Confession of a Ghost. 39. 2. At the bottom of

“CONFESSION of a GHOST”
a novel by Alexandra Kryuchkova
in the “PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY” series

2 BEFORE/39 AFTER. HOUSE No. 12

*****The AXE of KARMA*****

***
Somewhere in the Universe


The Moonlight Sonata was still sounding in House No. 12, and the sea appeared.

“We have come to the zero degree of Cancer, to my abode,” the Moon smiled. “From here you can already see your Ascendant at the 13th degree, the moment of your first breath, and in another 13 degrees, over there, the lonely Tower of Saturn, where he grows his Garden of Stones in the dungeon. The Tower is located on the border with House No. 2, which Master is also me.”

Suddenly there was a splash of water, and I saw a man drowning in the sea. The Moon waved her hand, and the waves parted. A man in military armor came up to us, held out his hand, entangled in seaweed, and said,

“Hello, Rukh! Sorry, there are continuous undercurrents here, besides, now a knee-deep water, then suddenly there’s an abyss, and I’m falling.”

“Are you Mars in Cancer?” I asked sadly.

“Yes, and this is the worst location for me. I’m Fire, and Water extinguishes me. Mars in Cancer is called Falling.”

“However, thanks to you and Saturn in Cancer, Rukh has 40 shells instead of one,” said the Moon.

“I can’t manifest my power openly and outwardly,” Mars sighed. “You’ll try to get around and smooth out sharp corners, avoiding conflicts and aggression, most often retreating to a secret shelter. I don’t feel comfortable in competitions, although it seems that the warrior should be ready for battles. My strength is a mask. You can’t stand up for yourself, being completely defenseless against the manifestation of brute force. The only exception is if you have to protect something very dear to you, that belongs to the Cancer Sphere – a family, for example, your loved one or child.”

“One of the causes of Mars weakness,” the Guardian clarified, “is the suppression of the soul by parents in early childhood, or the lack of male energy in the family, which, given House No. 12, means…”

“A child grows up without father,” I exhaled.

“Mars in Cancer is a gentle and vulnerable creature,” added the Moon, “oriented to the soul, the world of feelings. He cannot stand being pressured, he always feels what others are hiding behind masks. If Mars is treated too badly, he is able to flare up and quickly cools down, but he is vindictive, although he doesn’t openly take revenge. There are many secret enemies he can’t kill, his weapon will never shoot, except at himself, while others shoot at him. Any violent death is highly likely, since Mars in Cancer attracts aggression.”

“I’m in charge of your Sphere No. 11, Acquaintances, but I’m in the House of Secret Enemies,” Mars sighed. “The connection of Houses 11 and 12 means not only friends the enemies, but also secret patrons, the gift of unraveling mysterious situations and phenomena, the ability to secretly influence the masses. The writer Arthur Conan Doyle, famous for his detective stories, had the same Mars, thus, he adored everything mysterious and mystical, attended s;ances with summoning spirits.”

“Due to hypersensitivity and restraint of emotions, Mars is prone to nervous overstrain, to depression and… In brief, splash out the negative,” the Guardian concluded, “not on people, on paper. Perhaps this is the only way to escape self-destruction.”

“I’m an excellent officer of secret services,” continued Mars, “since I’m warrior, but in the House of Secrets, I can keep secrets. Especially suitable for working abroad, in isolation. I can succeed in a career as a military surgeon, head of a prison, and so on. I have a monastic mentality, like the Moon in the 12th Sphere, I’m as a hermit crab, my secret refuge is my inner world. I don’t pursue power and glory, never put my own interests at the expense of others.”

“Yes, Mars is absolutely unselfish here, he serves people, sacrificing himself and his interests, secretly does charity and helps the suffering, primarily psychologically, serves as a lightning rod in conflict situations. Many stargazers call his actions Sisyphean labor, as the world is fenced him off, erecting high stone walls. Being offended, Mars tries to shoulder an increasing amount of work to prove by his own work that he deserves attention, praise and appreciation. Not a place under the Sun, but precisely praise.”

