《Kolver》


 Prologue

    The storm hit them in the middle of the battle. The siege of the lizards had broken down before the arrival of the Western reinforcements. They were now fighting a last-ditch effort, surrounded by the ruthless shadow-like and bloodthirsty polymer warriors lead by the Mad Professor. But it was not until pieces of ice hit the blondish head of the Professor that the warlords ran headlong toward the house to avoid further damage and casualties. After a while, they were lying sprawled on the mattress in the attic, soaked and out of breath. An icy torrent of hail poured out and the thunder alternated in a vague and not very soothing rhythm. The girl sighed deeply and wiped her wet forehead.


    "It''s beautiful," she said after a moment, spreading her arms. "It''s wonderful to be alive."


    "That''s right. You got lucky with the storm," the black-haired boy muttered, listening to the rumble. "Otherwise you wouldn''t be alive for long. I hid such reserves that I would disperse you in no time."


    "Silly," the girl said absently. "Who cares about the battle anymore? I''m interested in what I''m feeling right now. Do you feel it? How nice it is to be wet, to breathe the cool air, to be startled by lighting... To be alive."


    "Yeah right. I prefer to be dry and warm. Dara, aren¡¯t there any blankets around?"


    "Shut up, Yavor, you''re ruining the moment. And this is exactly the moment I want to last forever. To remember it forever."


    "To be wet, forever trembling and not be able to go out because of the storm?" The blond bony boy asked ironically. She smiled mysteriously.


    "You boys don''t understand a single thing.¡±


    "Care to explain?"


    "The feeling, Boyan. The feeling of being alive. To experience different things. It doesn''t matter what things. To see, to hear, to smell ..."


    "To fart," Boyan chuckled, but she didn''t pay any attention to him.


    "... even if it hurts and you tremble ... I want it to last forever. I don''t want to die. I want to be immortal."


    Boyan got up on his elbow and wiped his rain-darkened hair with his palm.


    "Won''t you get bored doing the same things forever?"


    Dara muttered ''no" without looking at them. Her eyes wandered, becoming huge and dark as they always did when she was thinking or was trying to make sense of something.


    "I''m sure I''ll get bored," Yavor said. "The storm is cool, but after a hundred storms I will stop noticing. And what will I feel? I¡¯ll just feel wet. Being wet sucks."


    "There''s always something new," Dara said quietly. "Something different. Can you imagine how many new people we¡¯re going meet, how many things we¡¯re going to learn, what discoveries are going to be made and how different the world will be in, say, thirty years ... There will always be something new ..."


    "Even the novelty will bore you in the end. Ask your grandmother. When she is tired, she says that she no longer wants to live."


    "Nonsense," said Boyan. "She only says it because she gets sick and tired of us. I haven''t seen her preparing to die, no matter how old she is. But I don''t think she''s having much fun anymore either."


    "Such fools you are. You don''t even know if you''ll have the time to get bored. If I live as long as my mother, I have exactly twenty more years to live. Can you imagine? It''s as if you¡¯ve been sentenced to death. You know when it will happen and you count every day. The moment things get interesting I will kick the bucket. And if my mom hadn''t died so early, she could be with me now, right? She would see who I am, would talk to me. Do you think she would be fed up with me by now? I believe not. Even my grandmother isn''t really tired of us, she''s just trying to discipline us." Dara''s voice became hoarse and she fell silent.


    "Then why don''t you wish to live as long as your grandmother instead of being immortal?" Yavor asked.


    "Because, you idiot, when I become as old as her, there will still be things I want to see. People are going to write new books, make new movies, draw new pictures ... There are going to be more places I want to go to... How long do you think we have to live for humanity to reach other planets or finally meet aliens? It could happen in our lifespan, but I don''t believe it will. If you are immortal though, what could stop you from travelling for years, even for light-years ..."


    Silence fell in the attic. Boyan disappeared for a while, then appeared holding a couple of dry towels and handed them out to the others. Dara smiled at him and jumped nimbly, her long black hair scattering raindrops everywhere.


    "Maybe we won''t get so bored," Boyan continued after a while. "Life was very different in your grandmother''s youth. There were hardly any cars. Did the people back then think we would step foot on the moon? And besides, I need time too. I would get a Nobel Prize anyway, but if I could live forever, can you imagine what I could do more? I could discover teleportation. And then you will be able to see what change means. The world will be turned upside down. Imagine, being immortal, and being able to teleport... I would go so far back I would see the beginning of the universe."


    "So you want to be immortal, too? Like some dumb god? Boyan-Zeus. Dara-Diana."


    "No, I do not want to be a god, it looks nasty and not much fun. I want to be human, but not die. Is that bad? Death doesn''t seem like a good thing to me."


    "Being immortal is not a good thing. It is not right. Everyone dies. That''s how it should be. It has always been so. As in the biology textbook - the cycle of nature. We need to turn into something else."


    "Egghead. People have always been saying so many things were impossible, and then hop, someone invents or discovers something and boom. The world is changed. People like you burned Copernicus. Why not become immortal?"


    "It doesn''t matter," Yavor frowned. "Anyway, it can''t happen, so it''s best to stop talking nonsense."


    "I think it''s possible," Dara said, looking at them with a wide smile that made them both feeling hot. "We must forget. I dreamed we had to forget."


    "Oh, you dreamed ..." Yavor began.


    "Shut up. We must forget about our mortality. And not listen to people like you. People who keep muttering that we have to die or that something can''t happen. We must forget, but forget for real, and then our bodies will start behaving as if they¡¯re immortal. And that¡¯s it."


    Yavor laughed sharply.


    "Darka, you are not twelve, you are five if you believe such idiocies. But I''m dying to see exactly how you''re going to do it."


    "Not just me, we''ll do it together," she said, her eyes twinkling. "Together."


