"It was finally possible to relax. With the removal of the serious charges, the surveillance of the house was also lifted. We could feel at home in it again. Now we have all the nearby territories at our disposal: a garden, a meadow, and the front part of the forest. We still did not venture into the open part of the old road to avoid unwanted collisions. The prohibition on long-distance shifting was also lifted, and, on occasion, we used this opportunity to change the environment. Life seemed like heaven. We walked, played, read, talked, kissed. The past was no longer taboo, and although there were not many pleasant memories in common, since things were cleared up, we found something to remember and discuss. And as for the future, you don't think about the future in paradise. Sometimes, however, you had needs for direct contact with the outside world. Then our house elf took out a lock of her old acquaintance's hair, who lived in another part of the country, and you started shopping with her."
It wasn't the first time the girl had changed her body.
(The air that filled her lungs with a noise was much colder than a minute earlier, the inhale was infinitely long, and her diaphragm was so mighty that running could have become as pleasurable as flying. Pollen tickled her nose and throat. A sharp exhalation was accompanied by a rumbling rattle. She opened her eyes. The world around her had never seemed so small before. With one glance, she could almost entirely encompass it. It was like a bright, but narrow tunnel, adorned with photo wallpaper depicting foliage, just the patterns on them were moving. And its colour was somehow unnatural - mostly swamp yellow. There was no time to lose. She left the shrubbery and, finding herself on a meadow - in a wider tunnel - stopped. Her ears explored another world, much more voluminous, detecting its slightest manifestations and rotating jerkily in quest of the location of their sources. The swish of leaves, the chime of creeks, the rustling of mice, the buzzing of bees, the needle-thin cry of a falcon, a moan more like the roar of an insulted animal. Strong and fast legs carried her past blurred spots of light green foliage and dark irregular hollows, spicy smells and quiet sounds of the forest. Her big eyes, having brought the pupils to the bridge of the nose, did not lose sight of fresh footprints on the loose ground.)
It wasn't the first time the girl looked at the world through the eyes of others, perceived their feelings, felt their desires.
(There was something bizarre about the way she felt the cold hardness of porous stone, the rough sharpness of a beaten door sill, the sticky viscosity of an old dirty carpet; and about the way she saw them - her gaze was always at the level of the feet of an old man and smoothly shifted from right to left and back in time with his unsteady steps. She stopped when he stopped, just below. She observed him while he listened to the voices coming from the chamber. She felt a chill ripple over his skin when the master spoke, as his blood cooled in his veins at the mention of the impending murder. Neither bothered her. The master called her, and she crawled slowly towards the source of light and heat, past the watchman holding his breath. And then, in anticipation, she twisted her neck back...
A sharp spin of her head, and the hand which had been propping up the girl's cheek straightened and pushed something off the table. It hit the floor with a thud and rolled to the centre of the auditorium. This sound and a dull pain in her knuckles woke her up, and she was puzzled to find herself trying to discern someone behind her. It seemed that this was about to take place, but with each subsequent moment, the very purpose of her gaze in that direction was disappearing from her memory.
"Have you seen something?" Two huge round eyes in heavy round glasses peered at the student with inspiration and aloofness at once.
"I don't think so." Mentally the girl was still dwelling somewhere in between. "I'm afraid I've drifted off, so it must've been a dream. I'm sorry."
"It was. And yet your crystal ball was active. You see?" The woman showed her the glistening sphere picked up from the floor. The smoke inside it continued to swirl, reminding her about something that one minute ago was a reality but no longer. "It prophesied, and you saw a foretelling in a dream. My congratulations!" The student kept looking into the semi-mirrored translucent surface, distorting everything that got onto it, but couldn't recall what she saw. The vision vanished in her head like greenish smoke in the ball as soon as her brain regained control.)
It wasn't the first time the girl had changed physically, forth...
(The professor pointed his wand at the student and the world around her changed: it lost colour, blurred, became no more than a radius of one foot. The man expanded to the size of a mountain. Her arms and legs dried into thin straws, from her belly - oh, it was disgustingly - four more of the same grew, and her body fell down to the cold floor. It was dark there. She could hardly distinguish objects and she was scared to the point of losing her pulse, which did indeed drop significantly. Then she began to be lifted into the air, higher and higher until there was something warm and fluffy under her feet, and she clung to it. The professor repeated the spell. Based on the direction and intensity of vibrations in the hairs of her paws, his mouth was pretty close. A large item hovered above the surface next to them. Then falling down, then soaring up, they went. A bright light replaced the twilight - they departed the walls of the school. The light was altered into shades of grey shimmering with each other - they started winding through the maze. Finally, they stopped, and the cup, which had been floating after them in the air all the way, landed on something resembling a pole. No sooner had the professor initiated to turn back, she ran down his arm and, reaching the edge of the sleeve, hopped down to the ground. There, pushing through the grass, she headed to the pole and climbed halfway up it.
There was peace all around. Grey shadows, the only thing that was available to her eyes since then, stood motionless. The sounds that she did not hear, but felt physically, were diverse and came from different ends of the maze. They became her vision and showed her the wind meandering through the green walls; the sphinx purring a song in a beautiful female voice while beating the rhythm with its tail; the giant spider, stationary yet impatiently shuffling with its paws and clacking its jaws; some strange animal shifting along a path from side to side emitting sporadic sounds of a jet engine being started. Subsequently, the steps were added: uncertain and muddled, measured and cautious, steady and heavy, light and nervous. Voices followed: murmuring to themselves, then shouting out spells. A woman's scream and a salvo. Everything went silent momentarily before resuming. The sounds of footsteps began to ring out much closer. Rocket launches ended. A scuffle and another salvo. Even closer. A riddle, an answer. They were already here.)
...and back.
(A wave of euphoria swept her over: "Finally! Finally, the time has come! Everything is going as it should, which means soon - now! - I will be freed from the shackles of this miserable cramped body, I will cease to exist, to merely survive, and I will begin to live again, to act. How many long years I have been waiting for this! ... Years?! But no more than several hours have passed!"
Suddenly, she was taken from the stone as if by a whirlwind. Nevertheless, the confidence that the wind in the maze had abated to an absence and no one had disturbed her solitude was one hundred percent. She felt the skeleton reappear inside her body, muscles grow atop it, erecting the newly found spine, setting the limbs and internal organs in their proper location - "what a bliss it is to straighten the shoulders again". The diaphragm opened, letting in a stream of air which, bursting into it with force, got to all the cells of the renewed organism in a matter of seconds - "what a delight it is to breathe deeply again". Oxygen surged the brain, awakening it to life - "what a pleasure it is to possess again, and in its entirety, the power that I was once deprived of". The girl's body sank to the ground as gradually as it gained mass. She stood in front of the pedestal where the portal used to be. She was herself again. "Years?! So it was not my thoughts, not my anticipation, not my feelings! No - mine, partly... not only..."
