Venice, the mystical city to which, according to the Italians, a trip together with the loved one threatens eternal separation, appears in the novel as a sinister black city, mourning ghosts. The description of the cardboard Moon in the sky and its cardboard reflection in the cardboard (!) water make a strong impression – like plunging into madness at the moment when, experiencing the main character’s feelings, you become aware of shifting edges in your own head.”⁹

“What’s this?” I burst out involuntarily.

“I paint,” the composer said, embarrassed.

There were paintings on the shelves by the window. A lot of them. There was a black city on all of them, with black houses, small blind windows, gray Mist and Full Moon, on every picture. It was the city too familiar to me, my favorite city, the City-on-the-Water. But in those pictures it looked completely cardboard, like the scenery on the stage – artificial, frightening, sinister.

“Have you been to Venice?”

“Never.”

“Why is it black?”

“Maybe it’s… crying.”¹⁰

In fact, both the poems and the central part of the novel “A Guardian Angel”, “A Dreams’ Trap”, are connected with the writer’s mysterious dream about her own funeral in Venice, which is described both in the novel and in the poem “Chimera”.

“I had a strange dream about a year ago. I was being buried in Venice. I completely forgot about it, but remembered recently, during my last business trip, while I walking around San Marco. I went to the pier and saw a boat sailing away from the shore. Just like in that dream…”

“So will you be buried in Venice?”

“I don’t know. It was early morning. It looked like spring. A misty haze. There were only two people in the boat, the boatman and the Man in Black with gray, almost white hair. They were carrying my body or ashes. I don’t know, I was scared to look inside the boat. They were going to the opposite island. I don’t even know what island it is. I’ve never been to it.”

“So who is he, your Black Man?”

“I don’t know.”¹¹

And so the waxing Moon, the symbol of the Subconscious, reaches its “cardboard” culmination in Venice, “We docked at San Marco at night. The Man in Black brought me to my favorite City-on-the-Water. But stepping on the square, I saw it differently, as a black, sinister city, completely drowned in pitch darkness, and cardboard, like scenery on a theater stage! The whole earthly world is a huge theatrical stage on which people play performances for ghosts. Dressed in costumes of earthly bodies, they live on the stage surrounded by cardboard scenery, which can be instantly destroyed by the One who keeps prescribing in the Astral Tablets the plot threads of the plays of their destinies. These strange creatures – people – are so enchanted by the magical illusion of changing scenery that only Death is able to rip off the Venetian masks fused with their faces. I stood on San Marco in pitch darkness, trying in vain to find at least a lantern. The city was de-energized. I didn’t see any light in it. There were only black dead houses around me. Everything there was unreal. Cardboard! Frightening!! Sinister!!! So I ran away in a long dress woven by the Mist, into the distance, along the bridges, trying to find the River that took souls into the sky. I ran, suffocating, along the scenery of black cardboard houses, with no light in the windows <…>. Finally, I found the transition point! I got to the place where there was no bridge, but steps going right into the water, and similar steps coming out of the water on the opposite side. One wouldn’t be able to jump there. It was the Looking Glass, reflecting everything there. It was a pity that no one could see what I saw, and how I saw the earthly world then. It had become cardboard, black, an ominous monster! I sat down on the steps leading into the water, waiting for my parents, who were about to come for me. I looked at the black sky, where the huge Moon was hanging. But it was also… cardboard! I turned my gaze down to its reflection – wow! – someone had cut out a cardboard copy of the Moon and put it on the same cardboard (!!!) water <…>. My parents appeared out of the Looking Glass. They came up to the steps on the other side of the River. But suddenly, booming footsteps were heard behind my back. The Man in Black gently took me in his hands, like a little girl, and carried me away.”

“San Marco. Morning. The sunshine. The square gradually came to life, flooded with people. I was standing by the column not far from the Cathedral, so I could see the sea and the island of St. George opposite. I was in a white dress. Cheerful music was playing. And gradually, I began to see Venice the same as I had seen it before. But… how had I got there? What was I doing there? There were ghosts around me, my friends from the Library of the Universe and my parents. The Man in Black smiled and invited me to dance with him right on the square. The ghosts surrounded us. Nobody saw them but me. It was a pity. I began to see ghosts even during the daytime and much clearer than whatever ordinary people saw. The ghosts whispered, ‘Alice, come on, smile! Dance, please! That’s what you wanted so much! You need him!’ And I realized that it was my wedding, that was why I was in a white dress. But only my ghosts would be among the guests. So I was dancing on San Marco with the Man in Black. The ghosts picked up pigeons throwing them at us and making me smile. Suddenly, my memory restored completely. I remembered my world collapsing <…>, and despair overwhelmed me <…>. And again, everything became cardboard, fake, sinister! That city was like a prison! And I decided to get outside…”¹²

The conflict between Love and Death, inherent in Kryuchkova’s prose, also manifests itself in her poetry cycle about Venice, and its magical attraction not only captivates the writer but also enchants the reader. On the one hand, Venice, to quote Alexandra Kryuchkova, is a trap, a labyrinth, a poet’s apocrypha, a dream, a chimera, a bad omen, a house of tragedies, a last refuge, the music of the rains, it serves an ominous star, and its bridges lead to disaster. The city’s name itself is polysemantic, though, besides its association with the Veneti tribe, after which the Romans named the region as Venice (Latin: Venetia), there are no other official meanings. But the poet’s imagination is boundless. Venice evokes various associations: Ophelia’s wreath from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, with its ambiguous flowers symbolizing unhappy love; and Venus, the planet of love, with its two images: Lucifer, the Morning Star, and Hesperus, the Evening Star. Perhaps for some, Venice evokes other associations. And yet, “my bridges haven’t seen us yet together!”, “…Murano glass has poured in me a symphony of delicate nuances…”, “Would you paint me… A café, a tail-coat for lanterns, which are sparkling through years with hope, that the happiness surely happens prior to hearts are drowned in darkness.”

Love wins – the writer is confident of her return.

“Let’s go back to the touch to that city,

where songs are still sung to the water,

just to laugh at the ringing gold coin,

dancing there, among masks and faces,

and to glow in sunshine with bridges,

self-aligning with spirits and pigeons.”

“Let’s fly into the portal, let’s escape!

Still lulling Life, the waves await us there!

I’ll pass to you my Venice as a gift, —

keep it forever like a thread between us.”

“Mark sleeps, still unaware, through the dreams I will return, an earthly hostage of his spring…”

Despite the melancholy permeating Alexandra’s “Venice” cycle, the main leitmotif remains life-affirming, “Let Venice separate us, but like a ghost at dawn, still smiling, my hello will silently flash up…” But it’s better to read the novel yourself. So, Venice by Alexandra Kryuchkova…

Larisa KUZMINSKAYA,

poet, member of the Union of Russian Writers,

head of cooperation unit of the “Poets of Moscow”

“Literary News”¹³, No. 1 (211), 2023¹⁴

PART I. A GUARDIAN

This book is dedicated to

Marina Tzvetaeva,

Anna Akhmatova,

Alexander Blok

Thanks to

all the characters of the novel, including:

E.B. Rein & his wife Nadejda,
V.G. Boyarinov,
E.V. Stepanov,
S.M. Makarenkov,
Y.V. Myshonkov,
V.G. Shiltzyn,
N.Y. Smirnova,
N.P. Savkina,
E.G. Lisichkina,
R.A. Mansurova,
S.E. Gryzunova,
the Man in White
& everyone else!

Angel on the bench

When tickets are heavenly stamped,
the clock hands will leave their circle.
The Angel, relaxed on a bench,
was counting stars to a hund.
“A ladle¹⁵ is there. A spoon?
I’m kidding, just give me your hand,
my Angel.”
“I’m tired a bit,
You’d better sit down as well…”
“It seems a dead end, doesn’t it?
‘A bad mark’ in gradebook of yours,
since happiness passes me by,
when you are in such awful mood!
Oh, Angel! Don’t be a recluse!
It’s time for the brightest night hunts!
The Weds are still catching the Tues,
so shouldn’t we take a detour?
My best friend, you are so smart
to argue with each evil fate!
What’s there? And what street is this,
we are now on? Do you hear
them singing? – yes, under the bells,
they praise Christ with all their might!
Unable of falling asleep,
I’m nannying the Moon – born again.
Stop sitting and frowning at me!
The Joker will save any game!”
…The Angel was silent, – on Earth,
that street was so simply called “Death”.

April 28, 2009

***

Angels are not found on the road. At least, because there are far fewer of them than people… Angels, they are all in short supply, thus, in great demand. There are not enough of them. So many people dream of them. Some spend their whole life just dreaming.

Angels have much more to do than the people to whom they were assigned from Above. They are the guardians. They even have no time to take a nap. If suddenly one’s ward starts to behave like a pig, then again, because of the catastrophic disproportion between winged and piglets, the Higher Forces send that one’s Angel to another human who needs help more and, most importantly, deserves body and soul guarding.

The queue is here, on Earth, for the Angels, even if you can’t see it with your earthly eyes. Perhaps you are the next one. But when an Angel is given to you from Above, treat your Angel with care, as if it were you a guardian. Become the guardian Angel of your guardian Angel. Of course, your Angel will take it with a smile, but will be very pleased… And never offend your Angel to avoid being at the tail of the queue again, because… Angels are not found on the road.

I know I’ll be definitely sent someone who needs an Angel and who will appreciate the Angel in me…

Chapter 1.0. Prologue

February 14, night

Moscow, on a skyscraper roof

Deep night. It was snowing. Two spirits in white clothes were sitting on the roof, dangling their legs and talking quietly. Suddenly, a third one appeared. A very handsome and slyly smiling, he came out of the blizzard towards them and hung in the air.

“Hello, Glamorous, long time no see,” one of those sitting on the roof said calmly, showing no particular joy at the appearance of the latter.

“Hello, White! I have something to do. Let’s step away to talk,” the spirit hanging in the air said.

White and Glamorous walked away into the blizzard, slowly wandering through the air over the city.

“Listen, well, I’m all about my ward,” Glamorous said, sighing heavily.

“What’s up with him? Is he flirting with the Dark ones again?”

“Well, nothing special, but he must return some debt to your Alice.”

“Did he think of that himself?”

“No, it’s me to worry about. He’s getting old, not as you and me. He’ll die one day. What will it mean for Alice? Many of her sins will be paid by him. But how can I justify myself for his deeds?”

“What do you want? Say it straight.”

“We need to bring them together!”

“That’s funny.”

“What’s so funny, bro?”

“My Alice is always around. Your sinner is always out there. It’s not my question!”

“Let’s replay that situation, okay?”

“How many summers, how many winters have already passed!”

“On a new level!”

“What has the level to do with it? Have you looked at her dial?”

Glamorous instantly disappeared and appeared in one of the rooms of the skyscraper, where the light had long been turned off, and on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, a girl was sleeping peacefully. Glamorous looked at the watch on her hand. The girl, as if sensing something, shuddered and opened her eyes half-asleep.

Glamorous disappeared from the room. He was again next to White and, still smiling slyly, twisting a lock of golden hair around his finger, purred joyfully, “Swiss!”

“Glamorous, are you an angel or a human?! I mean Zodiacal one.”

Glamorous cast a glance up at the sky. White pulled away the falling snowflakes with his wings, as the curtains. Against the background of the black sky, a ghostly dial appeared, the Zodiacal one. The planets took their places in the circle divided into 12 sectors, Hours or Houses (in the language of Heaven), or Spheres of human life (in the language of Earth).

Mentally highlighting the most important, Glamorous read, “A person is separated from the world by a wall visible to others. Death walks nearby. Change of job or, with bad aspects, oncology is highly likely. Maximum of creativity or love is the goal for the year.”

“Bro, it’s the goal for the year!” exclaimed Glamorous, dematerializing the Zodiacal dial. “My ward will help her!”

“He has already helped. It’d be better no help at all!”

“Well, it’s not my fault that all the time your Alice keeps trying to combine both lines of the 5th Sphere. Wasn’t it you then, on the eve of their meeting, who allowed her to make two wishes to the Japanese one-eyed god at once, meanwhile it used to fulfill only one? So everything went wrong! Both wishes were from the same Sphere, and each came true exactly in half. Anyway, only one thing is realized in the 5th – a human gets either Love or Creativity. Actually, as in any other Sphere: in the 6th a human serves the world or gets sick, and so on, you know!”

“Hasn’t she created enough in your opinion? Why are you pointing me at her Rahu? Open your eyes to her Pluto!”

“White, she can’t leave! Have pity on me! Keep her in their world! Let they meet again. I’ll do my best! I swear on the Bible!”

A ghostly book appeared in the air, Glamorous put his palm on it, and the book disappeared.

“I’ll help you get Alice out,” Glamorous continued to beg. “Let’s think together about the way! There is still enough time before her birthday when the next New Year program starts! Today is February 14, and her day is April 5! Moreover, she is an advanced user, not like my ward!”

“I’ve just saved her from Saturn in 8. You can’t imagine what it cost me! Having scanned all the options trying to find at least someone to warn her, I flew to another city on a business trip to negotiate with a local guardian. The date of the car crash was given to her on the eve! And she, the ‘advanced user’, understood nothing! By the way, do you remember what your sinner said to Alice when he called her then?”

“Sorry, bro! I didn’t foresee it, didn’t stop him, didn’t inspire!” Glamorous looked away in embarrassment.

“Yes, you didn’t inspire! My Alice, hardly breathing, with a concussion, and he said something like, ‘Do you have your ear sewn beautifully or not?’ Damn aesthete! Ugh, forgive me, God!”

“White, are you an angel or a human? Why are you scolding? So, I’ve made up my mind, look!”

Glamourous returned the dematerialized Zodiacal dial, held out his hand and turned the dial just a little.

“Don’t mess around!” White sighed and took Glamourous’ hand away from the dial.

“I don’t! I’ve just moved the Sun out of her 12th Sphere. On the right side, there are the coordinates of the place where she needs to be on her birthday.”

White read the word appeared in the sky.

“Elabuga, a funny place for a birthday party!”

“Your Alice hasn’t celebrated her birthday for many years. Anyway, have a look! These planets are now at the same places as they were when our humans met!”

