Kitabı oku: «Aragon Masks», sayfa 2

SWAN HEART

Third-level mage, hereditary sorcerer Nubis, took clients to his office in the center of Moscow. The pen name he chose sounded like that, simply for the easier spelling, and not because he hesitated to use the name of his favorite ancient Egyptian deity.

Some objects that furnished his office were purely for entourage. For instance, a white owl, Fyodor, sat motionless in a cage and looked straight ahead. The owl never bothered Nubis, however, distracted at times. Especially during feeding time, when the janitor cleaned the cage and put live mice into the narrow door. One by one. When a mouse fell to the ground he closed it at once. At that moment there was a fuss and a brief mouse squeak.

There was a stuffed bat, frozen in a ridiculous pose, and like dragging its withered wings around. However, no one knows in which pose a bat should stand, this stuffed bat seemed not bad at all, especially in combination with the human skull standing next to it. Nubis had picked this skull up at the riverbank. He washed it, cleaned and was glad to find that the lower jaw was well preserved.

But besides all these items, which functioned to create an ambience, on the shelves in jars, leather bags, and ancient chests were stored things that the mage actually used during the rituals.

Arthur was crumpling in front of the mage’s door. Nubis, looking at the screen which showed everything that was going on outside the door, had no hurry to invite him in. «Let him mature.»

«May I?» Arthur opened the door and peeked into the office.

«Come in,» said Nubis. His pale gray eyes stared at the entrant.

«Hi. I have a question for you. Well, not really one.»

«Sit down,» the sorcerer pointed to an armchair for visitors, and Arthur sat down without leaning over and keeping his bag in his lap.

«Well, here’s the thing. I’m alone. But I’m not alone in the literal sense. I have close people. Relatives and friends. Mates and just good people I know. And despite that, I feel very lonely. Maybe because everyone around me does not understand me the way I would like them to. Or don’t understand at all. I need a fellow. I need a friend who gets me. The same way I want to understand him.

«Do you want a friend or maybe a girlfriend?»

«A girlfriend? Not so bad. But would she understand me? Women simply can’t climb into a man’s skin. They have no sense of male solidarity.»

«I see what you’re asking. With magic, everything is possible. But you have to clearly specify what traits your friend must have.»

«Okay. Well, I want:

1.A girlfriend who thinks like a man.

2. Not less fun and not more serious than me.

3.No more, no less than me, shows passion, kindness, anger, interest.»

«All right,» the mage said, «Let’s begin,» and he walked Arthur over to the altar, where there was a sacrificial glass bowl resting on four whitewashed bones. Nubis seated Arthur in a chair next to the altar table. Moved a small mirror to Arthur so he could see his face in reflection. He put a glass ball in his hands and told him to gaze into his reflection until someone else’s face appeared in the mirror. As soon as it happens, break the mirror immediately with the ball.

Arthur gazed into the mirror. First the reflection didn’t move at all. But suddenly the unknown face with holes instead of eyes appeared clearly in the mirror. Arthur quickly hit with the glass ball, held tensely at the ready, the mirror. The glass cracked and shattered into small pieces.

«Now collect these splinters,» said the mage, moving a dark metal mortar to Arthur, and grind them into dust.

Arthur coped with this task as well.

«Well, now, let’s call the traits of your friend-girlfriend,» looking at the sacrificial bowl, Nubis said softly, «Male-female, you say?»

The mage walked to the shelf filled with different small items. He took a little ballerina dolly, dressed in a black tutu and black pointes. And a toy car with disproportionately large rubber wheels.

He gently lowered the dolly and the car to the bottom of the sacrificial bowl.

«I also want a faithful friend.»

«Here is the black dog’s ear. Take it and put it into the sacrificial bowl.»

Arthur hardly touched the ear. The dried ear seems warm. It was probably because the mage’s room was very cold. It was too low temperature for such a hot day as it was outside the window. And there was no air conditioning in the room. It seemed like this cold was coming from the mage himself. The ear fitted at the bottom the sacrificial bowl between the ballerina and the car.

«I want to like her as a woman. You know.»

«I see,» the mage said, pulling a red cat’s tail out of the bag. Fluffy on top, withered and hard at the base of the fur.

Arthur took the tail, long and hard. He dipped it into the bowl, and to his surprise, that tail curled up and occupied the empty space left between the items already lying there.

«I want her to love me. Let her love me,» Arthur stared at the items in the bowl without looking away.

