not?!
– I don’t think so, because I can’t. “The girl floated right out of the wall, seemingly the same, white and translucent, but her voice sounded different. Smooth, muted, without hysterical notes. Otherworldly or something. It was completely freezing. – You won't come back.
– How can I not return? Why?! “I started to think wildly about everything at once: about the charlatan witch who probably had a hand in this outrage, and the ticket to Sydney bought last week. ? unfinished projects and materials not delivered on time, even about brazen red-haired Alice, whom she promised to feed and brush while Mrs. Wilburn sunbathed on the beach in Brighton.
– Wrong paths, dark, forgotten. They accepted the victim and closed. For good.
–What sacrifice? “I wanted to scream, but instead I squeezed out a barely audible whisper, because I already understood: I am the victim. The real one.
“I,” the girl seemed to echo. -You are still alive, but I am not.
– But if I’m alive, I need to be brought back to myself!
– Stupid. You are alive – here. In my body, but the body is not the main thing. You are still you.
– And you? “Somehow I immediately, instantly forgot my own irritation and indignation, giving way to acute, unusually painful sympathy.
– Not anymore. Time is lost, the paths are closed, the ritual is completed. The connection with the body is severed. If you hadn’t been pulled into it, a body would have been found here in the morning.
– What am I supposed to do?
It's not like I was expecting an answer. It seems clear and so – accept the situation and move on. But they gave me the answer, yes what!
– You must cheat fate. Bypass the curse, otherwise it will take two more lives.
– Wait! – I grabbed my head and shuddered, feeling thick wavy curls instead of the usual short haircut. – Wait, not so fast. You were talking about a ritual, not a curse! About the love spell ritual, I remembered an important detail. – A love spell can, of course, be considered a curse, but somehow… conditionally? More philosophically than…
“The one I was before was mistaken,” apparently, the ghost was tired of listening to my helpless babble. – Interfered with something that should not be interfered with. She called upon the wrong forces, spoke the wrong words. I'm sorry. I try to help. Now I see more, much more. I know something I never knew.
–What kind of curse?
– For love. You have a week. He does too. If there is no love, there will be no life. Both of you.
– I have?
“This body,” the ghost seemed to shrug. – So, you have it. And Dougal. And he didn’t even know about anything.
– Dougal is someone else… Is he even someone? Did I understand you correctly, did you cast a love spell on him? And now he has to fall in love with me?
“He’s into you, and you’re into him.”
– What if I don’t like him?
– You will die. Both. And guess what? – the ghost’s hair suddenly stood up, and he himself seemed to be filled with an otherworldly, deathly light. – If he dies, I won’t forgive you for this! I will find it even after death.
“Look,” I stood up and shook off my robe. – Don’t forgive yourself first. You started all this, not me. But I want to live, so let’s hope that I like your Dougal. At least a little.
– He was never mine. The one I was before… I'm sorry, I really am. The usual stupidity, an argument with girlfriends, a desire to please everyone, even him. No feelings except pride and selfishness.
– Yes… Well, you and… – You can’t even find words for this!
– If it could be fixed… But what’s done is done.
– What is your name? Or now me?
“Charlotte,” the ghost flew very close. – Charlotte Blair. Now it's time to get out of here. I'll show you everything you need. You can occupy the house, I grant you permission. Take a name, a job…
– Stop, stop, stop, who do you work for?
– Assistant to the Doctor of Magical Chemistry and Pharmacy, Head of the Department of Potions and Elixirs, Professor Dougal Norwood. The same one.
– Who should I fall in love with?
“And achieve reciprocal love,” Charlotte reminded. – You will understand how difficult this task is. He is not a very pleasant person to talk to. Genius, in a word.
– And I don’t even understand ordinary chemistry, much less pharmaceuticals. Not to mention… wait! Magical?! Where did I end up anyway? Is this still Earth? – Obviously, yes, since the ghost bears the quite ordinary name Charlotte, and there are Latin letters on the keychain. But magic?!
– Of course, Earth. England, if you want to be more precise. Panacea Academy.
– On the Earth that I know, magical chemistry does not exist in principle!
– ? here – exists.
– So, not Earth. Or a parallel world, but what difference does it make? In my opinion, both are impossible. Well, you… did a ritual! I should have my hands torn off for this.
“Who I was died for this.”
– What should I do? That idiot you were is your own fault, and what does it have to do with me?! – for some reason, the inability to return to my home, at least in someone else’s body, to feed Alice, to finish my work, and at least to catch my breath from all this nonsense, sitting in my favorite chair, hit me more painfully than the threat of death just a week later. The final verdict…
– And you were not in your world when everything happened, and without a body, by the way. So call it what you want – fate or an unfortunate coincidence, nothing will change. But this is also your fault. Don't look where you shouldn't. Especially if you are not prepared for this.
– So-so… So, that witch after all… killed me, or what?!
– Nobody killed you. I don't know what you used to call it. Astral travel, perhaps. That witch… I can't reach from here. I wanted to prove you wrong. But you didn't want to listen. And having found herself in a world beyond your understanding, she behaved like… I don’t know, the paths were closed. The ritual brought you here. And let's get back to what's important. What happened has already happened.
– Oh yes. And now I have a week to avoid completely dying. – I had to try to focus on the “important”. – In short, we settled on the fact that an assistant to a professor, and even more so a genius, I would be like a ballerina out of an elephant. “I sighed and admitted the main thing: “I understand even less about love than I do about chemistry.” Unless, of course, you take into account the unhappy and unrequited one. Maybe it's easier to quit right away? To spend the last week of my life in revelry, to fly to Sydney… I've been wanting to for a long time… is there Sydney in this world?
– Eat.
