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, including that man, would stop noticing me.

He disappeared and reappeared with his book, handing it to me. I opened the book to a random page, and the title of the story caught my eye, “The GLOVES that fell from the Sky”. I shuddered, too.

We sat at a table across from each other. In silence. He got my “Magic” and “The Moon Cat”, and I got his “Gloves”. He worked in the Mansion as Guardian of the Portal. Definitely, all these people around existed in some other dimension, where there were neither me nor the Guardian, who still reminded me of Roman and Ray.

I returned “the Gloves” to the author, asking him to sign it for me.

“Hmm… today is a magical date,” writing it under the dedication, the Guardian said either to me or to himself. Dates and numbers had some meaning to him.

“Has SHE come back?!” the Guardian’s mind raced.

“Show me the Mansion, please!” I asked him mentally.

The Guardian stood up from the table and held out his hand to me. Having grabbed an antique lantern along the way, we slowly descended into the Dungeon, and I felt more and more strongly that the Portal was there, and I would find it for sure!

“To the right is the Theater, where our performances take place,” the Guardian looked at me with genuine interest, “but I prefer to show you something… unusual. You see, extremely strange stories constantly happen in this Mansion. Perhaps you help me to reveal the meaning of one of them!”

The Guardian took out a bunch of keys, opened the door to the secret pantry on the left side of the corridor and put the lantern on a small antique dressing table with a mirror and some drawers.

“In the left one…” the Guardian whispered mysteriously, letting me know with a look that I could open the box myself, which I did, but it turned out to be absolutely… empty, and for some reason that fact alarmed the Guardian.

He rummaged through the pantry for a long time, scanning it up and down with the lantern, his eyes, and hands. In vain.

Then I took out of my bag and silently handed to him…

…the GLOVES…

Chapter 1. DEVIL’S TRILL

It was the first of the forty literary parties of the Union of Writers I was to hold in the legendary Mansion, behind the Left Door, where the Portal to Another Reality still operated in the 21st century. The presentations had been agreed back in September, however, the epidemic caused a time shift – we waited for the start of mass vaccination in order to obtain permits for cultural events. So Autumn imperceptibly disappeared from the scene, giving way to Winter.

“Hello, the Queen!” the Guardian of the Portal called out to me as I went up to the inner cafe. There, in the museum hall, combined with a coffee shop, our forty parties would be hold.

Yes, some people jokingly, and some mockingly, called me “the Queen”. Once I won the “King of Poets” tournament, similar to Igor Severyanin in the Silver Age, a century before ours, and on my father’s side (his grandmother and grandfather, the Writer’s friend, owned some mansions in the city center, however, taken away in their time) I was practically a princess, but “here and now” I was interested in a completely different thing – the local Portal…

Each literary party traditionally (once upon a time I had hold similar events in other places) consisted of two parts: presentation of a contemporary poet / writer book and, after a smoke break for autograph session and familiarity, the Open Microphone for guests. Actually, everybody flocked to the Open Mic like moths to the light, and without it one could hardly count on the presence of masses in the first part of “le ballet de la Merlaison”, because in the 20s of the 21st century, almost every person on Earth learned letters and wrote something, but there were almost no readers left.

***

I opened our first party at the Mansion introducing a mysterious writer with a collection of stories titled “The Devil’s Trill”, in which the characters actively changed souls and bodies, got stuck between our and Other Worlds, summoned the Devil, and, quite possibly, already beyond the stories, made love spells in cemeteries in thirst for human mutual love, and, not getting it, they reveled in blood, turning into vampires…

While I was revealing the author’s identity, asking tricky questions to the guests and to the author herself, acting as a bridge-guide (however, even children would immediately guess that the writer was a real Witch, not a fake one, in fact, all writers are magicians), the Guardian of the Portal was silently watching me from behind the counter of the already dormant cafe, located directly opposite the stage. The main museum rooms, which we had no official access to, were sighing behind the curtains to the right of the stage, and the Giant Mirror stared at us from the left.

“It’s funny!” I thought, glancing at the Guardian. “He recognized ‘my’ Gloves…”

“It’s funny!” the Guardian thought. “She brought me ‘those’ Gloves…”

On the stage, in addition to me and the Witch, there was a chair, occupied by the local black Cat of enormous size. I was sure he pretended to be snoozing, meanwhile in fact…

“So, did you really practice magic?” the question came from the audience.

“Well…” the Witch gave up, “I should confess! Yes, I graduated from the School of Magicians!”

“Did you practice the transmigration of souls, as in your story?”

“No!” she was embarrassed.

“Is it true that it is easier to settle spirits in the intoxicated people?”

“Does the Season of Sand exist only for Evil Spirits?”

“Have you ever been to the Other World?”