The professor entered the room, the student crouched by the door and started listening. He was chanting some sort of incantation, judging by some words she heard, he was creating a portal. He pronounced a name...
"This place doesn't tell you anything. Isn't that right, Miss Riddle?" The girl barely refrained from screeching when a huge lidless eye appeared in the mirror. The door slowly closed, and its owner loomed over her. Her heart numbed, and she numbed with it. "Whilst your father's dad is buried there."
"And why did you make a portal there?" Was it any wonder that he knew who she was?
"So that they could meet."
"Who are 'they'?" He only wired his face. Her heart thawed out and started to beat again - too fast. Her stomach seemed to be squeezed in hand. He wasn't the headmaster's man, as well as he wasn't an official. Imagining how such a thing could be was inconceivable, but it was so. "I want to meet him too." He pondered for some time, probably figuring out if the girl was being sincere with him.
"Not this time. He's going to be too busy today."
She understood that he was not going to kill her. That's exactly what she was counting on when she made her request. "By what?"
"Restoration of the form." His mouth twisted, it was a smile. "And we should hurry up.")
It wasn't the first time, but it was the worst one. For the first time, she did it of her own free will and not to save herself or get some information, but for her own pleasure, in order to do something useful and at the same time feel like a part of society again. To succeed in this, she had to change mentally. Not to feel, but to realise oneself as a small being, a second-class being, humiliated additionally by the demonstration of this position. A second-class being with no less power than a first-class being, but who has accepted the inferiority attributed to one. How did they allow this to happen to themselves? Did they lack the anger of werewolves, the savagery of centaurs, the detachment of giants, the arrogance of wizards, or the pride of goblins?
"Once such an outing almost turned into a disaster. You two were gone for a long, and when we remembered about you, we realised that the potion had expired a long time ago. We searched all the markets and shops, we didn't know what to think anymore - we were even ready for the arrival of people from the Ministry - when suddenly, you appeared on the terrace from the garden alone in someone's mantle and barefoot. You said that at the very end of your shopping, you came across one of the maid's friends, who was extremely excited and immediately started saying something to her. It was impossible to stop this verbal flow, and soon they disappeared altogether. Time was running out and you decided to hide in a tavern that caught your eye. It was crowded and noisy, and you quietly grabbed the first available mantle and hurried to the lavatory. It was dangerous to walk through the village like this, and it was stupid to stay and wait for your own people to find you. You remembered that you parted on the main street, that is, the old road, which means that you were in the oldest tavern, and it has a passage to the forest. That's what you used. Fortunately, the marks of the father remained there. The vixen wasn't coming back. We decided that she had run away out of fear. You were sure that silly was really scared and was trying to find you on her own. And so it turned out. You tried to persuade not to punish her, believing that the fear she had experienced was punishment enough. The incident didn't make you stop leaving the house, it's just that the precautions were improved: a supply of potion, a bag of clothes. If you really wanted something, you'd do anything for it. If you really wanted... That's what you're all about. And you've always been yourself. Nothing would have changed that. Nothing. Even memory loss.
The first cutoff occurred already in the middle of summer. The day was warm and sunny... This day could have been one of the most wonderful - the man's cheeks flushed like a young man's, but he did not look away - if it hadn't become one of the most terrible. We were in the garden, reading everyone their own, and occasionally exchanged thoughts that had just come to mind. We used to do this a lot."
The guy and the girl sat on a low stone fence separating one part of the garden descending in ledges from the other and at the same time being a wall supporting the soil of the upper terrace; the back of one served as a prop for the back of the other. The weather was surprisingly good: there were no clouds in the sky; the sun warmed the bunches of sporadically overgrown spicy herbs, which made them exude a light pleasant aroma; the voices of a dozen different birds could be heard from the forest across the meadow. She took a slow, deep breath and, resting the nape on his shoulder, stared into the light blue. Carefully, without changing his position, he craned his neck and looked at her out of the corner of his eye - he saw her calm but serious face and fixed eyes.
"What are you thinking about?"
"About time." 'Time' echoed in his head. "Oh! Something dripped on me. Of where?!"
Indeed, a light rain began to fall out of nowhere. The couple rushed to the house to hide under the dense foliage of the green roof of the terrace. The rain intensified, but ended very quickly and as suddenly as it began. A rainbow bloomed in the sky, spanning from the house through the garden, meadow and the entire forest.
"It leads to the tree. Let's run! Whoever gets first will get the leprechaun gold!"
"What? Eve, no, it's too far away. Come back!"
"Not a chance!"
Laughing, the girl ran towards the forest. Several times she looked back and saw him running behind. Then he disappeared from view, and when he reappeared, he was about twelve feet ahead along the forest road. Offended by such a maneuver, the girl stopped abruptly, left the path and headed for the secret passage between giant boulders. Gasping for breath, she finally reached the edge of the lawn and clung to the first branch she saw. The young man, without a single sign of fatigue, was leaning back against the trunk of the tree growing in the center, folding his arms in front of him and smiling at her perkily.
"That's not fair." She shouted reproachfully.
"Whoever gets first - it was your idea. What did you expect? Don't worry, the leprechaun wasn't here."
"That's because you cheated. So he ran away."
"Maybe all is not lost yet..." his eyes flashed for a moment, and then darted away in alarm. He immediately disappeared, and bushes rustled somewhere not far from her.
"I know it's you. Who do you take me for?"
The rustling stopped. All sounds stopped altogether, as well as any movement that creates them. The guy knew her weaknesses. Despite the fact that the girl perfectly understood what was happening, she could not so easily cope with the discomfort caused by the knowledge of someone's presence and the simultaneous inability to see or hear this someone. She ran out into the open space of the clearing and, looking around intently, backed away towards the large tree. Suddenly, something jumped out of the woods and headed towards her. It was possible to understand this only by the active waving of the grass: as if a big mouse or a hedgehog were trotting, making its way into the unknown with uncertain spurts. However, it was impossible to see anyone in the tall, dense greenery. She had to speed up. When her feet were already beginning to stumble over the roots of the tree, something stopped, and then, dashed sideways and, circling the tree, hid behind it. The girl followed slowly, still trying to keep track of what was going on around her. All her precautions were in vain - the guy appeared out of nowhere and with the words "Here's one!" cut off her path in all directions, resting both hands on the wide trunk. A short but loud squeal broke the silence.