Chapter 1.1. The Man in White

February 23, evening,

Moscow, a cozy coffeehouse

Alice was sitting at a table in a coffeehouse. White, her guardian angel, was sitting across the table. He looked at her sadly and sighed. Her fingers were typing a text message. She wrote, then erased, then re-wrote and looked at each word for a long time. As a result, she put the phone aside and drank coffee.

In the distance, the hazy outlines of a grey-haired Old Man’s guardian appeared. That angel, called Elder, was walking slowly along the windows of the expensive boutiques of the shopping center towards the coffeehouse. People didn’t notice him, they ran about their business, passing through the ghostly figure. White recognized the Old Man’s guardian and waved to him. Elder approached their table, and they greeted each other.

“I’m just for a moment, White.”

“Has something happened?”

“Not yet in the earthly reality, but in the Space of Options. Do you remember my ward helped your Alice in due time?”

“Unforgettable! We owe you much!”

“He is going through hard times. No way to avoid. I’ve tried this and that way. Alice should hold an official event with him as the protagonist. It has to be planned urgently, because he’ll get into trouble soon.”

A movie screen appeared in the air and the incident frames were projected onto it.

“After this date,” Elder continued, and the date instantly appeared in the air, “neither Alice nor anyone else will ever think of organizing such an event. And if it turns out to be planned before the incident, he’ll have to appear on it at all costs. He is very responsible! The event will make him feel needed by their world, you know.”

“Yes, of course… What date of the event will suit? The end of March?”

The ghostly Book of Life appeared in the air. Elder flipped through it slowly and stopped somewhere in early April.

“What do you think about her birthday, the 5th?”

“I can’t this day, sorry, Elder. She has to be in Elabuga on the 5th. I’m starting to organize her transfer. The 6th only.”

“Are you transferring her to Elabuga? It’s interesting! You are moving the planets, I see. Isn’t there a brighter place?” Elder smiled kindly, White spread his hands. “Okay, deal. Let’s fix it on the 6th. Around lunchtime. And don’t plan it for too long. A couple of hours as maximum.”

“All right. I’ll inspire her today. I hope, he’ll be aware of it already tomorrow.”

Elder looked thoughtfully at Alice and said, “Your Alice has the same gaze as my Elder. It’s turned into the depths of Heaven. Both their souls are kind. The angel, who told the publisher to name her book after the Great Ones, was right. And it’s good we made our wards get acquainted! What do you think? There’s a certain continuity of times: Anna-Eugeny-Alice.”

White nodded. Alice took the phone in her hand, re-read the text of her message again, then abruptly clicked the “Send” button, and the message flew away. Elder patted White on the wing.

“Well, I have to go. Fly to the one she has sent this message to. Take care of Alice, White, so that the Dark ones don’t get her.”

Elder and White disappeared, each in their own direction. Alice finished her coffee and asked for the bill.

***

far from Moscow, a house by the sea

White appeared in a luxurious house and searched for his colleague, scanning every room on every floor. Dim, an angel who, unlike many guardians, emitted a very faint light, was kneeling in the darkest corner of the building.

“Hello, Dim,” exclaimed White joyfully. “Happy defenders’ day! Defenders of the Fatherland, Heaven, I mean! You don’t look good, who put you in the corner?”

“Happy day, bro! I’m praying here. Day and night, night and day.”

“You’re withering before my eyes! You don’t pray well! Where’s your ward?”

“The same problems, he’s surrounded by the Dark ones! It’s time for him to think of God, but… As I come a little closer, the Dark ones throw me out. So I have to stay at such a distance from him. Every time, as soon as I get strength, I go straight to him, trying to drive the Dark ones away. But as you see, I don’t last long enough. Why are you here, White? What do we owe the pleasure to?”

“Alice suffered out a message for him. He’s reading it now. Let’s go.”

“The Dark ones are there!”

“Get up, Brother, let’s go. One Light is good, but two Lights are better!”

Dim stood up from his knees and, without ceasing to pray and make the sing of cross along the way, went to his ward.

In a study room, a Man in White sitting in a black armchair was reading Alice’s message. Dark shadows were fussing around him. They whispered something in his ear winking at each other. Suddenly, the shadows noticed the guardians.

“Hello, defenders!” a Dark one smirked. “Dim, you aren’t strong enough yet! Why have you come here again?”

White looked at the Man in White and said thoughtfully, “What did my ward find in you?”

“Wow, White!” another Dark one, named Black, exclaimed. “Your ward, judging by her messages, is not exactly a saint, but you’re still the same caring for her! No matter how hard you try, no matter you take her away, she is drawn to him as if bewitched! Note that we didn’t put any love spells! Moreover, he openly demonstrated to her his true essence! Alice, calling him by a ‘starry’ name, is well aware of whom she is dealing with! However, it’s not in our plans to be at war with you, White. Alice is absolutely contraindicated for him.”

“Contraindicated? By whom?” White chuckled.

“By our boss. Your Alice, although not a saint, is protected by the angel named White. Not Dim, not Glamorous, not Extinguished. It means, she is anyhow a person of Light. So she can have a negative effect on our fallen starred one.”

“Negative effect?!” Dim exclaimed outraged.

“Therefore, we have an order from Above…” Black went on.

“Your ‘from Above’ in the language of Truth means ‘from the Bottom’, ” Dim corrected Black.

“In short, defenders,” the second Dark one cut off the conversation abruptly, “we don’t want that man to communicate with Alice. I suppose that suits you, too, White, doesn’t it?”

“At the present moment, it suits me,” White agreed.

“Fine. Are you here to prevent a negative reaction against her? We assure you, we are not interested in mouse fuss. This man plays big. He, as we ourselves, need much energy, so we are not going to waste it by reacting to such nonsense.”

“Since when is Love nonsense?” Dim sighed, came very close to the Man in White and touched his arm.

The Man’s gaze became soft, the phantom of Alice appeared on his inner screen, the Man smiled. But the Dark ones immediately noticed what was happening. One of them dispersed the girl’s phantom, and the other pushed Dim towards the doors with a rough energy wave.

“Until he wants to change himself by directing his gaze towards the Light instead of the Darkness, you’ll stand, you know where, Dim!”

***

Moscow, the cozy coffeehouse

Alice got the bill being sad. White appeared in the coffeehouse, “A stubborn sheep! I can neither make you forget the Man in White, nor let him to be nearby. At least for now.”

Alice raised her head and looked straight into the eyes of her guardian. She seemed to both hear and see him, but it just seemed so.

Having remembered his promise to Elder, White instructed Alice, “Call that Woman from the House of Serving to Creativity. Suggest an event…”

Alice obediently took her phone, dialed the Woman and told her the idea she had just come up with to hold an important event… at the end of March.

“Alice! On the 6th of April,” the guardian exclaimed.

Alice stopped abruptly. She looked into the eyes of her guardian, or through them? She felt like saying, “No, not at the end of March! Let it be on the 6th of April!” But she didn’t understand and couldn’t explain either to herself or to anyone else, why suddenly on the 6th, and not on the 5th, for example? That’s why she said nothing. The Woman agreed, she liked the idea of the event.

Alice paid for her coffee and walked slowly out into the street. Her guardian walked nearby to her right, protecting Alice from the passing Dark ones and thinking about the way to transfer her to Elabuga.

Chapter 1.2. Signs

March 8, evening,

Moscow, Alice’s kitchen

Alice sat down at the table, turned off the lights and lit the candles. White sat next to her. Alice shuffled the Tarot. The guardian blew on the cards. One of them slipped and fell to the floor. Alice picked it up, turned it over – “Death”. Alice flinched. The guardian said angrily, “Well?! Isn’t it a sign? How am I supposed to talk to you if everything I show you in your dreams, you forget as soon as you wake up? Less than a month left! Remember the signs I sent you, not enough? Five years ago, I introduced you to one of the most famous clairvoyants of your world. What did she say when she met you? A number! The age you are about to be, and added, ‘Be careful! But if you survive, you’ll live a long time until…’.”

Alice looked at the candles thoughtfully.

“Come on! Keep recalling! A year and a half ago, during meditation, you found yourself inside a huge mountain monastery. At that time, you served people, almost free of charge, working in the House of Serving to Creativity. Then, in meditation, you started looking for a way out into the God’s light, that is, into the world, and a man appeared who took you out of the monastery. You changed job five weeks ago. In meditation, he took you to the island, where he suggested diving deep to admire the fish and was eaten by a shark. What happened in reality? He said, ‘Alice! I wish I could drag you to the bottom of the ocean to admire the fish!’ You immediately recalled what I had shown you, and oriented in the Space of Time. What happened next?”

Alice sighed, so quickly the candles were burning out.

“You went back to the same mountain monastery. It looks like a return to the House of Serving to Creativity. You entered a long-long tunnel without any light in it. You correctly equated the passage of the tunnel to three months in earthly time. I showed you the next period of Saturn, the hardest period of the year, 85 days long. You came out of the tunnel into the light and started climbing the mountain. On the way, you found a waterfall and… the Man in White, who took you to the top of the mountain. Your Saturn period this year begins on June 16 and lasts until September 8. Don’t you want to take a look at what awaits you soon?”

The candles burnt out. Alice turned on her laptop in complete darkness, found on the Internet a program for calculating the Solar, the Heavenly plan for the year, starting on one’s birthday. According to her Astrologer, the coordinates of the place are important, since when we leave somewhere, we change the location of the planets (events) in the Houses (Spheres of Life), that is, we actually change the Future. The Zodiacal dial appeared. The planets took their places in the circle. Alice evaluated the resulting layout, read the comments and sighed heavily. The guardian sighed happily, “Glory to Thee, Lord, glory to Thee! Don’t you remember nothing like the combination of evil Pluto in the 6th with the Sun in the 12th?”

Alice took a step back, typed in in the program her mother’s date of birth and the year of her death, got the result and couldn’t believe her eyes.

“You are on the right track, don’t stop! Recall what I showed you during the meditation before your car crashed.”

Alice closed her eyes, recalling. She was passing through a huge abyss. There was a deep sound in the ears, similar to AUM or the sound of a bell. In a tiny boat, Alice floated along a very narrow gorge. Surrounded by high black rocks, she could neither go ashore, there was no shore, nor speed up the movement, she had no oars. And even if she had had them, she wouldn’t have been able to move them, since the corridor of the gorge was so narrow that her boat, similar to a walnut shell, almost touched the rocks on both sides. Alice felt like a prisoner, nothing depended on her.

“Bravo! That was the departing Saturn in 8 with Pluto in 12. Keep recalling!”

Alice sighed, finally, the gorge was passed. She found herself in the dark blue space of Eternity, and the Zodiac dial appeared in front of her. Alice stood in the center of the circle and began to rotate it quickly, trying all possible combinations of planets at random. The dial stopped rotating. Alice stepped out of the circle, walked on, and suddenly saw a man. He took her by the hand.

“You were afraid to tell your friends about the episode with the Zodiacal dial and the man, because you didn’t understand whether that was about your current life or already a new incarnation. Am I right?”

Alice bit her lip.

“You see, I’m right. So you have to rotate the dial right here and now, or no man at all will have to do with your actual earthly body.”

Alice dialed the Astrologer, wished her happy Woman’s Day and shared a bad feeling about the next Solar year.

White appeared in the Astrologer’s flat and greeted her guardian, “Hello, Stargazer!”

“Don’t you get sick, White! What’s up?”

“My ward is talking with yours. Don’t put it off, let her look at it right now, it can’t wait.”

“Is it that critical? You don’t seem to be fond of flirting with the planets, do you?”

“You are right, Stargazer. I’m not fond of it, but you know, a sinner’s guardian has visited me recently. His ward promised everyone something, but never did anything to anyone. So the guardian organizes meetings of his ward with others to let the sinner pay out his debts in time. If the sinner appears now into Our Light, he’ll have problems with the Guards. Meanwhile my Alice is about to get the evil Pluto in 6 and the Sun in 12 activated, and so on. Well, you know.”

“I see. What planets to move?”

“Let’s bring the Sun out of her Dungeon, bro. And send Alice to Elabuga. She needs neither Tomsk nor Omsk. She’ll start now sorting out options in order to move Pluto from 6. Let your ward not listen to Alice, but stand on her own, Elabuga only. And make the Astrologer insert a phrase into their conversation so that Alice, in addition to the stars, obeys the doctors!”

The Astrologer sighed and said into the phone, “Alice, of course, by transferring the Sun from 12 into 11, we’ll soften the situation. But your problems relating to Pluto in 6 are still to be solved. We’ll change the Spheres so that you have the opportunity to influence the situation. When the hour of the 6th Sphere comes, do whatever the doctors say. The most important for you is to do it in time.”

White and Stargazer shook hands.

“Let’s agree, White, if you messed up something with Elabuga, it’s you to be asked for that later Upstairs, not me!”

“Agreed! Write me in a footnote in the Astral Tablets.”

Stargazer opened the Astral Tablets, searches for the right page, crossed out Moscow on Elabuga, the Sun in 12 on the Sun in 11, and marked with a footnote, “That’s what White said.” White put the earthly date, signed it down and closed the Tablets.

White returned to the kitchen to Alice, who continued her phone conversation with the Astrologer. Suddenly, Glamorous appeared. He smiled slyly and said, “I told you, bro, to move just the Sun out of the 12th!”

“Hello, Glamorous. Something new?”

“I figured out how to make our wards meet beautifully! Just bumping, it may have no effect! Mine is going to London in April, for the book fair. So urgently organize a transfer of your Alice there!”

“This fair takes place in a month! How am I supposed to succeed in time?”

“Are you an angel or a human? There are plenty of options! What’s bad for Alice? In London, there is a platform 9 and 3/4, right on it, they sell magical artifacts in a shop. Alice believes in magic! You know how important it is! So she should buy a thing called the Time Turner, or the Changer of Time and Space. Actually, you won’t have to inspire her! She’ll surely buy it and turn it back for some years. And we’ll make them bump into each other!”

“Listen, Glamorous, it might be a good idea, but now, in order to meet your sinner, Alice has not to go to London, but to move the Sun from the Dungeon and deal with her health.”

“Do you know where people reset to zero and start a new cycle? On the Zero Meridian! And where is it, the Zero Meridian? – in Greenwich! And Greenwich is only an hour away from London! White, won’t you send Alice to reset her negative Past for a brighter Future?”