    "Remember? I''m one of the bad guys, and this is such incredible nonsense."


    "And what if it¡¯s not? Imagine if it really works out? What, are you going to leave us just because you''re stubborn and that''s what the biology textbook says? You can''t leave the group. We will do it together and that''s it."


    Yavor laughed again. Dara narrowed her eyes and he fell silent.


    "You''ll do it because I want you to. And because I don''t want to be immortal if the two of you are not with me. And if you''re bored, you can jump off of a cliff or something and you will be done for. Death will not escape you, it will wait for you as long as you ask for it. If you remember its existence."


    "When I get bored, I''ll remember it alright. But, look at your logic. Can immortals commit suicide?"


    "Intelligent people never get bored," Boyan ignored him, and Dara rewarded the blond boy with a smile. Yavor''s cheeks warmed. It was a saying Dara''s grandmother used frequently.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "You¡¯re trying to say I''m a fool, aren¡¯t you?"


    "You''re a moron, rather than a fool. You''ve always been a moron. You don¡¯t have a single drop of imagination. That is why we will take care of you and you will listen to us. We will become immortal and great. Boyan will become the greatest physicist in the world and discover teleportation. Afterwards, he¡¯ll discover the time machine as well. You will become a philosopher and spend as much time thinking about what is right and wrong as you want. Although I can''t imagine anything duller than that. You better become a psychologist. Actually no, you would make a crappy psychologist." Dara laughed again and Yavor frowned.


    "And you? What are you going to be? A great and eternal director? A high school principal, or rather an army general, so you can eternally give out orders. And have everyone salute you, forever. Or even better, just become a dictator."


    "I ..." Dara sat down on the tattered sofa in the corner and stretched her tanned legs. "I don''t know what will become of me. I only know drawing and fairy tales. I¡¯ve read every fairytale in the entire world ..."


    "Ha, all of them!" Boyan stretched out on the mattress again, pleased that it was all for him now. "Do you know how many fairy tales there are in this world?"


    "Maybe not all of them, but all of the ones in my grandmother''s library. There are many, many books in there."


    "This is not a job though, it''s even worse than being an artist. You have to find something closer to a real job. Otherwise, you won''t be able to feed your eternal body."


    Boyan chuckled.


    "He is right, if you marry Yavor, you two will become beggars. What are you going to do without me then? But when I receive the Nobel Prize, I will both be rich and eternal. Oh, and also famous. I won¡¯t keep living here, we¡¯re all going to move to the West."


    "You can''t flee. No one can escape"


    "You can. As long as you want it very much. Grandma said the neighbours'' son ran away after being invited to a conference. And he stayed there."


    "Yes, but now his family is having a hard time without him"


    "It doesn''t matter, Yavor," Dara interrupted. "If we are immortal, who¡¯s going to stop us? We would go wherever we want, even go to another planet. We would travel constantly and do whatever we want ..."


    "I¡¯m not going to become a philosopher. I will become a physicist." Boyan stood up and looked at Yavor with one eye. "What, do you think I can''t? You think I¡¯m not as good as you are?"


    "Enough, enough." Dara rolled her eyes. "Morons. Who cares what we do if we have all the time in the world? We would do whatever we want. As long as we are having fun."


    "What about kids?" Boyan asked. ¡°Are we going to have children?"


    "No," Dara said firmly, staring at the dirty toe of her foot. "No children. I talked to Grandma the other day. The women in our family ... well, at least most of them die soon after giving birth. I think we are cursed. You give birth - you die."


    "Maybe you can live as long as your grandmother," Yavor replied.


    "Maybe, but I¡¯m not going to take any chances. And why would I need children if I¡¯m going to live forever?"


    "You talk about it like it¡¯s reality. Why are you so sure?¡±


    "I''m sure," she whispered. "I can feel it. Don''t you feel it? We can''t die. We are special. We are not like the others."


    "That''s right," Yavor sighed and gathered the towels in a pile. "I have a very, very special tooth right here and it grows upside down ¡­ You¡¯re just imagining things. It must be from your long hair and too many feathers in your brain."


    "You can¡¯t feel it, because you are dim-wit, but you will get smarter if you keep hanging out with Boyan and me." She jumped abruptly from the couch and rushed into the corner, where she dug out a crumpled notebook from under the pile of old newspapers, then pulled a small glass cup and a thin paintbrush from the broken cupboard.


    "What is this?" Boyan asked suspiciously.


    "This is your diary from when you were in second grade."


    "You read my diary?" he shouted. "How could you!"


    "Yeah, I read it, and then I analyzed it in my diary. Shut up now, it doesn''t matter, it was a long time ago. Don''t ruin the moment." She dropped to her knees in the middle of the mattress and opened the notebook. "Come, we have to make a promise"


    "What kind of promise?" Yavor asked, but still sat down next to her.


    "Promise that we will live forever. That we will be friends forever and always help each other, no matter what. We won¡¯t ever separate, won¡¯t ever abandon each other. We will not marry because the others will not be immortal, but even if we do so, our bond will still come first."


    "And we will live in Kolver. At least for a while, because they will invite us there", Boyan added.


    "That''s right, in Kolver. In the perfect city. There we will have a big beautiful house in which we will always feel at home. Even if we separate for a while, we will gather there again and tell each other about what we did while we weren¡¯t together. Are you going to make that promise?"


    "Yes, I promise," Boyan replied firmly, scratching his peeled nose.


    "Wait, we¡¯re not done yet. Yavor, do you promise? Just dare to say no. I will never speak to you, and since I¡¯m going to be eternal, that¡¯ll be a pretty long time."


    "Ugh, all right, I promise," Yavor said grimly. "Whatever ..."