"I was lucky enough to catch a leprechaun after all" followed by a small fist hitting his chest. Ignoring this gesture of vexation, he continued with the audacity of a winner, "Well, where's the treasure I'm owed?"
The sparkles in her eyes were now ice, now flame. She was upset that she couldn't play on equal terms with him, and that he took advantage of it. But at the same time, she was pleased that he took part in her game, moreover, very inventively. The theme was even her outfit, which today was a lightweight dark green dress with small light brown flowers, tied at the waist with a thin leather strap of the same color, and ankle boots made of the same leather. In the end, the girl preferred the flame.
"Here it is." She ran her palm over his cheek and, standing on tiptoe, touched her lips to his. Then she ran her other palm over his other cheek and embraced his lips with hers. The young man wanted to answer, but she wouldn't let him, pulling away and feigning pride. Nevertheless, he understood everything correctly and did not wait for permission: gently but persistently pulled her back to him and took the initiative in kissing. When she began to answer them, a fire broke out in him, which seemed to melt his body, accelerating his heart to a mind-boggling speed, and strengthening his hands, on the contrary, so that they could draw her into this incandescent substance, make her an integral part of it. She fully supported this idea: her body curved so as to simultaneously touch the maximum area of his, her hands slid over his face, hair, and gently dug into his neck and shoulders. In turn, his hands traveled freely over her body, his lips and tongue gradually descended along her chin to her throat, and down to her chest. She felt something squeeze her breast tightly. A sharp stream of cold wind surged through her body. The girl did not pay attention to this and released it through her larynx with an uneven exhalation. Her back collided with the solid trunk of the tree - a sharp stone cliff face. She brushed the thought aside and answered his silent question with a soundless "Go on". He covered her with a massive wave, a dazzling sun flashed in her mind, the cliff spread its sleeves covered with half-dry grass into infinity, and the water scattered into sparkling fragments at its foot - she forcefully but impassively pushed him away from her, and her gaze was directed into the void. He made a second attempt, but this wave also was destined to break against the eternity of the rock.
"Do you know anything about the cliff?"
"What?... What the hell kind of cliff?!" The young man was still very close, holding her in his arms; his breathing hadn't returned to normal yet, and it wasn't going to.
"A tall black rock overhanging the sea and on both sides going..."
"Into the horizon..."
"Do you know?!"
"I do. And what?"
"I need to get there."
"Now? Are you kidding me?!" There was a sick hope in her eyes that said no.
"No... no, no, no..." he seemed to understand everything. "Oh my God, Eve, so soon!... No!!" He rushed in her eyes and found himself on the edge of a precipice. The water column rumbled below, the bright sun beat down above, the hysterical wind flew between them, and there was not a soul around. "Evelyn! Where are you?!"
"Here" came from everywhere at once. He made a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn in confusion, but still didn't see anyone.
"Don't go, please don't go!" There was no response. Rage filled his soul. "I'm not giving her to you!" When he returned, he grabbed the girl's hand and placed it over his heart. "Evelyn, listen to me! Do you hear my heart beating? You're the one who makes it beat like that! Do you understand what it means? I love you." Then he picked up her other hand and placed it over her heart. "Your heart is beating the same way! When I kiss you," and he pressed his lips to hers, "when you're so close to me," and he held her even closer, "do you feel it? Don't say you don't, even I do! Doesn't that mean anything to you? You can think whatever you want, but your heart knows the answer. It's not lying, it can't. I'll never break it, I swear to you. I'm ready to make a vow. If that's what you're afraid of, don't be afraid! Don't you need any of this?"
"I need to get to that cliff..." She was far away again, and her heart calmed down again.
The young man lost. ("Do you remember that rock above the sea? It's it I've always belonged to, not you. You can bind my ghost to you, but it will always yearn for that cliff, not for you. I'm not asking you to forgive me, even though I wish for it, but I'm asking you to understand and let me go. I won't bring you happiness. ... And please, don't be fond of the dead anymore.") He let go of the girl and slowly sank down on one of the stones bordering the spring gushing from under the roots of the tree; he put his head on his palms, hiding his eyes filling up with tears in them. It was impossible not to realise the pain inflicted on the guy, so at some point the girl made an effort and returned from the realm of dreams. She sat down behind him, hugged him, crossed her arms over his chest, and buried her forehead in his hunched back.
"Please forgive me. I do not know why this is happening, I really do not know. It's just that at times when I feel very good, along with happiness, a strange longing comes to me, and this cliff emerges in my mind. Previously, these were only separate elements of the landscape. Today, it's like I got there physically. I know that's not a particularly comforting explanation for what I felt today... what you made me feel today..." she paused for a moment. "You said you know this place..."
The young man tensed up and began to speak, straightening up and turning to face her in parallel. "I only know what it looks like, but not where it is. You showed it to me yourself and told me how you found it."
"Me??" A look of genuine surprise crossed her face.
"Well, yes, in the room with the garden, a year and a half ago. Remember?"
"In the room with the garden?" There was skepticism in her voice.
"Yes, which I created for you with its help!... You don't remember... Eve? Tell me, what do you even remember?" The girl was confused, and the guy, in turn, was scared. "Do you remember how you got here?"
"Of course! I ran here after the rainbow, from your house through the whole forest."
"How did you get into my house?" He softly clarified his question; and yet, the girl got even angrier.
"Well, everything should be obvious here: we got close at school and decided that after graduation I would spend the summer with you." She stabbed in the dark and missed.
"After graduation!!"
Furrowing her brows and flaring her nostrils, the girl glared at him and turned away. Not because she was angry, but because she didn't want him to see her fright and get even more scared himself. Barely able to contain the panic, she tried to find at least one memory, at least about school, but to no avail. Then, she saw the pendant on her chest and began to examine it. It was sturdy, despite the fact that it was obviously woven from a feather; its shiny black core peeked through the lace of fine white hairs. It made her remember something.
"Oh, yeah. I think I almost died. How did it happen?" The silence behind her became even heavier. "Does the pendant have anything to do with it?... Strange. I know I shouldn't take it off, ever. I know you told me that." She turned around and caught his eye. "And I'm not taking it off, I swear to you. Not when I go to sleep, or even when I take a bath. But I don't remember why I shouldn't do it."
"So as not to forget." Said the young man after a few seconds of hush and drooped completely. "Useless trinket. I know why it doesn't work. Because I didn't let you taste the blood. But there were no other options, no other." He was talking to himself rather than to her. And continuing to mutter something like that, he wandered towards the house.