Alice sighed and said to the Astrologer, “Elabuga then?”

The Astrologer kept insisting on it.

Glamorous jumped up, “Well, I told you, E-la-bu-ga!” and disappeared.

Chapter 1.3. Bathy

March 10, evening, Moscow

Alice got off the subway. Suddenly, the Woman from the House of Serving to Creativity called her to inform that an incident had happened to the main character of their planned event, so the end of March was changed to April 6th. Alice sighed, she worried about the Elder and sincerely wishes him well. They had met in Milan, and after that he had helped her on the way. Sometimes, they had dined together at the Central House of Writers talking about the poets of the Silver Age whom he personally knew well.

White put his wing around Alice’s shoulders. They walked in silence for a while, but suddenly, the guardian remembered something and moved to the Astrologer’s flat.

“What’s up, White? Have you changed your mind about rotation of the dial?”

“It’s no chance to change my mind on it. I forgot to warn you. Alice is going to call your ward now to ask if she can return home on the 6th of April. Let yours say she can. It’s clear the longer the better, but Alice needs to hold an event here. Elder asked me, his ward has his own dial.”

Stargazer nodded in understanding, “We make a road for young people, and honor elders very much!”

The guardians said goodbye.

Having checked the date of her return from Elabuga with the Astrologer, Alice kept walking home. The guardian walked to the right whispering, “You got paid today. If you don’t buy tickets for the plane to Nizhnekamsk¹⁶ now, tomorrow you’ll throw the wrong envelope in the trash by mistake. Buy tickets to Nizhnekamsk. Buy tickets to Nizhnekamsk. Tickets, Alice!”

Alice didn’t react. Suddenly, she started thinking, “Perhaps… there’s no need to go there…”

Having instantly caught her thought, White clenched his fingers into a fist out of his helplessness, stopped and turned to the guardian of a man passing by, “Help, bro! Sometimes she hears me, sometimes she doesn’t!”

The guardian of the passer-by approached Alice from the left. White came from the right, and they both with all their energetic strength shouted into her ears, “TICKETS TO NIZHNEKAMSK!”

Alice stopped, “Well, probably, I have to go there. Anyhow, the trip won’t make it worse.” She turned around abruptly, entered the shopping center and went to the window where they sold airline tickets. White breathed a sigh of relief and gratefully shook hands with the guardian of the one who had already passed them by. The latter smiled and ran to catch up with his ward.

The ticket seller voiced the possible flights. The guardian scanned the Space of Options and whispered to Alice, “A maniac will be on the first one. He’ll sit next to you. It’s dangerous. The second flight will be delayed, so you’ll be late. Take the third one!”

Alice said in an uncertain voice, “Three is a good number. The last option, please.”

***

Alice’s room, midnight

Alice went to bed and fell asleep almost instantly. The guardian was about to exit out the window to fly to Nizhnekamsk, when someone called out to him in a cheerful voice, “Hello, bro!”

“Bathy, is it you again?!”

“Well, you see… I’ve come to ask you to marry our wards!”

“Listen, Bathy, for so many years, I’ve been telling you, Alice breathes towards your ward indifferently. It’s common breathing of humans, do you understand? Take it as it is, both of you!”

“But he breathes towards Alice differently!”

Bathy, a plump, small, clean, as if just out of the bath, smiled and didn’t allow White to go out the window.

“So what?”

“Let’s make some magic! Earthly love is chemistry.”

“Chemistry is not love. How did they appoint you as guardian with such knowledge! A bath broom leaf! Besides, I’m already making magic. I urgently have to arrange a lot for Alice. No time for negotiations, rather there is nothing to talk about.”

“Why nothing? Look at my ward! He’s rich, moderately generous and very clean! Every week he goes to the public baths! He’ll care for Alice. He’ll take her to a restaurant once a week, on vacation abroad 4 times a year and give her flowers on holidays! Maybe without love, bro?”

“Bro, did you join the Dark ones by any chance? It’s not his body, but his mind that need to be cleaned! And yours, too!”

“If I had jointed the Dark ones, I wouldn’t have needed to beg you for so many years!” Bathy said offended. “White! Haven’t you ever been a human? Don’t know what it’s like?”

“Have you read the Astral Tablets? What is written about your ward and his ‘love’? It’s a lesson! He hasn’t been able to get past it for years. Moreover, this feeling is not subject to either people or angels! Our wards are not registered in their Heavenly passports together! Dot! The rest is from the evil one. And you, Bathy, know perfectly well who Alice has in her heart. And imagine, I’m categorically against it! But, with all my desire, I can’t change anything about this!”

***

Nizhnekamsk airport, night

Taxi drivers were offering their services to those who had just arrived. Many of them had dark shadows instead of guardians. The brightest guardian was modestly standing somewhere in the distance, behind the back of an unsightly taxi driver.

“Be healthy, bro!” White addressed the brightest guardian.

“I wish you good health, too. How can I help you?”

“This girl will arrive here late in the evening on April 4th,” White projected the image of Alice in the air.

“Pretty! Yours?”

“Mine, yes. So I need to transfer her safe and sound to Elabuga. Your driver is the brightest here. A half of the road to Elabuga is broken, I won’t trust Alice to others.”

“Tell me her flight number.”

A copy of the ticket was visualized in the air.

“Okay. We won’t serve anyone else that evening. As soon as your Alice appears, I’ll immediately send him to her.”

“One more thing. I scanned the Space of Options. There’s a possibility of a head-on collision with an oncoming truck after the turn. Here’s a photo of the driver and the truck number. Find his guardian. It looks like, that man is surrounded by dark ones only. Make a deal. He must stay in another city instead of driving that night.”

***

Elabuga, night

White made a round of the hotels and liked one of them. Local guardians were chatting about something on the sofas in the lobby at the reception. White greeted them.

“Exactly at midnight on the 4th to the 5th of April, a girl will arrive here. She’ll send you an e-mail tomorrow. Book her the room number 33. Welcome her properly, it’ll be her birthday. Cook something delicious.”

A notebook appeared in the air, one of the guardians carefully wrote something down in it.

“Oh, I got an idea, bro!” exclaimed the cook’s guardian. “A friend of my ward has his birthday on the same day. He’s going to celebrate it on the outskirts of our town with fireworks, an orchestra and all that stuff. Do you want us to re-route him to our restaurant?”

White smiled, nodded, thanked those present and moved to the roof of a small house on the outskirts, not far from the cemetery. The director of Marina Tsvetaeva’s Memorial Complex lived in that house. White found the director’s guardian, explained the situation and asked to arrange an excursion program at full. They decided together where Alice should have lunch. The director’s guardian promised to prepare exclusive books as a gift for the guest’s birthday.

***

Moscow, at dawn, Alice’s room

Alice snoozed sweetly, smiling at someone in her sleep. The guardian sat at her head whispering, “Write an e-mail to Elabuga today. The hotel is right in the center. Book it. And write to the head of the Memorial Complex a request to give you an excursion tour. Do you hear me?”

Alice whispered something indistinctly. Her dream was projected on the window curtain, and the image of the Man in White appeared on it.

“Alice! What the hell are you dreaming of? Elabuga! Hotel and excursion program!”

The alarm clock started ringing. The image of the Man in White was slowly fading away. Alice squinted in displeasure, reached out her hand to the phone to turn off the alarm clock, and opened her eyes. Thinking about something, she remembered about her trip to Elabuga, “I need to book a hotel today. And to find out about excursions.”

The guardian rejoiced and stroked Alice on the head.

Chapter 1.4. A VIP

March 19, morning

Moscow, hallway in Alice’s flat

Alice was going to a travel trade fair. She had been asked to create a new travel destination project from scratch for a company exposed there. Alice’s gaze fell on the small table by the door with the last copy of her novel about Another Reality on it. The day before, Alice had purposely put the book in that prominent place not to forget in the morning to take it with her, because…

The guardian was nervously walking around Alice back and forth, trying to inspire her with the right action. Alice sighed, waved her hand at the book, saying to herself, “Someday later… Some other time…” She opened the door and left the flat. The guardian lost the gift of mental speech, helplessly sank to the floor by the table and covered his face with his wings.

***

Moscow, Crocus City Hall

Alice arrived at the fair and found a crowd in front of the entrance. Everyone was scanned, forced to take off their shoes, turn out their pockets. Alice sighed. Yes, she had known that… Around lunchtime, the entrance was blocked completely. Walking through the pavilions, Alice encountered a procession. She looked at the Very Important Person slowly passing her by, just a step away. It was a chance to give to the VIP her book, the one left at home in the morning on the table by the door.

Why hadn’t she taken the book with her? Hadn’t she believed in the collision with the VIP like that easily, in the pavilion that day? When else would she have direct access to the VIP, if ever?

The guardian, shaking his head in doom, exclaimed, “You spoke with the Minister of Culture of France in Paris. You tapped on his shoulder as simply as knocking on a door to make him turn around and pay attention to you, having sneaked through the crowds, sneezing at the guards who surrounded him as a wall on all sides. You spoke to him so easily in a foreign language and even gave him your poems! But you dreamed of giving your book to the VIP! The book in which you wrote a letter to him in one of the chapters. At least, of passing your book through someone else. You asked everyone who had access to the VIP about the way to do it. In January, I found a way to bump you to the VIP directly. I found in the Space of Options, the way you would end up here and now, at the right time in the right place. I put the idea of creating an esoteric travel destination from scratch into the mind of the travel company owner. I negotiated with the guardian of the head of the Union of Writers to issue a diploma to the mother of the CEO of the travel company. I made sure that it was you to pass the diploma and not to the mother, but personally to the CEO! I arranged everything in such a way that at the meeting he would voice the idea of a new project to you, and on that day you ‘accidentally’ would take your book about Another Reality with you and make the right decision to give him the book. I arranged with the owner’s guardian that you would be selected from all the candidates to head the new project. And, despite the fact that today it’s only half developed, I almost forced the owner of the travel company to present your project at this fair so that you… My God! What have you done Alice? How could you?”

Glamorous appeared in the crowd. He approached White and said in surprise, “Bro, what’s wrong with you? You’ve turned black!”

“It can happen with everyone. What do you want?”

“The fair in London is less than a month away. My ward has already bought tickets and booked a hotel. What about Alice?”

***

around 15:00,

Moscow, the Union of Writers

White appeared in the House of Serving to Creativity.

“Hello, bro!” exclaimed the guardian of the Woman. “I didn’t recognize you at first, so gloomy you are! Something wrong?”

“It’s too long to explain. They say your ward is organizing a writers’ trip to the London Book Fair, right?”

“That’s right.”

“We need to send Alice to London as a member of the delegation. Just don’t ask me why.”

“If you are kidding, it would be cooler to ask for it on the eve of departure!”

“That’s not all. She has no money for the trip. We have to solve it somehow.”

“Bro, you must be tired! You need a rest! How can we get money for Alice in a public non-profit organization?”

“She really needs to get there.”

“Well, of course, Alice is a good writer. But think for yourself, what is she going to do there? It’s a specific fair! Not like that in Paris! Talking to the Minister of Culture is out of the question.”

“That’s not what she needs.”

“Hasn’t she been to London?”

“She’s been to London twice, but she needs to meet a man in London.”

“Why don’t you ask the guardian of that man to send him from London to Moscow? Does he have no money and no useful contacts?”

“On the contrary, he is very rich, he has a lot of VIP contacts and there’s no need to send him here. He lives in Moscow.”

The guardian of the Woman twisted his finger at his temple, “Bro, you should rest! It’s hard for you with Alice, she’s not easy, I know. But not to that extent to complicate things so much!”

“I beg you. It has to be done this way. Send her to London.”

The guardian of the Woman sighed, “I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything. I’ll let you know by tonight!”

***

midnight, Moscow, Alice’s kitchen

Alice was playing solitaire on the Man in White in the kitchen by candlelight. Her guardian gloomier than a cloud was sitting on the windowsill nearby. The guardian of the Woman appeared. He sat down on the windowsill opposite White and said, “Tell her to turn on her phone. She turned it off too early.”

White turned to Alice, “Turn on the phone, an ungrateful sheep!”

Alice stood up, went into the corridor, looked for a phone in her bag. Having found it, she turned it on, returned to the kitchen and continued to play solitaire.

A minute later the phone rang. Alice was silent for a long time, listening to the Woman. The girl’s pupils dilated in surprise. She couldn’t believe her ears, “Me?”

White exhaled, “God bless you, bro!”

“It’s not that simple, White. Alice has to sacrifice something for this.”

“What exactly?”

“She must return to serve us in the House of Serving to Creativity.”

“Too much blows for one day! You can’t imagine how much I’ve organized to get her to the company she works now!”

“You did it so that she could meet the VIP, but Alice missed her chance today. It makes no sense for her to remain in that place any longer. Let her complete and launch the project, and as soon as…”

“Bro, but…”

“You know perfectly well what her Zodiacal dial shows in the coming Solar year. Some of Pluto’s energy in the 6th Sphere will be shifted to the line of work to weaken the blow to the line of health. Try to make her transition painless. If she doesn’t guess or resists like a ram, which is typical of any Aries, we should even involve the Dark ones. The 6th Sphere is in charge of Service and Diseases. Alice knows that. She’ll either serve others or…”

“By what date should she return?”

“No later than the beginning of the period of Saturn, June 16. It’s vital for Alice to transfer the energy limited by Saturn into Creativity. Where else do you think should she be if not in the House of Serving to Creativity? By the way, a year ago, Alice was saved from death in the car accident, partly because she had come to work in our House three days before the start of her Saturn period.”

Chapter 1.5. Elabuga

April 4, evening,

Moscow, Vnukovo airport

Alice arrived at the airport. Flight delays were constantly announced. She was nervous, she couldn’t be late. The Solar didn’t wait for anyone, it turned on the place it found a person. An invisible photographer would press the button of the invisible camera to fix the position of the planets above the newborn, and the program would start.

It was the 4th day of the 4th month and the 4th day of the week. In China, 4 is the number that brings death. Alice’s previous Solar year with Saturn in 8 (which could be interpreted as the goal for the year was Death) would end only the next morning, and until that moment she still needed to survive somehow. What if Death didn’t step aside after her car accident in June?

However, Alice’s flight started boarding on time.