“Mars is Aries, an eternal child who needs to be constantly stroked on the head, right?” I asked.

“True,” the Moon agreed. “Mars in Cancer in the 12th Sphere is another indication of a difficult childhood in isolation. In case of defeat, it means poor eyesight, injuries, disability, widowhood.”

“Mars, are you friends with someone?” I asked.

“With Uranus in your House of Creativity,” Mars smiled. “He loves non-standards, freedom of expression, raises a person to Heaven. He is also a symbol of Heaven, he likes astrologers. You’ll write about us on Earth. And your Pluto is killing me.”

“Stop,” I said thoughtfully. “Is my father military? A secret officer? He’s away on business trips abroad, I read it in my book, thus, I’m isolated from him, right? Will Pluto kill him?”

“His death will be shrouded in mystery,” Mars sighed. “He will die suddenly and instantly, in a military hospital, on the eve of another business trip overseas. You will be 4 years, 4 months and 19 days old, since I stay a little over 4 degrees before your Ascendant, and one degree is conventionally equal to a year of earthly life. Your father will know too much, Rukh, and they won’t make autopsy.”

“He’ll be killed with a long-lasting poison,” the Guardian sighed. “When the capsule opens, he’ll die. A similar aspect of Mars with Pluto speaks of a secret violent death.”

“So is the date of my father’s death already predetermined?”

“Yes. It’s written in his passport, and in his mother’s passport, and in your mother’s, his wife passport as well, and in yours, of course.”

“It means that the date of my mother’s death…?”

“Your plutonic Saturn will kill her,” the Moon said sadly. “He won’t allow me to enter my abode in the Sign of Cancer, where he reigns. It’s a pity, I’m almost there, just 13 degrees away, actually, as well as Saturn is at 13 degrees from your Ascendant. You’ll be 12 years, 8 months and 16 days old.”

“Will my mother die suddenly too?” I asked.

“Saturn kills slowly and painfully,” the Moon said. “The worst Solar year for a person on Earth has the House of Death abounded with planets, including Saturn.”

“Can’t that be changed?” I exclaimed. “Do you suggest that I just watch my mother dying painfully?”

“The given to every soul by Heaven is taken for granted,” the Guardian said calmly. “Such events are written down from the very beginning for a specific date, hour, minute, instant and are not changeable, Rukh. You have to live them. Humbling and not grumbling. It’s important how you pass your test, your reaction, what conclusions you’ll draw, in which direction you’ll proceed, towards Light or Darkness. Even before that, when Pluto and Neptune will be switched on when you’ll be 11 years old, you’ll look into the eyes of your own Death from severe blood loss, but you’ll be given a transfusion and returned back.”

“Then,” the Moon said, stroking my head, “there will be more deaths and ghosts waltzing around you, and people wanting to adopt you, including the sole purpose of getting your parents’ flat. Your summer house, the only link to the Past and to your mother, will be burnt. After that you’ll have a series of tests already regarding Pluto’s men. By the way, the evil aspect of Mars-Pluto is true not only in relation to your father and men, but also to yourself. You’ll become a victim of violence and aggression due to the tendency of your beloved ones to domination, dictatorship and tyranny, you’ll attract executioners and extreme situations with the threat of violent death.”

“We’ve already talked in House No. 8 with Saturn and Uranus about the checking points of the realization of your destiny, do you remember?” the Guardian asked. “The year Saturn enters your House of Death, in the period of Saturn, on the day of Saturn, you’ll get a car crash.”

“Stop! I don’t want to remember that!”

“You have to face the truth,” the Guardian stated. “Whoever follows their own Path doesn’t perish at the crossroads! A year after the accident, you should have in time the surgery according to Pluto. You won’t be stabbed on the surgery table, won’t die from blood loss if…”

“Enough!” I screamed. “In that worst-case scenario, I erased my memory because all these trials cannot be lived out within oneself!”