She followed him in silence, sometimes looking at his back, and once again studying the object hanging around her neck, trying to figure out the meaning of his words. They did not cut off and walked along the wide forest path sunk into the ground, along the roots of trees sliding down its slopes, as if following the bed of a dried-up river. The faint rays of the setting sun filtered through the foliage of the trees, thickened by the greenery of ivy and fern brazenly climbing their trunks, nevertheless still able to play on smooth surfaces. At the next turn, something flashed red inside the pendant. For the next few minutes, the girl tried to get into it with a thin nail of her little finger and pick this something up.
"Look, there's still blood on it. Is that what you were talking about? If you want, I'll taste..." she didn't have time to finish, as her hand was pulled away from her face with such force and speed that it would have been torn off a little more.
"Don't you dare do that! Don't you dare. Promise me you'll never do that. And that you won't forget your promise." The guy continued to squeeze her wrist. Painfully. But it doesn't hurt as much as seeing his face distorted with anger and fear. "Promise me!"
"I promise!"
"Promise what?"
"I promise never to taste the blood from this pendant and not to forget... oh... I will try."
Not to say that he felt any better after her words. Soon, the road led them out of the forest to a meadow, in the opposite part of which stood the large stone mansion. The mistress met them at the back entrance.
"What's the matter? Sweetheart?" The young man did not spare his mother even a glance, quickly disappearing into the corridors of the house. Then the woman turned to the girl, who remained standing on the porch with a guilty look. "Evelyn? Oh! What happened to your arm?"
"Um... it's okay, it'll pass soon." However, red finger-shaped marks had already appeared on the fair skin. It was a good thing that other prints, the memories about the origin of which still caused pleasant cramps in the lower abdomen, were more difficult to distinguish among the shadows of the descending twilight.
"Did my son do this?!"
"Don't be angry with him, he had his reasons. I upset him, very much. I wanted to do something stupid, he had to..."
"Don't justify him. There can be no reason for this. I apologise for him." The beautiful blonde witch took out her wand and touched the girl's wrist - the pain and redness gone in an instant; the girl's eyes widened.
"It's not worth it. Thank you. I think I'll go to my room." She hesitated at the stairs, but soon decided on the direction.
The guy was also in his room and did not avoid a conversation with his mother.
"She forgot, mom, she forgot."
"Forgot what?"
"Everything. Do you understand?"
"Ooooh... I understand..." He let go of her shoulders and paced around the room, unable to calm down.
"It was all in vain. She forgot. School, this house, how she died, what she did for me, me... What should I do now? What should I do? She doesn't know who she is!"
"It must be very scary. Forget yourself." The woman's voice sounded very even. That voice and those words made the young man stop.
"What an idiot I am!" He kissed his mother's hands and stormed out the door.
The girl was curled up on the bed. She held the pendant in front of her and, without taking her eyes off it, was thinking hard about something. When there was a knock on the door, she was called by her name, and asked if one could come in, it took her a long time to realise that it was already from reality.
"I'm..."
"It's open." Someone entered the room.
"Eve, I... how are you?"
"I'm fine." She didn't change her position, her gaze returned to the pendant.
"I wanted to apologise. Forgive me, I behaved like a real egoist: I pitied myself, although you now must be much..."
"I'm not mad at you."
Several long seconds passed in unbearable silence. It would have been better if she was mad at him. It would have been better if she yelled at him, vented her emotions. Then he could listen to her, try to calm her down. Then it would have turned out to be some kind of conversation. But she didn't need to be calmed down, and she didn't seem to have any emotions.
"I'm glad to hear that." He said sullenly. "Well... then I guess I'll go."
"Stay with me. Please." A gift from fate? "It's even scarier than drinking poison." Or its whim... "Yes. The trinket isn't so useless. I remember everything that happened after you put it around my neck. And absolutely nothing that happened before that." Without saying a word, the young man lay down next to her and, repeating her outlines, gently hugged her, burying his face in her hair. The minutes of happy silence ran. "Tell me about the room with the garden." He took a moment to collect his thoughts.
"You did a lot for me that year, and I wanted to make you a gift. I didn't know if you liked gardens, but I knew that you liked to take long walks in nature - along the woods, around the lake - and I saw how every time we studied in the greenhouse, you sniffed with interest at everything that was blooming there that day." Yes, and on potion lessons she was also tempted to do everything by smell, by ear, by sight, and the professor kept remarking to her that they were not cooking soup there. "It was winter, so I thought it might be a good idea. There is... there was... I don't know if it still exists... a room that could become anything. Whatever you need at the moment. In it, I recreated the garden that belonged to a man who was once a friend of my father, and in which I played a lot as a child."
"Describe it to me." The girl rolled onto her back and threw her legs over his. With one hand, he stroked the large dark curls of her hair. She prudently did not let go of his other hand and, interlacing their fingers together, held them under her chin.
"As soon as you get into it, you plunge into the abyss of all kinds of smells and the chaos of bird voices. Only if you listen carefully, can you hear a stream murmuring somewhere or the wind blowing. Only when you fully surrender to the mood of a particular location, all unnecessary things go away and you can experience the uniqueness of its design and the filigree of its embodiment: visual, auditory, olfactory. Only a small part of the garden is visible from the terrace of the house. To find its most interesting places, to learn its secrets, you need to go on a journey. Something opens up quickly, trying to convince you that you don't need more. Like, for example, a pond with turtles that have their own palace. Or a big carved swing that takes you into the clouds. Or the copse on the other side of the stream, which looks more like the tall, spacious halls of a Gothic castle, flooded with light, sometimes green and sometimes golden, because of the leaves-stained glass. Other places require more diligence to be discovered. So, it turned out that an otter with babies lives under the bridge over the stream. And one of the corridors of the castle leads you to a weeping willow, whose branches can weave into anything from a magnificent throne to a small cabin. However, the most incredible place in this garden is a maze. Its dense green walls soar to the sky and hide the whole world behind them, everything that your mind and feelings are capable of. It works on the same principle as the room, but requires much more engagement from those present and can change on the go... The strongest spirit wins... You walked into the room without hesitation, having no idea what was waiting for you in it. You weren't afraid to enter the maze, knowing that it could be dangerous. And it turned out to be beautiful." The young man stopped and closed his eyes, bitterly realising that these memories would never be shared again.
("Who were you playing with?"
"This man had a son." He lowered his head, and then cast an anxious look towards the green walls. She put her hand on his chest. There was no need to find out the details. He took a slow deep breath. "Do you like it?"
"Very much."