Alice got on the plane. The guardian scanned the Space of Options. It’s possible to scan in advance, but since every minute a huge number of creatures on Earth take different steps to the left or right moving in space, the options change so rapidly that at the very last moment you can find yourself not at all where you expected to be the day before.

The plane started moving and was ready to take off, as White suddenly discovered the unforeseen and instantly appeared in the cockpit, grabbed the hand of a guardian and shouted, “What are you doing?! Stop it! Right now!”

The plane stopped.

“Hello, bro, what’s up? Is something wrong?”

White visualized a holographic projection of the Space of Options in the air, which suddenly became almost 100% real. The pilot’s guardian called Takeoff closed his eyes for a moment in horror, and then said, “Glory to Thee, Lord, glory to Thee! Bro, listen, how did you see it? I checked everything five minutes ago!”

The plane started taking off again. The pilot’s guardian stopped it again.

“All right, Takeoff, I leave for my ward,” said White. “In short, you get it, we can take off not earlier than in 15 minutes. Spin as you like.”

Takeoff shook White’s hand with a feeling of immense gratitude. The plane took off at the 5th attempt. Alice fell asleep.

***

Nizhnekamsk airport, night

Alice left the airport. All sorts of taxi drivers ran up to her and offered to take her to the right place. White drew the ring “Transgress me not” around Alice, and as long as she moved towards the brightest taxi driver, the ring didn’t dissolve.

Alice was sitting in the car next to the driver. He talked her about Elabuga and read poetry. Their guardians were on the back seats, talking about the vicissitudes of their jobs.

“Have you managed to deal against the accident, bro?” White asked.

“I have, White! True, I had to get the truck driver dead drunk. Otherwise, it didn’t work. On the way back, Alice has to book a taxi at the hotel. My ward will leave for his mother-in-law tomorrow, she needs help, so he won’t be able to drive Alice back. But I’ll send her a no less light one.”

Alice got a call from the director of the Memorial Complex, who asked her about the flight, if everything was in order. They confirmed the meeting in the hotel lobby the next morning at 9 o’clock.

***

Elabuga, night, the hotel in the center

Alice entered the hotel and was kindly welcomed with smiles. They said they had visited her website and read her works. Alice was given the keys to the room number 33 and was told, “If something doesn’t suit you, we can change the room!”

The room was very cozy. Alice instantly fell asleep. White went down into the hall to his colleagues and spent time in pleasant conversation in a bright society, each member of which shared their successes and failures in their work.

***

April 5, morning, Elabuga

Alice went down for breakfast and marveled at the generous buffet selection. The cook’s guardian broke into a pleased smile and winked at White. The director of the Memorial Complex took Alice on an excursion tour.

“First of all, I’ll take you to the Devil’s Hill.”

Alice raised one eyebrow in surprise. It happened very rarely, when she was really overly surprised. White joyfully said to the director’s guardian (both on the back seats in the car), “Thank you, bro! It’s exactly the place she needs right now!”

“She’ll feel it herself, you’ll see!”

The car stopped at the top of the mountain. Everything was in snow. They went out into the fresh air and saw an ancient tower in the distance.

“May I ask you an indiscreet question? What brought you to us?” the director asked on the way to the tower.

“A long story. Briefly, I’m changing the Space of Options. More correctly to say, my Solar year. I’m moving the Sun out of the Dungeon, shifting Spheres in the right order.”

The director’s guardian exclaimed in admiration, “White! She is an advanced user! She knows such words!”

“Solar is something stellar, isn’t it?” the director asked.

“Yours is no less advanced!” White laughed.

“Yes, it’s a photo of the sky taken on the date of one’s birthday,” Alice answered the director.

“So is it your birthday today?”

Alice nodded. They approached the tower. The director started the story from the way Marina Tsvetaeva had arrived to Elabuga passing the road directly under the Devil’s Hill. Alice listened stroking the tower with her hands and probing it energetically. She walked it around clockwise, leant her back against the wall, squinting at the Sun.

“Alice, are you by any chance a psychic?” the director asked with a smile and continued the story. “There was a pagan temple, a church and a mosque on this place. In general, nothing survived except the tower. But the Devil’s Hill is clearly a Place of Power. Touch the tower with both hands, make a wish, and it’ll surely come true. It’s desirable to touch the old bricks, not the ones they patched the holes with. According to the legend, the Devil visited this place once. He longed to marry the priest’s daughter. However, let’s not talk about sad things! Make a wish!”

Alice made a wish, touched the bricks with both hands and smiled. The director’s guardian chuckled, and White was horrified, “Damn it! Bro, just imagine, she’s got such a bad combination of planets, but do you see it? I’m trying my best to lead her away from the abyss, meanwhile, in the Place of Power, she is making a wish about…”

“About love, bro!”

“It’s time for her to think about another love!” White exclaimed angrily.

“Love is one, bro. The rest is not love. You know it yourself.”

“What matters is whom to love! Have you seen the image of that one in White?”

“You yourself are in white! It looks like you’re jealous! You’re angry, so you’re wrong!”

The director took Alice to all the sights of the town, organized an excursion to the museum of Marina Tsvetaeva, to the library of the Silver Age, to the House of Memory. Alice was greeted kindly, given interesting rare books, and she gave her own books in return. Having lunch in a tavern at the Museum of History, Alice discussed with the director the arrival of an official delegation of writers from Moscow to the 11th Bonfire in commemoration of Tsvetaeva in October. All day long, Alice was periodically called by her acquaintances who congratulated her on her birthday. After lunch, they had a trip to the cemetery.

“There are pines here, and she loved rowans. So we built a rowan bush for her! Do you like it?” the director asked Alice. There was a plaque on the metallic rowan bush with a quatrain by Tsvetaeva, which Alice once had chosen as an epigraph to her own poem. The director voiced several versions about Tsvetaeva’s burial place, because the monument was installed symbolically, and led Alice through the snowdrifts to the unknown grave, which many considered to be “the very place under the forked pine”.

The guardians moved a bit to the right. Alice took a couple of steps in their direction and stopped nearby. She was drawn there.

“Alice, ask her mentally to help you,” said the guardian of the director.

Alice addressed to Marina Tsvetaeva, not framing her thought into words, and heard in her mind a verse, “A zealous guardian of poets, save me from trouble!”

White sighed, “At least here, you’re thinking in the right direction.”

In the evening, Alice was walking alone in the historical part of the town. She found a magic bench by the bridge overlooking the church and the Tree of Wishes, on which people used to hang all sorts of things as locks, ribbons and like that, waiting for miracles. Having nothing to hang, Alice was sad.

“It’s enough to sit down on the magic bench,” White said. “Besides, you can rest a bit.”

Alice obediently sat down and began to think about something. The guardian read her thoughts and grabbed her hand, “No, no! Let’s leave this place! I’m not able to see the Man in White next to you, even a virtual one!”

Alice kept dangling her legs as if nothing had happened and had absolutely no intention of leaving the bench.

“You are a sheep!” stated White and after a pause added, “No! You are a herd of sheep!”

***

April 5, night, Elabuga, hotel in the center

Alice ordered a taxi to the airport for 4 am and sat down on the windowsill looking out into the night. Her guardian was sitting opposite. Downstairs in the restaurant, they were celebrating something. “Happy Birthday to you!” they began to sing loudly.

“So someone has birthday today,” Alice thought sadly, “just like me.” Yes, Alice was sad, because none of those to whom she had written many poems about love congratulated her. “Why then write anything at all?” flashed in her mind, but… she took her phone out of the pocket and started typing some verses pouring out of the night. As soon as she finished and saved the poem in drafts, the celebrating company went out into the street right under the Alice’s window and, to the joyful exclamations of “Happy birthday to you!”, arranged a great firework show.

Chapter 1.6. Numbers

April 6, morning

Moscow, a medical laboratory

Alice came back to Moscow. She had to attend the Elder’s event at the House of Serving to Creativity at noon.

“Alice, today is the 6th of April. You have a flight to London on the 12th. Before leaving, you were going to do what?” the guardian asked.

Alice recalled that she had planned to visit her doctor, but the doctor would ask her for the results of the current tumor markers. Alice didn’t like to go to doctors. She visited them extremely rarely, at best, with the frequency of her birthday, and received their reproachful sighs, because, given the hereditary predisposition, they demand her to come once in six months.

Before going to the Elder’s event, Alice ran into the nearest vampire department open 24/7, where she donated blood for the tumor markers and, with a sense of half-fulfilled duty to both vampires, doctors, and her earthly body, went to the House of Serving to Creativity.

White appeared in the laboratory, “Hello, Red-Eyed! I need help.”

The guardian of the lab assistant turned around. His eyes had a reddish glow indeed, but he was in a white lab coat.

“Hi, bro! Just don’t ask me for falsifications! A lot of guardians have already come, everyone had a plausible pretext. But then, it’s me to get all the hellish things on my wings from Above! For several years, I’ve been asking to transfer my ward to another department! You see, even I have got that bloody essences settled in my eyes! And just look, what’s going on around us here!”

There was an awful lot of all sorts of Dark entities, striving to get close to the coveted delicacy. A pair of guardians were holding the defense with their incessant prayer chants while the guardian of the lab assistant was scrupulously analyzing the energy of the next portion of the freshest blood for the corresponding records in the Astral Tablets.

“I’m really asking for a good purpose! You won’t be punished for it! Do you want me to sign it in the Tablets?”

“No doubts, for a good! One came here like that the other day. Almost swore on the Bible saying, ‘For a good purpose, change the blood type number!’ What difference does it make whether it’s I or IV, since a person with IV can have any type of blood transfused and won’t suffer. Thanks God, I scanned the options! His ward with his wife would be driving in a car a month later, and – bang! – crashed. Well, the wife, with the blood type I, would urgently need blood. Her husband with the same type I would think he has type IV, that doesn’t fit the type I, and would give it up. And while they would be looking for blood I, his wife would wave him from Heaven and fly Higher! So, don’t tempt me, bro! Don’t make me scan the Space of Options 100 years ahead. There is no good without bad…”

“My case is simpler, Red-Eyed. The tumor markers need to be raised up.”

“Up? What for?”

“To keep my ward on Earth.”

“Bro, I don’t get the connection.”

“If the results are left as they really are, she’ll go to the doctor at best in a year. But in six months, she’ll have to meet me, and the need to visit the doctors will disappear with her earthly body. I have to somehow push her! Do you understand? There’s no time for her to relax.”

“So how much to raise them up?”

“Well, so that she understands that something is wrong, but at the same time doesn’t get scared too much!”

Red-eyed thought for a moment, “No, bro. Sorry. I can’t. If you bring me a permission from Above, then okay. Otherwise, no.” White sighed heavily and disappeared.

***

at noon, Moscow, the Union of Writers

Alice appeared in the House of Serving to Creativity. Almost everyone was already there. Those present greeted Alice, asked her about the trip to Elabuga. Alice promised to organize a trip for a group of poets to the 11th Bonfire. The guardian of the Elder appeared, followed by the Elder with Hope. The event started. Alice sat opposite the Elder and saw Heaven instead of him. Yes, Heaven, because there was much more Heaven than Earth in the Elder. Alice wanted to keep the Elder on Earth, but didn’t know how she could help him, and was about to cry. The guardian of the Elder directed the rays of Divine Love towards the girl. Then Alice recited her poems in front of the audience and the Elder, and he praised her with the warmest words.

White, after exchanging a couple of thoughts with the Elder’s guardian, disappeared. The event came to the end. Alice accompanied the Elder to the door.

“Do as Hope tells you,” she said and with heavenly tenderness ran her hand over his hunched back.

***

not yet evening, Heavenly Office

White entered the Heavenly Office and asked for an audience with the Chief of the Council for Life and Death.

“Your permission is needed,” White said respectfully.

The Chief opened and leafed through the Tablet and Alice’s Book of Life, and sighed saying wearily, “You do know how many times she has already remained on Earth instead of coming to us.”

“Of course,” the guardian agreed.

“Don’t make me repeat the first grade lesson to you. Each human has the most favorable moment of transition. Someone is going through it, and someone leaves earlier. Your Alice has lived several lives in one. Each time, in the next most favorable moment, you tried to persuade the Council not to change her earthly body. And we agreed. You made a commitment to fulfill certain tasks. But this cannot go on indefinitely. Look at her dial of the current year and the next one…”

“I’m her guardian.”

“It doesn’t mean that you, even having our permission, will be omnipotent forever. One day you won’t be able to keep Alice on Earth. And she won’t want that either.”

“But if there is the slightest chance to save the human body, should it be missed?”

“Such saving is not always appropriate. Sometimes it’s better to let the soul go.”

“I’m asking for a permission only for one sign, and not for her life.”

“Leave Alice to herself. Let her go. If she is ready to live in the same body at the end of the next stage without intermediate rest, she won’t need signs, believe me. But if she is not ready, then no signs will help. Am I wrong?”

The audience was over. White clenched his fingers into a fist and disappeared.

***

already evening, Moscow, a glamorous place

White appeared in a glamorous place, found Glamorous at a glamorous table surrounded by glamorous people, and took him aside, “Listen, bro, there’s a small thing to be done. Leave your sinner alone for a few minutes only!”

“For a bohemian place, I hope?” Glamourous purred with a cat smile.

“The most bohemian!”

Both guardians disappeared and appeared at the door of medical laboratory. A lot of dark entities started examining Glamorous from halo to toe curiously.

“Oh, White! Why did you bring me here? It’s so not glamorous inside! I can’t stand the sight of blood! And there are too much dark ones like dirt here!”

“Listen, bro. If you want your sinner to have time to return his debts to Alice, help me. Nothing bloody is required! Go to the guardian of the lab assistant and ask him to leave with you for wherever you like, even for the roof to Carlson, or for a secret casino, choose yourself. Talk to him about this and that for 5 minutes, and you are free.”

“Is that all?” Glamorous was surprised. “Why do you need it, White?”

White answered nothing and dematerialized. Glamorous sighed, entered the laboratory and, under a plausible pretext, took Red-Eyed to a glamorous place.

***

next morning, Moscow,

oncology hospital No. 1 on Baumanskaya

Alice ran to the vampires, took the results of the donated blood and compared them with the previous ones. One indicator went down. Another one was too high. Actually, not enough to faint, but on the way to the office, Alice still went to the clinic, where her doctor had been working for many years, to make an appointment before leaving for London.

