Remembering her extraordinary gift, the girl decided to try to set fire to her brother. If she succeeds, she will quickly heal him with the help of her own homemade jelly. But her magic turned out to be invisible, like herself. A fireball the size of a tennis ball flew through Kostya’s chest, and then through the monitor, and then went out completely, hitting the wall.
– Cool! – Alina smiled to herself. – Invisible fire is an original thing, isn’t it?
Two days ago she would not have started making such jokes, but now she had no time for that. Well, at least someone would have noticed and understood that she was alive, but no: her brother is killed and thinks that she is no longer in the world.
The girl was offended and went into her room through the wall. What’s wrong with that? If slippers do not fit on your feet, then why not overcome fifteen centimeters of concrete rock? She imagined that the wall was parting in front of her, and… she succeeded!
When Alina was five years old, she kept asking her mother: what was there in the thick walls. Mom answered that the brownies lived there, and there was no point in disturbing them. Now, when she grew up, she saw with her own eyes – nothing special: grayness, dust and not a single poltergeist.
It’s good to be dead. From time to time. You go wherever you want. But how terrible it is when no one sees you, and you cannot turn on the light in the room, put on your shoes and simply pick up a telephone receiver or an automatic pencil.
The girl, looking doomedly at the writing utensils, sank into her favorite chair, covered with terracotta leatherette, and lay her head on the glass of the desk. Solid, which means that if she wants objects to be impassable for her incorporeal form, they will become so. It turns out that slippers can be made to fit on your feet.
And then the girl’s gaze stopped on an object that she did not leave on the table when she left for work on the day of her death. No, it wasn’t a deck of cards, or a half-written gel pen, or even a notebook with notes in the «family accounting» style, which she hid in a drawer under lock and key. Alina could not afford this item because of its high cost.
In front of her lay a bright green plane ticket. She looked at him questioningly for a long time, until finally she dared to extend her hand to him and… take it! Strange but true! She managed to hold the ticket in her hands, which, by the way, is heavier than a pen! She forced him to submit to her will! Progress in disembodied life!
Having overcome her shock, the girl finally turned away the cover and looked at her own name printed as a red carbon copy. Airplane ticket from Novosibirsk to Moscow, business class. Someone wealthy was waiting for Alina in the capital. In Sheremetyevo. If this unknown person paid that kind of money and slipped a ticket, then it was necessary. One logical question arose – how to get on the plane if no one sees you with a ticket at check-in.
It’s good that the girl noticed this sign of attention to her person in time. Departure is in three hours. We urgently need to go to the airport. She folded the ticket in half and put it in the back pocket of her skirt, because there was nowhere else to go, because a jacket or jacket would hardly have given in to the girl’s will, which had not yet strengthened after the shock.
There’s nothing you can do – Kostya will have to suffer. He had already realized the fact that his beloved sister was no more. Of course, my brother will be incredibly happy if Alina returns. But how can she establish this? Perhaps the mysterious stranger who placed the ticket on the girl’s table will be able to take her back to the world of the living. Therefore, you need to go towards your destiny and what cannot be avoided.
The girl tried to take something writing to scribble a short note on paper for her twin brother. The pen even obeyed her will, but as soon as she tried to write the first letter, it became clear that she would not succeed. No matter how much she tried to concentrate, the text she had written immediately disappeared from the page. And after the third attempt, instead of her scribbles, a strange note in broken Russian appeared on the paper:
Alina, don’t try to write your brother. Alina reject the first layer. Alina should be on the second layer. Alina should try. I’m waiting for Alina in Moscow. Sheremetyevo. Terminal number two.
What would that mean? The girl stared attentively at the scribbles. Nothing other than fate. You need to go to understand all these first and second layers. Something told her that no one took her life, and what happened to her was not death at all, but, most likely, a banal departure to another world in the best traditions of fantastic fairy tales.
Although she lived in the center of Novosibirsk, it was still far from the airport. The girl, of course, did not want to walk down the street barefoot, so she began to hypnotize the shoes so that they would fit on her feet.
Oddly enough, Alina’s witchcraft abilities, which Alina spent only on everyday fireballs, did not fail, and within ten minutes a satisfied girl, wearing two different shoes, was leaving the entrance of her house. Yes, yes, the shoes that nevertheless obeyed the will of the deceased turned out to be from completely different pairs: the left red sandal with a low heel was put on the right foot, and the right black autumn boot with a five-centimeter stiletto heel was put on the left.
Walking like this turned out to be not very comfortable, but the shoes did not want to come off in order to change places. After the unsuccessful trick, the girl completely refused to wear the jacket, afraid that she would have to walk around the city in fifteen degrees of heat in a sheepskin coat or a down jacket with a rabbit collar.
How unusual it turns out to be, to be out of this world and walk through the city. The sensations are completely indescribable – the wind passes through you, and you absorb its chill with every internal organ: your heart, liver, lungs… You can never feel this in the normal state of a living person. The rustling of leaves now caresses not only the ear, but the whole body, but this makes it restless and uncomfortable. Probably, in winter the organs also freeze, Alina thought.
The girl easily jumped into the minibus moving at full speed. It must be so interesting to live among those who don’t notice you. People are sitting in armchairs, looking out the windows, admiring the same cityscapes for the hundredth time, and she stands right in front of them, straightening her skirt, as if someone would examine the color of an invisible woman’s underwear. She was about to put her hand in her pocket to get the money for the fare, but then she realized: after all, now she is a hare in law! An idiot’s dream come true!
But invisible ones can also cause her legs to become numb, especially when she is wearing shoes with different heels. All she could think about was how to conjure the same shoes that were put on correctly. The girl could barely wait until she was able to get out of the minibus. The legs, although deprived of the opportunity to be visible to everyone, refused to obey and constantly ached. Pain is good, they hurt, that means they exist.
Alina stood in front of the entrance to the airport and wondered how she would be allowed on the plane with an invisible ticket. And anyway, where is the logic of the inviter? If she can walk through a wall, then she can find herself on a plane without an expensive ticket. Why spend so much money? Or did the caller buy it while she was alive, that is, visible?
She took the ticket out of her pocket and walked up to the metal detector at the entrance and began to carefully examine what was printed on the document for a living person named Alinka.
– Why do I need him? – the girl muttered under her breath. – For what?
