Fall in love in a weekwe get by

She squinted her eyes slightly. The ghost, barely visible, almost completely transparent now, the ghost of Charlotte hung nearby. And melted. And for the first time in all the time we knew each other, he seemed… happy?

“I don’t know, I can’t see your future from here, it’s just beginning from this dawn, but I can already leave.” It's all over. I'm sorry I couldn't be with you. But my intervention could have turned out to be the wrong thing. The man who knows the ways promised to show the right path. It’s no longer hard, it’s easy, you can get out. There are still things left for me to do. But you can finish them. The man who sees the invisible promised to help, to tell those who were dear to me about everything that happened. And about you. Through dreams. Tell Professor Norwood that Director Maskelyne knows that I am no longer here. I had to say goodbye to her too. Now she won't hold him back.

I managed to get out of the habit of her abstruse manner of expressing myself. By the time I realized it, the ghost had completely melted away. Only a barely noticeable piece of fog swayed in the air – and disappeared under the first rays of the sun.

– Something happened, right? – asked Dougal. “Magic background.” Not that it’s broken… Strange. It seems to me that I have already felt something similar. I don't remember when or where. “He fell silent, as if trying to find the right words to describe his own feelings.

– Charlotte. She said she could leave. Which is easy now. That our future is just beginning. And… she disappeared. Not like she disappeared before. It just evaporated.

“Easy,” Dougal repeated thoughtfully. – Exactly! Light, barely noticeable excitement. It looks like ripples on the water. It is now clear. I felt it at the academy. Close to you.

– She told me to tell you. Maskelyne knows she's gone. It means something? Something important?

– My contract. One of the points, she insisted on it. Miss Blair is my assistant. Violating anyone means freedom to me.

– And… what now? All?

– All. – He looked at the sun. A huge golden sun that slowly rose over the ocean. – Do you like happy endings, Miss Freya Sullivan?

– Adore!

– Then tell me – what is there at the end according to the laws of the genre?

“Happily ever after,” I smiled wider and wider. – Boy and girl. Sometimes there are all sorts of tests, but this is nonsense.

– It later. And at the beginning?

“At first…” I think I blushed. Truly, uncontrollably, brightly, as the naive girl Sally, who still believed in real miracles and true love, once blushed. – Kiss?

– I hate the laws of genres. – He turned around, and I froze, trying to understand: it seems that now I see the main, most impossible, incredible and unreal miracle of this magical world. Dougal smiled. Wide, reckless, completely boyish. Just as Dr. Norwood, a professor at the Panacea Academy, certainly couldn’t smile.

Did he step forward first, or did I hang on his neck first? What difference does it really make when I heard something as incredible as his smile:

– But I like this one.

EPILOGUE. One year later

It's amazing how everything around you changes when you don't have a fatal curse hanging over you. When your whole life is ahead – your life, your own, and not borrowed from a hysterical ghost. And you can learn magic, do what you love, discover a magical new world…

The year has flown by faster than that terrible week. Exciting, interesting, filled with new impressions and relationships.

A year… yesterday we celebrated Sabella’s birthday, and today I am again walking through her beautiful park, heading to the lake – the abode of the malicious “creature of ancient magic.” Ever since Kels accepted me as a member of the family and deigned to communicate without a “translator,” I loved visiting him. The ancient kelpie has an interesting view of the world. Inhuman, paradoxical and, perhaps, very sensible. Dougal even joked once that it was time to be jealous.

Today I have a strange topic of conversation. But more people understand kelpie magic, if only because he himself is concentrated magic, and feels it as clearly as people feel heat or cold. He felt then, at our first meeting, both the curse and the fact that Dougal and I had every chance to overcome it…

I couldn’t help but smile, remembering my return from Sydney. How Sabella and I laughed and cried in our arms, and then it was as if something was dragging me to the lake. And the neighing kelpie conveyed that one must be careful when speaking out loud promises backed by magic. And now he waits impatiently and really longs for me to start begging. If I start immediately, so be it, by the summer he will agree to take me for a ride.

And how Dougal had fun retelling his flowery images!

Kels is caring in his own way, although he will never stoop to show it. He knows that icy autumn water is not good for people, even if they are magicians. But then I was not a larva of a magician, but an embryo. No matter what Charlotte says about this…