“Dr. N. left for another clinic,” the receptionist said with a smile. “Dial this number!”

Alice dialed the number and heard it said again with a smile, “Dr. N. is at a seminar abroad. Call her in May please.”

Alice was somewhat nervous, so she went to the second doctor to scan the earthly body and sleep peacefully. White tried to negotiate with the guardian of the doctor so that she told Alice she had seen something that was not yet there. But the latter, like Red-eyed in the laboratory, refused the idea.

“So can I relax?” Alice asked.

“Yes, Alice, there’s nothing new,” the doctor smiled and signed her docs.

***

evening, Moscow, “Alibi” club coffeehouse

Alice was hosting a literary event at a club coffeehouse. The hall was full. Many guests, knowing that it was her birthday, came with gifts and flowers. Alice smiled holding a competition “A smile makes everyone brighter!”. The guardians (and, fortunately, there were almost as many of them as there were people, because Alice’s guests were mostly bright) were peacefully chatting.

When all who wished to take part in the competition finished reciting their poems, Alice descended from the stage to her table behind the column, which had already become her own, to count the results of the public voting.

White appeared on the stage. He turned to the guardians present in the hall, and they fell silent, while people were chatting.

“Bros! Peace to your wards and less worries on your wings!” White said from the stage.

“And for yours, White!” the guardians said in response.

“My Alice will soon enter her Saturn period and need help. She has always helped and continues to help, as much as possible, many of the humans present in the hall.”

“You are right, bro!” the guardians nodded, remembering what Alice had done for their wards.

“Therefore, I ask each of you to help her as much as possible in hard times.”

The guardians nodded in understanding and directed rays of Light towards Alice. Alice took the stage to announce the results of the competition. White left the stage. People were silent in anticipation of the results. The guardians immersed in peaceful conversation.

Alice returned to her table and communicated with her good friend Svetlana, who had come to congratulate the birthday girl. Their guardians stayed at the next table sharing the latest news.

“Alice, what about the competition you took part in? You said you recited somewhere at the end March!” Svetlana asked with interest.

“Ah, yes, I took part in it. True, I didn’t want to participate, but they called and asked me to come. As a result, in a strange, miraculous way, I reached the final, but it’s unrealistic to win, so you can forget about that competition.”

“In a strange, miraculous way! Did you hear it, Light?” White exclaimed, addressing to the guardian of Svetlana, called Light. “First, Glamorous appeared, saying he had another plan ripened, how to push his sinner to pay his debt to Alice, and I had to deal with the organizers of the competition to ask Alice to participate in it. If you knew, bro, what it cost me! I had to make one of the jury members out. Well, temporarily, I mean, to send him to the buffet, while Alice was reciting on the stage.”

“Won’t the sinner of Glamorous meet with Alice in London?”

“They’ll meet. We’ll fly on the 12th to bump them into each other. But Glamorous, he should have everything fancy, with decorations, he loves exclusives and complications!”

“How was your trip to Elabuga? Without any complication?” Svetlana asked.

“Without,” Alice replied shortly.

White grumbled, “Without? The plane had to be stopped four times on takeoff and I saved her from a frontal collision with a truck on the Nizhnekamsk-Elabuga road. And she says, without! She was given such a welcome! Even with fireworks! Do you know, Light, what she was thinking about all the time? The Man in White didn’t call her! As others like him, the sinners. Do they remember her? Guess it. Probably, she’ll die still thinking about that one in White with a tail and hooves! Tell me, Light, why? All her life Alice is drawn exclusively to the dark personalities!”

Light laughed, “Do you think my Svetlana is better? Everyone has the same thing. They don’t realize what we are saving them from! Humans tend to look at the world exclusively with two eyes, to notice only what we failed to save them from. Once Svetlana got a relatively small misfortune. She was late due to traffic jams. I saved her life that way, but instead of thanking me and being rejoiced, she got upset!”

“So now everything will be fine with you!” Svetlana said. “The Sun was moved out of the Dungeon, and the Spheres were shifted in such a way that you can influence the situation.”

“You can influence… Light, how do you like it?” White couldn’t calm down. “They won’t be able to influence anything, if there is no permission from Above! Most of their events are the result of our sings and actions in a complex chain of interconnections organized by us in advance or even at the very last moment, and exclusively for their benefit! However, they still believe in fairy tales, that we, the guardians, don’t exist! That they reach everything in life exclusively with their own earthly brains! They imagine themselves to be the Sons of God, being only blind dream walkers!”

“White, these walkers in the dreams of God, albeit blind, probably know that we exist, but at the level of the Subconscious. When they wake up and eventually meet us, their dream will scroll like a movie and in all dimensions, and it will become obvious: where, what, for what and what for. Agree, if people could see us and communicate with us, why would they come to dream on Earth? By the way, when you were a dream walker yourself did you believe in your guardian?”

White sighed. Suddenly, Glamorous appeared there, “Hello, bros! White, I’m here for your wings. Have Alice got her British visa?”

“Tomorrow. Everything is okay, I checked it. I saw the stamp with my own eyes.”

“That’s great!” exclaimed Glamourous, rubbing his hands together. “Then on the eve of the book fair, right there, in London, let’s meet to discuss the details!”

“Glamourous, have you already visualized an umbrella?” Light asked smiling.

“Why do I need an umbrella?” Glamourous was perplexed.

“It’s raining cats and dogs in London. If your wings get wet, you’ll lose your glamorous look!”

The guardians burst laughing. Glamorous pretended to be offended and disappeared.

“Just don’t relax too much, Alice,” Svetlana said. “Nona told you about this year. And she saw a surgery, not something else.”

“It’s okay for now. I’m going to the doctor in autumn. I don’t want to spoil my summer. Especially since this year the period of Saturn falls on summer.”

“That’s it, SUMMER! You have a period of Saturn in SUMMER! It’ll be late in autumn!” White cried out. “How can I get this into your mind if all its space is occupied exclusively by that White image?!”

“Don’t worry, bro! Saturn is still two months away. There are a lot of ways!” Light reassured.

“Alice, has the Man in White called you?” Svetlana asked cautiously. Alice shook her head negatively. Svetlana said optimistically, “You’ll definitely meet him, you’ll see!”

White covered his head with wings in horror. Light burst laughing.

Chapter 1.7. A Dream of London

London, April, a rainy morning,

on the eve of the Book Fair opening,

in the hotel

Hotel lobby. The delegation of writers gathered for a city tour. A Londoner guide appeared, began to check those present on the list. White approached the guide’s guardian. The latter looked foggy, which seemed to be common to all guardians in London.

“Be healthy, Foggy!”

“Be healthy, White!”

“How is it going on here, in London?”

“No change, it’s raining! An oligarch from your country was found sunk the other day. The body of our Iron Lady is being buried on Wednesday. The rest is on schedule, it’s raining in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening and at night! Imagine, being a human, I didn’t like rains, and so, as a lesson in humility, I was sent here as a guardian!”

“It’s familiar. I didn’t like noisy cities, and now I work in Moscow. I have a task for you. Here is my Alice in the group, look over there, you see, such a small one. I need to get her to platform 9 and 3/4 today, by all means.”

“To Hogwarts for training?” Foggy asked incredulously.

“No, she shouldn’t go that far yet! Alice doesn’t even need this platform so much as…”

“A magic wand?”

“Well, I think, she won’t leave there without a magic wand. But she needs to buy a unique thing, sold exclusively in the magical gadgets shop on that platform, to turn back the Time.”

“Oh, the Time Turner!”

“Exactly! Alice has heard about the existence of the platform, but she is unaware of the fact that it exists in the earthly reality. No one thought of making a tour there. To begin with, just inform Alice that there is such a platform, and not somewhere, but right here, in London. When your guide starts talking about the sights, make him tell them also about the platform. Let him explain in details how to get there.”

“Is your Alice a storyteller, or what?”

“No, she just still believes in fairy tales.”

“I see! Okay, bro! Just wake her up at the right moment! You know, when my guide speaks for a long time, many tourists fall asleep.”

***

the tour of London sights, daytime, rain

It was a bus tour, and Alice was happy, because of the downpour. At some point, the monotonous speech of the guide made Alice fall asleep, but she felt someone shoving her in the side, and returned to reality. The tour guide said distinctly, “By the way, does anyone need a magic wand? They are really magic and sold on platform 9 and 3/4 in London! Actually, you can go through the wall by buying a ticket to Hogwarts there. Just a warning in advance: tickets are sold exclusively in one direction, no return!”

Alice raised an eyebrow, showing both extreme surprise and indescribable joy at the same time, “How to get there?”

“To Hogwarts? Go through the wall and get on the train,” the tour guide laughed, “the platform is at Kings Cross Station.”

***

the platform 9 and 3/4, evening, rain

Alice took the subway to Kings Cross. The modern train station looked like an airport. There were shops like Duty Free everywhere, a giant display with the departure and arrival of trains, exits to numerous platforms, constant information announcements…

Alice slowly wandered, trying to find the coveted 9 and 3/4. A policeman, standing at the ticket office with a serious look, gave a passenger information on the departure of the train. Alice came up to the policeman and said in a serious voice, “I need the platform 9 and 3/4.”

The policeman in exactly the same serious voice answered how to find it. And finally, Alice joyfully stopped. Under the coveted sign on the brick wall, there was a whole crowd with suitcases! All these people were queuing up to pass through the wall in order get to Hogwarts! Alice took a place in the tail of the queue. When her turn came, as all young wizards, she jumped up, hovering in the air for a moment above her baggage cart before passing through the wall into Another Dimension.

White smiled, “That’s what I really like about you! But you don’t need to go to Hogwarts yet, or already. Come back and turn your head to the right.”

Alice obediently landed, turned right and found a sign “Wizards Goods”. She entered the shop and stopped. In front of her, there were windows with many magical items, and enchanting music was playing. Alice approached the wands and her astral body started dancing with delight. Next to her, there were a lot of the adult-looking people, like herself. They took the wands in their hands, felt them, sniffed them, tried them on energetically, making all kinds of movements in the air and even saying something.

White addressed the guardians of the present ones in the shop, “Colleagues! Free the passage to the far window! My enchantress needs the Time Turner.”

The guardians strenuously inspired their wards to leave the shop, and they headed for the exit. The guardians of the departed surrounded Alice and whispered in both her ears with a smile, “Time Turner! Time Turner! Time Turner!!!”

Spellbound, Alice came up to the farthest window in the corner and froze, looking at a strange tiny hourglass inside multiple circles, each bearing a spell about Time and Space. The clock could be rotated in different directions. The magic item was on a chain and could be used as a piece of jewelry. With bated breath, Alice asked the seller to show her a previously unknown device with the promising name Time Turner. Five minutes later, Alice bought the find and carefully hid it in her purse.

White smiled contentedly and said, “Whatever the child does getting fun, it’s okay, if…”

***

hotel, night, rain

Back at the hotel, trembling a bit, Alice took out her wand and the Time Turner, looked at both for a long time, then carefully started turning the clock’s circles to the left.

The phantom of the Man in White appeared in the room. White squeezed his eyes shut. But closing the eyes does not help the guardians at all, it’s their habit from a past life, when they were humans and saw reality exclusively with their earthly vision. White opened his eyes and said wearily, “Alice, no! Turn it more times, yet more! Not for two or three years!”

Alice continued to turn back time, then stopped, put the Time Turner on the table, took her magic wand and, whispering something completely unpleasant to her guardian’s hearing, draw some signs with it in the space. Tired, but absolutely happy, Alice fell asleep.

***

The 1st day of the Fair, hotel, morning, rain

Alice reluctantly woke up, trudging into the bathroom in a half-asleep state. Glamorous appeared on the threshold and greeted White, “So, bro, now she is going to the fair and…”, but the phrase was interrupted by a knock on the room door.

“Who else is this?” Glamorous was indignant.

White smiled, “Relax, they are ours, light ones.”

Alice came out of the bathroom and opened the door. On the threshold, there was a short, shaven-headed man with his guardian. The latter looked rather gloomy and just as gloomy said, “Hello, bros…”

Alice joyfully greeted the guest, and the guardians similarly greeted the gloomy angel.

“Bro, you are a Light one, but you look like a cloud! Who is your ward?” Glamorous asked in surprise.

“A writer.”

“Does he write badly?” Glamorous didn’t let up.

“Not badly, but … in every story he kills everyone, in a gloomy and sophisticated way. I tried to reorient him, but to no avail.”

“Listen, White, I hope the gloomy writer won’t prevent us from realizing our glamorous plan?”

Gloomy sighed sadly and sat down on the bed next to White, “He’s a killer only in stories, but he’s peaceful in life. We arrived here at tonight for the Fair. He’ll help Alice take the books to the stand. If you don’t mind, they’ll walk together in the evening London.”

Glamorous nodded. White smiled. Alice led the Writer to the table where her magical artifacts were having a rest and exclaimed in admiration, “Look! I bought myself a magic wand and the Time Turner yesterday!”

“She did it!” Glamorous purred happily.

“Moreover, she turned time back…”

“What an obedient girl! Good girl!” Glamorous praised Alice.

“No, she isn’t. She’s a sheep! She rotated it only for 2—3 years back. I can’t get the Man in White out of her mind!”

Gloomy looked at Alice perplexed.

“So do you like it? Does it work?” the Writer laughed.

“I don’t know it yet,” Alice laughed. “I did it last night. We’ll see!”

Alice showed the Writer a pile of books to be transported to the stand. The Writer shook his head grimly, but silently packed the books in his suitcase.

Glamorous sighed, “White, then our plan needs to be corrected. We’ll bump our wards tomorrow morning. Today Alice goes there with the Writer, but it’s better for her to be bumped face-to-face. Moreover, it’s not aesthetically pleasing to bump them with such suitcases! In short, I’ll find you tonight and let you know where and what time.”

“Once I used to do bumping, too,” Gloomy admitted sullenly.

“So did you succeed?” Glamorous asked.

“To no avail…”

“You know, bro, it’s all because you did it in a gloomy way!” Glamorous laughed. “We use a glamour approach!”