I sighed, remembering Ray, and closed my eyes. Then I opened them again… And…

“No! That can’t be true!!!”

Instantly forgetting about the sharing of spirits and the exchange of souls, I stared at a painfully familiar man: right in front of me, at the cafe counter, to the left of the Guard, appeared… Roman.

Everything that happened next seemed like a dream. I remembered only I announced the break, and the guests of the party pounced first on the writer, who had obviously managed to bewitch them getting the opportunity not to gift, but to sell “The Devil’s Trill” with a personal autograph, and then on the Cat, dozing on the chair…

They all remained in some other dimension.

Across from me there was a man who reminded me of Ray, but I was afraid to approach him, as if he might easily disappear, just as Ray had gone once, disappearing in the Other Reality.

“Are all the writers of the Union in league with the Devil?” the Guardian suddenly snapped me out of my stupor.

“An unaffordable luxury!” I said in response for some reason, while I kept looking at Roman, who kept looking at me from the back of the hall.

“When do you plan to…” the Guardian didn’t finish the question.

“As soon as possible!” I cut him off with a look and forced myself to go up to Roman.

He smiled. There was something strange about his smile. Already known to me, but quite probably unknown to him. I turned my gaze to the table, inviting him to sit down.

And so we found ourselves across from each other at a tiny table of the coffee space nearby the bookcase, which contained also my “Book of Black and White Magic”.

In the reigning uproar of the break, there was suddenly a deafening silence. For two of us.

We fell out of context, scanning each other with eyes. Outwardly, Roman hadn’t changed at all, although we hadn’t seen each other for… how many years?

“Happy New Year!” I breathed out and thought, “How did you end up here, darling?”

“You called me, darling, and I came!” Roman uttered obvious nonsense, in my opinion, unexpectedly and unconditionally switching to ‘darling’ (perhaps mirroring my mental appeal to him), and then, nodding at the bookcase, he calmly added, “You will teach me magic, Alice.”

I looked at him and understood nothing.

“How could he know that I am here? Oh, yes… I said on TV I would hold literary parties in the Mansion. Roman watched that show, and the Museum posted invitation on their website. But why didn’t he call? Didn’t write me via WhatsApp? Didn’t make an appointment somewhere else? In an ordinary cafe? Didn’t invite me for a walk in the park or down the same Tverskaya to the Kremlin, if he really wanted to see me? And why on earth did he suddenly decide to do magic?!”

“I told you, I’m just a child in magic,” Roman quoted himself. “It’s the perfect place to learn such arts, isn’t it? The time is the best, Christmas time. I’ve even got a magic notebook. And a pen. To record your lectures. So, do you agree?”

His palms hovered in the air right above mine.

From overexertion or stuffiness in the tiny space of the museum, I began to feel dizzy, and I instantly removed my hands from the table and squeezed my head with them.

The bell rang, the break was over. Or was it the Devil’s trill?

The Guardian of the Portal gave me a sign.

“Sorry, Roman!” I resolutely got up from the table.

“Give me some home task!” Roman stopped me. “And I’ll disappear. Did I buy the notebook for nothing?!”

“Well, okay…” I sighed. “Write it down…”

Task No. 1. PLAN for 12 MONTHS

…Imagine that you have only 12 months left in our Reality. Make a plan: what do you want to do here before the transition to the Other Reality, so that you won’t regret anything later. And write it down, month by month…

When I returned to the stage for the announcement of the Open Mic, Roman had disappeared. The Guardian of the Portal and the Cat replaced him at “our” table.

***

After returning home, I wandered around the apartment like a zombie, periodically grabbing the phone to call or write to Roman, as I had done to Ray, solely at the call of my soul. I didn’t think Roman would be surprised, but I was terribly afraid of men, especially the ones I liked.

Yes, nonsense! Over the years, the more I liked a man, the more I feared him. I was afraid to do something wrong (to say, to write, to look…), of not being liked and, as a result, of losing the one I could easily communicate for some other questions with.

I hid my feelings so deep to let them be unknown to the man, in order to avoid the pain from another loss of hope, when he would say something like, “It’s nice! But you’re too late. All the seats were taken long ago!”

I wanted a man to be a leader, to take my hand and lead me somewhere far away. Even in such case I would be scared that he would say, “I love you!”, I would believe him, and next day he would take his words back, “Me? You? What else love?” And then…

“What’s the point of that reasoning now? 39 nights, and I’m free!”

Of course, I didn’t call or write anything to Roman, so I turned off the light and went to bed. However, as I tossed from side to side in search of oblivion, I suddenly noticed a message on my phone. I glanced at my watch, it was past midnight. Automatic notification from a social network informed me of the birthday of Pasha, that waiter boy from the Greek restaurant near the Dark Tower.

