THE MYSTERY CITY

CHAPTER 6

“ Sorry, the library is closed today !” - he hung a sign on the door as soon as he got to work, and went to wash. The day promised to be long.

The mirror reflected a man even more haggard and tormented than Thomas had been before he remembered everything. He looked like a scrawny, disheveled sparrow, just as pitiful and weak in appearance.

Quick change of clothes, quick breakfast. Saying aloud everything he remembered to check that all the memories were in place, he reminded himself of a city madman. Crazy look, crazy look... but today he will ask the younger witch everything.

A glass of strong coffee, a sweet donut bought at the earliest-opening confectionery, and Alex quietly walked towards the Tea Shop. The girl should be taken by surprise so that she does not have time to come up with a plausible explanation or grab her tea. There was only one street to cross before the shop when a girl in a sky-blue dress jumped out into the street and skipped across the park area towards the forest. A little behind, Alex followed, mentally noticing that she could not see a comfort zone on the street.

The girl was walking along the edge of the forest, approaching almost the very border between the city and the Circus, when Alex resolutely called out to her.

“Oh, good morning, Mr. Thomas,” she greeted, embarrassed, putting on a friendly smile on her face with a slight hesitation, “they caught me on a truant, it turns out!”

- Got it, that's for sure! He nodded grimly, moving closer to her.

— Mr Thomas?

The smile instantly disappeared from Miss Hope's face, replaced by fear, which Alex could not help but rejoice at. It's time for his questions.

- Well, so, Fox, tell me why you poisoned me?

Bright warm day. Edge of the forest. Gentle rays of the sun pleasantly warm the skin. The breeze sways through the leaves. The long green grass rustles lightly. Nothing frightening. Except for the ominous silence.

All the air seemed to be knocked out of the girl. There was real panic in his eyes as they filled with tears, his hands were trembling and every muscle was tense. Alex waited for her reaction with grim delight, noticing that the attractive face of the girl, upon closer inspection, was as pale and haggard as his own. He remembered her not so pale, not so skinny, and not so tormented. The city did not spare her.

— Yes that would you, Alex! she suddenly shouted angrily, in her hearts kicking aside the first stone that came across. - But why….?!

Now Alex froze, dumbfounded at the transformation of the sweet smiling Miss Hope into the furious, like a fury, Fox, the best friend since childhood. In the past, the girl rarely lost her temper, always radiating positive, but she also had her limits of patience. However, she had never reached such a degree of anger. Especially in an instant. All her negativity was always expressed only by a short gloomy silence.

“Why did you have to climb in and sniff it all out?! Why was everything broken? Who will be better off from this truth of yours? she spat, menacingly pacing the edge of the forest. - You? To me? Charlie? Maybe Zoey?

- Why?! Are you serious?! - he threw off his stupor, immediately turning to a scream. - Ay, Fox, you yourself saw this city at night! Monsters! What about during the day? Zombie people and I was one of them! Was, do you hear! Why, as soon as I started to remember how you yourself gave me your hypnotea to drink! And now, when I remembered everything, did I break something else there ?! How is this to be understood?

- He remembered everything! she mocked him caustically. - And what did you remember? As promised, that you will reconcile? As assured that you will accept a new personality and will try to forget the past? Or did you remember the reason why we are here? Something I can’t believe, because if you really remember everything , you would only be angry with yourself!

The echo carried her voice across the edge of the forest. The rising breeze, noisily stirring up the grass, seemed to agree with the girl's indignation.

“Come on, I’ll help you remember to the end, since there’s no turning back,” she suggested when he fell silent in confusion. “Tell me, Alex, where is Zoe?” Where is our friend?

“She…” he hesitated. "He and Charlie aren't here?"

The fox shook her head as she took a couple of steps back in search of something. All her anger instantly vanished, giving way to bitterness in every movement. Unsettling suspicions began to swirl in Alex's head, fueled by scraps of memories he could not yet put together in the right order. Something seen in the dark that cannot be seen. A state of depression that escalates over time to overwhelming hopelessness. Tragedy in Istanbul. A long dark road lit only by high beam headlights. Doom.

The girl, meanwhile, found a branch and wrote something on the ground at the roots of the tree, enclosing the inscription in a rectangular frame. The guy came closer.

Iseult Amelia Nixon. Beloved daughter and faithful friend.