The couple strolled leisurely along the stone path. Around the bend, the iridescence border, rich in texture but modest in palette, grew into lush flower beds, separated by spurs of the brick fence. Amidst one of them, in the shade of a pergola, an openwork bench stood, and opposite it was a shallow pond with turtles. Little by little, they got closer to the maze. The entrances to it were blocked by massive doors, deeply recessed in the greenery, without any locks or even handles. The girl dwelled at one of them for a few seconds, then softly pushed it with both palms and went inside.)
She also closed her eyes and wandered through the maze all night: along its paths, sometimes paved with stone, sometimes overgrown with grass; gardens, now adjusted to an inch, now left to themselves - small glades dotted with a single sort of flower, long avenues of whimsically twisting coloured ribbons, a laconic rock garden, a lush rosarium in the centre of a carpet of spicy herbs, a swamp overgrown with reeds with a deafening chorus of frogs, or a blossoming apple orchard with harmonious modulations of bird voices; looking into every corner - just out of curiosity or in search of someone... something?
(How much time did they spend in the maze, wandering along its paths, telling each other stories from their childhood? Perhaps several hours? Despite everything, this topic was pleasant for both of them. There was lots of happiness in childhood, and it was universal for those who were loved. In the end, they came to a green meadow. It was so vast that you might have assumed that you had left the maze. A mighty old tree towered over an absolutely empty and flat space, throwing off its heavy knotted limbs in all directions. They lay down in silence under its serenely waving foliage. Time passed, and an unexpected gust of wind and a seagull's protracted squawk brought the girl out of her meditative state. The air became humid, the smell of salt water hit her nose.
"What is that?"
"Sorry, I guess it's because of me." She sighed and brooded over. "Do you want to see my favourite place?"
With quick steps the girl led them through the maze to the door through which they had entered it, noticing that its layout had not been modified. But the size of its parts had been significantly reduced, so they made the way back in a matter of minutes. After leaving the maze, she went to the bridge and, crossing the stream, veered off the road into a field. They plunged into the monotonous buzzing of bees, bumblebees, dragonflies. The garden was already out of sight, and they were still walking forward, to the horizon. The surface acquired a tangible slope, the path crept up, wildflowers were replaced by shreds of colourful mosses and tangled heather vines. The road was now and then blocked by boulders surrounded by wild bramble bushes, the wind intensified. Finally, the surface reverted to be horizontal, vegetation markedly decreased, and after a few dozen more steps the hem of the earth got visible ahead. There was nothing there except partly dried and partly green grass on a thin layer of weak soil, from under which a sharp blade of rock protruded, hanging over the abyss. The cliff stretched out in a black line to the right and left and gradually disappeared into a suspension of water. The sun was shining brightly from above, and below, the mass of the water was crashing down with an aggressive bang on the inexorable apathy of the stonewall. She stopped at the very edge and under the erratic gusts of wind began to observe how the giant waves, so potent at first glance, crumbled like glass upon contact with solid rock. The fragments scattered, melted on the sun, gathered together and retreated to return again and again, tirelessly, without a halt, eternally.
"Once, we came for the whole summer to a house of some friends of my step-parents. They were leaving and asked to look after the house, kitchen-garden, and pets. The town was located in the lowland between the slopes of two hills. A river flowed in the middle and divided it into two parts. There was nothing exceptional about the town, so I walked along the river and climbed the hills. One day, I decided to get to the very top of one of them, and when I did, it turned out that it was not a hill at all, and there was no descent beyond it. But there was a cliff whose line extended into the distance as far as the eye could see, and the sea beat against its footstool. I didn't know we were so close to the big water. And not a soul around. I was so taken by this view. It provoked me to come there often and stroll along the cliff all day long, look at the billows, listen to the wind, peer at the point where all the lines converged. Wondering, in spite of the raging elements, I felt some comprehensive peace there."
"Did you want to jump off?"
"No, of course not! To jump off - no. To dissolve, to become a part of this eternity - yes. Turn into a rock, be disassembled into grains of sand by waves and wind, dissipate in water and air, and then precipitate out and become a stone again... to make it occur again."
The lad stood on the edge beside the girl and looked down thoughtfully for some time. Then he took her hand and led her back to the garden. They crossed the field with its bustling inhabitants again, but did not go to the bridge. Instead, they entered the grove through a wooden gate, passed through it accompanied by flocks of tiny birds, and hypothetically going over the line of the room's wall came out to the brook on the other side. A bit upstream, a weeping willow bent over it. The couple went there, and when they found themselves under its tracery crown, the branches began to move and wove two chairs.
"They can take any form, you just need to imagine."
She sat down in the chair, and it immediately lifted her up and carried towards the water, altering into a kind of couch on the go. The second chair flew next to hers. The girl rested on her belly, with the hands under her chin. The fluxes beneath her measuredly eddying round the plain stones protruding from the water, as the rays of the sun sparkled all around. A light breeze gently played with the willow's twigs covered with long thin leaves. She dipped her fingers into the water - it was as soft as silk. All the same three elements - wind, water, rock; but how different they were there - warm, tender, secure. "Would I like to be a part of them here?" She turned to the young man. He was sitting stiffly and watching her intently. His face was serious and calm. The latter didn't happen often, but that's how she liked it. Suddenly, the branches below them began to move again, transporting the young people back to earth. Hers transformed back into a chair, and his one merely disbanded. Without waiting for the transformation to end, the guy smoothly hopped down from the tree and approached the girl with resolute steps, cupping her head with his hands and kissing her as if asserting his right to her. This right was indisputable, but in return, care, protection and confidence were offered. He sincerely wanted to give her all this, it was hard for her not to hear it. And he could do this, on an emotional plane. Temptingly. But did she really need it?)
The sun hit the girl's face. She turned away from the window and her nose bumped into something warm, elastic and barely noticeably moving towards her, then away from her.
"You're a sleepyhead."
She smiled at how affectionately he said this and carefully shielded her eyes from the sun's rays with his palm so that she could open them and look at him. "I was exploring your garden. It's big enough."
"Did you like it?"
"Very much." They looked at each other tenderly for a while. "I was thinking about the past, that I don't remember it, and I realised... You know, I don't care. I don't need it. You're right, the heart says everything necessary, it knows everything, and memory has little influence on its decisions."