We had known each other for years, but he “befriended” me online last autumn, if my memory served me right.

I automatically typed “Happy Birthday” in his timeline, without even an exclamation mark and any wishes, when I suddenly drew attention to the current date and got stunned, because it was Ray’s date of birth! The year was different, of course, Ray was older than me, and Pasha was just a boy.

“Hi, my girl! How u?” I received an instant response in a private chat, filled with Latin letters in my language.

“Ok, and you?”

“Viber? Whatsup? Want 2 call u.”

I took a deep breath in and out. Without asking stupid questions, despite the fact that in all those years we had nothing in common, except seafood salad, chicken and coffee, I gave him my number. And just a couple of minutes later I got the following.

“Miss u. Much much, true say!”

I got out of bed, turned on the night light, took Tarot cards and pulled out two at random… “The Devil” and “The Knight of Cups”!

“Are you writing this to me?”

“U Alice yes. Why? I call u?”

He didn’t wait for my answer and called. I dropped it.

“Sorry, I’m sleeping. Have a good night!”

I wrote that and immediately switched off the phone.

The Matrix was fundamentally buggy.

I went to the table by the window and wondered what I would do if I had 12 months left instead of 39 nights.

Chapter 2. ZIGZAGS of LIFE

I came to the Mansion a little earlier to look for the Portal. The Giant Mirror next to the stage was definitely a portal, too, but not the main one. All portals differed, and if you were about to leave…

“‘Zigzags of Life’! Isn’t it too trivial a title for the book of Baba Yaga?” a familiar voice came from behind me. “Do you make presentation of another witch today?”

“Hello, Guardian!” I smiled. “You guessed it right! By the way, the sounds ‘z’ and ‘g’ create vibrations to remove the soul out of the body, they are used by some dream hackers.”

The guests were already gathering in the hall, but they all seemed to notice neither me nor the Guardian, sitting at the table next to me. The Guardian, on the contrary, had been watching me and the guests with genuine interest, until he gave his verdict.

“What a hell of Impurity one can meet in the Writers’ Union!”

“Let me tell you a terrible secret: there are a lot of dark spirits or impurities everywhere!”

After drinking half a cup of double espresso with milk, I warmed up and emerged out of my sleepy state.

“I came earlier in order to…”

“I know,” the Guardian nodded, “but I can’t help you.”

“It’s not this portal, you are guarding here, is it?” I whispered, glancing towards the Giant Mirror.

The Guardian nodded in agreement, “Not the Mirror!”

I finished my coffee and looked at the clock. There were still about ten minutes left before the presentation, and I slipped into the corridor that led to the Dungeon. However, having sailed to the dead end and back, I realized that there were portals at every turn in the Mansion, including the large stage of the local Theater and the pantry, where the materialized gloves had disappeared. Even the ordinary walls inside the Dungeon corridor were portals as well. But it was too “cold” there for the most powerful one.

For some reason, I associated the Dungeon with the book title, “Zigzags of Life”, existing within the Labyrinth of Destiny, into which each of us had descended from Heaven and was looking for a way out, just as I descended into the Dungeon in search of my Portal.

I returned to the half-cafe half-Mirror hall. The Guardian had drawn the curtains, limiting our literary space. I stepped onto the stage and invited a charming old woman in her ninth decade, still actively practicing magic in her life, when suddenly… Yes, it was hard to believe! – at a table in the back of the hall appeared… Roman.

That morning I woke up with a clear thought, he was a dream. He hadn’t come to the Mansion. It was just a trick of my agonizing Consciousness, in every possible way resisting the decision to slip away into the Other Reality during the last, the 40th party in the Mansion. Clinging to life, Consciousness created a phantom from my past that could soften my heart to rewrite the life script. I even dreamed about Roman that night, even with a small belly, like in the very dream I felt happy of having finally found him.

However, he appeared again. Roman. My non-existent romance. He smiled watching me on the stage with interest.

When I reached the break for the autograph session of the Ninth decade, I sailed up to him.

“I’ve dreamed about you today,” I whispered, not adding “darling” from fear.

“Perhaps we all are dreams of each other, but this is not a reason to lose darlings. Besides, I did your home task and made a plan for the next 12 months. What does your plan consist of, Alice? I hope you didn’t forget to include my name as well. At least as your student?”

I silently scanned Roman and couldn’t understand what was wrong. Wrong in the whole story: the sudden snowfall of Roman and Pasha’s puzzles. Why? What for? I couldn’t allow myself…

“Okay, Alice, silence is a sign of agreement,” Roman smiled. “Do you know what impressed me in the most charming Baba Yaga of today?”

“How easily did she fly onto the stage?”