    "Boyan, give me your knife." Dara smiled contentedly and looked at her friends. "Now - each of you cut your hand, better cut the wrist to flow more blood and squeeze it into the cup." Yavor shifted uneasily beside her. "Don''t be afraid, why are you such a scaredy-cat? There¡¯s no need to cut deep, and the blood will stop on its own almost immediately."


    "Are you sure?"


    "I''m sure. My grandmother told me that there are some substances that not only make the blood clot but also close the wounds. Squeeze into the cup and mix. Then we will promise and sign with this brush. I painted my best paintings with it. So it is very special."


    "Aren''t we going to write an oath?" Boyan asked. "This could be our blood contract. Treaty of immortality and greatness." Dara giggled happily.


    "Yes, we¡¯re going to write one, but the brush is not thin enough and I think we won''t have enough blood for everything. We could use something else, and sign at the bottom. Is that fine? Yavor, give me that pencil over there." Yavor reluctantly got up to look for the pencil.


    "It''s too small and it''s not very sharp."


    "It will do. Sit down now. Who is going to write it? Yavor, you do it. You have the best handwriting out of the three of us." Yavor sighed resignedly and picked up the notebook. After a while, the text was ready, and the three of them stood in the middle of the attic, their faces solemn, illuminated occasionally by the flashes of lightning outside. Dara looked at each of them and shivers ran through Boyan''s body. At this moment, she didn''t look like an ordinary girl with sore knees and dishevelled hair. She looked like an experienced sorceress to him, with those dark eyes and a knowing smile. At that moment, he was willing to do whatever she asked. He would go wherever she told him to. He would do it even if he was sure he would regret it later. On the other hand, Yavor grimly thought that they were both crazy, and that he was scared, and that it was not right to do such things. That the wound would get dirty and then Edwina would scold them, and when she quarrelled with her grandmother, Dara was getting uncontrollable and reckless ...


    First Dara cut her hand and without even blinking from the pain she handed the knife slowly and ritually to Boyan. Boyan hesitated for just a second, then slid the blade across his wrist in one quick, smooth motion, then clenched his fist over the glass. He smiled contentedly and handed the knife to Yavor. Yavor took it with two fingers and saw his hands trembling. He could not stand blood. He didn''t like to get hurt and didn''t understand why they had to do stupid things.


    However, Dara looked at him sternly, Boyan''s smile became a little bit mocking, and he squeezed his eyes tightly before cutting his wrist. The sharp pain subsided almost immediately, and with tears in his eyes, he reached over the cup, which already had blood on the bottom. Dara mixed the blood with the back of the brush confident movements. The three of them took a breath and read the oath together.


    "We, three future geniuses and most honourable inhabitants of Kolver swear in our lives that we will forget about death, become immortal and change everything. We will remain friends forever and never be apart for long..." Yavor had insistedthat partto be included because to him it seemed absurd to never separate at all. "... and we will always meet in Kolver to share our experiences. We swear not to get married and to have no children. To never talk about death, never use that word to forget about it forever. Whoever does not keep the oath shall fall ill prematurely and die before reaching immortality. We swear solemnly!"


    At the end of the oath, Yavor crossed his fingers behind his back andhorror brought tears into his eyes. What if it worked? Or if it was real? How could he not think or talk about death and never use that word? How could they both be so crazy and so stupid? Why did he agree with these freaks? Now, most probably the wounds would get infected and they would die because of their stupidity. They should have at least thought to take alcohol for disinfection. But Dara continued to smile confidently and mysteriously, Boyan smiled smugly, and Yavor fell silent swallowing his fears. Then the three of them dipped the brush into the blood and signed the oath one by one.


    As they finished, a blue flame erupted from the notebook, flashing right into their faces. Yavor shouted and dropped everything on the floor. The children jumped back and silently watched with wide eyes as the notebook burned at their feet and the brush rolled to the corner like a tiny glowing magic wand. Dara staggered and crashed into Boyan, as they both rolled onto the mattress. Yavor sat straight on the floor, unable to stand on his feet. The three were silent until the fire burned itself out.Dara was the first to come to her senses, as always.


    "What was that?" Boyan reached for the notebook with trembling fingers and pulled it carefully towards them. The three children''s heads, two black and one blonde, came together. The notebook didn''t look burned. It looked the same. But the oath page was empty. There were no signatures nor carefully written text with a pencil. Dara flipped through the notebook, to check if everything else was still there. They looked at each other. Dara''s eyes shone with excitement, Boyan was pensive, Yavor was getting paler and his eyes were watering again.


    "What the hell just happened?" he asked them in a very low voice as if there was something on the attic that could hear him.


    "Shit," Boyan whispered. "It burned."


    "How could it have burned?" Yavor continued to whisper, almost choked with fear. Then Dara laughed and stretched out on the mattress.


    "Don''t you understand?" she asked in a clear, ringing voice. "Someone took our oath. We just became immortal"


    Thunder exploded loudly outside and the two boys jumped. Their shadows smeared on the walls of the darkened attic.


    ?

 01. Encounters

    Dara, Sofia, in the middle of August


    This was the year when all shit went down.


    Dara had the feeling there was a black hole hidden somewhere where the good intentions, the plans and even the usual fabric of the mundane life were sucked and destroyed. It wasn''t affecting only her, but the people around her too. Maybe misfortune and troubles were contagious. At the beginning of the year, Dara got fired from the institute and for the first time in her life, she found herself jobless. She took it in a good way realising how relieved she felt without the burden of deadlines and the conflict with the director, and with so much free time. It felt like a vacation until Dara tried to overcome dissatisfaction and the unpleasant feeling of downfall by immersing herself in personal projects. She made a research trip encompassing all of Europe which ended in a car accident. And with her laid up in the hospital for an entire miserable month. When she was finally released, she found their apartment robbed and on top of that, their cat was missing. Not much had been stolen, but for some time she felt like her own home she loved so much had been polluted. These feelings and issues became insignificant when her grandmother suddenly passed away. Dara was devastated. She lost her only living relative and she could not imagine making plans for her marriage with Yavor. The wedding got postponed indefinitely.