“Perhaps the worst thing is that I’m hovering right above your Ascendant,” Mars suddenly said, taking my hand, “that is, above your breath of life. In India, such my location is called the axe of karma. The silver thread of your life can be cut off at any moment.”

“As soon as you stray from your Path, Mars-supervisor with Uranus will be there. My soul, your parents are waiting for you on Earth, and we’ll be waiting for you here,” the Guardian hugged me with his wing. “Besides, your Selene is located between Mars and the Ascendant, providing support by the Higher Forces. Your favorite stargazer called the degree of Mars ‘the acrobat performing in front of a large audience’.”

“Balancing on a thin thread over the abyss,” the Moon added. “It’s a symbol of fame, Rukh, but only few people will realize the price you paid for it.”


***
Library of the Universe


In complete desperation, without asking any more questions to the Guardian, but experiencing a brief summary of my future destiny somewhere very deep inside, like Mars in Cancer in the 12th, I reached the Reading Hall and collapsed into a chair. My future “childhood” book flew into my hands and opened at the last story, “From the Looking Glass”, about the long-awaited transition of the main character to the Other World.

“Do I regret it? Probably not. Now I can look out of the looking glass at everyone who remains in the real world. I’ve even learned to exit mirrors anywhere on Earth. To take a walk. But… the other day I went to visit the Man in White. And I wanted so much… to hug him… in an earthly way… with my hands…”


*****AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WELL*****

***
Moscow


“Wow!” Ray exclaimed, looking around the empty walls.

“The ‘Seeking for the Perished’ with a children’s library are still left to go. I’ll ask the icon to move the books and then to join to them. It’s just a pity that…”

“Pity?” Ray hugged me and began to rock me from side to side.

“I can’t take the icon in my hands, press to my heart, as I did being alive. To hug it like my mom.”

“You’ll meet your mother soon,” Ray sighed sadly.

“And you, too, to hug you in an earthly way… with my hands.”

“Nothing,” Ray waved his ghostly hand, “you can hug with your soul, which is much more important.”

“What about the Court?”

“Nothing new. You are a hacker of Matrix! Now it all depends on how much your unfinished business is worth, whether someone else will come to the Court for your sake, and, well, on the abandoned building, but … promise me,” Ray turned me towards him and looked hypnotically into the eyes of my soul, “you will pray for me.”

“Ray, you’re talking like we’ll never see each other again!” I exclaimed. “If I solve the issue with the orphanage today, tomorrow we’ll celebrate my departure, won’t we? I’m scared. It blows cold from that abandoned building.”

“Look at everything that is being shown to you with today’s eyes, always be a step away from yourself in the Past, so as not to merge with the emotions and feelings that were overwhelming you then, and don’t regret anything. You have only one goal to pursue.”

“Which one? How can I formulate it correctly?”

“To let it go, Alice, with ease, without regret, as you instantly forget – and now forever – everyone who flickered in your agonizing consciousness during these 39 days after your death.”


***
Porto Lagos, Greece


I walked over the sea along a narrow bridge to the chapel with a copy of the miraculous icon “Pantanassa”, the original of which is in the Athos monastery of Vatopedi. The Sun was shining. There was no one around. I seemed to be all alone there. I stood by the icon, that was vibrating with energy, thanking the Virgin for help when someone called out to me.

“You are waited for,” an unknown woman said in Russian.

“Me?” I was surprised.

“Yes. The monk who brought the Belt of the Virgin to Moscow loves to communicate with our guests, but today we have not a soul here.”

We entered the Church of St. Nicholas. The monk smiled welcoming me and brought out of the altar relicts with a piece of the Virgin’s Belt, also kept in Vatopedi.