“With what ease, joy, tenderness, and without any complexes, she recalled a magical night with her lover in their years. How old was she then? The Witch with ‘The Devil’s Trill’ looked half her age! However, as you correctly noted at the presentation, age for her, judging by the book, is a sore point, as well as the age difference between…”

I went cold and couldn’t utter a word.

“So what’s the next task, Master?”

At that moment, a heavy hand landed on my shoulder. I turned around and saw the King of Swords.

“Do you mind if I walk you home after the Open Mic?” he asked.

I rashly glanced at Roman with the look that gives away any girl. However, Roman just smiled like saying, “I can’t stay here that long.”

“Okay,” I replied to the King of Swords, and his heavy hand immediately disappeared from my shoulder.

“Do you like him?” Roman asked silently.

“The King of Swords never becomes the King of Cups!”

The Guardian rang the bell, and the break was over.

“You asked me about the next task,” I returned to the ground. “Audit your swamp!”

Task No. 2. INVENTORY

…Make an inventory of all things and objects, including clothes, souvenirs, other people’s gifts, books, magazines, photographs and even files on your electronic device – basically, of everything in your space.

The space should be filled with living energy working for you. Every object has a unique energy, but perhaps some of them have already fulfilled their purpose, and some are not yours at all. Review each item. What feelings does it evoke in you? Decide whether there is a place for it in your world here and now. If it causes negative emotions or none at all, this is not yours, say “thank you” and part with it without regret, with joy. Since the world doesn’t tolerate emptiness, something new will definitely replace the old…

The task is to open your door for the Future…

I went onto the stage and announced the Open Mic. The Cat was already sitting in Roman’s place.

***

I returned home and looked around my swamp.

“Should I sort things out on the weekend? Maybe. To take half to church. Two literary parties have already passed, and the 40th is just around the corner. I will spend the 40th and breathe out: freedom! F-R-E-E-D-O-M!

The 38 evenings left are enough, of course, to find the main Portal in the Mansion. It can’t sneak away from me! The Guardian has no right to prompt, but the Mansion is not the Winter Palace, it’s quite tiny. And nothing would keep me here anymore. Nothing and no one!”

***

“Hi, my girl. How u?”

“It’s 2 a.m.”

“Alone?”

“Pasha…”

“Like u much but u so distance. Me 4 u how?.. If want. How u want?”

“What’s happened with you, Pasha? Why did you suddenly remember me? What for? I am older than you. You are such a beautiful, kind boy… Forget!”

“Understand. Problem age only? No nerves! 4 me no difference u older. I like u much. Many years like. Feel good with u. Will love always. No leave u. Never. True say 2 u. I call?”

He called me, but I dropped it. What was going on looked like the delirium of a madman. I got out of bed, reached the Tarot cards in the darkness, turned on the nightlight.

Incredible! “The Knight of Cups”, “The Magician” and “The Devil” again! They haunted me. But…

“Now… what for?”

Chapter 3. SINNER

“Funny poster!” the Guardian whispered softly as he helped me remove my furs. “Is it true that the author is a prankster?”

“You didn’t read the poster carefully. His book is called ‘The Sinner’! Anyway, I haven’t tried.”

Leaving my cup of coffee on the table, almost forever registered for me, I ducked into the next room of the museum. The Guardian followed me.

“Here is a box for letters to the Creator,” he said.

“And the postbox at the door outside?”

“Yes, there is the second one.”

“I sent him my poems. Many years ago, Natasha Nikiforova invited me to the action of the ‘Evening Moscow’ TV to read poetry on the Ponds. It was the similar blizzard as today. The verses I had read, I dropped into the postbox at the Door to the Mansion. I had no pen with me, so I sent poetry instead of a letter.”

The Guardian took a pen and a paper notepad out of his pocket.

“Write it now,” he suddenly whispered, coming close to me.

“Everything has already been decided,” I answered categorically, hanging in thought, “Now what for?”

For some reason, I wanted to hug the Guardian, but I stood like an idol. And he hugged me.

“Here it is!!!” I suddenly felt something and took a step aside. “The Portal is here, isn’t it?”

The Guardian chuckled, but he had no time to answer, because the door to the room opened slightly, and the Cat appeared on the threshold.

“Meow?!” he said in surprise.

I left the room without writing anything to the Creator.

***

The Sinner stood embarrassed on the stage, as if in front of Christ. The hall was crowded with women. While the hero of the party was reciting poems, perceived as a divine revelation in advance, the women, in their dreams, already wrapped their arms around his neck and whispered all sorts of tenderness in his ears…

I returned to my table. Roman emerged from the crowd slyly smiling, and I heard his thoughts in my mind.

“How is your swamp doing, Alice? Did you throw away a lot of stuff?”

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