Trilogy of Dhana and the Earth. Book three. Invisible enemy

© Andrey Prudkovskii, 2019

ISBN 978-5-0050-8038-7 (т. 3)

ISBN 978-5-0050-6080-8

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Chapter 1. Where there’s the end, there’s a start

“Granny! Granny!” granddad Pahom called his wife out, getting off the stove. “We have to go!”

“Don’t call me granny, I am too young for you?” his wife said, “I am no more than two hundred. It’s too early for us! Here I’ll pickle cucumbers, make sour cabbage… And I have to wait for Milochka, I have to tell her everything… Get back to your stove bench and don’t get in the way!”

“All right,” granddad Pahom grumbled, “let’s wait a bit more. We’ve been living for too long. The angels are coming to me at night in my dreams, inviting me to the far, unknown way…”

“We have time,” his wife replied. “No one has ever been late there!”

There was a reason that Terra didn’t want to discuss it with the old one. He didn’t know much about his wife, and the main thing, he didn’t know how old she was. It’s been a long time ago, about one hundred and fifty years, at least. Pahom buried his first wife. She became ill with some unknown disease and burned down in three days The next day, Terra appeared, as if she knew where the patient was. She thought she could save her, but she was late.

“I’m sorry, Pahom, I didn’t help your wife….”

Therefore, she remained with an inconsolable man, watched so that he did not commit suicide. But then he could not let her go. So a woman with the strange name Terra settled in his house, she became his new wife. But they didn’t have children: Terrochka wasn’t young either. How old she was, no one asked, but everyone understood the fact that more than she was about half a century. Well, Pahom did not get discouraged, because he had daughters from the first wife, both of them were already married, and each of them had a couple of children: one daughter has sons, the other daughter has daughters, who have their children and grandchildren. Now Terra wanted to wait for the younger great-great-granddaughter Milochka before her last trip.

And Pahom was going through the cases of his life. There were a lot of different things… He is taken home on a cart – the leg was broken with a log on a felling. Terrochka prepares the steam bath, with kvass – she prepared it herself! She waters it with kvass. And then – to the bed, and she speaks whispering, and she strokes his leg… And the pain goes away, away… And Pahom falls asleep. He woke up in the morning – his leg doesn’t hurt. “How did that happen, wife? Is it your work?”

“Come on, come on! Everything’s alright! You’ve hurt a little bit! You took a steam bath – it was gone.”

And one night five men of a beastly kind fell into their hut…

“Get up host, feed us, and let your wife dancing and entertaining.”

Terrochka woke up and stared at their chief. And his legs stopped to hold him, he sat down on the floor and whined in a thin voice:

“I’m sorry, mistress! We’re not up to that! We just wanted to have fun!”

“Well, that’s enough! Go your way!”

The men moved back and disappeared behind the door, and their chief crawled out.

“What’s up to them, wife?”

“They’d lost not all of their conscience! So, they went home.”

And neighbors always went to his wife… If anyone in trouble, everyone went to Terra at once. Pahom didn’t understand how his wife could help them. Well, they’re going to talk to Terra, and what? And they left satisfied.

“Wife, how do you seduce them?” They don’t want to talk to me, but they’re turning to you!”

“What’s so amazing, a man needs affection! What is your caress?”

Pahom thought that anyone could hardly get caress from him. If something is needed to be made of wood – a table, a chest of drawers, a closet – everyone asks Pahom. But consoling sufferings – count him out. Let the wife console them!

But there were no troubles in the village. Where would the sufferings come from?… Except for their children, who flew around the world. Petka, the telepath, sent the post in good faith. And he stopped drinking. By the way, when did he stop drinking? At that time when Terra appeared in their village…

But it can’t be! Terra didn’t know Petka then. Why did she need to meet with him? His wife has never received any letters. When he asked, she said:

“I don’t have any relatives. I’m the only one in the world. That’s the only you whom God gave me at the end of my life.”

“What’s the end?” Pahom was surprised. “We’re both young, we’ve only lived half a century.”

Then I had to say that not half a century, but a century… And later it was a hundred and a half…

Pahom got already used to have many centenarians in the village by that time. Terra and he were not the oldest. But lately, something has broken down in Pahom. It’s not a disease; it’s some kind of fatigue. He saw everything, he had everything. And the neighbors were not cheerful either. They’re all right, but they’re not happy.