In the refectory, we sat opposite each other at a table with monastic delicacies, the monk carefully looked into my eyes and gestured to start talking. I began to tell him all my life from childhood. Briefly, but going through the painful points, starting with the death of my father, and slowly so that the woman had time to translate. As the story progressed, her eyes widened, and the monk suddenly began to smile. He never interrupted me. When I got to the surgery, the interpreter exhaled heavily, “Oh!” and looked at me with horror, but the smile didn’t leave the monk.

“A friend gave me the icon ‘Pantanassa’, not hand-painted, a usual printed one. I took it with me to the hospital. As well as the belt, I had it at home, put it on and didn’t take it off. Even the surgeon told me not to take it off, so I was operated on for three hours right with the belt. We managed in time. After the surgery, the doctor said that in a couple of days I could have been dead. So I came here to thank ‘Pantanassa’.”

“Who are you?” asked the monk, looking at me with interest.

“Me?”

“Well, yes, you,” he nodded with a kind smile.

“Well… I work at…”

“No,” the monk stopped me with a gesture. “I don’t ask you where you work and what you do there. Who are you? What are you doing on Earth that no one else will do? Why does God purposefully hold you on Earth every time, in spite of so many obvious opportunities for the soul to get out of here?”

“I don’t know the answer to your question. The only thing that comes to mind is that I have been writing since childhood.”

“Writing?” the monk asked in surprise. “What exactly?”

“Poetry and some prose.”

“What is your prose about?”

“Heaven and Another Reality,” I breathed out.

The monk smiled, stood up, crossed me in farewell, blessed, held out two belts as a gift and said,

“God help you, Alice! Write!”


***
Ouranoupoli


“How was your trip to Porto Lagos?” Leah asked.

“Believe it or not, I succeeded to talk to that monk!”

“Did you?” Janis smiled. “I saw you yesterday at the church in Nea Roda at the liturgy. We came with the whole family too. How do you like the Patriarch of Athos? Did you enjoy the chorus?”

“Oh, almost forgotten,” I took out my phone and showed pictures with the manifested creature at the icon “Skoupiotissa”.

“Wow!” Leah exclaimed. “I got goosebumps!”

Janis immediately left for the shop and came back with his father, asking to show him those pictures too, and then translated,

“Father says that God always reveals Himself to those who sincerely believe in Him. Send me these photos, I’ll pass them to the Athos monasteries. They collect such items there.”

***

“So, are you ready?” Dimitra smiled.

“Ready for what?”

“How for what? Have you forgotten? Today we have the Full Moon party! Let’s go, it’s already starting!”

As we rounded the Tower from the pier side, we saw Nikos, from the administration of Ouranoupoli, whose house I lived in, handing out kebabs and sodas.

“Take it, don’t be shy!” Dimitra exclaimed. “Everything is free today! It’s our holiday!”

Chairs were arranged in several rows on the sand right by the sea, and the stage was set up by the Tower wall.

“Celebrities will sing for us today!” Dimitra said proudly, sitting down in the center. “Two bards, a girl and a man, we love them very much, they’re constantly touring with romantic songs. I have their CD!”

I smiled – wow! – the Full Moon and … romances! What else was to expect on Athos? And then celebrities appeared on the stage, spotlights illuminated the Tower and played on it with all sorts of colors to the enchanting singing and guitar accompaniment. To the right, from behind the Holy Mountain, the hero of the occasion, the Moon, looked out and slowly rose higher and higher through the black Sky, dotted with stars.


***
Tower of Ouranoupoli


“I’m scared, Joice … Admit it, is all this just a dream?”

“Maybe Alice. Life can also be called a fleeting dream. What about your unfinished business?”

“Thank God, it worked out! You know, I feel like they are praying for me in Valday. I felt much better after their funeral liturgy.”

“Is it left to take the exam in the abandoned building only?”

“No, I have also to go down to Hell to remember what I did there being alive, and then I can already rest in peace.”

