‘The Magician’! You write in such a way that…”
“But you are not there, are you?” I asked with a sad smile, looking at the cards: “The Knight of Cups” and… “The Magician”!
“In your book or in your Matrix?” Roman chuckled and confessed, “To be honest, in magic I feel like quite a child!”
“Would you like to become Him?..”
***
The Guardian of the Portal should have taken that important step a long time ago, leaving the old Mansion and walking only a few houses to the House of Literature, where… Where what? Or who? He was called to bring his book. The Guardian didn’t know why. It would be worth clarifying, although he understood that it was necessary. However, was he waiting for… the right date? A number? A symbol? What was he waiting for?
***
August
Since last autumn, when the King of Swords allowed me to open the Right Door of the Mansion, I had been forcing myself to go back to open the Left one, because the main city Portal of transition to Another Reality was hidden right behind it. I was too tired, bored and tormented by a premonition of something that must definitely happen as soon as I opened THAT DOOR. What exactly?
“Alice, you shouldn’t enter that Mansion. It’s dangerous! Do you want me to show you the place where…” а familiar poet, once the Page of Cups, offered suddenly.
“I need to go to the Mansion. I have to open the Door on the Left,” I pleaded, looking into his eyes pitifully.
“Well, then… tomorrow?”
“Yes, tomorrow, please!”
At the same moment the poet cried out and turned me around to face the house, on the facade of which there was a gigantic portrait of the Writer from that Mansion.
“Nearby Alice there is only mysticism… It’s a sign!”
However, it started to rain “tomorrow”, and the trip to the Mansion was postponed indefinitely.
Meanwhile, the Left Door was attracting me stronger and stronger. From time to time, I was sent strange people – writers who asked me to arrange literary parties in the Mansion, as a great opportunity to combine the desired with my direct work, but because of the epidemic, the Mansion was closed for a long time…
***
Repeatedly I tried to return to that sweet dream about three pairs of orange sandals, to find there the man with a small belly and a foggy face, with whom I felt happy.
In vain, I always found myself in the past, where Roman appeared sitting next to me on my right. There were a lot of people there.
“If not for the age difference,” I looked at him almost jokingly and sighed.
“What’s the difference?” he immediately interrupted me. “There is no difference!”
“I would have fallen head over heels in love with you,” I finished my sentence.
How many times did I say goodbye to him? Even in my dreams I could not allow myself anything… I didn’t want to hurt, maybe. One or both of us?
However, in a little while my Sun would have set in the last, the 12th sector of the Astrological Clock of life. The sector of all the Secret and Unrevealed, symbolically called the Mystical Mansion or the Mysterious Island, the Portal to Another Reality. It would barely get out of there, my Sun…
***
September
“Who are you?” I asked when another Autumn crept up on me with another strange man who had come to the Union of Writers to submit his book for a competition.
The man introduced himself, whispering something in addition as quietly as passwords.
I glanced at him briefly without remembering either his first or last name, and I didn’t even catch what he whispered, because he reminded me of Roman and Ray at the same time.
“A glitch in the Matrix!” the thought flashed through my mind.
“Did you bring us the book?” I decided to clarify.
“No… Yes… But…”
“Alice, haven’t you heard?” my colleague suddenly interrupted my thoughts, tugging at the sleeve of my dress and adding distinctly in a mysterious voice, “This man is from your Old Mansion!!!”
“Are you… really from that Mansion!?” I asked, not believing my ears.
“Yes,” the man nodded calmly. “I’ve been working there, behind the Left Door, since the very beginning. Come to visit us this Sunday! And I will give you my book for the competition. I forgot to take it with me.”
***
The day before
It was very cold. I was already leaving the store when the saleswoman ran up to me, holding out the package.
“This is a gift for you!” she said mysteriously.
I opened the package and saw a gray scarf. I took it out and twisted it in my hands. A noose… I was too tired, and my Sun was already on the threshold of the 12th…
I put the scarf back.
Having arrived home, I opened the package again, but along with the scarf I found…
…GLOVES…
the black ones…
***
The Beginning,
in which there was a Word…
and not only
Yes, there was a Word in the Beginning, and that Word was “Gloves”, and also it was very cold, the right time for them to appear. Though, all I wanted to do that day was to stay at home and bask under a plaid by the fireplace with the Moon Cat and a book about ghosts, because the idea of going to the Mansion suddenly made me scared. Yes, I was scared of what would finally happen.
However, with a heavy sigh, I forced myself out of bed, grabbed the 9th edition of my “Book of Secret Knowledge” alias “The Book of White and Black Magic”, the first novel in the “Playing Another Reality” series, and resolutely headed for the Portal.
With a sinking heart, I pulled the Left Door towards me and took a step inside.
There were many people there, pacing back and forth without noticing me. No one asked my entrance ticket, although the entrance wasn’t free of charge.
I floated to the coffee shop and sat down at a table next to a sprawling giant black cat. The Cat scanned me carefully and greeted me, meanwhile people came and went away, paying no attention to us at all in the place where the Past and the Present – and the Future? – were merging together.
“Do I no longer exist among all these people?”
Suddenly, the man, who had invited me to come in, appeared next to me.
I stood up and touched his hand. He turned around. I silently looked into his eyes. Unlike other people, he noticed me (as, indeed, the Cat) and said hello. I held out my book. The man read the title and shuddered involuntarily.
“This is my gift for the Museum,” I explained. “And the book of poems, ‘The Moon Cat’, is for you.”
I was in a hurry to leave my mark before everyone,