***

London, the Book Fair

Alice set up a stand. Having got some photos for memory, writers from the delegation remained there. Alice left the stand. She had to go around all the halls to establish business literary contacts. The fair was enormous. Alice got very tired and dizzy.

“Hey, my sheep, leave the not passed for tomorrow! Get some rest already!” White whispered to her, but Alice stubbornly kept walking until there was not a single unspoken stand left. Alice exhaled happily “Hurrah!” and sent a message to the Writer. He called her back. They met at the exit and went for a walk around the city.

Strange, but there was no rain, although the sky was full of huge clouds. They walked from Piccadilly to the Abbey. However, the latter was already closed, but a souvenir shop was open. The Writer silently looked at the souvenirs, then approached Alice, who was meditating at the Celtic cross, took her by the hand and led her to a showcase with crowns. They were very small, as a thimble.

“Buy one for yourself,” the Writer said quietly, and Alice looked at him surprised. “You got in the final of the ‘King of Poets’ competition. Buy and you’ll win it.”

“It’s impossible to win it!”

The Writer shook his head and stubbornly insisted, “It costs nothing. Are you so greedy? You believe in magic. Of course, you can’t put it on your head, but on a chain around your neck, why not?”

Alice surely believed in magic disbelieving the Writer’s words, but she bought the crown.

White sighed doomed and turned to Gloomy, “Why is there all of a sudden so much optimism and faith in magic in your Writer? In the Space of Options, at the moment, there is no chance for Alice to win. You’ll have to answer for his words.”

“You know, White, I’ll have already to answer for so many of his words when he comes to us from his dream that this trick with the crown compared to sophisticated murders in his books seems to me nothing at all.”

Alice and the Writer left the shop, wandered along the Thames, sat down on a bench. Alice looked at the sky through the black bare branches of the trees. The words of a future poem came to her, “There’s no Sun in the grids of the branches, just clouds…”. She shifted her gaze to the Writer, who was similarly looking at the sky, and noticed that he had scars on his arm in the place where they usually cut their veins.

The Writer said gloomy, “My guardian saved me then.”

“Cut?”

“No, I went skiing. A women cut me off, I tumbled in the sky, then hit my hand right on… They took me to the hospital. The doctor said that my guardian had saved me, as if the veins were taken away, but the cut was much deeper.”

“Really?” White asked the Writer’s guardian, and Gloomy nodded sullenly.

“Why do you always kill everyone?” Alice asked the Writer. “Maybe at the time of your birth, the planets happened to be in the Sphere of Death? Do you want me to look at your stars?”

The Writer shook his head negatively, and Gloomy commented to White, “His Mars was in the Dungeon. He grew up without a father.”

“My Alice, besides the same Mars in the Dungeon, has the Moon there as well.”

“I want to get to the Tower and Greenwich. Would you like to make me a company?” Alice asked the Writer.

“What’s there, in the Tower and Greenwich?”

“There are royal ravens in the Tower! I love them because I’m just like them. It’s also gloomy there, that’s what you love. In Greenwich, there’s the Zero Meridian, this is magic, that’s what I love. But you can dance right on it and take funny pictures, that’s what you love.”

“Okay, I’m already spellbound,” the Writer smiled sadly, “the Tower and Greenwich are almost ours.”

***

hotel, night, rain

Alice was deep asleep. Glamorous materialized in the room.

“So, White. Tomorrow Alice has to be at the entrance at 9:10. She must walk down the center line. I have already arranged with another guardian, his ward will stop mine in the same place, on the right, at the very beginning of the central line, and they’ll talk exactly as long as it takes if Alice is late. I’ll turn my ward to face those who enter, that is, to face Alice. All that is required of you is to be in the right place at the right time and make Alice not pass him by.”

“She smells your sinner a mile away. What’s next?”

“Well, what do you mean next?”

“You said you had a glamorous plan,” White grinned.

“Isn’t it glamorous? In London! After the platform 9 and 3/4! After the Time Turner! Alice must understand that this meeting is for a reason and not just like that!”

“Well, she’ll probably understand it, but it’s not the point! She owes you nothing. It’s your sinner that owes her! Moreover, Alice doesn’t want anything from him. You’d better look here, at this disgrace!”

Glamorous turned to the sleeping Alice and saw a distinct image of the Man in White instead of a halo above her head.

“Convinced? Alice sleeps dreaming a completely different… animal!”

Glamorous giggled saying, “But after the bumping, she’ll write a poem ‘A chance encounter’.”

“Yes, she will. That’s the problem, again it will be she to write to him, and not him to do something for her.”

Glamorous thoughtfully twisted his golden curl around his finger.

“White, I’ll inspire my sinner day and night, so that he’ll return his debts to Alice! But first, we need to show her to him so that he remembers about her. And not just show somewhere, but in glamorous London. It’ll touch his heart, you’ll see!”

White reproachfully looked at the Glamorous who was disappearing with a Cheshire cat smile and words, “It’ll work this time!”

White watched Alice’s dream with dislike and tried to dispel the image of the Man in White by blowing on him. The phantom got scattered, but reappeared a minute later.

***

the 2nd day of the Fair, morning, rain

The guardian woke Alice up in order to arrive at the fair in time. She reluctantly woke up, looked at her watch, lazily wandered into the bathroom, then went down to breakfast and headed outside. She took the subway, reached the place and merged with the huge crowd rushing to the fair entrance. Finally, Alice entered the pavilion. She pondered for a moment which way to proceed to her stand, because there were three ways in front of her, in fact, as in any fairy tale.

“Choose the central one”, White whispered.

Alice obediently turned to the central line and headed deeper into the pavilion. There were many people around her, but she didn’t notice them, completely immersed in her own thoughts. White saw Glamorous waving his hand in greeting, his ward and two other men just a few steps away, on the right side, by a big stand. Alice was slowly walking into the distance and got equal to those standing on the right and calmly took the next step, not noticing anyone around.

“Alice! Stop! Right now!” Glamorous shouted. “White! She’s leaving! No, no! Stop her!”

Alice didn’t hear him and took another step. Glamorous tried to block her path, to stop her in every possible way. He called for the help of the light guardians of the passing by booklovers. They pounced on Alice from all sides, grabbing her by the astral hands and pulling her back. Suddenly, Alice stopped, as if waking up, and returned to earthly reality from the world of her dreams. An inner voice whispered to her, “Turn around! There, behind, on the right… Didn’t you feel him?”

Alice turned around. He was standing with his back to her, talking with two men at a big stand.

“Alice! Come on! Come to him!” Glamorous begged her. “Draw his attention to yourself! Please!”

Alice was lost in her thought, “Why? Why should I approach him? It’s all in the Past. He is a man from my past life, who, however, was not present in it.”

Glamorous fell before Alice on his knees, “Dear Alice, yes, you are right! He is the Man Who Was Not, but he is! And before he ends up in our Higher Light world, he should pay you back for his promises in your earthly reality! And being his guardian, I really need you both to finally part in a divine way! Well, at least, have pity on me, not on him, me!”

Alice kept wondering, “What would it change if I approach him? Nothing. I have nothing to say to him…”

A stranger talking to the Man Who Was Not noticed Alice, and she realized that she had nothing but to approach him. Alice took two steps back and stopped to the right of The Man Who Was Not. She lightly placed her right palm on his right hand. The man turned around. Alice, with a smile of Mona Lisa on her face, removed her palm from his hand and turned around to continue her way, because she had absolutely nothing to say to him. Glamorous desperately shook the astral body of his ward. White silently watched them from the side. The Man Who Was Not took a step towards Alice, took her by the hand, stopping her, and the girl reluctantly turned around, been as silent as before and with the same smile. The man said in a glamorous sing-song voice, “Hello, Alice! I’m glad to see you here.” He didn’t understand why he suddenly decided to stop her. Even those words seemed to have been spoken for him by someone else. And for some reason, he glamorously kissed her on the cheek. Alice, still with the same smile and again silently, turned around and walked away.

“Time Turner,” she stated sadly. “I’ve turned it back for somehow too much. Or does it choose the right time itself?”

***

London, the Book Fair, daytime, rain

Glamorous found Gloomy and said, “Bro, help is needed! I’m bumping my ward into Alice. Now he is going to the second floor. Alice is busy on the stand with nonsense. Let your Writer come after her and ask her to accompany him to the negotiations on the second floor as an interpreter. She won’t refuse him. And it’s good for your Writer, too.”

“What’s there, on the second floor?” as if expecting a dirty trick, Gloomy inquired suspiciously.

“There’re literary agents there, a bit over four hundred of them. You’ll have to come with Alice to the table K-33, will you?”

“I will, I don’t mind,” Gloomy agreed grimly, “but why don’t you bring your ward to the stand of Alice?”

“You don’t understand anything, Gloomy!” Glamorous said offended. “To bump them on the second floor is a non-standard move! And any non-standard move is worth a hundred standard ones!”

Talking with someone from the delegation at the stand, Alice noticed the Writer.

“Can you help me?” he asked calmly.

“Of course, tell me!”

“Did Glamorous send you here?” White asked Gloomy, and the latter nodded in response.

“On the second floor, there are literary agents. They sign up for a meeting with them six months in advance. But what if it works without? I have a few synopses and my novel translated into English. You can help me to talk with them in English.”

Alice agreed. They went up to the second floor by the escalator and entered a huge hall with endless rows of tables, each row was signed with a letter, each table had its number.

“I need K-33,” the Writer said.

They slowly made their way through the rows, found K-33, approached it and greeted the agent. Alice explained who they were, the Writer held out his papers. At that moment, Alice noticed that at the table in the next row, but with the same number 33, appeared… Alice froze in a daze, not believing her eyes. The agent K-33 asked her something, but she didn’t respond. The Writer tugged Alice by the sleeve.

“You read my book about Another Reality, aren’t you?” She sighed. “Would you like to see one of the characters?”

“I would,” the Writer smiled.

“Right in front of us. The one on the right.”

“Who is he?”

“The Man Who Was Not.”

Alice tried to move to the right, behind the column, so that the one they were talking about didn’t accidentally turn around and see her. She didn’t want to face him again, because she was not going to return to their Past even with a glance. Moreover, despite the existence of the Time Turner, life was a movement forward, not backward.

The Writer asked kidding gloomy, “Do you want me to…?”

“No!” Alice exclaimed in a whisper. “Don’t kill him, it’s no need. Let him live!”

The Writer finished his conversation with K-33 and they left the literary agents floor.

***

the Russian Bookstore, evening, rain

Alice was about to leave the fair, as a colorful girl who looked like a young man approached the stand.

“Are you from this stand?” she asked and, having received a positive nod from Alice, continued, “I represent the Russian Bookstore in London. By the way, would you like to visit us? We constantly have evenings with performances by Russian writers. We are interested in books in Russian. If you are interested, we can chat. Here is my business card.”

Alice looked at the business card and put it into her pocket. They agreed to meet the next day to discuss the transfer of the books of the delegation to the Russian Bookstore. The guest’s gaze glided over the shelves and stopped at a book. The girl took it out, open it on a random page, read a bit and asked, “Who is the author?”

“Me,” Alice replied.

“I want it. Sign it, please!”

Alice sighed, the book was dedicated to the Man Who Was Not. The guest left with her book. The Writer appeared. He told Alice that in the evening he would perform at Pushkin House. Alice asked to pass one of her books to Pushkin House. The Writer took it and they said goodbye.

Walking around London alone, Alice found herself on Piccadilly. Glamorous appeared there, “White, do you like the number 3?”

White felt what Glamorous was getting at, “I like the number 7.”

“Well, 7 is also good, no doubts. But 3 is much better than 2, right?” Glamorous purred in a sing-song way. “Bro, there’s that Russian Bookstore just two steps away from here. A presentation of another writer has just ended there. My ward is inside. Alice was invited to visit that bookstore. Take a couple of steps with her. Anyway, she has to show her up there! Let her come in now, not later! So they will bump into each other three times in one day! An evident sign for them! Agreed?”

“She doesn’t want to see him. Don’t you feel it?” White sighed. “Why force her to bump into him?”

“Well, not as a duty, but as a friend, can you help me? Of course, you don’t need this. But just imagine, you’ll get a sinful ward and come to me, and I’ll refuse you.”

White took Alice by the astral hand, “Let’s go, baby, to the bookstore. Anyway, you have to visit it.”

Alice remembered that the Russian Bookstore was right on Piccadilly. She looked at her watch, wondering whether it was still open, and took out the business card from her pocket to check the house number.

The Bookstore was huge, but every book was in English. Alice went to the far hall and found a spiral staircase to the upper floor with a signboard, “Russian books are up there!” Alice went upstairs, stopped at the rack with the books by Solzhenitsyn, Ulitskaya, Polozkova, asked herself a rhetorical question, “How to join them?”, turned left and noticed… “No! No! Just not that!!!” she exclaimed mentally, instantly flew down the stairs and left the ill-fated store.

***

Tower Bridge, evening, rain

Alice had a headache. She walked slowly across Tower Bridge. Why was she drawn there when the Tower was already closed? Alice stopped in the middle of the bridge, thinking about what had happened that day. “What’s the hell? It’s unreal. Three times in one day. That’s Time Turner. What do you want to tell me, God? Do I have to deal in my Future with this man? It’s all long in the Past, and there’s absolutely nothing and cannot be now anymore.”

Standing on Tower Bridge, Alice heard some verses about a chance encounter, wrote them down and… sent them in a message to the Man Who Was Not.

   The wind of chances blows hard
away from home.
A lonely verse is born at dawn
inside the album.
   A friendly touch, I went away.
Don’t judge me strictly.
It hurts. It can’t be glued. I’m sad,
while you are smiling.
   I’m sorry, mystical surprise
by stars unlabeled,
the breeze of destiny reprise
is paid by nothing.
   You slip as ghosts into the mist.
I don’t judge strictly.
It’s cold. It’s raining. I’m sad,
while you are smiling.
   I give my autographs in fog,
They don’t know,
My funny book about us
is still so sunny…

Having received no answer, Alice descended to the Tower and noticed a flickering light in one of the windows appearing and then disappearing. Alice wanted to stop a passer-by to show the strange light, but there was not a soul around. Surrealism.

Already in Covent Garden, at a table by a burning fire in a coffeehouse, Alice ordered coffee and wrote another poem.