“We have been living for so long,” a hundred-and-eighty-year-old neighbor, whom he remembered as a little girl, once told him.

“Really, old woman,” Pahom thought. “Old woman! Is it time for us to go?

“It’s time! It’s time,” his wife said then. “But wait a little bit longer.”

“Grandfather! Stop napping! The guests are coming!”

Pahom got up and finally got off from the stove.

“How do you know?”

“Listen!” the quiet ringing of a distant bell broke through the sound of the wind in the crowns of the trees.

“They’re coming! Coming!”

Indeed, three-horse carriage flew into the yard. In a familiar covered cart – he did it himself – great-great-granddaughter Bella with his daughter Mila.

They came to visit the elderly more often than others. After all, it was Milocka whom his wife loved more than others. And the girl also always annoyed her mother:

“Let’s go! Let’s go to grandma Terra!”

What did they find in each other? But when she came – she ran to her beloved grandmother. She sat on a bench at her feet and asked:

“Granny, tell me a story!”

And grandma began to tell about unknown places, about unknown people. And she told in such a way as if she was in these places, she saw those people and knew everything about them.

And now Mila ran to Terra, and Pahom kissed Bella and began to help her unload the cart:

“It’s good that granddaughter is here! The old woman and I have already gathered, and there is no one whom I could leave the farm…”

“Don’t worry, grandpa, that’s why I’m here. My daughter got married, but I’m at odds with my son-in-law. It seems to me that he does everything wrong. When I tell my daughter she bristles: why would you defame my beloved? I decided to go far away. And Milka asked to go with me no matter how her mother dissuaded her… I’m going, she said, that’s all! She’s stubborn like me!

Three days passed, cabbage was fermented, cucumbers pickled. Grandmother went to the forest with her darling. They walked all day together, they just got back by night.

“And what? Said goodbye?”

“It’s all right,” the wife replied. “And you say goodbye to your granddaughter.”

“I’ve already told her everything! They will live in our house. We now need to go to the bathhouse and then to go!”

Granddad increased steam for the last time but the wife screamed and splash herself the cold water. For the last time, they dressed in white clothes, prepared by the wife beforehand. They closed the door and laid down.

“Well, wife, what to do next?”

“You don’t have to do anything special! Let’s fly!”

Pahom looked back and saw that he was already flying high above the village, and his hut was smaller and smaller. And the last light disappeared in the fog.

“Wife! Where are you?”

“I’m sorry, Pahomushka! Fly! I’ll catch up with you later! I still have some things to do here.”

“Did you change your mind about dying? Did you leave me alone?”

“I didn’t change my mind!”

Pahom saw his wife very close to him.

“Are you seeing, I’m flying too! But I can’t leave my granddaughter, she’s small yet! When she grows up, I’ll catch you up! Fly! Fly! Build a house for yourself and me somewhere.”

He could build houses and liked to do it. But where to build?

“Look for it! His wife instructed him. “Look for it!”

And Pahom flew higher and higher…

Chapter 2. Mila

“Oh! Finally, I broke out!”

The cart swayed gently on the bumps. Grandmother Bella dozed near me.

Everything was decided at the last moment. Father and mother grappled because of my father’s fate. My mother wanted me to go to the special school but my father insisted on a boarding school for defectives. I didn’t like any of these opportunities. My grandmother Bella saved me, as usual.

“While you’re sorting out here, let her come with me to grandfather!”

I clung to her skirt. It was there, to my beloved Granny – I called the wife of our great grandfather in such a way when I was a child. Granny, Granny my dear!… I wish I could live my whole life with you! My parents again were engaged in mutual reproaches… Let them do it! Grandmother Bella got into the cart, and I sat there. Petka was already sitting on the high-bench. By the way, he upset me a lot when he teased me in childhood. But now I’m seven, and his teasers are not so frightening for me!