«Want to be loved, good. Put a swan’s heart in there.»

If the mage hadn’t told it was a heart, you might never guess it. It was gray-brown, looked like a stone, but was very light in weight. Fully dried swan heart seemed almost weightless. Arthur held it in his hand, examining this dried item. It twitched in his hand, then again. Very quickly, with horror, Arthur placed it in the sacrificial bowl.

«Now sprinkle your crushed mirror on the top. And repeat the spell after me.»

Arthur repeated the spell, standing over the sacrificial bowl and looking at everything inside was now covered with the crushed mirror. The sorcerer covered the bowl with a black cloth.

«Take it and bring it home. Don’t talk to anyone on the way home. Once you get home, go to bed. Oh, and here. Take this candy.»

Nubis handed over the candy, with a label «Сoolness» on it. Nothing else about the contents or manufacturer was written on it.

«If you get cold, very cold. As cold as you’ve never been before, you can eat this candy. It will make you feel better.»

Arthur took the bowl in his hands. For a second he felt bad. Sick and dizzy. The sorcerer held the guy up by the elbow. To say that the sorcerer’s hands were icy is to say nothing. It seemed that the place he touched was frozen to the bone. Even at home, as Arthur fell asleep, he felt the cold on his arm where the sorcerer touched.

– 2-

Arthur opened his eyes. There was a girl sitting in the chair across from him, smiling. When she saw him awake, she smiled wider, «Tais. Or simply Taya.»

Arthur liked Taya. She was pretty. Too good, even. Arthur liked to do everything with Taya. Sleep. Eat. Talk about serious things and nothing. Waking up and falling asleep. Walking and coming back home. Making plans and suddenly realizing they are worthless. Change them for others. Know that you don’t have to do them. And have no regrets about it. Taya was always with him. Followed Arthur around like a ponytail and seemed happy.

At some point Arthur got to work. It wasn’t urgent. He could do it later, too. But Arthur felt absolutely focused on Taya. It was nice to focus on her, of course, but Arthur felt like he was losing himself.

Last night he had merged so much with Tais that he felt unable to keep him out of her. In that moment he felt divine. But in the morning, Arthur sensed some growing tension.

Taya came up to Arthur, who was sitting at the computer, and hugged him by the shoulders from behind. Arthur was possessed by a mingled feeling of pleasure and a feeling that some external force had grabbed him. He didn’t like to think the pleasure he was getting in any form could be some kind of leverage over himself. «To go along with your pleasures is to show weakness. If you take only pleasures all the time, you can lose your strength and yourself. Tais. Who is she for me? She’s only my creation. A figment of my imagination.»

Arthur stood up. Unnoticed by Tais, he went to the sacrificial bowl and pulled out the tail of the red cat. Then he walked over to the girl and embraced her closely with his arms. Tais pulled away in a confused and questioning stare. Arthur smirked. Slowly he returned the tail to the bowl and sat down on the couch. Tais, passing by, jumped in Arthur’s lap. She laughed and kissed him a few times.

«You are a redheaded cat.»

Arthur moved Tais from his lap to the couch and sat down at the computer. Taia was talking, joking, and asking something trivial. Kept quiet and talked again. Took funny photos. Showed them to Arthur. She had fun. She enjoyed Arthur’s company. She didn’t stop, guessing Arthur might need to rest.

Several days passed. Arthur was working on the computer. Tais, in her typical manner, kept on inventing, joking and laughing at her own jokes, asking Arthur to play the games she had invented. Arthur could spend hours or even days not answering or even reacting to Tais’s joyful appeals. «She’s not real. Not real. But she pulls attention like she’s alive.»

Arthur’s tension was growing. He answered Tais less. She noticed it. Slacked off, but not for long. She saw his reactions well, but once she felt how much she loved him, she couldn’t stand it and approached him again.

– 3-

One morning, looking at Tais asleep, Arthur went to the sacrificial bowl and began to take out, one by one, the objects that were lying there. He took them out and placed them next to each other on the table. A tail, an ear, a ballerina, a toy car, a swan’s heart. Sleeping Tais began to look translucent. She began to shimmer, like a shoddy hologram. The last thing, the pile of crushed glass from the mirror was placed next to on the table. And Tais disappeared completely.

The room became very silent. Although the sleeping Tais made no sound, it was the silence without something that had just filled the space.

