sat down next to me and held out his hand. I cautiously held out mine in response. He looked at me, stroking the lines on my palm and probably changing something in them.
“Tell me, Alice, is this a magic place?”
“Yes, sure.”
“Should it somehow stir up the reality of whoever comes in contact with it?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Do you still want to leave?”
I withdrew my hand with a thought, “How does he know why I am here?”
“In your previous novel, you have already left the world,” having read my thoughts, Roman answered in the same mental way. “So, hasn’t your reality changed?”
“What do you mean?” I asked to clarify.
“Maybe what… or maybe whom,” I heard in response.
“I hope your next home task is… to sin?” Roman grinned aloud, nodding at the Sinner. “By the way, what swamp is he from?”
“The task is to repent,” I sighed. “He works in a school.”
“Sinners work in schools. Indeed, where else would they work? Why didn’t I guess it myself! Why to repent, Alice? Do you think those people who hurt others, and you in particular, really repented?”
“Leave it.”
“But they hurt you! Even deadly. Which of them ended up asking for forgiveness? No one? Ah-ah-ah! It’s not fair, is it?”
“Up there…”
“In Heaven?” Roman grinned venomously, reminding me of Ray. “And what did they do there, in Heaven, for you, so clean and bright? Have your offenders been punished? Was the balance of the Forces restored? Maybe they changed your life for the better? What kind of repentance are we talking about? Your abusers got their share of highs and continue to get maximum of Life! And you are dreaming of Death!”
I abruptly got up from the table, but immediately collided with…
“It’s time to announce the Open Mic,” the Guardian said.
“Yes, give me a second,” I nodded and turned to Roman. “They will never become true magicians. Write it down in your notebook. Did you buy it for nothing?”
Task No. 3. FORGIVENESS
…Start remembering your life from the very beginning, where you remember it from. The first person that will come to your mind is most likely your mother…
Go over your personal history for each person with whom you have come in contact in life, from your acquaintance to its completion or to the present moment, if you are still in contact, try to remember everything…
Ask to forgive you for what:
* you remember, and you feel uneasy at heart,
* you don’t remember, or maybe you don’t even know, but a person might have been inadvertently offended by you…
You must mentally relive your life anew, with each of those who were sent to you from Above. There was nothing accidental even in fleeting people. They and you, and each of us, are Teacher and Student at the same time.
Ask everyone to forgive you preferably verbally, by calling or meeting, if these people are alive… or mentally… You can write a letter in your magic notebook as well.
At the end of the work, you will face the most difficult thing – to forgive each of them. To forgive and let go forever without any emotions, except gratitude, so that later, remembering the person, nothing would shudder in your soul or would respond with pain.
Otherwise, you won’t be able to become what you really are, the Magician.
***
Having returned home, I lit the candles and began to scroll through my life, checking myself for the task I had given to Roman that evening, whether anyone could make me feel uneasy on the edge of leaving.
“How u, my girl?” a message appeared on the phone.
“Thank you, I am okay.”
“I come 2 u. Want?”
“Right now?!”
“Want 2 see u. U? Yes or not? Tell true. I come. No know when but not problem 2 come. When can fly, I come. I see Internet – fly cancelled. Borders closed. All closed. I come & go coffee with u! Tell u want 2. Yes?”
Chapter 4. DAMN MILL
“Is another witch coming here from ‘The Damn Mill’? ” a familiar voice came from behind.
“You guessed it wrong,” I turned around and smiled to the Guardian. “We have swamp hellcats on the menu tonight!”
“How many at once? Straight from the swamps? Coffee?”
“Well, a few, I think, but the most important is their Master, and yes, from the swamp, and yes, double espresso with milk, please!” I sat down at a table in the cafe. “The swamp is real, you can be sure of that. I’ve got a whole basket of cranberries. The author bears the ominous stamp of Saturn at XII. Don’t bother, if you are not aware of the interpretations. Probably, judging by the verses, we are facing a partial reincarnation of the early Alexander Blok. By the way, our hero saves people.”
“In the swamp? From the swamp hellcats?” the Guardian grinned, handing me coffee.
“Perhaps,” I replied evasively.
“And why ‘The Damn Mill’?”
“Ask him yourself. He would have won the Blok Prize, if not for his Saturn at XII.”
“Does he write really well?”
“Relatively not bad.”
“Is he damn swampy in love with you?” the Guardian looked into my eyes with curiosity.
“How old are you?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Does it matter? I don’t care,” he answered in such a way that I shuddered, remembering Pasha’s words.
The Guardian turned out to be the same age as Roman, and, compared to Pasha, practically the same age as me. Maybe I paid too much attention to it.
I finished my coffee. The Guardian glanced at the bottom of my cup, in the thick of it…
“What do you see there?” I asked.
“A portal,” he whispered in my ear and laughed.
***
I welcomed the guests and called on the stage to the Giant Mirror the gloomiest personality among the poets of our time, the author of “The Damn Mill”, who then recited his swamp-gothic poems, mixing them with talks to the guests.
Suddenly, the light in the hall – already gloomy, either due to not enough bright light, or in the light of the darkest verses and emanations of Saturn at XII – went out. The Guardian of the Portal instantly lit an antique candle lantern and asked the guests not to worry, since such phenomena with electricity was the most common one in anomalous zones, for that reason there were candlesticks on each table. After just a couple of minutes, their light illuminated the space, and the party went on.
The Guardian