    People around her experienced similar misfortunes, adding to the grim sense of doom and overall unhappiness. She has never expected at her age to go to so many funerals in the span of only a couple of months and that her friends would suffer a genuine epidemic of divorces or separations. The only good exception was her best friend¡¯s pregnancy and the following marriage. The rest were more bad events that were piling up and the year was nowhere near its end.


    One afternoon Dara made a detailed list of all the unfortunate events that had happened to her since the start of the year.Dara couldn''t help but notice the high frequency of accidents and fortuities and that made her feel vulnerable. She scheduled herself a full medical check-up, became over-cautious when crossing the street, entirely cut off using her car... and finally stopped leaving the house. She closed herself off and instead went deep in the realm of the novels. She would read whatever books she could get her hands on no matter if they were good, badly-written, interesting, or odd. Dara read them and forgot what they were about the minute she opened the next book. Each of them was another brick Dara put between herself and the threatening chaos she couldn¡¯t handle. Yet the symbolic wall behind which she was hiding from the inevitable and surely worst event that was coming next, didn''t help much.


    The anticipation was driving her crazy. Something much more significant was somehow waiting for her and was going to bite.


    It was around this time when she met him. This happened the night before she got the letter. Well, it wasn¡¯t exactly a meeting, nor was it at night. At first, she noticed a distant and transparent silhouette. It didn''t even seem real, for it was getting lost in a sunlight way too strong. And then she carefully approached... or rather, she was the one getting pulled closer to it. He didn¡¯t notice her, for he remained as he was, his back facing her, standing still and a bit hunched over. Dara tore her eyes away from him and became aware of her surroundings. Her bare feet were sinking in sands soaked by the water, but she felt neither cold nor wet. Muffled were the sounds of the ocean as if they were passing through thick glass. The wind was blowing but somehow her light dress did not waver at all, while pieces of rubbish left on the beach rolled and rustled sadly around. The shadow of the man was stretched toward her, with a tiny head Dara was flat-out stepping on.


    The whole place seemed deserted and vaguely familiar. Dark-pink waves were splashing, transparent and devoid of foam. The sky was a bit of a menacing presence; with a nuance of red so dark, it could be black. The sand was silver and it extended towards infinity, in both directions. In three directions, she corrected herself upon taking a look behind her back. A sea of waves and a sea of sands. And a man right on the edge between the two. She glanced up the sky and corrected herself again ¨C between the three.


    Dara made a small, hesitant step forward, uncertain whether to call out to him or perhaps back off. The sun was blocking her view, but she could well see that the man was tall and his shoulders were drooped. His posture was closed and forbidding, so she just couldn¡¯t get herself to speak to him. She absently stared at the man some more, and finally decided on stepping back.


    He then turned around. She sensed his gaze upon her, and it felt as if she was being inspected. She still couldn¡¯t see any details on his face but his presence was palpable. What frigged her was not the face or the presence but recognition. For a few instances she was seeing not a man, she saw the embodiment of all her premonitions. The startling aspect of it was that she felt both scared and attracted to him. Not to the person so much, but to unknown, to this inevitability she was expecting for so long. A weird feeling of both right and wrong gave her a pause.


    He stood half-turned towards her. Dara opened her mouth, but at that very moment, he materialized inches away from her, cautiously leaning over her. His cheekbones, forehead, and nose seemed to blur and slip away. She blinked and stepped back.


    "Was it I tha..." he started, but his voice startled her so much she tripped and jumped in her bed.


    The pulse drummed in her head while the stranger still stood before her eyes. It was a dream, she finally realized, along with relief and regret. The usual nightmare. Dara took a deep breath thinking about the red skies, the ghostly wind, the double bass voice ... Dogs started barking, a horse neighed sadly, then an early bus passed noisily. The beach fell apart, the man''s eyes faded. She tried to keep the mix of anxiety and longing, but gradually it slipped away, too. She wiped the lonely tear from her cheek and turned to Yavor. She pressed against his back, hugged him tightly, and tried to fall asleep again.


    In the morning that man and everything related to him seemed to slowly but surely fall back into oblivion. The dream had long dissipated, what remained, was the elusive and irritating feeling of something to be recalled. Some job that needs to be done? Perhaps an appointment she missed? Was it a birthday? A meeting? When she finally managed to convince herself that nothing had been forgotten, she again found herself having that same funny feeling from before. Something was going to happen. The tension drove her restless to the point that she decided to go out of the house.


    "Something is coming for me," was the mantra circling her mind rhythmically and in sync with her footsteps. Her gut was telling her to get scared. It would be soon. Very soon. She was whispering to herself while walking slowly along the empty park alley, staring into her own shadow. She had this vague thought that the shadow''s colour was kind of strange, purple. Could shadows be purple? Could they attack her? She really tried to shake those thoughts off. Like, seriously? It was high time she started to go out more often, to get up and made sure to find a job, because otherwise she was bound to go crazy.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    At that moment, she almost collided with someone. The person seemed to have jumped out of nowhere right in front of her. The silhouette flickered in the haze, a silhouette of a woman. Dara could barely see her face, as the sun was beating behind the woman. She stepped back with a strong feeling of d¨¦j¨¤ vu.


    "The magic is strong within you, girl," the woman said after a short silence. Her hoarse, drawn-out voice pierced the purple veil before Dara''s eyes, and the figure took on flesh. Gypsy. Old and ornate. The magic of the moment fell apart at once.