«Now I am free. As alone as before, but free. That closeness almost consumed me. If I give up pleasure, it will make me stronger. Only weaklings go along with pleasure.» Arthur reasoned that every time he passed the table with the empty sacrificial bowl and the pieces extracted from it lying on the table.

Sometimes Arthur thought Taya was sitting in the chair behind him, smiling. Even thought, if he doesn’t turn around for a long time, he could hear her breathing.

«Tais,» Arthur said quietly, not noticing he was speaking aloud. All the pieces were placed in the same order at the bottom of the bowl. When the last speck of crushed mirror fell into the bowl, the familiar voice came from the middle of the room.

«Hi»

Taya was smiling as if nothing had happened. Arthur admitted to himself he missed her.

For days, Arthur kept Tais close to him. And the more he sank into his affection for her, the more resistance grew to capture this «unfree,» which created tension. Tais had the memory of how Arthur erased her from existence. And the awareness of her creation by him also clearly stayed with her. But she wasn’t mad at Arthur. Only sad about it. A swan’s heart and a dog’s ear kept her from leaving Arthur forever.

Tais knew for sure that after that night with Arthur, such a beautiful night, he would erase her again in the morning. It had happened more than once before. Each time, before Arthur had erased Tais in the morning, she wept quietly, without showing it. «What am I crying about?» Tais asked herself, «Yes. I’m so afraid of never seeing Arthur again. Stupid swan heart.»

– 4-

Yes, that was the night after which Arthur would erase Tais again. Looking at the fire, either from the light, or from realizing Arthur did not want to see her and hear her near him, and from annoyance at the way the swan heart lying in the sacrificial bowl was used for, tears flowed down the Tais cheeks, and dripped somewhere on the floor.

«Taya, could you keep an eye on the fire?» Arthur asked, falling asleep.

Tais couldn’t hear him. She looked at the fire with tear-filled eyes.

«Tail. Tail first,» said Tais. She got up and brought the sacrificial bowl to the fireplace. Through the bowl’s clear glass she could see the tail changing its position. Twisting now into a bagel, then into a spiral, straightening and curving again. Ballerina looked at the fire through the bowl glass and did not stop spinning the wheel of the toy car. Her ear lifted upward and turned to sound. And the heart. The swan’s heart was beating more often than usual, expanding and contracting, pushing with rhythmic beats whatever came into contact with it.

Tais took the tail. She threw it into the fire. A sheaf of sparks and the smell of burning wool. The black dog’s ear, too. More sparks and the stench of burning meat. Tais breathed heavily. No more tears covered her eyes. Now the heart. Over there it. The beating heart didn’t flare up at once. Its beats faded slowly, and at the edges of it began to burn a faint fire. The ballerina dolly and the toy car burned very quickly. Tais could hardly hold the bowl. She tilted it over the fire and poured the glass sand on the burning embers. In that second, she was gone. The sacrificial bowl, hanging in the air for a moment, fell, shattering into small pieces.

– 5-

Arthur woke up in the morning with a severe cold. The chimney was out. A window that had been opened by a strong breeze was filled with fine snow.

«It’s cold. Very cold. Just unbearably cold.»

Arthur remembered the sorcerer’s words. «When you get really, really cold, eat this candy.»

The candy, wrapped in a black wrapper, was in Arthur’s purse. He trembled from the cold and, with trembling fingers, took the candy inside the mouth. After a few seconds Arthur stopped feeling the cold completely. Now his body temperature was lower than the coldest environment temperature. Forever.

4 HANDS MASSAGE

Helen had been in school since the first grade. During her years at school, she has gained a high level of general and subject-specific skills

She is proficient in modern IT technologies. Helen is distinguished by her general erudition and desire for self-education. She is a value-oriented person with the potential of intelligence and high culture. Kind and compassionate person, responsible for her deeds. Not verbose, sometimes reticent. A modest girl, able to firmly express her position. Talks smoothly with classmates and teachers. Mostly polite.

Positive girl with a lot of possibilities. She perceives criticism calmly. Family psychological and emotional atmosphere is favorable. Parents had full control over the girl’s free time. Listened to the advice of her class teacher.

Reference to the place of demand.

School Principal.

Class teacher.

– 2-

Getting into a pedagogical university was easy. Helen was even surprised how little knowledge she had gained during her school years came in handy for admission. «Where’s all that knowledge going now? «It’s definitely not going to come in handy at this school. And now, school is over.