   Today, in London, it is cool
for tails of cats and dogs.
I had a flight with rains. The bridge
was sad at dreaming me.
   All poets tend to fall in love
forever with some ghosts.
I passed the Tower and sank
into the fable mist.
   The ravens grumble in the castle,
their throne is still a stump,
but sunny day of freedom shines
in Tablets full of rains.
   So shamelessly I lose my mind,
while testing all the ways.
It’s easy to be dreamt by bridge.
Try finding a sweetheart…

White shook his head sadly, the poem was dedicated to the Man in White, whose phantom was already manifesting at the table opposite. Alice was about to send the poem to the addressee, but changed her mind and saved it in the phone’s drafts. She was very sad. The guardian hugged Alice with his wings and relieved her headache.

***

the day after the closing of the Fair,

the Tower, morning, rain

Alice and the Writer agreed to go to the Tower, and then to Greenwich. They met in the subway, reached the Tower, bought entrance tickets and, without ordering an excursion, wandered along the fortress wall, went up into the towers and down to the ravens.

Alice watched the birds and said, “When I was leaving Moscow, I wrote a poem about the Tower Ravens. Some words I didn’t quite understand. It happens that I realize the hidden meanings and connections only after a certain period of time. Imagine, I don’t even know whom I wrote that poem to, because…”

“Recite it to me!”

  “The clouds left for suburbs.
The Sun takes up its post.
Let’s visit them in London —
black ravens, Tower’s hosts.
   The weak ones – business people —
enjoy the foreign streams.
The truly brave ones – ravens —
fly only in the dreams.
   They wear silver bracelets,
but their wings are cut.
They gladly keep the vows, —
they are the country’s guard.
   The retinue for dinners
prepares fairy-tales:
or victories for England,
or graveyard on the Thames.
   In vain you hide in hope
to take away la femme
across the sea… These ravens
still see as one of them —
me, raven…”

“Do they have clipped wings?” the Writer asked.

“Yes. According to a legend, the monarchy will collapse as soon as the ravens leave the Tower. They are well fed here. Each raven has its own name. They are guardians.”

“So, are you a guardian, too?”

“Perhaps, but I don’t know whose,” Alice laughed.

They entered the exhibition of the British crowns. Luxurious specimens with the names of those to whom they had once belonged were slowly moving along in the window. The Writer periodically asked Alice, “How do you like this one?”

“No, I don’t like this one,” she smiled.

“And that one?”

“Well, I like it, yes.”

The writers went to a gift shop. Unlike the Abbey, they sold big crowns there, but Alice didn’t like them. The Writer took one of them, crowned Alice and took a photo of her. Alice laughed, and the Writer said quietly, “That’s it, you are the Queen. That’s for sure now…”

In the courtyard, the Writer was taking a photo of Alice with a beefeater, a guard of the Tower, when suddenly a raven approached her.

“Look!” Alice exclaimed. “All of them are down there, but this one decided to take a walk! Aren’t we alike?”

The Writer took a photo of Alice with the raven and asked, “Did you choose exclusively black and white clothes for London on purpose?”

Alice looked at herself from head to toe and realized that indeed, everything she had taken to London was either black or white, except for the sweater, which was black and white.

“No, it just happened so…”

“Okay, Queen, let’s go to Greenwich to reset to zero, so that life sparkles with all the rainbow colors!”

***

Greenwich, day, the SUN!!!

The writers entered the first car of the automatic train where usual trains had the driver’s cab and took directly the front seats. The poor areas of London flashed through the windows, then a new banking one appeared, an analogue of the City, the giant glass skyscrapers of Canary Wharf. And finally, they got off at the right stop, reached the entrance to the park and slowly climbed up the hill to the Royal Observatory.

“The Sun shines in Greenwich. It’s surprisingly implausible! What is it for?” Alice thought and told the Writer about the Zero Meridian. The Writer smiled skeptically and took pictures of the sky in the grids of branches along the way.

“Do you like Gothic?” Alice asked, already knowing the answer.

“I adore it.”

“It’s very gloomy in the gothic churches, isn’t it?”

“Gloomy,” the Writer agreed. “But I’m a Catholic.”

They told each other stories from their difficult childhoods. Alice wondered, why it had been black for both of them, but she became fond of warmth and the sunshine, of everything bright and light, and the Writer became fond of gloomy places and black bare tree branches. Well, she had killed her characters in stories being young, too, but afterwards, on the contrary, tried to save everyone.

Alice ran up to the Zero Meridian, jumped on it for joy and stretched out her hands to the sky, in which the Sun was shining. The Writer took a photo of her standing on both sides of the Meridian line. Then Alice started dancing and even purring something to herself.

“What are you singing there?”

“A poem, it came to me on the platform 9 and ¾.

Don’t turn your back to magic, you,
a hostage of illusion,
been frighten by a stone wall.
The truth is in diffusion!
The fog is clinging to the Thames,
in vain you draw a circle!

I have a magic wand in hand
at 9 plus more three quarters!
The judges in a mirror web
are chatting with the British.
They caught a lion with a girl
at dancing over Greenwich!”

“You are so funny!” the Writer smiled.

“Come here, reset your life, come on! Let everything black leave us, and life will start from scratch. Make a wish!”

“Will it come true?”

“I was here ten years ago. In April, just like now. In autumn, my life changed completely. So much that I could hardly believe it. For the better, I mean. Although at first, it was hard to turn around so radically. But after it, a new and happy chapter of my Book of Life began! I believe that even now I’m here for a reason, and you too.”

The Writer took a place at the Zero Meridian. Alice photographed him. White looked at her with sadness, because Alice wasn’t completely reset, since the image of the Man in White was steadily present in her mind.

“So, in autumn, you say? A new and happy chapter?” the Writer asked with a smile.

“Definitely! In autumn!”

White sighed, and Gloomy asked, “Bro, is it not true about autumn?”

“Everything is true, including autumn. But Alice has to reach autumn passing through her summer. I would even say, she won’t have summer this year at all. That’s it, bro.”

They both looked at Alice with sadness. So joyful, beautiful, happy, not knowing anything bad about the upcoming, she took the Writer by the hand, and…

They explored the museum of the Royal Astronomers, slowly walking around the exhibits – telescopes, various mechanisms, similar to watches, scrolls – and step into a dark room, where Alice discovered a giant globe and led the Writer to it.

“Look! It’s our globe, just the size I used to see it during my meditations. Imagine, in the sky, there are big monks the guardians of our balloon, the Earth. They stand next to it holding their palms, like we do by a fire warming our hands. The guardians are as big as you and me compared to this globe. Take a photo of me with it!”

After taking photos, Alice came to the table with some objects painted on it – inkwells, pencils, pens and a sign, “Touch me to learn more.” Alice touched it and immediately screamed in horror. Huge, fat, furry ones with a lot of paws quickly ran over the table surface.

“What’s up?” The Writer was surprised.

“This is a bad table! A dark one!”

The Writer touched the table, “Alice, don’t be afraid. This is a touchscreen computer. After these ‘monsters’, a text with a story appears on the table, and you can turn the pages to read further.”

White led Alice away from the table, “Just a sign! If you go through the tunnel of Saturn, you’ll reach a happy autumn.”

The writers left the dark room. At the exit from the museum, Alice noticed an inconspicuous staircase leading somewhere upwards, and with a glance suggested going up. Having enjoyed the next museum rooms on the upper floor, which, apparently, few people got to, the writers went out to the roof and walked along a narrow passage to the door located in the dome, where the biggest telescope was kept.

“Wow!” exclaimed Alice. There was no one else and nothing but a huge device in the center of the round room there. Some meditative music was playing. The writers were fascinated by the telescope and walked it all around. Alice crossed the line, marked by a chain, and climbed up the stairs to the very dome. The Writer took photos of her.

Glamorous appeared, “White, I’m ready to voice the plan!”

Gloomy cast a sullen glance at Glamorous. White grinned, “Wow, bro! Show must go on… Did you suddenly realize that 7 is much better than 3?!”

“Don’t be ironic!” continued the inspired Glamorous. “I realized that in order to return to that situation, they must be bumped into each other in June, not in April. They met in June! And to make it really magic, Alice has to gain weight somewhere!”

“What do you mean, weight and somewhere? Don’t you like her shapes?”

“Well, my ward loves everything glamorous and exclusive! I thought about it and decided the following. Alice takes part in the imperial ‘Heritage’ competition, the results will be announced in early May. I’ll take her to the list of finalists. Well, this year she’ll be a finalist, next year – the winner! And you’ll make her win in the royal competition, the ‘King of Poets’, where she is already in the list of finalists, and the results will be announced at the end of May! Everything converges, White, it all sums up!”

White glanced at Gloomy and asked, “Are you both in cahoots? One tries to put the crown on her head. The other demands to become the Queen. Gloomy, why are you silent?”

Gloomy was getting darker, “No, we didn’t agree. My ward was just joking.”

“A good joke!” Glamorous exclaimed cheerfully. “There’s a bit of a joke in every joke, and the rest is pure truth! So, Gloomy, since it was your writer’s idea, then you’ll make her the Queen of poets!”

“Unreal,” Gloomy sighed.

“Glamorous, I don’t understand it yet. Why should Alice win?” White asked. “Believe it or not, she doesn’t need it anymore. She proved everything to everyone a long time ago. Perhaps Alice will refuse even to participate in the battle for the crown.”

“What do you mean, why?! First, there is never extra victory in life. Secondly, she has to catch my sinner to the quick! He promised once that he would crown her. Well, conditionally, but promised. He did nothing for it, I agree. And now, so many years later – bang! – she makes it herself. With our help, of course. But for him it looks like herself! Imagine, what he would feel! He’ll want to meet her! You’ll see! And then, in June…”

“Glamorous, there is no such option in the Space of Options. Dot. She can’t win.”

“White, nothing is impossible! If there’s no such option yet, then it needs to be imagined! As soon as we come up with it, it’ll immediately appear there, and it’s always possible to realize any option appeared in the Space as an image! In fact, we’ve just come up with it!”

“You’ve done it, not us. So realize it yourself. It’s your ward who has debts to pay, not Alice. I’ll return to Moscow and deal with issues of her health, not creativity. Don’t you care how the next period of Saturn will end for her? Alice’s chances of remaining on Earth are nil at the moment. In my opinion, Glamorous, it’s exactly to your advantage to keep her in their human world, isn’t it?”

Glamorous fell silent. Gloomy got even darker. They all looked at Alice. Beautiful, happy, completely unaware of how her fate was being decided in another dimension, she stood at the top of the stairs under the very dome of the Royal Observatory smiling at the Writer.

“Okay,” Gloomy sighed, “we have to answer for our words, I agree. I’ll do my best.”

“So will I, White. I’ll help Alice, too! Indeed!”

White was silent. Alice came down the stairs. The writers left the Royal Observatory and returned to London.

***

the night before returning to Moscow,

London, hotel, black clouds, rain

Alice was sitting on the windowsill in the hotel. Suddenly, she heard words pouring from somewhere and she habitually wrote them down and saves on her phone.

A blind man got insight at once —
all people are so strange!
Don’t drink the Truth from human face,
the well is in the soul!
Let Hogwarts be – in reading signs
for Gucci – number 1.
Umbrellas, Londoners’ must have,
sneezed on the clouds twice!
The grass demands the rains as much
as God – the baptized ones.
Ideas of the Space displaced
will soon explode my mind!
I’m led away from you by guards
to payment for the sins.
It’s just 3 minutes to the ward
for those who went mad.

Chapter 1.8. A Trip to the Astral

May 5, Moscow,

Alice’s room

Alice was sorting out the closet. Finally, it was time to get summer clothes and put away winter ones. The guardian sat in a chair opposite, “As you finish it, deal with the Transits! This knowledge will be useful to you very soon.”

Alice didn’t hear him. Or rather, having finished sorting out her clothes, she came up to the bookcase. Sometimes Alice adjusted its contents. There were a lot of books in it, her own ones, and gifted by her colleagues the writers, and purchased by herself, but not yet read, and photo albums with performances, and newspapers and magazines with her publications, and… Alice got to printouts and notebooks written a long time ago, but never published, she had no time for that. Some of her stories and poems had been lost, some thrown away with her own hands. In the bookcase, there was the third part that had survived. “I should publish that poetry and decide what to do with the stories…”

The guardian chuckled, “I say, study the Transits! When the Sun is in the Dungeon, a person sums up the next results.”

Alice reread the dusty stories written at the age of 13—17 and called Kidding U to arrange their meeting in a quiet place. Kidding U was her friend and a writer, who earned money on his literary work, so he could make an adequate verdict on Alice’s childish literature, to publish it or send in the trash.

***

a cozy coffeehouse

Alice and Kidding U met in a quiet place. She silently held out a printout of her childish stories about ghosts, in her opinion, somehow digestible for reading by third parties.

“Oh, what’s this?!” U exclaimed cheerfully.

“This is me as a kid. Well, I mean, I was young then.”

“I understand, now you are old!” U laughed.

“Let’s read them out loud to each other.”

“What for?”

“For you to tell me something.”

“And what to tell you?” U asked Alice in a conspiratorial voice.

“The truth.”

“Okay, Piglet! Until Friday, I’m completely free!”

U made himself comfortable in the chair, picked up the first story and started reading it aloud. He was very lucky, because all the stories were short. Periodically, he accentuated the crooked phrases. Alice underlined them with a red pen to edit them later. In the course of reading, U muttered, “Hmmm…”, “Wow!”, “A-ha!”, “Oh-hoo!”, “Ugh!” and suddenly exclaimed, “And this is Edgar Poe himself!”

White exchanged breaking news with U’s guardian. The latter, nodding at Alice, asked, “The transit Sun is in the 12th, or what?”

“Yes, Kidding, you guessed it right. During the May holidays, Alice will give out to the publisher 9 volumes of her survived poems, an edited novel about our reality and what they are reading now.”

“White, your Alice is a monster! How do you manage with her? My U will write only a story for May edition of a magazine, and just because they are rushing him. They have been waiting for a month already.”

“No, Kidding, she is a sheep, not a monster.”

“Why are you so upset then? A sheep is a good thing! You can cut some wool!” Kidding laughed.

“I can. There’s another problem. She’ll spend all her savings for the summing up. You know, bro, what’s the price of it in their literary world. And as soon as she pays for the books, she’ll urgently need money! I have no idea in my mind where to get it from then!”

