Varvara’s embroidered message. And already half the village had pronounced that:
"Our poor Varvara has been given away to a foreign infidel!"
The cousins tried to explain that Varvara was happy and that her fiancé was not a Turk, but all in vain…
At that moment Marko appeared. He had just returned from a patrol and had heard the wonderful news that Varvara had been saved and had sent some people as emissaries. Marko soon brought some order to the proceedings and asked the cousins to recount the whole story regarding Varvara. When the boys had finished their tale everyone present was as overjoyed as children. Varvara’s rescue had been miraculous with a real fairy tale ending. And once again everyone talked about it being a true sign from God. And at that moment everyone turned to look at Michael and Ben. There was evidently something out of the ordinary about the boys and they had been directly involved in Varvara’s rescue. And then Varvara’s mother asked them:
“Are you Angels?"
“Oh no, no, no," the boys were quick to reply, "but we did have some help from an Angel" Ben added.
“Glory is to the Angels!” everybody cried and the cousins understood that this was the sign for them to make an exit. They pressed the button on their bracelets and made their way out of the house.
Once outside the Angel was already waiting for them. They flew back deep in silence. Then Michael asked:
“What happened to Marko and Darya? Did we also manage to help them in some way?"
“Yes, you did,” answered the Angel, “and in a very real way." The Angel pressed a different button and images flickered on the screen a bit like an old fashioned film. The Turks had captured Darya and had taken her with them across the Dniester. Because Darya was extremely beautiful she was taken into an important Turk's harem. She was forced to follow this Turk’s caravan until Marko and the Cossacks were able to free her. The battle was incredibly fierce and Marko was forced to take on dozens of Turks at once. As a result Marko received a very serious head wound. He was left with the most terrible scar down the left side of his face for the rest of his life. Marko and Darya got married, but the wedding was a sad affair, they had both gone through too much and suffered too many losses. Then their first son – Peter – was born. He was a dark eyed, active young boy who already at the age of three had grabbed a sabre and declared that he would fight with his enemies to the death while threateningly flashing his eyes at all those around him. And looking at his son Marko was overcome with doubts that maybe his son might have a bit of the Turk in him.
“Well, you know,” the Angel concluded, “Darya was freed without any great harm but Marko become sombre and broody for the rest of his life.” But then the Angel added: “Thanks to you Marko and Darya lived happily. Marko went on to become an excellent military leader and ended up in charge of a whole Cossack regiment, which under an agreement with the Podolsk Kingdom went on to serve the Kingdom of Poland. Their children also became military people and their grandson went on to serve under Bohdan Khmelnytsky himself. And all the generations that followed Marko and Darya were rewarded for their irreproachable service and loyalty to the ideals of Christianity. There were also a number of priests among their descendants. One of them was Philip. He lived in Poland and was directly descended from the Poles, in the 19th century he came to the Podolsk Province of the Ukraine. And everything was fine until the revolution at the beginning of the 20th century. Philip’s son, Nikolas was also a priest and married a beautiful woman called Alexandra. They had many children together… Seven to be precise: two girls and five boys. The revolution brought them nothing but misfortune. But somehow they managed to cope with the extreme difficulties that they had to face. But we have stopped at the life of your great-grandmother and are going to give her some support at some particularly difficult moments in her life,” noted the Angel.
"We are ready to help,” Michael and Ben confirmed, confidently nodding their heads.
“Your great-grandmother was born into the family of a priest and was brought up to follow the tenets of the Christian faith. But having lived through the revolution, civil war and the constant changes of government ever since her early childhood, she learned that you can only survive by taking a pro-active attitude to life. ‘Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you, for everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.’ This is the Gospel of Matthew. Now we are going to fly to the very middle of the 20th century where you will witness what your ancestors and some of your close relatives had to live through.”
And with that the Angel abruptly changed trajectory and the starship shot off directly upwards. Soon they had joined a stellar highway where the traffic was moving mainly in one direction with only the occasional starship coming to meet them. Seeing an immense stripe of bright light in the distance that looked like it had been projected there by a huge cinema projector, the Angel dropped speed and landed softly on a large dome shaped building. At the entrance an old and august looking man was waiting for them. His hair and beard were completely grey but he himself looked quite slim and sprightly dressed in clothes similar to those of a priest. The old man, (who the boys nicknamed ‘the Wise Old Man’) had a face and features that seemed very familiar to Michael and Ben.
"Where could we have seen him before?" said Michael nudging Ben.
“You know he looks just like one of the saints,” said Michael and was unable to finish his thought before the Angel interrupted:
“Wise man is exactly what you should call him.”
“I wonder if our Guardian Angels read our thoughts in our normal lives," Michael wondered.
But the Angel said out loud with a big smile on his face: “Oh yes, they read them, they most definitely read them."
Everyone burst out laughing - it was so obvious what they were all thinking about. The Wise Old Man invited the boys up to the screen, if you could call the huge expanse of light that took up the whole of the wall a screen. The boys sat down behind a long table equipped with a huge array of buttons. The Wise Old Man switched on the screen and it came to life. The boys had the impression that one only needed to step into the screen to be transported to the scene depicted on it in real life. The Angel told the cousins that they would now have to decide for themselves when to take part in the action and when to provide help depending on the situation. The Wise Old Man would help them get there.
“In a starship?” asked Ben.
“No, all that will be required is your decision,” said the Angel, “only first be sure to press the red button in front of you.
“And what if we don’t choose the right moment to get involved?” Michael looked enquiringly at the Wise Old Man.
“The desire to help, and especially the desire to help your blood relatives, will ensure that you make the right choice,” the Wise Old Man assured the cousins.
Thus they found their great-grandmother’s life being played out in front of their very eyes. There she was as a young and beautiful woman playing the role of the main heroine opposite her future husband in a play called ‘Natalka Poltavka’. Then there was the birth of their first daughter just before the Second World War. Then their second daughter, the boys' grandmother, was born.
Everything was fine and they lived happily in a small Polish town right on the border. Then suddenly one day at the break of dawn the Second World War started. Great-grandfather was away on business and great-grandmother, who was still only a young woman, rushed around the house in a panic trying to decide where they should run to, where they could hide and how to save her children? But the enemy was already at the doorstep. At the last second Nina and her two small children got into the last lorry that was so packed that you could barely stand up. Bombs exploded all around and aeroplanes constantly shot at them.
Immediately the red light began to flash. Michael and Ben ran into t
he house where their relatives had lived. Running through the house they grabbed as much warm clothing as they could carry for Nina and the children. They found two gold rings that were lying next to a box lying open on the table. In the kitchen, on the way out they picked up some bread and sausage. They were just in time because a couple of enemy Nazi motorcycle riders had just entered the house. The boys spotted their motorcycle and sidecar and immediately jumped in - Michael on the bike and Ben in the sidecar and set off in hot pursuit of the refugees with bullets flying about their ears. Ben found a couple of German helmets in the bottom of the sidecar, so whenever the boys saw any vehicle decorated with a swastika they would immediately disguise themselves in these helmets. They only caught up with the long abandoned car at the station. The cousins rushed to find the train carrying their relatives, which turned out to be a fairly simple task because it was the only train with a locomotive attached to it. The boys jumped on to the train and, systematically working their way through the carriages, they soon found their great-grandmother sitting with her children in nothing but their lightest summer clothes. The children were crying and Nina just sat there wringing her hands. How could she have left home