I remember my childhood. I was always shown to one doctor or another. They treated me with bitter medicines and talked, talked… When I was a child, I didn’t understand why people talk, because I have already knew the thoughts of all the people around me. I supposed that my thoughts are open to everyone, so why is it necessary to make some incomprehensible sounds? So I would be “dragged” from one doctor to another, one of them even advised me to undergone surgery – not simple, but according to alien’s technologies. If I had fallen into his hands I would have turned into an alien sapiens… My beloved Granny saved me. One time she came and asked my parents to leave me with her for five minutes. She looked into my eyes and said to me mentally:

“Open your mouth and say, “Ah!”

“Why?” I thought.

“That’s the way it should be! Your parents can’t do it any other way!”

“What can’t they do?”

“They can’t understand you!”

“Ah-ah!”

“Good girl! Now: “Mom.”

“Mom!”

“All right, go and repeat what everyone says! It’s very important.”

“Why?”

“And that’s why! Once there was a beautiful young girl and an extraordinary story happened to her!”

Then my Granny closed her thoughts from me and continued the fairy tale with words that I did not understand at that time.

“What happened with the girl?”

“When you learn to speak, I’ll tell you everything!”

I cried with resentment. Then when my mother opened the door of the room.

“Mom! Mom!” All I could say was, pointing my finger at Granny. “U-u-u!”

“Now she’s going to speak,” Granny told to mother.

So it happened. Gradually I learned to understand words, which people pronounced around me although these words contradicted people’s thoughts. I tried to speak but did not turn out good. And here is neighbors’ boy Petka. When he heard what I said, he laughed and repeated it, twisting in every possible way, so that not only him, but all the guys laugh at me in the street.

A year later, Bella took me with her for a trip to her great-grandfather. That’s where I saw Granny again. Then she told me a fairy tale about a girl who received a magic flower with seven colorful petals… And many other fairy tales were told to me by my beloved Granny. I especially liked the fairy tale about the little flying men.

“I would like to meet them too!”

“You can meet them,” Granny replied, “But it’s too early for you to play with them! First you have to get smarter, otherwise, you will fly away to unknown distances and forget that you must be a human.”

Granny mentally called someone, and the air sparkled above us… Looking closely, I realized that there are small translucent men who are playing in the air.

“You’ve seen enough! Go away, minxes! Until my granddaughter grows up, don’t get close to her!”

“Why I have to be a human?” I asked.

“It’s too early for you to know! I promise, in a few years I’ll tell you everything! But now, listen to the fairy tale about the princess who found a little wounded dragon and cured him…”

That’s a way how our rare meetings with Granny took place. Now I went to her and dreamed of the new fairy tales, to which I would listen for long autumn evenings… I had no idea that this meeting might be the last. I also had to discuss with her the problems with my parents. I didn’t want to go to a special school or boarding school. I didn’t want to stay among the kids who can only tease me for bad pronunciation. After all, I have not learned how to speak correctly! At night I dreamed that Granny would take me to her…

And here we are. Running to my dear!

“Granny! Granny!” I burrowed my face into the knees of my beloved grandmother.

Granny stroked my head:

“Well, that’s enough, that’s enough! Let’s go to help grandmother Bella!”

“Don’t go! Petka helps her there! Granny, I have trouble. My parents want to send me to some school or the boarding school, but I do not want to go there!..”

“Well, don’t be upset! You won’t be sent anywhere!”

It’s not a trouble, it’s just some anxieties!

“You don’t understand, Granny, everyone laughs at me that I do not say in the right way… I can’t speak at all due to it; I even started to stutter…”

“It’s because you’re thinking too seriously about it. Is it real trouble? You have real troubles ahead of you! Okay, now run, have rest after the drive! Take a watermelon! Can you cut it? Regale Bella and Petka.”

That’s how I spent my first day with Granny. I also climbed the stove and greeted my grandfather. This time my grandfather was not joking and seemed very sad. Maybe he quarreled with Granny. Maybe, they are like my parents who quarrel every day, and then go to the opposite and keep silent like little ones. Everyone waits for the other to speak first… I have already grown up and understand that they do not hear each other’s thoughts; otherwise, they would not quarrel so often.

“Yes, honey, that’s it!” Granny thought for me. “But I didn’t quarrel with grandfather! We have an important business tomorrow, so he’s excited.”

“What, Granny?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow!”

Granny called me to walk with her in the forest the next day.

“My girl,” Granny began. “Do you remember you asked me what is it to be a human?”

“I remember. Are you going to tell me now?”