“And why deal with your mind? Deal with others. By the way, what kind of idea are you going to find?” Kidding laughed. “You know, when money is really needed, it always comes by itself. At least, it always happens so with U. I only adjust the flow a bit.”

Alice’s phone started ringing a melodic trill.

“Who’s there?!” U asked as Alice pulled her phone out of her bag.

Alice listened to the caller and raised her eyebrow in surprise. U looked at her carefully and copied her movements, including the raised eyebrow, until Alice said goodbye to the unknown caller.

“You won’t believe it! I got into the list of finalists of the Imperial ‘Heritage’ competition! Boris will win there, I know, but he deserves it.”

“Are you let in the final? Really?! This is so cool! How did you manage to do it? In such a competition… This is really a victory! Not thanks, but in spite of! But don’t relax, next year you’ll definitely become our ‘Heritage’, not Boris! Give me your paw, I’ll shake it!”

Alice held out her palm saying, “Unbelievable, but true.” U shook her palm for a long, long time. Alice pinched U in the side and forced him back to reading her stories.

Glamorous materialized, spreading a Cheshire cat smile across the space, “Hello, bros! Well, White? Did I keep my promise?!” and, without waiting for praise, instantly disappeared.

After reading all 33 ghost stories, U and Alice went for a walk around the city. It was easy for them to communicate even not about creativity. U knew about Another Reality. He had also written a fairy tale about it. But U was almost always wearing a clown mask, that was his role. Besides, he worked with kids, arranged holidays, wrote scripts for children Christmas parties. Alice was still a child who had got no parties in her childhood, but she preferred no masks. U listened to Alice’s story about London and, stopping in the middle of the road, defiantly stomped his foot, “That’s a sign! Your Man Who Was Not, shown you up three times in a row!”

“The Time Turner worked out,” Alice sighed. “I twisted it too much! I didn’t need to return for so many years ago.”

“You are not right! It’s not up to you to decide what, where and when it’s needed! Move your brains, think, what was it for?”

“Maybe, it’s the first thought that came to my mind when we bumped into each other that matters.”

“Remember three thoughts!”

“Here they are. ‘It’s all in the Past.’ ‘I am on the right track.’ ‘How can I get to another level in literature?’”

“So, at first, you thought that he was a man from your past life, but when you met him at the literary agents, considered yourself on the right track… leading where?”

“I thought, to the literary agents.”

“It’s more reasonable to assume the opposite: not to the literary agents, but to him. And in the Bookstore?”

“I was looking at the shelves with books by famous writers with a thought, ‘I wish my books were there, in London, too! But it’s a different level’.”

“Will the Man Who Was Not help you move to another level?”

“He has already helped, yes! I told you about it.”

U and Alice approached the subway. White addressed Kidding, “Let U ask her to meditate. I have a lot to show her!”

U stopped at the entrance to the subway, “You know, Piglet, what thought just popped into my mind?”

“How should I know?”

“Wrong answer! You know to connect to the Information field! Take a trip to the Astral, and then we’ll think of it again, okay?”

***

the night on the eve of May 6,

St. George the Victorious Day,

Alice’s room

Alice turned on meditation music and… immediately entered the dark blue Universe. The monks began to work with her astral body, rinsing it in a virtual river and cleaning it from all dirt. Then Alice stood under the Silver Flow in a silver dress woven by the Flow and a silver crown appeared on her. She turned to one of the monks with the question that had come to her mind in London, “How to get to the next level?”

An astral staircase appeared in front of Alice, along which, under the same Silver Flow, she climbed up to a chair on its top. Alice sat down into it and thought, “I wonder whether I have shoes. Are they silver, too?”

Alice went down to the monks. Instead of the usual circle, they formed a path. Alice passed between them into the distance, and the Man in White came out of the void of Eternity and was walking towards her. Alice rejoiced, but immediately stopped herself. Images were deceptive there. Perhaps that was another man, but with the energy similar to that of the Man in White. He took Alice by the hand and led into the distance.

An astral house appeared. Or rather, its light ghostly contours, so that Alice understood with her earthly mind that it was a house. They went inside, discussing something over food, and then the Man led her to the upper floor. It was a strange feeling of astral love, but Alice was happy.

They returned to Eternity and walked along a wide road, and fragments from the Future appeared in flashes on the dark blue Universe: Alice on the radio, an article about her in a newspaper, Alice on TV, not the ones she had already been. Alice was happy with everything shown to her, but the main thing was that the Man she loved was nearby.

The only thing that frightened Alice was her white dress with red poppies, which she didn’t have in earthly reality. Once she had caught a glimpse of it in the store while looking for an orange dress like the one thrown out after her car accident. Alice tried to redraw the dress, since buying a poppy one was too much, she had already a lot of dresses. But the dress, as luck would have it, was not redrawn.

In the next fragment of the meditation, other monks appeared. They were very tall, in black robes with hoods, faceless. Usually, they charged the Earth with the energy of love, holding their hands over it in the same way as people, while warming themselves by a fire. Alice called them guardians. The monks surrounded Alice. They seemed to be cooking something in a cauldron, she was placed inside. They changed the course of events, lining up the right meetings, the right people, the whole chain – in the right order for Alice.

Then Alice noticed a VIP, perhaps not the same from the tour fair, but someone who would play an important role in her destiny. He held out his hand to her, and together they exited the cauldron of events. Alice was still in the same poppy dress! The Very Important Person led her to the stairs, the Man in White joined them, and the three of them went upstairs. Alice sat down in the chair on the top of the stairs, and the men remained standing on both side of it. Alice noticed familiar faces down there, but their reaction to her ascent was different.

Then everything disappeared. The Man in White took Alice by the hand, led to the ghostly boat, “Shall we go?” She nodded and got into the boat. The night was coming. Mountains were visible in the distance. The boat set off and sailed towards them.

In the next fragment, Alice found herself in a mountain monastery, often visited by her during meditations at her Teacher’s seminars. She sat down at the edge of the abyss next to the monk. The Teacher joined them. They said that what Alice had just seen was the answer to her question. Alice’s parents appeared and confirmed the words of the Teacher and the monk. Next came the inhabitants of the Library of the Universe, the ghosts of the Silver Age poets. One of them approached Alice and clearly said in a calm voice, “Try it.”

Alice returned to the dark blue Universe. The monks worked with Alice’s astral body while she was swinging on a visualized swing. Then she heard her favorite song, to which the monks usually had aligned her astral body and, twisting it into a cocoon, returned Alice to Earth. Previously, the vortex had been small. The monks had surrounded Alice, who had been spinning like a spindle, creating a powerful energy whirlwind. But that time, Alice was inside a huge circle formed not only by the monks, but by everyone she had seen there that night. Dancing in the circle, Alice had to touch each of them energetically. The cocoon of her astral body became gigantic, and the cocoons of the Man in White and the Very Important Person were added to it. Alice looked at herself and at them from the side. It looked like a three-petal, opening lotus bud. And already in that form, Alice was sent back on Earth.

Chapter 1.9. The Crown

May 12, evening

Moscow, the Central House of Writers

Alice arrived at the ceremony of announcing the results of the Imperial ‘Heritage’ competition and met the winner in the foyer. He hadn’t yet been officially announced, but even when the competition had been just planned, Alice had already known that he would have won it. The winner smiled shyly. Alice laughed, shoved him in the side and said, “Come on, tell me, it’s you!”

“I don’t know…”

“I do. Well done!”

After the ceremony, one of the organizers of the competition photographed Alice with Her Imperial Highness. Alice was happy.

In the evening, in her favorite coffeehouse, she sent a message to her friends about such a bit victory, because to be among the finalists in that particular competition for her personally was a victory. Everyone congratulated Alice in return. She smiled. Suddenly, a message came from the Man Who Was Not, “I’m proud of you.”

“Unbelievable!” Alice thought and got darker, because the Man in White hadn’t reacted in any way.

“Study the Transits, you, sheep!” White said wearily.

***

May 13, evening, Moscow, Alice’s room

Svetlana came to visit Alice. Alice retold her the events in London, then the meditation.

“It turns out that in order to get to the next level, you need two men at once who will lead you upstairs.”

“But none of them is present nearby in my earthly reality. It’s impossible for me to make them both appear. Apparently, it’s only a matter of chance, that is, whether the events in that astral cauldron have been kneaded well enough.”

“He’ll appear, don’t worry.”

“The VIP?”

“The Man in White. And then, the VIP.”

“Light, as a friend, can I ask you a favor?” White turned to the guardian of Svetlana, since the image of the Man in White was clearly unpleasant for him.

“Okay, White, ask me.”

“Let your Svetlana remind my sheep to go to the doctor. In April, the doctor was at a seminar.”

Svetlana took Alice’s magic wand, twisting and turning it. Then she looked at the Time Turner.

“Listen, have you not been to the doctor yet? She has clients for several months ahead.”

“There’s still plenty of time until September!”

White exclaimed angrily, “The time is never enough! No one has plenty of time! Looks like I’ll have to resort to preventive measures.”

“White, don’t get boiling!”

“What’s about your job?” Svetlana asked with interest.

“Almost completed the project. It’ll be launched at the beginning of June. The website is ready. I just need to proofread the texts. All foreign partners have been identified, the routes have been coordinated and calculated, full and short programs have been described… For May, I need to compile a list of companies in our city that are somehow related to mystics and esoterics. And since June, I can already meet with them about our trips advertising and so on.”

“So where would you go?”

“Lots of places!” Alice exclaimed joyfully. “For example, the monasteries of Bhutan. Easter Island, Sardinia, I mean the sea.”

“You’ll go to Sardinia with the Man in White!” Svetlana said with a smile. “Just buy that dress with red poppies!”

Suddenly, the guardian of the Woman from the House of Serving to Creativity appeared.

“White, I remind you of our agreement. Alice has been to London, now we need her. Tonight, my ward will make a job offer to Alice. Everything has been agreed with tops, they are glad to see her there again. Alice has two weeks until the end of May. The deadline is June 9th, just a week before the start of her Saturn period.”

“I’ll try, bro,” White said sadly. “She can hardly hear me lately.”

“If she doesn’t hear you, we’ll have to use the Dark ones. By the way, I looked through the nearest Options in the Space for Alice’s June and July. Get a straw for her, bro!”

“Study the Transits! TRAN-SITS!” White shouted right into the Alice’s ear.

Svetlana suddenly stopped and asked, “Alice, what are Transits?”

***

May 16, Moscow, RUSNANO building

Alice came in office, as usual, in a cheerful mood, but suddenly, almost at the doorstep, she was told strange news: the CEO had been fired. Alice met him through his mother, a writer. It was the CEO who had offered Alice a job there. “They seemed to live soul to soul, the CEO and the owner of the company! What a strange coincidence: the CEO was fired as soon as I became persistently invited to the House of Serving to Creativity.”

Half an hour later, Alice received a call from the jury of the King of Poets competition and was asked to come in the evening to discuss the final round with all its participants. Alice reluctantly agreed, although she didn’t plan to go to the final round. Moreover, she somehow felt strange. Not that bad, but not as usual. She couldn’t even understand what exactly was wrong with her, but she admitted to herself, it would be better to visit the doctor before September.

Alice called the clinic and heard, “The doctor is on vacation until June 10. But the nearest vacant time for clients is only on the 28th, the rest is already occupied. Would you make an appointment?”

Alice sighed heavily, but agreed, at the same time realizing that the 28th would fall already on her Saturn period, the hardest of the year.

***

Moscow, evening, the Central House of Writers

Alice arrived at the Central House of Writers, where the half-kings and half-queens, the finalists, had gathered. Alice knew most of them and considered many worthy of the crown. She noticed Kidding U, who was also a finalist, because he was not only a writer, but also a poet. U happily waved his hand to Alice and she sat down next to him. The organizer of the competition told those present how the final round would be held. U constantly loudly and cheerfully commented on what had been voiced, Alice made caustic remarks, too, but quieter and less often. When the official part was over, it became clear to Alice: it would be unrealistic to win.

“Relax, let’s come and just recite on the stage. Have you ever recited your poems in the Great Hall of the Central House of Writers?” U tried to reassure her.

“No.”

“That’s it, already a definite plus!”

“Listen, why come at all? Did you hear what they just said? There will be two votes, for the audience and for the jury. You know why the jury won’t choose me. How can I get the audience if the entrance ticket will be sold at such a price? I can only sponsor my son. All my savings were spent on the publication of my last books.”

“Oh, Alice, never say the ‘last’! You’ll write many more books! But believe me, I don’t have money either to invite someone as spectators to vote for me. So you and I will come and recite to each other, okay?”

“You and I have already recited to each other,” Alice sighed grimly. “We recited and we will go on reciting. It’s absolutely unnecessary for that purpose to go on this stage in order to lose with zero votes.”

Glamorous and Gloomy appeared in the hall, greeted White and Kidding.

“White, everything will be fine!” Glamorous exclaimed. “Just make sure she comes, okay?”

“Inspire her with this idea yourself,” White replied being tired of the hassle. “I’m not going to make tricks about this. I have plenty of others ahead.”

“Bro, we’re really highlighting the right option for Alice at full force, pumping it up energetically. Look into the Space of Options for May 23rd

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Примечания

1

http://z-zapiski.ru/archive.php

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2

https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=30990

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3

“A Guardian Angel”, chapter 2.4

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4

B. Mikhin, “Angels and Stars: M. Tsvetaeva, E. Rein, and A. Kryuchkova”, “Foreign Notes” magazine, No. 1 (27), 2022.

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5

“A Guardian Angel”, chapter 3.3

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6

“A Guardian Angel”, chapter 2.4

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7

T. Troubnikova, “Guardian Angels do exist!”, “Literary News” No.11—12 (197—198), 2021.

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8

http://litiz.ru/archive/litiz_2021_11-12(197-198).pdf

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9

https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=30038

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10

“A Guardian Angel”, chapter 2.4.

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11

“A Guardian Angel”, chapter 2.4.

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12

“A Guardian Angel”, chapter 3.7.

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13

http://litiz.ru/arch.html

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14

https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=32536

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15

Ursa Major constellation.

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16

One has to flight to Nizhnekamsk to get to Elabuga.

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