and stupefied the brain. Can anything be more beautiful than bread on the street, in the open air? And this bread was warm, warmed by my cousin's body! I tasted it warmly, and my grief gradually began to recede. I really don't know what the magic is about. But until the evening we even exchanged a few words and at dusk we returned to the house together. The next day, she came again and with a mysterious smile fished out a bundle from behind his bosom. There was a tortilla, boiled meat, eggs and a flask of flower wine, which is drunk like dew, but spinning like a blossoming lilac.

I tasted the treats, and then he began to talk about his stay in the house, about himself, and ... about my mom. It turns out that they were very friendly and Jose spent the last couple of years in her mother’s library, reading her numerous books written both by the authors of this world and by people of a bygone civilization. And he talked so vividly: about what he had read, about the far-fetched, about conversations with my mother - his aunt, that the embers of his black eyes began to shine and shine like agate pebbles, crimson youthful lips quivered on his ruddy and still hairless face, and the eastern breeze stirred up dandelion of his dark curls.

This is how we became close, having felt the kinship of souls, and despite the gulf of years between us. Despite the fact that we were cousins, he respectfully called me aunt Annette, and I was amused and anxious about these words. He asked a lot about my travels, studies, worlds and countries where I visited. About star clusters in the sky and other worlds beyond the night. About people and nations, their traditions and cuisine. About nature and wars. And it was so easy for me to communicate with him that a stream of words just flowed out of me. And every night, falling asleep, I waited in the morning with trepidation to meet again with my young cousin, who, after her mother's death, shone with a bright candle in the cold darkness of my family nest.

And so, turning over, in the rocking car, under the dimensional melt-out in the window of roadside lamps, those who gathered in the estate, I thought about Jose, and for some reason my heartbeat accelerated, and my cheeks suddenly burned hot. With thoughts about the hours again spent in the company of Jose, I fell asleep.

Wilston Station — the northernmost point of the tracks — greeted me with a cold, bone-breaking wind and a low fat sky. At the station, I was greeted by an aging Clarice: the hair of the raven's color, which had always been combed and tied, and now with silver threads, had a gray hair, a nervous smile on pale lips that didn’t recognize lipsticks, a sharp look on faded eyes and a pea on the cheek, and yet she was nice, so I wouldn't grumble about her there! We embraced and she firmly pressed me to her thin, almost chestless body.

“Ah, dear Annette, you are all blooming and blooming and fragrant, like a wild rose, among sharp, lifeless rocks.” - Her voice was unexpectedly singing and completely contradicted the ugly appearance.

- Hello Clarice. You also look wonderful, cheerful and fresh.

- Oh, sister, do not flatter me, I still remember what a mirror is and I see what the years spent in Arston are doing to me.

“Do you know why we were called?”

- Not. Grandma spends much of her time locked up, communicates with us with rare notes through her servant Martha. But you know, she is an Elder, and we cannot fail to do her will. That's why they called all of you.

- How many guests are expected?

“I'm afraid the greatness of the Arston clan has passed.” Only a handful of old men remained. The rest either broke contact with the Family, or disappeared beyond the Seventh Hill. All hope is only on you, the young, on you, on Jose, on Elvi.

Clarice was right. The once mighty clan, which for two centuries had restrained the invasions of the northerners on these lands, dried up.

We, the younger generation of the Family, those who could produce offspring, and continue the Arstona race, are left very few.I, for example, was too keen on my beginnings, travels and scientific works, and I was too accustomed to a free life to let someone in for a long time, so I had no desire to acquire family and offspring.

When Chuck, the lame driver, loaded the suitcases and boxes with my luggage and clothes into the motor-carriage, Clarice and I sat down on the creaking seat behind us and rumbled the mover along the winding mountain road home. Gray dull landscapes, familiar to me from childhood and bringing a nostalgic smile, rushed through the window. The castle seemed from afar, as if the impregnable guard had stood among the sharp peaks of the rocks, scarcely covered with low-growing shrubs of the blossoming dog-rose.

The first thing that I saw, as soon as the auto-cart drove into the courtyard of the castle, was Jose. At the north wall, naked to the waist, he chopped firewood — such huge chocks — with a no less huge ax, and resembled an outlandish barbarian from Dreadful Book Stories of my mother's library.

- Jose! Jose! - I cried, barely got out of the stroller, ignoring the footman's helpfully outstretched hand and rushed to him in full agility, holding skirts tangling under my feet.

An ax with a crunch fell on another log, half of which scattered to the sides, like chips and a young man, turning to me, flashed in a smile with snow-white teeth.

- Cousin! Aunt Annette! - he spread his arms, not at all embarrassed by his naked torso, covered with pearl beads of sweat. And I ran into his chest with a run, and he, picking up, easily pulled me off the ground, and began to circle in the air, laughing loudly. My hands lay down on the moist skin of his back, under which my muscles bulged, the tart smell of his body suddenly turned my head like a glass of flower wine.

When he finally put me on the ground, I had to lower my eyes for a while in order to calm the trembling in my knees, and, having coped with the emotions, I sneaked a glance at him and looked at him softly:

- Hello cousin. I am glad to meet you!

- Aunt Ann! I'm so glad to see you! I have so much to tell you! Come quickly to the house! Let's drink tea! I'll help carry your stuff upstairs. - The young man threw a thick knitted sweater over himself, hiding his muscular body under it and removing the footman, he himself easily picked up his suitcases and walked to the main entrance. Only now I realized where I was, and, glancing around at the gray cold castle, mentally greeted him, my homeland. No matter how, but I missed him. In the last upper window of the northern part of the castle I saw a pale spot. The old woman Izergeys watched from him all the time, her thin wrinkled lips pressed together.

Contrary to the external coldness of the castle, inside he greeted me with warmth, comfort and bright light. The dark-skinned maid Lucretia in a flawless snow-white apron restrained me at the door, bowed her head, and I just took and hugged her, leaning against the soft hot cheek of a woman who had raised more than one generation of Arsten on her hands.

The fireplace burned in the living room. By the fire in his favorite chair sat rosy-cheeked Borys and curved his full lips in a smile. The remaining hair bundles covered his balding head, and his stomach, it seems, became even larger, could barely fit on round knees. In his thick, yellowed fingers, he held a thin pipe, exuding the fragrant aroma of Polvandsky tobacco.

- Hello Annette!

- Hello Boris!

He wanted to get up, which would have been difficult for him, so I hurriedly approached him, and with a gesture I sat back down in a chair, leaned over and kissed my cousin on the cheek.

- How did you get, girl?

- Well! Locomotives are very fast now and can take you from south to east or west to north with the speed of a swift, rushing in late autumn to the southern seas.

Beris released a cloud of gray smoke and smiling looked at me with good-natured, cunning eyes.

- We read your last works and books. You are now a big man in Society. But you're still the same naughty girl Ennci with forever tangled braids and broken ... Read more →