“I’ll tell you, honey. You know, all animals live and do not think about anything, except urgent things, and every person has some kind of task, which he is obliged to solve, work that he has to do. He can’t live his whole life like a cow or a wolf.”

“Granny, do you have such a task, too?”

“Yes, my task is to protect our planet and make everyone happy on it.”

“All?! How can you do that?”

“It’s necessary, Milochka! Sometimes I felt that I was doing my work well. But now it doesn’t seem to me so. I’m old; it’s time for me to leave. And grandfather Pahom calls me,” Go,” he says. “It’s already the time.”

“Where will you go?”

“Where everyone goes after death.”

“What about me?”

“That’s why I called you. I want to give my work to you.”

“How am I going to cope if even you didn’t?”

“But what else should I do? There is no other human capable of doing it. You needn’t start your work right away. You need to grow up, learn a lot. Maybe I might help you a little bit after my death as well as a planet will prompt and help you in difficult situations. Our planet is called Terra like me!”

“Terra! Terra! Take my deputy!”

“If you don’t mind, Milochka, she’ll always be with you. You can always consult with her and get the help you need.”

“Okay, Granny, let it be!”

“Now I’m always with you!” a loud voice rang through my head.

I shuddered:

“Who are you?”

“I am the planet, Terra. Now I will see everything with your eyes and help you in everything.”

“Terra can do a lot,” Granny added. “She can even teach you to fly. But don’t wait for her help on how to make people happy. You have to invent and try! I couldn’t do this. Perhaps you’ll succeed in this.”

“Why didn’t it work? What’s wrong with our planet?”

“A lot of things are wrong! For example, I could go around the whole planet mentally before, I could see all, repair something if I couldn’t do this, I would ask for help. But now many lands are hidden from me. Even my little helpers can’t get there.”

“What kind of helpers?”

“They’re spinning at the top! You’ve seen them once before. Now they’re going to help you!”

I looked up and saw the little laughing men over the crowns of the trees.

“Let’s fly! Let’s fly with us! Let’s sing and dance!”

“Don’t think about it! These mins will mess you around! You’ll forget all your work and live your life for nothing. But they can still help you, you should not quarrel with them. Remember the main thing: there is sadness, hopeless sadness going on all over the earth now. It seems that people live well, but for some reason, they do not want to live. It’s a sadness which you need to fight with, and you have to defeat it and bring back joy to people.”

“How can I fight something I can’t see or know?”

“No one will answer this question. You’ll have to think about yourself.”

We were walking with Granny all day. It was so great in the autumn forest. Yellow leaves were rustling underneath our feet. We found some boletuses – they will be good for soup. I fell asleep like a dog after walking. I saw Granny in my dream, but she wasn’t old, she was young. She was so funny! She’s flying, laughing… It’s so great!

The morning met me with the tears of my grandmother Bella. “You know, granddaughter,” she said, “Grandfather Pahom and granny Terra died tonight.” Tomorrow we need to bury them. All household is now on us. So now we are not guests in this house, but the owners. You will help me as much as you can and Petka also will help until his parents take him.”

Chapter 3. My school

The last clumps of ground fell on the tomb of Pahom and Terra.

“So my Granny left,” Mila thought, “I had no time to solve all my pressing problems with her.”

“You have enough helpers without me,” the young voice of beloved Granny rang in her head.

“Granny, where are you?” the girl screamed.

“Take it easy, grandma is gone,” granny Bella hugged granddaughter. “Don’t scream, your Granny won’t hear you again!”

“She’ll hear! Hear!”

Bella hugged her sobbing granddaughter by the shoulders and led her to the exit of the cemetery.

“Now we need to clean up and start a new life! You’re going to help me, aren’t you?”

“Of course I will, grandmother Bella! We’re going to live here for a long time.”

“I’m going to stay here forever, but you need to be given to your parents. They’re going to come for Petka, and you’re going to have to come back, too.”

“I’m not going anywhere! I won’t let Petka go! I will be bored without him, because there are no children here, only old people.”

“Don’t play pranks, Milochka, we can’t command! How adults decide, so it will be. However, they will not be able to do differently, because in that case you will be taken away from them.”

“Who will take me?”