She always thought so herself, and from time to time she tried to convince others of this. The hat at the sorting ceremony ("Let's take a look at you. Let's see who you are... hmm... a snake? Why are you thinking about a snake?" - "Father..." - "Because of your father? This is natural, yes. So you reckon that aligning with the same house is your only way, that it's your destiny... Well, indeed, you can be a worthy... snake. Oh, you believe that identity is not determined by place, you believe that you won't become like him there. Hmm... But why tempt fate? For example, I see bravery in you..." - "What? You're saying, I really can..." But then she remembered the 'meeting' on the train. "No. No, I can't. Then I'll be too close to... that boy. It might be too dangerous for him... for us... I can't explain why, I don't understand why, I just feel that it could be a big mistake." - "Hmmm... You're also fairly intelligent... No?! Do you want to take that risk at any cost? Are you sure it's not pride talking in you, that you're truly not the same? Yes, yes, mull it over... You already have a friend there. You believe he will help you to do the right things. But is he the right person to trust?" - "He is. Please, I have questions, a lot of them, and I'm firmly convinced that only there I will be able to find answers. I can't foresee who I'll become, but I'd like to be myself, whoever I am - I just can't do otherwise."); the headmaster, persuading him to allow her to read the black book after she found out that she and the boy have the same dreams in addition to what they both experience in each other's presence.
(Gasping for air with her mouth open, the girl sat up on the bed. "A dream? No, it was all too real. It feels too similar to the previous year's vision, which means..." Closing her eyes and clearing her brain, she pictured to herself the face of a person. He was sleeping, his mind was open - it was not a challenge to get to him. "To the headmaster! Now!" Then she jumped up, put on a robe and ran as fast as she could to the headmaster's office. The student met her head already at the spiral staircase. They didn't waste any time talking and went to the old wizard. Before she could utter a word, some people burst into the room. She couldn't see them - the teacher rapidly obscured her with his mantle, pushing toward the curtain. But she could feel one of them. And then her legs gave out because she heard the story she was going to tell herself.
"How is this possible? Why did we see the same thing? Did he see what I saw a year and a half ago? ... It's pointless to guess what a place it was, what a man was doing there and why it was necessary to kill him, but by whom the attempt was organised, there's no need to guess. Father... Usually I feel only his physical presence. However, when he was reborn, I heard his thoughts, emotions, and perceived them. Were these his thoughts now, his consciousness? It doesn't seem like this. In the first vision, I saw my father from the outside, but today he was not there at all - the assailant was not him, it was a snake - me. Despite this, I felt him as if he was standing just behind me... even closer... I also feel the boy's presence, and he feels mine - there is no doubt about it after serving the detention together, only he's not yet understood it. And my father? He must, otherwise there would be no reason for such a reaction to me. Where did it come from? We both lived similar tragedies related to him. This explanation used to be enough for me, but there is something conspicuously absent in it. The boy was not in either vision. Then, whose eyes was he looking through?" The atmosphere in the office had been noticeably heated, but the girl was too absorbed in her mental investigation and could not figure out what was going on. An image returned to the frame and confirmed that their dream was actually a reality.
"Who were you in this vision?" The headmaster's question floated out into the air.
"Yes... who was he... what's taking him so long to reply? He is dismayed... he was the assailant, too. Therefore, it was him who I felt behind... in... the snake. But he couldn't have been there physically. And I can always identify that feeling. In the first vision there was also a snake and someone was inside it with me, too. And since it's not my father and not the boy... She is one of us. We are all one and somehow connected with my father. How is this doable? Who are we?" The headmaster's voice, addressed to her, brought the girl out of her musings.
"Evelyn, could you wait for me upstairs?" Obediently coming out from under the professor's cover, she walked quickly to the stairs leading to the second tier and up it. Nonetheless, having reached the end, she couldn't resist turning her head abruptly ninety degrees, immediately catching the boy's puzzled look, which he had not taken off from her all this time. His face flinched, and his hand rushed to the scar.
"You were the snake, right? You were the snake." His confused expression told her that he had heard her and she felt that his answer was positive.
There was a rumble of footsteps as several pairs of feet occupied the first floor of the office with people. The headmaster explained to the children what the trouble had befallen their father, what condition he was in, and where they would all go to meet him now. A bit later, the noise subsided but unexpectedly, just for a moment, the girl was in the dream again, at the very point when she was going to strike at the slumbered man. Only this time the headmaster was standing in front of her. Such hatred that she experienced at that instant, she had never had in her life, for any person. It dissipated with the voices that were filling the office.
"Evelyn," the headmaster's voice came from above the student, "what did you want to tell me?"
"The same."
The girl strolled up and down the stairs along the cabinets of his private library, drawing her fingers over the spines of books, relaxing without thinking about anything. The old wizard sat at his desk, on the contrary, becoming more and more immersed in contemplations. On the next lap, her fingers went over something extremely unpleasant - cold and damp. This forced her to stop and have a look at the leather binding. It was so black that it seemed not only to absorb all the light falling on it, but also to suck in the edges of the books standing around. And the girl's attention too. There was no title written on the spine. She didn't dare to take the book without permission, and to distract the headmaster either. Thus, she stood and peered into its blackness, as if waiting for it to tell her about its contents.
"Dragging in, isn't it?" The girl's nose had almost touched the book spine. "Even in spite of its unattractiveness." It took a significant effort to step away from it.
"What is this one about?"
"Oh, it's one of your father's favourite books. About the dark arts."
"Whether it could be found in the library?"
"Not anymore, I've withdrawn all the copies from there."
"May I take this one?"
"What for?"
"For reading."
"Evelyn..." His posture and voice said that he was going to share another wisdom with the student. She didn't need it.
"You see no point in knowing what your opponent knows. At least a possible modest part of that. You see no point in trying to comprehend how his weapon works: what should be the true goals of the practitioner, what should pass within him before, during and after..."
"And what will it give you?"
"Understanding what happened that day. Understanding who I am and what I should do about it. And most importantly - how."
"You know what happened then."
"No, I don't. And you? You told me that my father considered me dead. Neglecting to check it? Eyewitnesses claimed that he killed everyone, absolutely everyone. Let them be mistaken about the baby. But do you really believe that after exterminating the entire family, he decided to keep me alive? Why? Paternal love? Don't make me laugh. I would rather believe that he left me to die of hunger and cold. That's just not how it was."
"Why are you so sure about this?"
"Because I remember."
"When did these reminiscences come to you?" The old man alerted.
"They have always been with me, these are my very first." He sighed, rotated himself around, and sauntered back to the desk. He didn't urge the girl to sit across from him. Intuitively, she realised that it was in her best interests to do so.
