Out of the castle. Olga Zhvan

of curiosity is inherent only in her and that, probably, because she was born in other place. Though at that moment even she didn't know why those men in usual dusty raincoats took her attention.

      Four large men of uncertain age with tired faces slumped on the benches. Trying to listen to their monotonous voices, Aurelia suddenly caught herself that she didn't understand the sense of their speech. As though she heard half-known foreign language, words were familiar, and the essence escaped. Having suppressed the irritation which already became habitual, Aurelia paid after all the attention on rather cooled-down porridge. Realized that cold porridge was as tasteless, as hot, she looked round the hall again. That time her attention was drawn by the lonely traveler sitting in a far corner, he was dressed in the same raincoat, as newcomers. The man diligently hunched shoulders, and it was obvious that most all he wanted to remain unnoticed. Aurelia looked closer at him. His age was about forty, he was large with a craggy face. He hasty ate up a piece of bread and without having drunk up beer, threw a coin on a table and began to make the way quietly to an exit. Trying to have a good time somehow, Aurelia imagined the course of events: would anybody notice him or not… and if noticed, what would it be? Making the way by a table at which Veres and Aurelia were sitting, the man raised eyes and stopped dead, having met the eyes of the girl. Aurelia was confused by such focused attention, the question in her eyes lit up with curiosity shades, pushing aside the flashed irritation sparkles on a background.

      – Have you remade the reality? How?! – He stared at Aurelia and she felt absolutely uncomfortable.

      – I made nothing, – the girl answered in embarrassment, and for some reason repeated, – Nothing …

      – And who has made it for you?

      – I don't know, – the confusion was growing, filling Aurelia with easy unpleasant concern.

      Veres turned to the man and quietly said something to him, Aurelia didn't catch a word, but the man probably understood everything well because he sharply turned pale and accelerated the movement towards an exit. Veres, without having found time to explain something, started to drink beer.

      – Did Borg teach you as well? – Aurelia muttered irrelevantly just to talk though about something if only to get rid of concern. The speech was a contact, and it, in turn was a binding to reality from which the girl again started escaping promptly …

* * *

      Aurelia suddenly saw herself in the house of her parents, heard voices of the numerous guests who were in different rooms. But she was alone in the kitchen. Aurelia came to a veranda; the door to the yard was open. She for some reason didn't want to go to guests, and she decided to be alone for some time. Having stopped on the top step, the girl was lost in contemplation of the sky with true deep blue, of the sun which seemed to stand in the center of the Universe. Some steps led down, but she didn't go down, enjoying fresh air and a cup of fragrant hot coffee in her hand. The easy breezes was fanning shoulders, and right that moment she felt peace and homely joys which appeared when the one came to the parental house after a long absence. The little girl was playing in the yard, Aurelia didn't remember whose child was it, but the face seemed to her surprisingly familiar. The girl was wearing a pink dress and a light jacket; she had light ringlets which were dancing on a wind in time with her ringing carefree laughter.

      The sudden strong flaw tried to close a door, and it seemed to the girl for an instant that it would break it from hinges. Suddenly the wind became weaker, and, having looked to the yard, the girl saw that the girl as a balloon was hanging over the yard, and every instant she was getting more and more transparent, and some invisible force pulled her up. Aurelia suddenly understood that she could take her. She dropped a cup with coffee at a step and seized her by the small hand, trying to hold. Aurelia was pulling her down, and suddenly understood that girl felt a great pain because of it, and the force which was dragging her up was much stronger than the young woman …

      … Suddenly she saw herself in her apartment standing in a doorway on a balcony. She was still holding the girl who was hanging as a balloon under a balcony ceiling. Aurelia understood that it was not enough to pull her hand, it was necessary to clasp her with both hands and land without having injured. Taking the child closer, the girl saw that suddenly the baby became a white rag doll as though it was wetted and frozen. Aurelia felt the dragging pity to the child took and put her in the bed, having carefully wrapped up with a blanket to warm …

      … Sometime later she came up to a bed again; the child was laying with opened eyes on a pillow and looking at her. Having stroked her on a cheek, Aurelia felt the girl got a great pain because she touched her icy cheek with a hot hand. The girl started crying silently. Aurelia lowered a blanket a little below than her chin and saw the deep section on a neck from which the vital forces of the child were following out, turning into the clear transparent water. Aurelia understood that it was possible to cure the girl only by her own vital forces and, having wetted cotton wool in that clear water, wiped a section on the child's neck. After a while the wound closed, the girl was warmed and smiled. Having seen her pink face Aurelia understood that she was rescued.

      – What is your name? – Aurelia asked quietly with relief, palming the girl’s light ringlets …

* * *

      – … But, once long time ago and …

      Aurelia understood that she was sitting before Veres who was telling something to her with enthusiasm. It took some more moments finally to understand where she was … and a couple of minutes more to understand what her companion was telling to her, he even didn't notice that the girl was somewhere very far.

      – Should I repeat? – he asked coolly, without changing intonation and without doing a pause between the question and story he had been telling before.

      – Sorry. I digressed from … – the girl answered, without deciding to devote him in the last strange visions about the child, having managed to notice, however, that the younger brother as attentive as the elder one.

      – Your visions are getting more and more frequent, and you still don't tell anything about them. It isn't correct. They are not only for you, it is first, and secondly, I can help you to understand them.

      Aurelia, without having managed to recover, properly, from surprise after vision, was surprised once again with Veres behavior. Having looked closer, she saw concern on his face, and there was genuine interest in his eyes.

      «How long was I away?» – the girl thought.

      – For some moments … If I start answering not asked questions, you, at last, will understand, that I don't need to ask you for speaking?

      Suddenly the girl felt discomfort as though she had made some nonsense and wanted to keep it in a secret, but suddenly she realized that the whole world had already known about it. She remembered all the moments when she felt irritation and rage because Veres was not similar to Borg, disappointment because she got such a boring and uninteresting companion, rage because she was like the little child going where others told her to … But stop. She wasn't ashamed of that fact and if Veres understood her so well why he didn't give the answer to that vexing question?

      – Because you made the question incorrectly. The point is that we are going not «where», but «why»?

      – Well, he is starting again … – the disappointment strongly took the positions in soul of the girl but, however, it didn't bother her to peer at Veres's eyes which were sparkling with the gold. And that color warmed, dazzled and entrained somewhere more deeply, and it seemed that there, in depth was a source of that light which was reflected with sparks in a surface. However, Veres smiled at that moment not only with his eyes, and his smile appeared to be not less attractive, than the laughing eyes. Aurelia even forgot what she wanted to ask.

      – Well, it is time to go, – said Veres and, having easily picked up a big leather