Battle of the Ages

— Ira! the girl screeched. “I don’t want to end up in the next world ahead of time!”

A little more, one step, and the girlfriends would have been under the wheels of a scheduled bus. The metal giant came to a halt with an ear-piercing creak, and from its window an avalanche of the driver's choice curses and the screams of passengers fell in an avalanche. They fell like dominoes, trying to grab onto each other in a panic.

- I don't want to be late. Miss Mila does not accept if you stay even for a minute. Hurry! - Ira threw over her shoulder, crossing the road, and dragged her friend along the broken sidewalk. “Do you know that she has an appointment for three weeks?! For three!

“God…” Marina shook her head.

“Only, when we come in, it’s not worth mentioning the gentlemen, I don’t think she will,” she took a breath lost from running, “like it.”

- I can not go into the apartment at all. I'll wait in the yard.

Ira stopped so abruptly that her friend, who minced after her, ran into her by inertia.

“You won’t leave me, Marin!” I alone am afraid. They say she is a very strong witch, - looking around, she whispered in her ear: - A real witch.

- What, and a crochet nose? And a wart on the tip the size of a dried cherry? - Marina never believed in the supernatural, trusting reason and relying on logic. And she considered herself an atheist, denying any deities and the existence of any forces that affect the fate of people, but she regularly wore a cross on a thin silver chain.

- I do not know. Everyone describes it differently. - Ira pulled her friend's hand, urging her on, and told already on the way: - Mom's friend was talking about a young golden-haired girl. And her husband twisted at his temple and talked about a terrible old woman.

- Well built business. Who is free, that and Mrs. Mila. In the morning a beauty, in the evening she is replaced by an old woman, so you can work twenty-four hours a day.

You don't understand, they went together. Together.

Girlfriends have passed through a high archway. Three-story houses surrounded them hostilely. The eye sockets of the huge windows were frightening with blackness, and the unnatural silence forced them to look at each other. No honking cars, no rumble of roadworks, just the chirping of birds and the rustle of leaves.

- Seventh house, seventh apartment. - Ira repeated by heart the memorized address.

- Also the street of the seventh Guards army. Marina read the index. “Lady Mila has a strange fondness for the number seven. The words, as if amplified by a megaphone, climbed up the brick walls.

- Quiet!

At the entrance to the right entrance girlfriends expected another oddity. A riot of colors hid the windows of the first floor. Flowers are everywhere: in narrow flowerbeds between paved paths, in massive concrete tubs, which, if desired, cannot be moved even by a crowd of adult men, greenery seemed to grow out of nowhere, rising along the stucco molding of the old house almost to the roof. The fact that roses bloomed next to tulips did not hide from the eyes, and scarlet dahlias blazed under bushy lilacs with white clusters of small flowers. And the biggest oddity was the wrong time of year for flowering - mid-March. The sun was just entering into force, delighting with warm rays, and here it is ...

“I told you,” Ira whispered, holding the handle of the front door.

Marina feigned indifference to the view that opened up to her, counting in her mind the cost of organizing a front garden and estimating Lady Mila's earnings. In disbelief, the girl tugged at the ivy lash, but it held on tight, and no fastenings were visible to the human eye.

There was a sign outside apartment number seven that said, "Come in without knocking."

- What, just go in like that? - Ira covered the metal handle with her palm, but changed her mind and knocked on the canvas of the carved wooden door.

"I don't think they teach reading in schools anymore," came a displeased, croaking grunt. “They knock so loud it rings in my head,” the voice continued to grumble.

Gathering courage, the girls entered. The corridor of the apartment, like the entrance, met with twilight and a thick smell of herbs and heavy incense.

"Hurry up," a woman's voice said. “My time is precious.

“I think you underestimate your services,” the same croaking voice grumbled.

— T-s-s.

The many closed doors on both sides of the corridor gave her friends the idea that Mrs. Mila bought the entire first floor of the apartment building for her sole use.

Ira slowed down at the open doors, cleared her throat, stepped into the room and said:

- Hello, Mila.

- Good afternoon. Have a seat. A wrinkled, dark-spotted hand waved at the high-backed sofa. -What brings you to me? Who will I be talking to?

“With me, Lady Mila,” Irina said, peering into the twilight that hides the appearance of the old woman.

- You can call me the Witch. Come to me. - The witch invited to sit down at the round table. - What do you want from me?

“There is a guy,” Irina began the story in a trembling voice. Her muscles spasmed with fear, and her tongue stiffened. The high ceilings of the square room went to infinity, look up and you will not see the ceiling, so it seemed to the girl. Antique massive furniture talked to those present, creaking for no apparent reason, thick curtains on the windows completely hid the sun, and Ira examined a stuffed large raven on the closet. “There is a guy,” she repeated, returning her gaze to her interlocutor, “but he does not notice me.

"Do you want to tie him to you?" Came for a love potion? The old woman leaned forward, placing her knotted hands on the table. The dim light of a single candle illuminated an ugly face. Oblong, even long, with a hooked nose. With a sharp tip, he touched the huge camel lips.

- Y-y-yes. - Ira was hypnotized by round bulging eyes without eyelids.

- And you are ready to see him next to you day and night?

- Ready.

“He will be the only one in your life and will never let another man in,” the old woman said warningly.

-Good.

- Ira, maybe not? - Marina said, shrinking from fear.

“Be quiet, you don’t believe in my strength at all,” the old woman interrupted imperiously.

So, Irina. - The fortune teller covered the girl’s hand with a cold palm and pressed it down to the table, - should I dry Vanechka until you die or like that, for a year or two?

"I didn't say his name!" - Opening her mouth in surprise, Ira tried to pull the brush out of the grip.

The old woman chuckled nastily, relaxing her fingers. The sofa, wardrobe, table, chairs, everything in the room laughed raspily, supporting their mistress, even the stuffed raven clicked its beak.

Erin, let's get out of here. And do you need a Queen? He's a dumb jock with one twist, and I saw how he kicked the cat that sat down on his car to warm up.

- Well, girl, decide. The old woman widened her already huge eyes.