    Dara tried to smile and keep on walking but with a quick movement, the Gypsy woman blocked her way. Dara let out a sigh. Oh, how well she knew what would follow - a boring attempt to get her life foretold. It would be something about some news of course, or documents waiting to change her life, or about her husband. Most certainly about him. What a good man he must be but how he was never ever good for her. Meaning, he simply can¡¯t love her as she does so she will definitely have to meet someone else. Right? Would it count for a future husband? Or God forbid if she started talking about diseases. She could almost hear the Gypsy''s warnings: "Beware of evil eyes, because a long road you will take, bad people you will meet, and a bad disease will be waiting for both you and the baby that you¡¯ll be carrying." Dara laughed inwardly - guess she could foresee stuff just as well as a Gypsy. What else? Something sinister perhaps: "Be careful what you eat and what you drink, avoid yellow eyes as they will bring you to your death". She sighed again. The Gypsy just stood silent and patient. Dara braced herself to tell her that she hated her future being predicted. And it didn''t even matter if that future was good or bad.


    "I won''t foreshow anything to you," the Gypsy seemed to answer her thoughts. "I don''t want your money either¡­ I don''t want anything from you, girl. Just know that your magic is very strong. When the time comes, you shall remember. You will once more return to where you¡¯ve been before. But quite differently so."


    And just like that, she left. All of a sudden Dara was left confused on the spot. She saw a glimpse of the woman emerging nimbly from the park and turning down the street towards the church. When did she manage to get so far? ... And was that really all the woman wanted to tell her? She looked back at her own shadow as if that could help her. Magic. Strong magic. Not that she believed in those things. She continued slowly. She had to remember something. Well. That¡¯s exactly what she had been trying to do ever since the morning came. Trying to remember.


    ¡°Maybe it¡¯s already happening,¡± she thought and this got her startled. She stopped, overwhelmed by a fresh, new feeling that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. "My whole life is so messed up", she thought, "displaced ever since my very birth." Dara raised her face to the sun, closed her eyes, and let the warm redness under her eyelids soothe her. It occurred to her that the world would be much more beautiful if the sky was red, a dark red, almost black. But the sky was blue, there was no magic, and if her life was messed up, there was no one to blame. She shrugged and finally walked out of the park.


    Regardless of how much she pretended not to care about the meeting with the Gypsy woman, on the way home she was already sure that whatever was coming for her had caught up to her. Her heart was beating fast and shallow, her head was dizzy and her mouth dried up. Dara felt scared, relieved, and confused at the same time. "Something has already come for me," she said quietly and the phone vibrated. She stopped and took it out slowly. Very slowly indeed with an empty mind and feeling cold despite the heat. She stared intensely at the glowing screen. The notification had arrived. It was a new mail with a small caption that read ¡°Kolver¡±. She was invited to Kolver.


    She sat on the bench near the entrance of her house feeling her knees weak. And for the first time since the beginning of the year, she started to cry. She wasn''t thinking about her invitation, no. She was thinking about Boyan. About the nonchalant way, he announced in January that he had received an invitation from the University of Kolver. She was thinking about the smile on his face, the smile of a winner. She was thinking about the pain she felt then, the bittersweet feeling of loss, joy for her friend¡¯s success and disappointment. She was crying because of the separation because she didn''t have a proper farewell with a dear friend. She was thinking about the shame and the crushed dreams, that oath they made a long time ago and their cracked friendship. She cried over her guilt. She was in shock.


    If someone asked Dara the previous day what was Kolver to her, she would have probably answered - a failed dream. It was rooted in her childhood and was connected with her grandmother, with her mother, with her secret ambitions and with the competition between her and her closest friends - Yavor and Boyan. It was much more than that of course. It was the dream of most of the scientists from every field in the world. If the Nobel prize was the biggest recognition a researcher could dream of, the Kover invitation was the biggest opportunity to create something, to get fame, to make a real impact on the world. It was exclusive, elite and far too impossible to achieve. It was legendary.


    Receiving an invitation from Kolver. What were the odds?


    It was well known that certain people really did receive an invitation from Kolver, but who they were and what was the reason they were chosen was unclear. All that was known about the process was that a group of scientists from Kolver University chose a single person every year. Adding to the mystery was the fact that you couldn''t apply for Kolver; you couldn''t hope to plan your academic record in a way that would make them notice you. It didn¡¯t work that way¡­ Yet people somehow, somewhere, got lucky.


    Boyan had become one of them. They had indeed talked over the years about how amazing would going to Kolver be. When they were younger that was their biggest dream, but that was all in the past now. It has turned into something to laugh about, a symbol of a childhood gone by¡­ The impossibility of that dream had forged a connection between them perhaps even stronger than many of their other shared experiences. When Boyan turned out to be one of the chosen ones it hurt them as a group, hurt their relationship. Of course, they were sincerely happy for him, they were over the moon, actually. But the thought of their common dream coming true for only one of them¡­ it was painful. So painful actually that one day Dara caught herself thinking that all the problems and failures in her life must have begun right after Boyan had received that damn invitation. She regretted it later about the awkward last moments with Boyan''s family the day before the departure. Boyan didn''t send them any letters from Kolver, she didn''t write to him as well. She couldn¡¯t admit the extent to which she was hurt by his absence even to herself.


    Dara sat under the big chestnut tree, a tree she considered to be her friend as well since it had been in front of her house for the entirety of her life so far. She finally let herself cry over everything that had happened, over her grandmother, her ruined marriage and her lost friends. She cried, but also smiled through her tears, as she too was a winner. One of the lucky ones. She got the letter too. She spent so many months in odd expectation, waiting for something to happen to her, but she absolutely could not imagine it was going to be that invitation. In her head ringing were the words ¡°News and documents are about to change your entire life¡­ On a long journey, you¡¯ll go.¡± Nonsense, she told herself, because it was her that made it up, mocking the Gypsy woman. Nonsense, yeah...