“Well, those who make sure that the rights of the child are respected. That he lives in prosperity goes to school in time. And here – what prosperity is there? There are no shops in the village, no refrigerators in the house, only one cellar with potatoes and sauerkraut. And there is no school at all!”

“Bella, could you be a teacher?”

“I could be a granddaughter! I even worked at a junior school in my younger years.”

“Well, can you organize the school here?”

“What a dreamer you are, my girl! Who’s going to let me do this?”

“Why would you need someone’s permission for it?”

“You can’t do this without permission! Clumsy people or, even worse, bad people can take up teaching.”

“But you’re not a bad person! Let them come, make sure you teach correctly, and they will permit you!”

“You’re funny, Milochka! Will they come to us? It’s we who need to go to them for permission.”

“No, you adults are funny! And the rules you have are strange…”

A week passed. Petka and I ran into the forest for mushrooms. Granny Bella frightened us that we can get lost, that the bear can attack us. But I didn’t afraid of no one because my little invisible friends were always with me – little airy men who always tell me the way to my home. And we saw the bear once. It went far from us burying nose into the ground, perhaps he was searching for a den. Petka was very scared but I wasn’t afraid at all! After that, Petka started to respect me and he stopped teasing me since then.

Free life has finished when Petka’s parents arrived and ordered us to collect things. I must go with them too… My parents have written that I was already accepted to the boarding school and they are waiting for me there in a week.

“What am I going to do?” I asked my new friends, “I don’t want to leave this place!”

The air flickered with their dancing and laughter above me:

“What a funny girl you are, if you don’t want, just tell us. We’re going to do everything to keep you here.”

“Can Petka be left?”

“Yes, you can leave Petka!”

What are the braggarts! What can they do? Meanwhile, Bella packed all my things and put me in a cart. Petka sat on high-bench again, his father sat with him. Petka’s mother sat next to me.

“Go!” and we moved away from the village. The ribbon of the road ran fast, and the first traces of a man in the forest, and another village… The horses got up, and Petka’s father grunted amazedly.

“Where did we arrive?” the horse was standing next to our house which we left this morning.

“I see it!” Petka said. “But we didn’t turn anywhere, we were only going straight!”

“We chose some roundabout road,” Petka’s father summed up. “What to do, we’ll rest and have dinner, and we’ll be more careful tomorrow.”

But we left this place neither tomorrow nor the day after tomorrow… Eventually, Petka’s mom said to his dad:

“Let’s explore the road first without us, and then we’ll all go with you. There’s no need to torment us every day.”

So Petka and I went to the forest again for mushrooms, but Petka’s father left and never came back. Our village telepath came and brought a telegram in the evening: “I got to the place, everything is fine, but I couldn’t come back for you.”

Petka’s mother did not like telegram very much:

“Why couldn’t come back? What does he mean?”

“Aunt Frosya,” I said,” is it clear, isn’t it? He came to his home, but he couldn’t find a way back to us! We have a dense forest here —one can easily get lost!”

“That’s all right, they’ll call the placers and they’ll take us out of here! However, it will be expensive! But there’s nothing else that can be done! I didn’t know how it would turn out when I let Petka go with you.”

A day later, indeed, a spaceship arrived which was driven by sapiens. It was the first time I saw them. Two were dressed in grey flight jumpsuits with lots of pockets. We plunged in a plate and flew into the night autumn sky.

“Will not you get lost?” I asked the pilot cautiously.

“Sapiens never wander, we have a navigator,” the pilot said and pointed to a flickering map on the panel.

We flew for a long time and finally landed. I was not surprised to see a familiar house of my beloved Granny. Sapiens swore for a long time with quiet voices, then they unloaded us from the spaceship, said that it is faulty; therefore they have no right to carry passengers. After that, the spaceship disappeared in the night fog and did not return.

Three days later, Petka’s father Pavel returned on his horse. He hugged his wife, Frosya, and said:

“I can’t live without you! There is a madhouse there. All run and want something. They require money for the rent of the spaceship. But I didn’t give them anything! I said that they didn’t bring my wife because of the compass breakdown, I’m not responsible for the breakage. What is going on: ‘You interrupt studying process! You have two children in the wild forest! We will deprive you of your parental rights!’ I let it all hang out and came to you. As you can see, I got there without any problems.”