"When I arrived at the crime scene, my people were there along with one sneaky journalist. They collected evidence, testimony of those who discovered the settlement. After the interrogation, the witnesses had their memories erased and sent home, and that's when your cradle began to emit a faint silver light. When I came closer, I saw that you were safe. Extraordinarily... I came to the decision that it would be better if this news did not leave the area of the tragedy, for which I had to work a little with the reporter's memory too. Then I took you to a healer. He said that one spell was applied to you..."
She already knew exactly what it was. She made this discovery during the first lesson of the false professor, when he demonstrated to the students the spells for which a life prison sentence was due. There were three of them. During the performance of the first, the frontal lobes of her brain began to cramp, as if they were muscles - she relaxed them by massaging the forehead. During the second one, a major convulsion went through her entire body - she turned away, didn't look at the poor insect writhing in pain.
"How impressionable." The professor's voice came from directly above her. Judging by it, he uniquely did not regard this as a virtue. The girl met his gaze.
"Just have a predisposition to empathy."
"Hmmm? Then you're out of luck, because I haven't finished yet." He moved the spider to her desk. "Maybe you can tell me the third spell?"
"I can't."
"Why?"
"I don't know it."
"How come?" His discontent was intensified by distrust. "I was sure that everyone who is in this classroom today heard about them."
"Unfortunately, I was brought up outside the magical world."
"An orphan? I see... Miss?..."
"Greenwood, sir."
"I've heard about some Greenwoods..." his single eye stared intently into her face, as if tending to see something in it, the magic one carried on doing his job, "outside the magical world." And in general, the phrase sounded... ominous, or something. "It's ironic that their ward ended up in this house, don't you think?"
"Apparently, blood does rule everything."
"Well," the professor grinned, "then the third curse is especially for you."
No sooner had he uttered the words of the incantation, then the girl felt a familiar cold, chilling to the bones. She shifted her astonished look to the tip of his wand; only a distant muttering rustled in her ears. A ray of green light burst out of the wand: her heart stopped and a long lasting moment later started beating again.
"Don't you want to know what happened to the creature?"
"I know what happened to it." The student's eyes were nailed to his wand up to the time. "It's dead."
"So you've seen this spell in action."
"Long time ago..." Finally she looked at the spider lying upside down. Carefully taking it by one paw, she raised it to eye level and examined. Then she put it on her palm and brought it to her ear: oppressive silence and absolute emptiness, suffocating as a vacuum, which did not even ask to be filled. "I guess a kiss won't help here."
"You guess right. Nothing will help here. The curse is irreversible." Oddly, but the professor appeared very pleased.
The girl slowly rotated her palm over and the fragile dead body reposed on the desk again. "Thus he tried to kill me too... Irreversible. Why did he hate me so much?... So that's how that dream ended."
"Death one," the girl filled in the gap in his phrase. The headmaster swayed his whole body in confirmation.
"... but due to some circumstances it didn't reach the target."
"What circumstances?"
"I haven't found an explanation for this yet. Someone wanted you to pull through very much, but the way it was implemented was not like the one I encountered later." He paused, seeking the depths of his recollection. "I can recall how I wandered among the dead bodies of your relatives and felt the weight of utter emptiness, as if not only life was drained from there, but also something else. And next to your cradle, I felt the lightness of a balloon hanging in the sky... held on the ground by a heavy stone." The old wizard looked at the girl as if she were a miracle, but there was also a dread in his gaze that this miracle might one day alter into a chimaera. And the headmaster had this distrust of her from the very beginning, even though it seemed different in personal meetings.
("Did I supply him with unicorns?"
"Did you do that?"
"No! I was just walking. They came out to me themselves. I didn't have a clue that I was being tracked and that someone needed their blood."
"Then no."
"Just like that? But they perished because of me..."
"No. They perished because the one who was destined to die refuses to do it..." The headmaster looked at the girl through half-moon glasses, pending a question. Indeed, there could not be without one. This question, logically, should have been the first, but she still did not dare to ask it. It seemed to her that she knew the answer to it herself. And it scared her.
"Do you think it was my father?"
"Why did you decide that?"
"How is this possible? You said he is dead!" The headmaster sat silently and waited for the reply. "I don't know. I felt it... He enquired me who I was, somehow... mentally. And he's been looking for an answer in the past."
"Has he got it?"
"I don't know. Perhaps. So was it him?"
"I'm pretty confident it was. What's left of him."
"But you said there was a handful of ashes that's left." The girl couldn't believe her ears: her father was alive and he was there, right in the school! How? What for? ... How should she feel about this?
"It's from the body..."
"There was quite a body in front of me."
"Yes." The headmaster sighed and lowered his gaze. "All these issues are tormenting me too."
"How could he attend the sorting unnoticed? Where has he been hiding all this year? Why did he come here? 'Refuses to die...' For immortality? How long will he be able to get it from these poor animals? 'The one who was destined to...' Is this another prophecy?!"
She woke up from falling backwards. From this disgusting sense, when your shell has already fallen into an emptiness, and the insides yet don't have any notion of it, therefore, they are trying to jump out of you through your gob. A clot of black smoke only vaguely resembling the outline of a human hung above her. It didn't have a mouth, so it couldn't speak, but she could hear its words clearly in her head. It talked about how exhausted it was by permanent roaming, fear and distrust from others, whilst it was just a man in misfortune. How maddening it was to vegetate in inaction when you had so many ideas - great ideas - that could be brought to life if it had a strong partner. It said that it saw an extraordinary but still unbridled power in her, that it could aid her to cope with it. That she had enough bravery and intelligence for this. That there was no need to be afraid of yourself and that the time had come for answers. "How does it know so much about me?... Correction. How does it know so much about those several minutes of the first evening at school?"
"Help me and I will help you..."
"No..."
"I will give answers to all your questions."
"I will find them myself and then I will be sure of their veracity."
"Let me in!"
"You are not welcome here!"
She woke up from falling backwards. The transparent air and the canopy of the bed hung above her.
"Evelyn, is there anything you wish to tell me?" His question seemed strange to the student, unless...
"Yes... Yesterday, when my name was announced, I saw a snake watching me and perceived heavy anxiety. I'm sure it wasn't my imagination, as the hat could assume, because I felt that this feeling had a source from the outside. It was located somewhere at the professors' table, I can't say where particularly... Now I don't feel it, so it's not there."
"Did that snake speak to you?" All three - the headmaster, his deputy and her head - leaned forward.
"Oh... no, the previous question wasn't strange at all. You mean... in human language?... No!" It could've been a joke, but their faces were quite serious, so the girl had to clarify. "It hissed but I don't speak serpent language." All three took their original position with a noticeable sense of relief.
"Thank you, Evelyn, thank you so much. I'll think about it, I promise, I'll do it very carefully."