    "Breathe", she ordered herself, "why are you suddenly acting like such a crybaby? Boyan is waiting for us there, we¡¯re all going to Kolver... The chain of disasters had ended. Finally."

 02. Edwina

    When Dara later showed Yavor the invitation, his reaction was calm. He was much calmer than she had expected.


    "God ..." he said. "I envy you terribly ... You know it. But I''m also so happy for you. And proud to have friends like this. You should be proud too. You can even get as conceited as you want. This is just the right moment for it.¡±


    Proud¡­ Dara got up from her favourite old sofa by the window and started stooging around the small living room of their apartment. What else was there? "Bad people you¡¯ll meet and a bad disease is waiting for you¡­" She shook her head. She completed her walk and stopped in front of Yavor, who was relaxing in a chair next to the sofa. He was smiling broadly at her. He even looked a bit too happy.


    "Come, sit on me." She perched on his knees and stuck her nose in his shoulder. "Hey, I know what you''re thinking. That Boyan is a genius, right? Nothing new. But who is the smartest one? Who is the best ever? You are. That¡¯s what you always instilled in our heads." Dara nodded her head without looking up, and Yavor laughed. "See?"


    "Silly, what do you know?"


    "Well, yes, I don¡¯t know how we got here. I always thought that you would be a painter. I never knew that you would be competing with Boyan so much.


    "You''re the one in competition with him, not me," Dara muttered. "I don''t even work at the institute anymore."


    "Oh, you don''t need that pokey institute. If I were you, I would be jumping with joy, but as you can see, I am quite invitationless. But it''s for the better because it would have given me a heart attack. Then you would be left alone. And what would you do, all smart yet lonely? Nah, I am better off by your side.


    She buried her fingers in his dark hair and pressed closer to him.


    "Were you surprised when Boyan received the invitation?"


    "My dear girl." Yavor turned her face to his and moved her hair behind her ears. "Firstly, of course, I was surprised. Our minds were just blown, weren''t they? You know very well that we never really expected it. It could easily have remained just a game for us. Boyan was shocked too, I am sure of it, even if he acted as if it was the most natural thing in the world. But that he is a genius, that he is our golden boy, everyone acknowledges it and he deserves it. Secondly¡­ - He hugged her tightly and rocked her like a small child. "Someone far far away, (not in another galaxy, just overseas), has sensed what a quick and brilliant mind there is inside this beautiful little head. Someone very smart, like everyone in Kolver. Yet, regardless of how smart that person is, he wouldn¡¯t be able to see in you what I see and for this, I am so grateful. Remember, darling, I am the only one who does not like you because of your mind or character, but because of your smile, because of your hair, which is the blackest and longest hair I¡¯ve ever seen. Because of your giant eyes, which see and understand more than they should. Because of those fingers and those eyebrows." Yavor kissed her on the eyes and forehead. "Believe me, Boyan does not have any of these things. He is lanky, blondish, has a weirdly variegated beard and his eyes are so small. Of course, the eyes of all normal human beings are small compared to yours. But what I''m saying is ¨C why compare yourself to a random physicist? And he''s not even a proper physicist, but a hybrid of some kind." She laughed and got more relaxed.


    "You are such a great support, Yavor. When I¡¯m in a need of encouragement, you tell me they''ve chosen me for my black eyes."


    "Always there for you, dear." Yavor paused for a moment, still swinging her in his arms. "Remember when¡­," he asked, "remember when we first heard about Kolver University?"?


    Of course, she remembered.


    "It was on my twelfth birthday."


    "Wasn''t it on the thirteenth?"


    "On my twelfth birthday, when you got me that raven. I will never forget how you literally lied to me about it. All these promises that I could teach it to say ''ass'' and to sing obscene songs. Guess the raven you gave me was quite incompetent."


    "You were the incompetent one, darling! That''s why you released it, to hide the fact that you couldn¡¯t handle it right."


    "Nope, I didn''t let it go. It ran away on its own, in the meanest way, because that¡¯s the way it was and you picked a raven like that, on purpose. And it¡¯s your fault I didn¡¯t get to see Grandma¡¯s face if she heard those special songs.


    "You then asked her what she did on her thirteenth birthday."


    "Oh, that''s right. On the twelfth though. ¨C She corrected him again - And she said there was a war, yet her parents still took her to a famous, for the time, restaurant and gave her an expensive watch as a present. The restaurant was called Kolver."


    Dara had then noted that the name seemed strange to her, foreign. And her grandmother had explained that the name was an ancient one, that it existed in these lands long before Bulgaria was created. But, now only a few remember it. Instead, she had added with her finger raised - "now in America, a city has been built. The ideal city." The children had their ears pricked up. "And you know the name of this ideal city? It¡¯s Kolver," she had finished with a solemn tone. "What is so ideal about it," Boyan had asked her a bit contemptuously, "how can a city be perfect, in general?..." Her grandmother had then made a long pause, after which she told them that all the houses were beautiful and large like palaces, and none of them was like the other. The sole energy source of the city was the Sun, it rained only when necessary, and the heat was regulated so that everything would bloom and bear fruit throughout the year. The food was all gourmet food, and in that, it was healthy, too. But nobody would really get sick, anyway. But since they were a band of rascals, they wouldn''t end up there even in their dreams.


    "She didn¡¯t get it at all - Dara said, leaning her back against Yavor''s chest. "We were a mob of geniuses, not rascals." To this, Yavor laughed.


    "Just you and Boyan though. Well, now it¡¯s official that your Grandma wasn¡¯t at all right about us. Even if all I can do is let the reflected glory of you all shine on me¡­ - She poked him hard in the ribs, but he took her hand in his and continued seriously. "I do wonder, though, what did your Grandma really know about Kolver? Leaving out all the nonsense."


