Hometorius : Coming Home

chapter 9 : The Dream Letter

Kate POV

After half an hour of talking, Margaret had to go to Joseph, who turned out to be her brother, to help arrange books in the room. Together with Marylin, we decided to go to the city. We went out to a beautiful porch and seeing how sunny it was, I got even more keen to go out to people. Even Marylin's face slowly got lightened up by a small smile. I'm not sure if anyone would notice it, that's how small it was, but I did. She crossed the well-kept lawn, stepping on a stone path and stopped by a clean, white, low fence with a charming gate that opened without resistance. I followed her. We went out onto the paved sidewalk and stopped.

"There's something in the mailbox," I noticed.

Marylin put her skinny hand into the narrow hole and with her long fingers she picked a blue envelope. Speaking of skinny, there was a time in my childhood when I envied her being this skinny. But ever since I learned it was anorexia, I just felt sorry for her.

"Lynda Keenly," I read over her shoulder and looked at her, "You know her?

She nodded, turning the envelope in her hands. "It's my cousin from Washington. I haven't heard from her in ages, let alone seen her. The last time we met was in elementary school, grade 1 or 2."

"Shall we see what she wrote?" I suggested eagerly.

Marylin nodded and we went back inside. Only now has it caught my eye that the house from outside was pale yellow.

We went to the living room and sat down on the couch. To be more precise, Marylin sat down, and I threw myself heavily into the soft pillows and sat back comfortably - so comfortable that I almost fell asleep, while Marylin silently watched the sealed envelope for a moment. I was awakened by the characteristic sound of the torn glue when she carefully opened the envelope and pulled out a decorative card. The upper right corner was dated for May 7, 2014.

"Hey, wait a minute. Outside the mirror it was yesterday!" I noticed immediately and moved to the edge of the sofa. "I don't understand anything now. So, we're in the past, and this letter is from the present?" I wanted to make sure I was going in the right direction and then added, "That means if the past was a present for us, then this letter would be from the future??"

"More or less, I guess. Do we read it?" Marilyn asked and apparently took the mysterious glow in my eyes as an agreement, because she looked at the card.

I noticed that her face got darker, so I took a look at the letter, and only then did I notice what that expression meant: it was written in English. Although we were not the best at English anyway (which I admit to with great shame. Most sixteen-year-olds are at such a level of English that they could understand the lyrics of the songs they listened to, they could even communicate with native English speakers, and we didn't even understand a stupid letter), we still read it out of curiosity.

"Interesting. I thought that if you live in Washington and have a cousin in Russia, you should know Russian a little bit, huh?" Marylin commented after a while.

I disagreed with that. Look who's talking. She was nagging at her cousin, and we were no better, struggling with a simple letter.

"Who can translate it to us?" I asked, ignoring what she said, and only one person came to mind. "Maybe Margaret?" 

* * *

I linked arms with Marylin and we climbed the steps to Joseph's miniature room, expecting to find Margaret there. We learned that she wasn't there. I do not know why, but a few minutes after we decided to find her, I knew she would not be in her brother's room. Seeing Jo meditate, I quietly retreated into the hall, and Mary followed behind me. We walked briskly to a not-yet-discovered room. Marylin opened the white door, and a large blue room appeared to my eyes. I felt a slight sting of jealousy. For context, my room was comparable to an old basement.