***
«Where does Your Majesty wish to stroll?» asked the King of Swords.
Like all «Kings», he was married, as for the suit of «Swords», he was a military man, and for some reason the military men were fond of me. Sometimes he walked me culturally in the city.
«Take me to the Mansion,» I answered suddenly.
«Maybe it’s better…»
«To the Mansion!» I kept insisting.
The rain was mixed with the evening mist. We turned into the courtyard, and I was ready to open the desired Door to my left, but the King of Swords didn’t allow me that.
«It’s the wrong door. You need the Right one.»
I needed the Left Door! I no longer had the strength to stay in our Reality… completely alone… useless…
However, I obediently opened the Right one.
«Not now. Or not with him?»
I slowly climbed the stairs, went inside and floated along the corridor to the kitchen and then into the room, absorbing not sounds, but memories, kept by the walls of any space.
My grandmother, my father’s mother, with her sister and father, my great-grandfather, often visited his friend, the Writer, in that flat.
There were two museums in the Mansion. One was behind the Right door, the other was behind the Left door.
I didn’t hear a word of what the obviously superfluous tour guide was saying. I fell there – to my grannies – in their Time, to drown out the pain and to suppress another bout of nostalgia…
***
Six months before
The Guardian of the Portal exhaled – finally, his diary was published in a human way. In every sense of the word. He opened the book to a random page and landed on «The Gloves».
«She will be back! Yes! Yes! She’s about to show up here!»
***
May holidays
The magic name popped up on the phone.
«If you knew how glad I am to hear from you…»
He reminded me too much of Ray, and I smiled – something warm and fluffy touched my heart. Roman was an invisible (and perhaps the only) thread connecting me with the already irrevocable.
«I recalled my Soviet past today,» it sounded like a sudden insertion into a business conversation on an off-business day.
«Did you have it?» I smiled again and reached for the Tarot cards.
«I’ve read your book „Confession of a Ghost“ about the Matrix, as I promised. Remember?»
«Really?!» I took out my cards.
«Back then, yes… I went on vacation and took the book with me.»
I got «The Knight of Cups» and…
«How do you like it?»
«I recognized everyone! „The Emperor“ and „The Sorcerer“. Sorry, „The Magician“! You write in such a way that…»
«But you are not there, are you?» I asked with a sad smile, looking at the cards: «The Knight of Cups» and… «The Magician»!
«In your book or in your Matrix?» Roman chuckled and confessed, «To be honest, in magic I feel like quite a child!»
«Would you like to become Him?..»
***
The Guardian of the Portal should have taken that important step a long time ago, leaving the old Mansion and walking only a few houses to the House of Literature, where… Where what? Or who? He was called to bring his book. The Guardian didn’t know why. It would be worth clarifying, although he understood that it was necessary. However, was he waiting for… the right date? A number? A symbol? What was he waiting for?
***
August
Since last autumn, when the King of Swords allowed me to open the Right Door of the Mansion, I had been forcing myself to go back to open the Left one, because the main city Portal of transition to Another Reality was hidden right behind it. I was too tired, bored and tormented by a premonition of something that must definitely happen as soon as I opened THAT DOOR. What exactly?
«Alice, you shouldn’t enter that Mansion. It’s dangerous! Do you want me to show you the place where…» а familiar poet, once the Page of Cups, offered suddenly.
«I need to go to the Mansion. I have to open the Door on the Left,» I pleaded, looking into his eyes pitifully.
«Well, then… tomorrow?»
«Yes, tomorrow, please!»
At the same moment the poet cried out and turned me around to face the house, on the facade of which there was a gigantic portrait of the Writer from that Mansion.
«Nearby Alice there is only mysticism… It’s a sign!»
However, it started to rain «tomorrow», and the trip to the Mansion was postponed indefinitely.
Meanwhile, the Left Door was attracting me stronger and stronger. From time to time, I was sent strange people – writers who asked me to arrange literary parties in the Mansion, as a great opportunity to combine the desired with my direct work, but because of the epidemic, the Mansion was closed for a long time…
***
Repeatedly I tried to return to that sweet dream about three pairs of orange sandals, to find there the man with a small belly and a foggy face, with whom I felt happy.
In vain, I always found myself in the past, where Roman appeared sitting next to me on my right. There were a lot of people there.
«If not for the age difference,» I looked at him almost jokingly and sighed.
«What’s the difference?» he immediately interrupted me. «There is no difference!»
«I would have fallen head over heels in love with you,» I finished my sentence.
How many times did I say goodbye to him? Even in my dreams I could not allow myself anything… I didn’t want to hurt, maybe. One or both of us?
However, in a little while my Sun would have set in the last, the 12th sector of the Astrological Clock of life. The sector of all the Secret and Unrevealed, symbolically called the Mystical Mansion or the Mysterious Island, the Portal to Another Reality. It would barely get out of there, my Sun…
***
September
«Who are you?» I asked when another Autumn crept up on me with another strange man who had come to the Union of Writers to submit his book for a competition.
The man introduced himself, whispering something in addition as quietly as passwords.
I glanced at him briefly without remembering either his first or last name, and I didn’t even catch what he whispered, because he reminded me of Roman and Ray at the same time.
«A glitch in the Matrix!» the thought flashed through my mind.
«Did you bring us the book?» I decided to clarify.
«No… Yes… But…»
«Alice, haven’t you heard?» my colleague suddenly interrupted my thoughts, tugging at the sleeve of my dress and adding distinctly in a mysterious voice, «This man is from your Old Mansion!!!»
«Are