Helen was standing at the window. The sunset was reflecting beautifully in the glass of the house across the street. It was her grandmother’s inherited apartment. Close to where she studied. The desire to feel independent. Become an adult.

It was sunset, and the light was on in the house across the street. Helen stepped away from the window. She turned on her grandmother’s old floor lamp. The soft light filled the room dimly. From the ajar closet she could see a wide-brimmed hat that had half fallen out. Helen moved to the closet. A murky mirror, the edges of which had lost their luster over time. Slid opened the closet by pulling the jamming door to herself. A hat and a pile of things fell to the floor. Helen picked up the hat. It was a slightly rumpled, mothballed, gray hat with a veil.

Helen put it on. Glancing in the mirror through the veil, she felt like a blue-blooded, prideful lady. Put on lipstick. Her eyelids were covered with dark eyeshadow. Helen didn’t usually use any cosmetics. However, she kept the cosmetics gifted to her, just in case.

Grandma’s long manto. Made of a thin fabric. With fur. Even cold for the fall. Looks good with a hat. Umbrella. Not sure how to open it. Wooden spokes. Opened. Still need to look for shoes. Now they call them booties. A bit tight.

Helen twisted, opened and closed the umbrella. Elegantly she lifted the veil. Nodding lightly, she greeted imaginary guests. Maintaining a straight posture, she walked back and forth across the room, squinting at the mirror from under the veil.

Passing her reflection once more, waving her umbrella and honing her graceful gait, Helen glanced out the window. In the house across the street, against the backdrop of the lighted window, the dark figure of a man clung to the glass. Clearly he had been keeping an eye on the girl for a long time. The heavy curtain and the fallen ledge covered the girl. Helen rapidly moved to the window and forcefully pulled back the curtain. The heavy curtain and the fallen ledge covered the girl. Escaped, she lost her hat, and stepping over the open umbrella, Helen rushed to the lightswitch. In total darkness, away from the window, her eyes were now on the window across the street.

«This is awkward. Stupid. I guess he saw the whole thing. And how the ledge had fallen, too,» thought Helen. The man stepped away from the window and switched off the light.

– 3-

A month has passed. Helen always kept the curtains closed in the evenings, glancing toward the window. But since that night the light had never come on again.

One day, when it was quite dark, pulling back the curtain, Helen noticed two white lights, close together. Glinted in the dark window across the street. They flashed and disappeared at once. Then again. «I thought…»

The next morning was clear. The sun was shining through the open window, and a fresh breeze was blowing.

Helen was exercising and enjoying the morning. She approached the open window with a cup of coffee and began to explore, now clearly visible, «that window». The frame was for a long time unpainted. The glass was dark in the daylight. At the underside of the glass you could see some kind of picture. Was a picture of this window. Just like in that first evening. It was the dark silhouette of the man leaning against the lighted window. A chill ran down. Helen’s spine. «A maniac? Maybe a jester? Though, there was nothing to hold on to. After all, it is not illegal to show pictures in one’s window. I won’t look in that window again.»

After class in the evening, Helen came home without turning on the light and pulled back the curtain. Just trying to keep the window across the street in sight.

Her favorite dinner seemed tasteless. Having analyzed the situation, Helen realized that she had lost her peace completely.

Choice No. 1:

Spit it out, forget it and never look at that window again. (Doesn’t work).

Choice No. 2: Let myself look at that window. (This does not solve anything, no

peace anyway).

Choice No. 3:

Set up a camcorder. (Doesn’t solve the situation, but maybe it will clarify something). Now, when she came back home in the evening, Helen firstly watched the video tape. And just then, she dressed and ate dinner. The picture was still in the lower right window corner. Helen was mad she couldn’t stand by the open window and have her coffee in the morning. «After all, I’m at home. And I can stand at my window whenever I want and as long as I want.»

Helen made coffee. Walked over to the open window. While drinking coffee in small sips, she kept her gaze on anything except that window. «Don’t think about the white monkey.» Finishing her last sip, the girl gazed straight at that window. There were no curtains behind this window.

Down the road, two drivers were quarreling, not letting each other pass. Assessing which one was right, Helen was taken away from her attention to the window. When she looked up to the window again, the picture was gone against the glass.

«But, I just saw it!»

Helen ran to replay the video. The disappeared picture in the tape looked as if it was blown away by wind, and, having fallen on the window sill, was no longer visible. There was nobody in sight at the window.