Alex was chilled. A few words brought him back to that day .

Clear morning. Saturday. There is not a cloud in the sky, although for such an event there must be a suffocating darkness and a wall of rain. A small group of people gathered at the cemetery. Mostly just close relatives, and there are three of them. Zoe didn't have any more friends. She is being buried today. A very young girl. The youngest of the four. The coffin is closed.

Zoe's parents sit and stare at the coffin with impenetrable stone faces. None of the family is crying. Someone has grief on their faces, and someone sadly counts the time in order to return to everyday life as soon as possible. Only Fox is crying. The sedative she drank the day before had no effect on her, and the girl, trembling with small tremors, cannot calm down. Charlie tries to help, but neither his words nor hugs are successful, she gets worse. There is a threat in the air. This funeral is just the beginning. Soon all four of them will lie underground.

“Together for life. Together to die! - comes to Alex's mind, and he realizes that he was not mistaken with the suffocating darkness, but he did not incarnate in the weather, but settled in his thoughts.

“I need to say condolences to Mrs. Nixon,” he mutters uncertainly as the priest speaks some words at the coffin of his best friend.

“Mrs. Nelson,” Charlie corrects him mechanically, without opening his arms, in which he cradled the trembling Fox. “She didn't change her maiden name, make no mistake, we don't want to turn the funeral into a farce.

- We do not want! Alex echoes and heads towards Zoe's parents.

For the trinity, at least something needs to be said. And then ... then you will need to think about how to survive yourself.

“What an irony, our parents ran away from their provincial town to start over with a clean slate. But Zoey still brought their ancestors to this land to be buried in the cemetery of Saintfour! - thought Alex, emerging from the memories.

Lisa stood next to him and looked at him with a sad look. Rummaging through his memory, the guy remembered her smile when she pretended to be Miss Hope, and realized how much pain she hid in her, looking at him.

"Funeral," he said softly. The girl nodded.

The sunny day no longer seemed so joyful. The mood to knock the truth out of the girl has disappeared somewhere. At some point, it seemed that all the events of the Nightingale City were a feverish delirium caused by the loss of a best friend. Everything lost its meaning and plunged into a fog of third-rate importance. Just the edge of the forest, just Alex and his girlfriend Fox. They are just trying to get over the loss together and sort out the confusion that is going on in their thoughts. Overcoming the distance separating them, Alex hugged his friend. The girl sighed and hugged him.

Anger vanished without a trace. Only sadness remained. For friends and past life. Holding the thin girl close to him, breathing in the scent of her hair, Alex for the first time doubted his desire to know what had happened. Already opened fragments of the past did not please. The frightened behavior of the Foxes, which began to look no longer as an act of aggression against him, but as an attempt to protect friends from ... what?

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"What if, after learning everything, I lose the Foxes... never find Charlie or we all join Zoey?" he shuddered, listening to his friend's heartbeat.

The hugs did not break, there was not a gram of vulgarity or romantic flair in them, only two loneliness that finally found each other and simply did not want to let go.

“Tell me everything, better without hiding,” he finally said, pulling away, “in this half-truth, I can mess things up.” It is better to know everything, and then think about what to do.

The girl sighed heavily, her eyes flashed emerging tears, but she found the strength to smile.

- The story will be long. Better if you guide me with questions.” She sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree and gestured for her friend to join.

Alex sat across from her friend, wondering where to begin. After a short pause, he decided to start from the end.

“Let’s start with you, why do you remember everything, but I ... and not only me, but the whole city, in oblivion?”

“Ridiculous answer: I don’t know it myself,” Lis shrugged. This city is a strange place. Something like a refuge for all the damned and outcasts. In a word, for everyone who has no place in the normal world. Everyone gets here for different reasons and in different ways. We just drove down the highway to nowhere, lost, cursed, and almost branded on everyone's face with the words "you're next," and then got lost. The headlights of the car suddenly broke, the phones simply “died” irrevocably, and fog began to spread around. We drove almost to the touch, and then the fog cleared, and we found ourselves on the streets of the city, near the Tea Witch's Shop. I remember it was already evening. We were greeted by the hostess, Madame Claudia. She invited us for tea. In the city they call her a witch, although I didn’t notice anything so witchish in her, but her tea is a separate conversation. What she can do with them frightening and bewitching. I think you can guess that after a cup of tea, each of us literally confessed to her.