“Is it necessary to go down there to remember?”

“And how, Joice? I’m tormented also by that plastic necklace. If I remember what connects it with me… highly likely, it was somehow precious to me, so…”

“Perhaps,” Joice said evasively.

“I’m very tired. I still hope to wake up tomorrow on Athos for real, you know, even on the day I return home.”

“I hope, Alice, you’ll receive my gift tomorrow.”

“Thank you!” I hugged Joice. “If I do wake up, I promise to write a book about Rukh, in which I’ll definitely tell them about you!”


***
Library of the Universe


“Moony, confess, am I sleeping or not?”

“It depends on the point of view,” the Cat purred, waving the tail from side to side. “Looking from the inside, ‘no’, and from the outside – ‘yes’.”

“I advise you a little work of digging your Self. Better before going to bed, when the door to the Subconscious opens slightly. Write down what comes to mind, as I’m doing now, and read it with a fresh mind. You may find contradictions. Dig into them, they block the fulfillment of wishes. What comes to mind later is more important, because it lies deeper, and the task of digging is to get to the very bottom.”

I LIKE: monasteries, Athos, hand-painted Athos icons, church chanting, Venice, Atlantis, Other Reality and its manifestations in earthly reality; Nikolina Gora, pines, the river, the veranda of the Nikolina Gora cafe; to be myself on the stage without playing, to play in life as children play, to be an eternal child, to watch kind cartoons, to fall in the snow, to rustle with autumn leaves, to chat with flowers, to listen to streams, to believe in fairy tales, to dream; furs, because they are gentle, warm, soothing, like mother; stones, because they are alive and magical, Tarot and so on, as one of the languages of communication with Another Reality; broadcast “What? Where? When?”, “Battle of psychics”, astrology, planets and stars; forest berries and fruits, coffee in the morning, freshly squeezed juice, seafood, cooking on holidays; edit poetry; people: unobtrusive, not ambivalent, without any mask, kind, smart, silent, with alive soul; silence, Mist, bonfires, fireplaces, blizzards; to meditate; to drive a car at high speed with good music; miracles; flowers alive, growing, not in a vase; to get rid of unnecessary things; calm sea, without waves, with a transparent bottom; everything related to design; men, not boys; citrus scents; airplanes flying somewhere forward, but not back, the sound of wheels while travelling by trains, bridges, ancient castles; a sense of security, shell, stone wall; the New Year, to decorate the Christmas tree; caves and mountains, butterflies, cats; justice; to count several steps ahead, to analyze and identify cause-and-effect relationships, to systematize chaos; pyramids; walking around the center, narrow streets, low houses; experiments with Time and Space; Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, poets of the Silver Age; beautiful comfortable things, regardless of their price; family heirlooms, unique items; bright warm rooms, cozy places, like a hole, lanterns; sense of humor; keys; balconies; to love; to have personal space; mage people with accented 8 and/or 12 Spheres; living in general.

I DON’T LIKE (or in some cases I can’t stand): rotten people, traitors, ambivalent, changing their minds and decisions, breaking promises, cowardly, with complexes, pouring their own out on others, materialists, atheists and skeptics who look down on you, even knowing nothing about you, who consider themselves always right, categorically unwilling to face the truth, demonstrating their awards and medals every time they go out, ingratiating and flattering, greedy, boring and annoying; for whom the external is more important than the internal; the absence of Self, amorphous, “dead”; talks on the phone, talking a lot and talking in general; to weep and cry, to show my weakness, to go to the doctors; a combination of black and red, carnations; bills for rent, documents and bureaucratic instances; politics, wars, quarrels; lies, negative energy; drinkers and alcohol, lamb and pork; stupid questions; wide avenues, skyscrapers, elevators; bad words in public places; women with overdozen terrible smells of cheap perfumes; arrogance, ingratitude, people taking something good for granted, freeloaders; unable to say “no”; the spouting of thought, the abundance of words about nothing in texts; circus, zoo; to wait, queues; cold; creaking floorboards; waves in the sea and an opaque bottom; cemeteries, black magic; gossip, intrigue; outerwear without a hood, high heels; when the world collapses; when the servants in the church put out candles, religious fanatics; dim light bulbs in the flat; the web and spiders; aggression, boxing; sex with someone you don’t feel anything for; chaos; when it’s necessary, but not yours; stereotypes and patterns; who knows how to live right; to peep, to peek, to dig into other people’s things and to find out what you don’t need to know; noisy neighbors, lack of air conditioning; verdicts; dead bodies; swamps; prophetic dreams and … when I know what will happen, but I can’t change it.”


