Star Angels. The New World. Viktor Khorunzhy

shop, lost its power over her here, in her usual noisy human world.

      Katy pulled herself together. “Now that’s a kind of imagining…” she thought, feeling glad she hadn’t told her sister anything. Alice would have poked fun at her all day long!

      But still something was happening within, slowly and imperceptibly, leaving her soul with that common anxious feeling of fatal changes…

      The girls had approached a cozy mini-park. Feeling pretty tired, they settled themselves onto a bench opposite a large fountain that rumbled joyfully throwing up water sprays, shining in sunlight.

      “Phew… Now that was one great walk!”

      “Yeah, not bad,” Katy admitted.

      “What do we do now?”

      “Have you forgotten about the report?”

      “Oh, that’s it!” Alice slapped her forehead. “Indeed, how could I forget?”

      “Let’s go!” Katy ruled the roost, having gone up from the bench determinedly. She had her common sense fully recovered: talking about education, she felt on her own ground.

      “Okay then, let’s go,” Alice agreed, less than enthusiastic though. “But after the library we are going for amusement ride. Is that settled?”

      “That is settled,” Katy agreed.

      Striding the alley airily and chattering cheerfully, the girls hadn’t known yet that nothing was settled and their plans were not meant to come true…

      Chapter 3

      A Mysterious Book

      The university library wasn’t just big – it was huge. Daylight pouring through the windows wasn’t enough, so roomy halls were lit by rows of electric lamps, stretched along the ceiling.

      It was truly a book realm. Each one entering here lowered one’s voice involuntarily and strived to tread more silently. A kind of special atmosphere of science, wisdom and imagination was flowing around here. Katy always felt as if not books, but people who had written them were eyeing her from the numerous bookshelves. For this reason, thrusting out her hand to take another folio, she was choosing whom she would like to have a chat with.

      The library had been one of Katy’s favourite places. Consequently, she was glad to have come here today of all days after the chain of weird and mysterious events, had been taking place with disturbing regularity lately. She hoped to relax, having lost herself in the flow of some interesting information.

      Alice had some contrary opinion on that account. She was looking cheerlessly at long bookcases, packed up with books. Three of them – terribly long shelves – were solely devoted to Ancient Egypt themed literature.

      “Now why in the world have I truckled myself to that report?” she thought with aggravation.

      Not that Alice disliked studying. It’s just today was not the day to inspire for that. Who in the world would want to study on one’s birthday? Perhaps, only Katy.

      “Could we download all the materials from the internet?” Alice asked, though rather hopelessly.

      “Don’t be silly!” Katy answered, putting aside those books that might have worked for them. The pile looked quite hefty.

      “Katy, we’ll grow old sitting here until we read all of that! We’ll get shriveled, parched up and turned into mummies, just like those Egyptian pharaohs…”

      “You’re definitely in no danger of withering over books!” Katy comforted her sister. “And we’ve got no need to read them all. We’d just look them through, put aside essential ones, shoot the most interesting points on the smartphone, and then calmly type the text in at home. Now you pick here and I’ll be searching there…”

* * *

      “Bye-bye amusement ride as it seems,” Alice muttered. She looked several folios through without choosing which one to pick.

      Katy had already gone to the reading room with a stack of books. Having fetched first book within her reach, Alice caught up with her sister.

      The girls shared a table and got themselves engaged with reading. The topic was interesting enough for even Alice to be captured. But they had no chance to go deep into Ancient Egypt’s history, as lamps started twinkling… and went off. The room drowned in shadow.

      Katy tore herself away from the book:

      “What’s happened?”

      “That’s a sign for us not to waste the whole festive evening in here!” Alice brightened up.

      Amusement ride loomed on the horizon again. However she had got excited too soon: the lights went on.

      “It’s probably because of popped out fuses” Katy suggested.

      “Oh, look!” Alice exclaimed suddenly. “What a beautiful figurine!”

      On the shelf of one of the bookcases there really was an elegant figurine of a yellow-eyed cat.

      “How odd…” Alice uttered thoughtfully, “it wasn’t here earlier…”

      “We probably haven’t noticed it. It couldn’t have jumped over there by itself!..” Katy resounded. “The librarians must have put it here, on the shelf with Ancient Egypt books, as Egyptians considered cats to be godlike creatures, worshipping them.”

      Katy was pleased to always find rational explanations for everything. She believed there was no such thing as inexplicable stuff – only a lack of knowledge and logics.

      The lights began twinkling and went off again. And suddenly Katy seemed the cat… stretched and gave a wag of its tail in the shadow of the room.

      Katy blinked for a split second, and then opened her eyes. The mysterious figurine was standing on the shelf, as stiff as a sphinx.

      “It has just been a delusion,” Katy told herself, though with a definite lack of confidence. She looked around: the room was almost empty.

      “Look at that weird light!” Alice exclaimed suddenly.

      Katy turned round. Some kind of bright-blue light was pouring out of nowhere next to the figurine.

      The electricity blinked again, like eyes of scores of library lamps – and the room was well-lit again. But, having captured their attention, the strange blue glow was there to stay – having simply become less visible it the brightly lit room…

      Without any concord, the sisters came up to the stack and took a closer look: it was something glowing right among books.

      “What could that possibly be?” Alice nearly whispered, as if watching out for scaring this unusual phenomenon away.

      Katy had just shrug her shoulders if response.

      “Could it be a bomb?” Alice whispered in even smaller voice. “I think there’s something ticking in there…”

      Katy kept her ears open.

      “Don’t be ridiculous! It’s just…”

      But now even Katy had no answer. They were both standing doubtful next to the book shelf still overflown with bluish white glow.

      “What if it’s dangerous? Maybe, we should call for miners? Or un-miners? I’ve seen it on TV…”

      “You should spend less time watching that idiot box,” Katy retorted. “Bombs don’t glow.”

      “How can you know for sure?” Alice snorted.

      Curiosity got the better of cautiousness. Alice was the first to gain enough courage. She stretched her hand and took the glowing object from the shelf… It was a heavy leather-covered book. It itself wasn’t glowing, except for the drawing at the cover, crowning right in the middle. There were two symbols, resembling Egyptian hieroglyphs, right below the drawing.

      “Look, Katy, it’s the drawing that glows… Now where could I have possibly seen it before?”

      Katy glared wide-eyed at the odd sign, consisting