    "Who knows, it was more like a fairytale ... but apparently, there¡¯s a lot she didn¡¯t tell us. Rather, I wonder why she stopped mentioning it once we grew up.¡± - She hugged Yavor tightly. "I miss her so much." He hugged her back and they fell silent.


    Dara¡¯s grandmother was the most interesting and important person in her life. Her name was Edwina and she was as strange and mysterious as her name. She was born at the turn of the century into a wealthy family. Her family loved her unconditionally and gave her all the means for a good start in life, but also a certain confidence that she wasn¡¯t just another girl who was expected to marry a fine man and nothing more. Edwina was her own person, one who could freely choose her destiny. She got a Chemistry degree in Vienna, but also travelled to various other places, to study a bit of this and a bit of that. She studied in Paris, in Rome, in London, in Prague. She could speak more than seven languages fluently and she hardly put up with Dara''s inability to learn at least English at a tolerable level. It¡¯s not that Dara didn''t do well. It was just never good enough to meet her grandmother¡¯s criteria of ¡°tolerable¡±.


    Edwina talked of her youth in a peculiar way - fragmentally, never as a complete story and left it to Dara and her friends¡¯ imagination to fill the gaps between the events, some of which were rather bizarre. They didn¡¯t complain about the omissions ¨C the fact that Edwina was a person not only from another time but also from a different world was enough to satisfy them. The fact that when she was young she travelled constantly and met celebrities (even though most of their names were unfamiliar) has always fascinated them and they never doubted her words. Sometimes she would brag a little, like when she casually suggested that at those old times in which riding a bicycle as a woman was revolutionary, she could fly a plane. She was always on the top of her class at university and had been so ¡°nice-looking¡± two of her suitors killed each other in a duel. And she spoke of such things without remorse or guilt, for those were simply the facts. Dara loved to imagine her antics as a movie ¨C how she once dressed as a boy, how she participated in car races in France, how once, under disguise she discovered that her narcissistic professor who often put her down just because she was a woman, was, in fact, homosexual. She had nothing against homosexuals and a lot against hypocrites. Edwina didn¡¯t find it necessary to explain that any further. That incident, though, almost cost her her studies. She told them she had tried everything and by that, she meant everything but left it to their fantasy to fill the rest. Her sparkling eyes though, hinted that Dara could use all of her imagination and still wouldn¡¯t possibly guess what her Grandma really did.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    Despite Edwina''s vows to never marry, she did marry, even if at a quite late age, to a merchant after a stormy love affair. Dara knew little about her grandfather, who died three years after the birth of their daughter. It was hard for Dara to imagine that her grandfather had been a merchant, she had always thought that Edwina''s husband would be a scientist or a writer. After getting widowed, her grandmother was left alone with a little child. She had but a small income to rely on ¨C and she couldn¡¯t even think of starting a job, much less as a chemist, and for the first time in her life, she went through difficult times. Then World War II broke off, the communists took the power, and only after that could her friends manage to get her a job at the National Library. Edwina worked there until her retirement and that provided an invaluable advantage for Dara and her friends, especially as they entered university, for Edwina always had immediate access to the forbidden catalogues and books of the time.


    Her grandmother always used to say that the worst misfortunes come to the strongest people because only they have the power to overcome them. As banal as it seems, this saying was painfully valid for Edwina, because after losing her family and her husband, she finally lost her own child too. Her daughter, Dara¡¯s mother had died together with her husband due to unclear circumstances. Edwina had taken custody of their little girl and so Dara became her only family. But that family was soon joined by Yavor and Boyan.


    It may have been a coincidence ¡ª unhappy or happy (that, nobody could say) - that the three children were all born in the same year, lived on the same street, and were orphans. They became friends as early as in the kindergarten, and Edwina took them all under her wing before they even learned how to read.


    Yavor''s mother had died during childbirth, and his father took to drink. He had tried to marry again, unsuccessfully so, and then gave up all attempts and took off to Siberia to work. He left the child to its grandmother, who was very old and ill at that time, so the boy had to take care of her and the house, all at the tender age of seven. Dara remembered that his father sent them money, which was quite the feat, but he just never returned to Bulgaria. The last thing they heard, he had married some Russian woman. Yavor avoided talking about his father.


    At four years of age, Boyan miraculously survived the car accident that unfortunately brought death to his parents. He had only vague memories of them, and he couldn¡¯t help but wonder if these memories were even real, or just a combination of tales and lots of black-and-white photos. At least he knew for sure that his parents had been obsessed with taking pictures.


    Boyan was thereafter left on the mercy of his fairly overworked aunt. She was well-meaning, but working shifts at the local brewery in addition to having two more children to take care of was driving her to her limits. His uncle was almost constantly absent from home, taking private jobs after work to earn some additional coin  - that included glueing tiles and making plaster ornaments on people''s homes. The aunt always complained that he never had time for their home; and who would guess he was an artisan when his own house looked as if it was going to collapse this very moment? Not that they were arguing all the time, but they weren¡¯t doing well either. The aunt and uncle just never had time for Boyan. It was mainly his older sisters that provided to him, ultimately. But for some reason, he still couldn¡¯t form lasting bonds with them. Space was too little for everyone to live comfortably; Boyan eventually recognized the need of having a separate room, as he had to live with two girls. That¡¯s why, at every opportunity, he stayed at Dara¡¯s. Her house was way more spacious and only Dara and Edwina lived in it. The house was old, the rooms were not very big, but at least they were more than enough in number. For him, the chance for Edwina and Dara to sleep separately, and for Yavor and him to have a bedroom to themselves too for when they stood up late, was an unusual luxury.