***
Hell


The door with the inscription in Latin, saying in translation, “Leave the hope, whoever enters here,” was ajar. I stepped inside but …

“What on earth are you doing here?” grinning and looking at me with curiosity, asked a devil that suddenly appeared in front of me.

“Why is no one here?” I asked in surprise, instinctively squeezing my pectoral cross.

“It’s the Full Moon! Everyone is getting fun on Earth, until the cocks!” he laughed and tickled me with his tail.

“So what are you doing here?”

“I’m guarding so that such ones as you don’t stick their crosses in the absence of ours! Get lost, come on!”


***
The abandoned building, Moscow


The Moonlight Sonata was there. I opened my eyes in a dark corridor with many doors, where indistinct creatures with horns on their heads were scurrying back and forth, clapping with pleasure their hooves as well as occasionally their tails sticking out of ghostly clothes.

I went through the first door and saw Me in the Past, sitting on the floor, surrounded by a mountain of boxes with some papers. They had piled up all the debt documents, which no one there kept a record of, and I was trying to sort the papers alphabetically, in Russian and English, by names of counterparties, both physical and juridical, in order to understand to whom and how much in total we must pay. They all went to another festive event “into the Light”, where they never took me with them, “You should work, Alice, so work!” and “You can’t be shown to anyone, since you have a disgusting character!” However, the two-faced Woman appeared in the room. I heard her voice in the Past, “Don’t leave him! Help him!” She disappeared and returned with a cup of brewed coffee, put it on my table, and then disappeared again.

I opened the second door and saw myself arguing with someone about the draft annual budget. The money planned by the holding company would be clearly not enough for the structure that we were discussing. Suddenly, the devil, arrogantly looking at me from the side, said gloatingly to someone sitting in the center at the table, in response to his question, “What do you think?”,

“I think Alice should be … beaten!”

Me in the Past left the room, slamming the door, and the one with whom I argued, said stunned,

“Don’t you both understand that she’s beating out money for you?”

The voice of the person sitting in the center at the table addressed Me in the Past,

“I will make you CEO, as promised, and hand over this company to you. Just don’t go away and make everything in order here for me. How long will it take you?”

I heard the same voice, addressed to some devil,

“Well, you have to bear with her, she’ll go on vacation, and we’ll get rid of her.”

The Voice… it was that Voice that once had said to me, “Don’t take off your boots!”

The Snake wrapping around the neck of the two-faced Woman hissed,

“Alice is not good with her head! She asked what I had spent the company money on! Me! How many years I had been working, and no one had ever dared to ask where I put your millions! But HE promised me to take her out as soon as she completes the IT program for the holding company.”

The Snake’s phone rang. The Snake crawled away into a secluded corner and whispered in a conspiratorial voice to the caller,

“Let’s go underground! Off work communication only! They suddenly began to count money!”

I entered the next door, where there was a dispute about the program I had been tasked by the shareholders to develop with programmers and implement urgently so that everything became transparent there.

“We lived for a hundred years without any program, working with papers, and nothing happened!” exclaimed an old and big devil subject to be retired, since over the past years he had only been coming to the office to gossip with each of the employees in turn, and then returning home safe and sound.

