These were the Stranger’s thoughts when he was slowly plodding towards the park: he was used to stay overnight in caves, on the seashore, and in gardens. He had little money and had to save it for an emergency.
Suddenly he felt a stare at his back. He turned sharply and saw a woman’s silhouette about twenty paces off. A Wind breeze strengthened him and gave him confidence. He slowly approached the woman. She was staring tensely in his face and above his head. The woman made several gestures with her hand as if groping for something invisible. Coming up closer he saw how beautiful she was. His heart beat hard.
The Stranger started to drown in her hot black eyes; he almost stopped short of breath: he loved that beauty alluring and unwelcoming, unapproachable and dangerous, but he was strong enough to rouse himself.
“Look into her and feel what she lives with,” the Stranger came to his senses, the Wind breath, that disappeared when his heart leaped, returned. He recognized her. No, he had never met her before, but he knew her from newspapers.
“Do you want something from me? Have you followed me from the Seer’s home?” the Stranger addressed her without a traditional greeting.
“I’m Medium,” she said quietly and meaningfully. “I live in the City, came to the Seer, but when I saw you and your friend I got interested in you, especially in you.”
The Stranger felt that the encounter was not accidental and decided to check at once.
“I must go to the City. Is your flat big? Will you give me shelter?”
The Medium met different people, some of whom happened to be very extraordinary, and therefore she ignored the question and continued:
“Have you heard about me?”
“Very little. I’m sorry I usually do not circulate among the people who talk to the other world.”
“Then you have a chance to expand your horizon,” the Medium said haughtily. “Why do you need the City? Normal people, to the contrary, are leaving it now.”
“Normal people…” the Stranger repeated sadly and his face was touched by a shadow,
“I don’t know but I must.”
“Then let’s not waste time. Come to my place,” the woman liked that man who was simple and complex at the same time, and she was drawn by controversies.
“No. Let’s go tomorrow morning, I need to sleep well. I haven’t slept two nights, and I will need to be strong in the City. Stay a night in the hotel. But I don’t have money for two separate rooms, let’s book one with twin beds or you book for yourself. But for the sake of saving, you can stay a night with the Seer. Sorry, I’m not so gallant.”
“I have enough to book all rooms, but I want to be closer to you,” she looked mischievous.
Talking and taking no heed of the time, they approached the hotel.
In the room, having enjoyed a shower, the Stranger blissfully stretched on a soft bed, but couldn’t fall asleep next to beautiful woman because of excitement. He tried to instill in himself the sense of a light and pleasant breeze. He became less tense with time. Listening to a monotonous and lulling play of waves, the Stranger fell asleep. The Medium was sitting in the armchair with her legs pulled up. She felt good besides him, calm and peaceful. “I would enjoy looking at him all my life,” she thought.
The Medium earned by fortunetelling and chiromancy. She told fortune in the state of a trance. But after the Seer insisted she does not change her consciousness at own will, she did it quite rarely. She treated the sick that could not be treated by traditional methods.
But she achieved the top or depth of her performance (here opinions differed) when she talked with the world of the dead. Unhappy people who lost their dear ones but could not accept the loss came to her and wished to speak with the deceased dear ones. The Medium asked the relative to give her an object of the dead or a printed photo, but not an electronic version, built a connecting channel between the object and the soul, tuned on to the image of the dead, saw contours, told about the life and habits and sometimes the last days in the body and transmitted the will or desires of the dead.
Lately, she has achieved the level of authority so high that she stopped speaking on TV, rejected interview requests and selected her visitors as she wished. She usually refused to see low-income people unless she considered the case especially interesting, although she had used to be a timid and shy girl willing to help. Fame changed her; she became haughty, proud, and obstinate: the symptoms of the star fever that the Seer, who had seen ups and downs in his life, despised. But that recent arrogance might have been a kind of a protection. The Medium was attacked by the representatives of religious orders who condemned her and continuously threatened her with punishment, but she ignored their threats and did not hire a bodyguard.
The Medium was lonely, she could not live with a man who would be weaker than she was, and could lower her head only before the Seer who treated her tenderly but patronizingly. It irritated her, tortured, and piqued, however she considered no other man more worthy than the Seer. Now she wanted just one thing: to be with the sleeping man, cuddle up to him, and there come what may. Jump in feet first.
She felt she had known him for ages. They might have met in their previous life and that happiness and joy when she saw an unknown man might be a kind of recognition of kindred. She was surprised most of all by unusual glow above his head which either appeared or disappeared. He radiated calmness and strength but his companion was a source of danger, and the Medium saw a fiery halo above him, which was inseparable from the people who had shed much blood. That was the halo of a cruel warrior, although the man did not look like an evildoer or a criminal.
The aura of the pleasant stranger whose name she had forgotten to ask was not very remarkable by itself: usually seen among believers and religious people. The Medium treated them without any respect. She respected certain ceremonies in church as well as other magical actions and even used some religious practices: read extracts from sacred books, showed religious symbols, talismans, images of saints. She thought that it was also magic, although religious but had value for her only when they contributed to her efforts.
She got up and came up to the bed where the Stranger was sleeping, sat down, took his hand tenderly and looked at the lines on the palm. Suddenly without opening his eyes, he grasped her palm, pulled it her cheek and held it there during several seconds.
“I’m sorry,” the Stranger said letting her palm go. “I haven’t had a woman for a long time; it was an uncontrolled reflex to the girl’s fingers. Good night, medium,” he said her name separating it into two words.
The woman’s eyes sparkled with rage, she was quick-tempered as most of representatives of her profession which demanded very intense nervous strain. She got up quickly and left the room slamming the door.
“A hot woman,” the Stranger sighed and settled down into sleep.