    The house had another invaluable trait ¨C it had the most spacious attic, where Edwina stored everything unnecessary. The children had found countless treasures there: an old colonial cork helmet, dusty and faded, but fully preserved; a lacquered and finely painted mandolin with torn strings; many old books, some of which rather strange and in unknown languages; torn and scratched piano sheet music, faded photos of strangers in unusual clothes and with startled faces; a porcelain doll with a lavish, though ruined by moths, dress and black hair which was sadly tousled. The doll looked so real that as a child Dara was scared of it and hated it a lot. One of the most valuable things there was a large greyish-blue mattress the children immediately fell in love with and so it became the centre of their lives. There they would have their most intimate conversations, would cry away all the sorrows and bitterness, and there Dara and Yavor later made love for the first time.


    Another priceless item was an old and rather ugly-looking Telefunken radio, which Boyan repaired himself for the three young adolescents to secretly listen to the "black" stations ¡°Radio Free Europe¡± and ¡°The Voice of America¡±.


    The third thing was especially important to Dara - a watercolour portrait of her grandmother in her youth, standing at full height. It was created in Paris, on one of the bridges of Seine: dapped light shined down on a slim and very elegant girl through the branches of a large tree. Her face was a soft pink, her lips were curved playfully, her dark hair was daringly tied with just a loose blue ribbon, hair long enough to reach below her waist, her dress was of unusual straight cut and with ornaments that looked like they could have come out of a Klimt mosaic; in her hands, there was a small umbrella stuck into the ground. But there was also something unsettling about this drawing ¨C at first glance, it was a basic portrait of a very beautiful girl, but there was a shadow next to her as if she was not alone, but with someone who was erased afterwards or perhaps got thinned through the years to invisibility. Something like in Dorian Gray ¨C this someone¡¯s life got more and more thrilling, while all life got extracted from his image on the canvas ¨C and what was left was but a vague stain. A memory of a man casually leaning towards her grandmother...


    Dara asked Edwina about it, but her grandmother dismissively waved her hand, saying that the portrait was in the attic for a reason. It was, as it turned out, of no value, the artist was too young and he was also not very talented. He did an acceptable job, probably because he adored her, but he failed to paint her boyfriend - he kept erasing it, correcting it, kept starting over until the picture was left like that ¨C half done with an ugly stain instead of a person. And that¡¯s why Edwina never liked it.


    Dara probably wouldn''t have doubted Edwina¡¯s story if she hadn''t seen this picture a month after her death. She only went to the attic to clean it up a bit and got stunned when she saw that her grandmother''s image had become the same shadowy silhouette as the ghostly thin man beside her. At first, she couldn''t believe her eyes. She took the portrait downstairs to take a good look at it, and yes, her grandmother had indeed disappeared. Dara¡¯s only comfort was the many copies of the painting she had made herself. Because despite her grandmother''s complete disregard of it, to Dara this watercolour was dear. She liked to look at it, she liked to look for resemblances with Edwina, and liked imagining what things could have possibly been done in Paris by her grandmother... Or she would simply enjoy her grandmother¡¯s beauty.


    Even when very old, Edwina remained a remarkably beautiful woman. She died at the age of 98 and even then her face had almost no wrinkles, her hair was perfectly white, but that, paradoxically, made her look youthful, even. She remained energetic, she was slim, very elegant and too perceptive for her own good.


    When she was gone, Dara mourned her perfume, the gentle sound of her clothes rustling, and she missed those little things her grandmother always did for her ¡ª the traditional bowl of fragrant yellow apples and the yoghurt with fruit and honey after dinner. Dara assumed that¡¯s what it was like have a mother - to her Edwina was a mother, a friend, a confessor and basically support in every situation.


    They often argued, but never fought for real, so she was surprised when the first and last conflict between them that happened ¨C it was when Dara and Yavor decided to get married. Edwina loved the boys as her own and yet disapproved of Dara''s relationship with Yavor. She had shown it in many ways over the years, but never really confronted Dara about it. Rather, it was a positional war with one side prevailing over the other and vice versa. Dara didn¡¯t see any real reason for such an outright opposition to the wedding. Besides, she thought Edwina had eventually come to terms with the situation since for so many years Dara had never given up on Yavor. Nor did she understand Edwina¡¯s demeanour, who was otherwise sharp-witted, with a no-nonsense attitude; for her to give only hints and allusions about this sensitive matter ¨C this irritated Dara even more. Banalities such as how Yavor isn¡¯t suited for her, how she¡¯s making a big mistake, how sorry she¡¯ll be later, how she doesn¡¯t know what she¡¯s doing at all, how she could at least wait just a little more and maybe try other possibilities ¨C those were not at all convincing and weren¡¯t even normal for her grandmother. Most often she went on and on about how Dara just shouldn¡¯t be in such a hurry for it was almost certain that her future was bound to be completely different and Yavor was just not part of her destiny. In short, the rational and pragmatic Edwina suddenly turned dramatic, speaking of things like fate, as if she was not Edwina, but one of their superstitious neighbours who liked going to fortune-tellers and receiving coffee cup readings.


    Anyway, as someone brought up by her grandmother, Dara stood up for herself and did not give up on the wedding. However, this seemed to take away the pith and marrow from that woman. She closed off, then started languishing, her skin turned transparent, and one morning she just didn¡¯t wake up. And the last thing she told Dara when they talked the night before was "Don''t rush it with Yavor."


    Dara didn''t cry that day and long after that. It was as if her grief had clogged her soul somehow, together with hurt and anger over the lost possibility to talk to Edwina again, to try to only explain... to make her accept her decision.


    But it was all over, and Dara would never be able to see those strange slanted eyes again, to hear her swear at politicians, or hear her make fun of a particularly poor or syrupy novel.


    And Dara missed Edwina most in the most important moments of her life. Like now, when hers, Boyan''s and Yavor''s dream, sown within their souls by Edwina herself, finally came true. If only her grandmother was here, she would probably smile... And admit that she was very happy, but also quite scared. And that she was sad that she may not be able to go with them...