“Nothing, except the fact that you are bankrupt,” a man clarified.

“Employees are not allowed to work on PC!” another old devil spitted out furiously on the table with his hooves, protecting a warm place for his no less old imp-lover, similarly subject to staff reduction. “We have only one competent specialist who can put the information into the computer! Let the rest continue to work with papers!”

“We live in the 21st century!” Me in the Past exclaimed. “All average people know to work on computers!”

“We don’t want any computers! We want papers!” small imps were squealing, clattering their hooves and showing me their tongues.

The Moonlight Sonata was getting louder. I entered the next room and saw Me in the Past looking through mail messages. I opened the response of the director of production, part-time – someone’s relative, to my letter about permanent defects, reducing the already meager profitability to almost zero, with both shareholders and my subordinates in a copy of the letter, and I read only two words, “Go to Hell!”

The Moonlight Sonata pierced through me, and the Mist appeared in the corridor, but I moved on and saw some man behind the next door. He said to Me in the Past,

“Let me appoint you the general director of the St. Petersburg structure? They won’t allow you to do anything here anyway!”

At that moment, the two-faced Woman entered the room, and I read in her eyes, “Don’t leave him! Help him!”

The Moonlight Sonata was getting louder…

I opened the next door and saw Me in the Past saying,

“I’ve closed almost all your debts. I’ve brought you 20 million.”

“You have a disgusting character,” said the same “boots” Voice. “No one loves you here, for that I’ll punish you cutting your salary by a third. Go and think about your behavior! And then, if you behave well, I’ll buy you a flat as promised.”

“You’ll get rid of me as soon as I finish everything. You promised it to your ‘friends’.”

“Who told you that? You should listen to me only! What nonsense are you talking about! You are unbearable!”

“Your Love told me!”

I read his thoughts, as he swore inside, “How dare she make friends with my Love? How dare my Love tell her that!” While that Woman with the name Love looked at me begging, “Don’t leave him! Help him!”

The Moonlight Sonata was getting louder and louder. The space was doubled. Through the Mist creeping along the dark corridor behind me, the Courtroom was visible, and I saw my parents at the Scales, and my mother telling the judges that I had nursed her before her death. However, I didn’t stop and went forward along the corridor, and saw one of the employees catching me and whispering in horror,

“Have you seen the article?”

“What article?”

“The Snake wrote an article about you in the newspaper! Devastating and, most importantly, with the company’s money!”

At that moment, an imposingly strolling devil, the financial director of the entire holding company, came up to us and, impudently pointing his finger at me, sarcastically said, “You paid off debts, didn’t you?! Did I allowed you, ***, to spend money on paying off debts?! I will *** you ***! Get it!”

The Moonlight Sonata was getting louder, and the Mist was creeping after me, swallowing up all the doors I had already been through. The voices of the monks were heard from the Court. They were reading something, but I couldn’t make out what exactly.

I reached the last door, opened it, and… jumped back out in the hallway, bumping into the two-faced Woman named Love. However, she was not a phantom of my Past, but a soul who, like me, returned to the abandoned building that day.

“Alice! I’m so glad you’ve come!” she whispered and took my hand to enter that room together.

“No, no!” I instinctively stepped back. “I’m not going there!”

“Why?” she asked in surprise.

“There is a… SPIDER!”

The Woman looked at me strangely and peeked into the door.

“Alice, what’s wrong? What spider? There is no spider there! Let’s go, it’s Peter!”

“Peter?” I exclaimed in surprise. “Who is Peter?”

“Alice, why? It’s my twin brother!”

The Mist arrived to my feet, it pushed me through that door. I closed my eyes, stepped inside and saw… Hippo… He sat at the table eating mushrooms, while the giant Spider was drenching him with the venom.

“Ah, it’s you, Alice,” Hippo said in that same “boots” Voice. “Take, eat an apple, my sister has bought them today.”

“Why do you eat mushrooms?” Me in the Past asked him sadly.

