“It’s impossible to fall in love with such an assistant – your Dougal is definitely a cracker,” I voiced the logical conclusion.
Charlotte waved my hand again, turning off the light in the bathroom.
– And now – to the kitchen. I’ll teach you how to quickly prepare breakfast and make coffee.
To the pulpit Charlotte me – or us? – delivered five minutes before the start of the working day. Dougal was already here, and I stared with greedy curiosity at my intended betrothed. He, however, was almost entirely hiding behind an unfolded newspaper – it seemed German. All she could see was the burning black top of her head and her long, ringless fingers. Moreover, Charlotte immediately retorted:
– Don't look so closely. Say hello and run to sort out the mail. Come on, "good morning, Professor Norwood"!
“Good morning, Professor Norwood,” I repeated like a parrot and ran to the table on which was piled an uneven stack of newspapers, letters and parcels. If this is mail in one day, how does he still manage to teach?!
“Suspicious punctuality,” this doctor-professor muttered under his breath. He didn’t even raise his head from the newspaper. – I'm waiting for a package from the Munich Academy, look.
“Look,” Charlotte ordered. -Can you identify the German?
– I…
– Answer mentally.
“I know a little German.”
– Fine. Search.
The voluminous package was found in the very middle of the stack – judging by the weight and format, two or three rather thick magazines. Under Charlotte's guidance, she also selected several letters from regular correspondents. I put it on the professor's desk. She paused slightly – now, although from an unfortunate angle, it was possible to see her face.
Well, nothing special. A man is like a man. About thirty years old, probably. Too pale to be a hot brunette – maybe he doesn’t stick his nose out at all? Clean shaven, neat – and I already imagined a classic “mad genius”, always disheveled and unkempt. He suddenly looked up from the newspaper and looked up at me. Dark, even scary.
– If you need something, tell me quickly. Don't loom.
Zar-r-raza!
– I wanted to remind you that the first couple… – “Charlotte! Who is our first couple? Fast!" “Healers, first course,” she prompted. I picked up: “Healers, first year.” If you have something important…
– When I fall into insanity, you will be the first to know about it. In the meantime, please get down to business.
"Hopelessly!" – I said with feeling, almost shying away from his table. Contrary to my expectations, Charlotte remained silent.
Until the end of the working day – and this, by the way, is four couples, plus a long lunch break, and several hours of consultations after! – I heard exactly three more phrases from him. “Send this by express mail.” “No, and stop distracting me already!” – in response to the offered coffee. And “Don’t forget to close the door,” to my “Goodbye, Professor Norwood.”
“What was that all about? – I asked Charlotte, going out into the street and exposing my face to the cold evening wind. – Something like “Get out of my sight”? Or a hint that without direct instructions I’m not even able to close the door?”
– He doesn't like open doors. And that Charlotte didn’t like closed ones. Well… – she seemed to think, – sometimes it’s better to have at least some kind of reaction than total indifference. That's what it seemed to me.
“I'm sorry, friend. About indifference. Familiar." “I tried to let my hair down, but the hairstyle, held together by magic, did not budge.
“Don’t think,” prompted Charlotte, “Just believe that it will work out.”
I wanted to say that it’s not so easy to believe if you never… but while I was looking for words, suddenly it really happened. As if by itself.
The wind caught the freed strands and tangled them. Fine! How tired your head is from pulled hair! And why was it necessary to collect them in a bundle if throughout the whole day I didn’t even see a single potion that I could hypothetically ruin?
– You'll see again. You have not yet been to his personal academic laboratory, nor to the general student laboratory.
I've never been anywhere before! The first day of seven passed – it was like falling into an abyss. Into the abyss. I sat with my nose in the mail, again running through the mail and the schedule. At lunch, when the professor had gone somewhere, I secretly looked at the magazine he had left on the table. The same one from Munich. A bunch of chemical formulas, half a page each. I very hesitantly identified the simplest of them as “some kind of horror from organic chemistry,” but mostly there was “some kind of basically unknowable horror.”
“A couple of dozen people in the world will fully understand this,” said Charlotte. – Not more. Higher magic applied to elixirs.
A day to nowhere. A day in which there was not even time to think about the almost hopeless quest “mutual love in a week.” And it’s good that it wasn’t found. Because now I understand very clearly that I want to live. I want it unbearably. Much stronger than I thought before. After all, what really matters is not that the only thing waiting at home is the neighbor’s cat! But this wind, which Charlotte probably no longer feels. Distant Sydney, which seems to remain an unfulfilled dream. A million everyday unnoticed little things that turn out to be significant when you lose them. A life where you can dream about the future, plan or just wait, knowing for sure that you have it. A present, long and preferably happy future, not a measly six days and one evening!
And a new world, full of wonders – I’ve only, one might say, looked through a crack, I haven’t seen anything yet, but I already want to get comfortable here and figure it out! Magic. Real magic, not faked by scammers. One step – and you are even in another city, even on the other side of the world! No crowding in the subway, no fear of plane crashes. A couple of waves of your hand – and order is in your head and in your house. What then can be created with really serious effort?!
The snatches of conversations that were snatched out of my ear – at lunch, in the dining room, and between couples while I was running around changing the schedule – turned out to be almost completely incomprehensible to me. They discussed the features of some phases in some rituals, and whether they change when Latin is replaced by Greek or Sanskrit. They complained about the failure of the harvest of some creeping rotten plants – honestly, I would not be upset about the failure of something with such an unappetizing name! They complained about Professor Krushanski, who failed almost the entire group in the test – this misfortune would have been quite understandable if not for the topic of the test: “The influence of seismic activity of magical territories on the development of the population of ordinary sensoria.” What is this sensory? Does it have anything to do with sensors or just sounds similar? Charlotte, overhearing my bewilderment, explained mysteriously:
– Dr. Krushanski is a leading expert on population dynamics, but his theory of seismic stability control is considered by many to be unproven.
“You have a medical academy? – I was surprised. “What does population and especially seismic activity have to do with it?”
“Sensory,” Charlotte explained. – A rare and valuable ingredient, found only in seismically unstable areas. Foretells earthquakes, eruptions and other cataclysms by explosive reproduction. That is, Krushanski thinks so. He invites all those who disagree to settle somewhere on the slope of Krakatoa or Mauna Loa and check it out personally.
In short, there would be enough new interesting topics in this world for me to last for years and years. ? here…