When the snake came to her, the girl pulled herself together tending to look unruffled, neither frightened nor aggressive - just calm. It crawled on. She exhaled and shot a reproachful glance at the one who let it out. Their head stood behind him, watching her intently. The girl was just beginning to wonder at this when a hiss emanated from the other side of the podium and she had to urgently change the subject of her wonderment since it wasn't the snake who was hissing. The snake was heeding... A surge of indignation swept over her and she glared at the professor.
"Why do you suspect me?! Why don't you believe me?! I go out of my way to earn your trust, I divulge everything, even what might play against me, and you suspect me, no matter what! Why?" She confronted the headmaster, pouring out her frustration.
"Because the last time, it was your father who unlocked this chamber." And this was a necessary and sufficient condition for not relying on her. Never. Her father.
"So he was the heir. And if he was... then I am... But I didn't open it! Which means it doesn't denote anything. And what about the boy? He talks to snakes. Unlike me, incidentally. Does that make him the heir? But that's preposterous!"
"How is your health lately?"
"Fine."
"Do you sleep well? Fatigue, memory lapses. Do not bother?"
"I always sleep well, and do not dream of murdering mudbloods. Memory lapses? Perhaps. I don't remember a single history lesson." The headmaster offered her a conciliatory smile.
"Evelyn, I know I'm being unfair to you. And I'm sorry that it happens. But I dare to hope that over time you will understand me, not forgive, but understand. I sincerely wish for your volition to be honest and do the right thing to be independent of whether you're trusted or not." His candour struck the girl and cooled her temper. "Still, if anything seems odd to you..."
"Sure. As always."
"I am so sorry."
"Are you sure?" The headmaster stood by the window in his office. Though he was discreet, his whole posture betrayed extreme dissatisfaction. For the first time, the girl sensed such a lack of faith from him. It cut her deeply.
"I am!" This exclamation, like the previous apologies, was directed at his nape.
"How did this happen?"
"Well... She said we wouldn't practise in her classes. One of the students objected, she responded with some absurdity. I got angry and engaged in the discussion. And then she remembered the 'R.' in my last name and asked what it stood for, and..."
"And you replied to her honestly?" The head was also called and now looked at his student as if she was a complete fool.
"Yes... We practically reached some degree of consensus that it was just a coincidence, but then she started raving..."
"Hold on, please." The old wizard made a gesture with his hand, interrupting the girl's futile attempts to justify herself. "She asked you about the initial, and you just told her as it is?"
"Yes. What else was I supposed to do?"
"Lie, perhaps?"
"What? Why? She will find out the truth anyway."
"Yes, but the whole school wouldn't have found out about it then!"
The girl was stunned by this comment. Of course. Why didn't she think of it herself? She was on verge, it did not occur to her what consequences this bickering could lead to. Didn't it occur to her or didn't she care? Didn't she care or did she want to be revealed? But another girl had figured everything out. On the other hand, all that was needed was to change one letter, and her arguments would've lost a lot of weight. The witch's words that she wanted to intimidate her, that she thought that by doing this, she would have her dancing to her tune didn't seem so meaningless to her anymore...)
"This book won't give you the answers to your questions, Evelyn. It contains only technical information. No one except for the executor of the incantation can comprehend what is passing within his soul and what becomes of it after."
"I have a fertile imagination." The girl understood him, she was bothered by the same point. Only in her opinion, this point was of no use.)
The confidence in this kept her from the fear of going down to the darkest depths, herself and others. The main thing in her opinion was to search on your own. The main thing is to contact the heart on time. Precisely the heart, not the memories, because, as the teacher instructed, 'you need to hide them not as deep as possible, but as far as possible'.
("What am I doing here?" Where did this question come from? It had never been a question before. She used to know the answer to it. What had changed? The girl started to recall everything from the beginning to the end again, but now she examined every flashback from the position of 'how could it affect the fact that she ended up here'. "It's pretty obvious that I was brought here by hatred for my father, by the desire for his death. But where did it come from? I've never had a high opinion of people, wizards are no exception, and nonetheless, I've never felt hatred for anyone in particular... temporary anger - yes, but not hatred. Indisputably, he did terrible things, killed many people, and will ruin many more. This is deplorable, but too little for personal feelings. Oh, yes, he killed my mother, the remains of my family and tried to kill me. Why am I so confident about this? I remember it. But what do I actually remember? Only a green ray of light released in my direction and that it was a death curse. By whom it was released, I did not see. That my father did all this, I was told. I saw the old wizard arguing with someone of my relatives and giving someone a sign, and then, my father weeping at my cradle. This could indicate both that he regretted what he had done, and that he did not do it at all but came later. With the same probability, it could be the headmaster's people after the family rejected his offer, not my father's. When they flunked, the old wizard accused my father of this crime too, since he was the one who told me the legend of my relatives' death. He never had faith in me, assumed that it was likely that I would follow in the footsteps of my father. He assigned watchers, and not someone, but combat sorcerers. Why? After all, he gave me to good people, his people. They've seen me grow up. Did I do something bad? Did he know that there is a part of his soul in me, or was genetics enough for him? What else could the healer had told him... And if he reckoned the hazard of me becoming like my father was so high, why did he give me the idea to align with the same house? Why did he develop my abilities of direct magic and... I don't get everything from my mother. Why did he let me read the book on the dark arts? Why did he drive me to murder? At the same time, he nurtured in me an embitterment to my father, the phobia of becoming the same... his phobia, initially. He allowed the jailers to search the train, allowed me to meet with them. It was after this event that I began to think of it. He sicked me on my father, but did not let me get close to him, referring to the time, to heat up my nerves to the limit. But why?!... That my only way out to not become him I saw in his death... But his death is infeasible without mine, so his death should become dearer to me than my own life... ('Parents? Parents?! I also have a parent, yet you are not hurrying to shift the responsibility for me to him!' - 'Listen, girl! We all, including you, understand perfectly well how his care for you will end, how it almost ended once before - with your death!' - 'His care will end with this!') Why does my father have to be destroyed completely? Is he the only living dark wizard? Kill him and the world will be kind and beautiful? Evil is an integral part of it. Why not leave him in us and let us fight him for the rest of our days, which can be much more... at least mine." She knew about the boy's prophecy, she saw it in his summer nightmares while sharing another refuge with him and his friends. "But what does this have to do with me?! It isn't mine! Funny. After all, the last step on the way there was my differences of perspective with the headmaster, an embitterment to him, and not to my father. So what am I here for? To give my life for people who don't believe in me? Or join my father and become the one they see in me?")