“They allow me to become someone else. Once I turned into a giant panther!”

“Have you seen the article?”

“What article?”

I stood at the window watching Me in the Past put a newspaper in front of him. Having read, he became furious and threw it away.

“It’s not your business to read newspapers!” he yelled.

“So do you think it’s okay?”

“You are unbearable!” he shouted with hatred adding to himself, “I’m so sick of you!”

He hated me just for the fact that I existed, got up from the table, walked around the room nervously, then took something out of the drawer of the table and contemptuously threw to Me in the Past, almost in my face, with disdain,

“Take it! For your birthday!”

Standing at the window “here and now”, I saw that very plastic necklace! I started laughing. An instant insight connected the individual fragments into the single picture. I came up to Me in the Past and said with sadness,

“What are you doing here? Among these people, Alice? In this swamp? Don’t you remember the pain this man caused you years ago when you didn’t want to live? In London, turning the Time back, you dreamed of returning another man. But Peter was sent back to you not to step on the same rake. Why did you trust him again? Don’t you know what happens next? Scanning options of the Future, you repeatedly smelled his Death and hacked the already launched chain, or, if it hadn’t yet started, tracked its launch point, the point of no return, in order to turn the person at the right moment into option B, C, D, E and so on, avoiding his entry into option A. You did your best to guide the man through his Labyrinth of Destiny in the narrowest corridors, without touching his Matrix. But why did you change your own? Knowing the program codes, you rewrote them at the point of no return, and your Matrix worked according to someone else’s scenario. While saving a person from death, you automatically destroyed your Future, lost what you could have received, and the one you had to lose anyway, since in other versions you were not together. You believed in the great power of Love that moves mountains, and in elementary human gratitude, you spent a lot of energy in nowhere, shortening your own life, instead of taking just one step to the side. You cannot change him, Alice. He is that kind of a person. Not yours. He’ll publicly betray you three times and call you again to make another project, swearing to leave it to you then, but he’ll gladly re-gift it to the next easy girls, as soon as you launch the project, and pass you on to his son, as one passes on things by inheritance. He has already promised you so much and will promise afterwards, but all you’ll get in reality is this plastic necklace. You could have been a brilliant programmer, Alice, but you’ve become just one of the Matrix’ hackers.”

His twin sister with the beautiful name Love who had been watching us from the side, came up to me and said hugging,

“In that book, you wrote that once you had descended into Hell to find him and forgive him, but you couldn’t do it. Forgive him, Alice! Please forgive him!”

The Moonlight Sonata was sounding louder and louder. I heard the voices of the monks in the Court, reading out some lists. I walked up to Hippo, and the giant Spider clang to him with his furry paws.

“You couldn’t help betraying me, Peter. God allowed you to do that for my own good and only because I was not able to step aside from you. You are not guilty of anything.”

The Spider suddenly crooked and disappeared, and I saw… the handle on the windowsill! The very one! Yes! From my window sash! I went up to it, remembered the elder monk in Valday, and mentally turned to the Iverskaya Virgin Mary, “Please, pass the handle to him!”

At the same moment, the door to the room opened wide, and I saw… Boy the Lawyer.

“Hi, dad,” he greeted Peter. “Hello, Alice.”

Peter unleashed his anger on his son, and the Boy went away.

“Don’t touch him, he is good,” Me in the Past said to Peter.

He calmed down and went on eating mushrooms.

“By the way, my granddaughter’s name is Alice,” Peter said, “a girl of Another Reality too!”

The cries of the first roosters were heard outside the window. The Mist absorbed the entire room and me along with it. All I heard then was the Moonlight Sonata and the voices of the monks in the Court listing my numerous donations to churches for the eternal commemoration of my sinful soul … I returned home, into the room full of things, found the plastic necklace, and mentally turn to Saint Alexandra,

“Pass it on to Alice, please. As a memory of her grandfather.”