After I finished my coffee, I quietly slid into the bathroom to dry myself off and throw on
a change of clothes. As I headed back into the kitchen, I heard the boys starting to rise in the
other room. In a few minutes, all of them were awake and in the kitchen with me, each in
various stages of preparing some breakfast.
Tannin sat down beside me first, his breakfast was easy, just a bowl of sugary cereal. As
I looked at Tannin and the others, I thought to myself how kind Popov had been. Bringing us in
and offering to aid us. The thought made my eyes start to tear up. My little brother is hard to
hide my emotions from.
Josef asked, "What's the matter sis?"
I cleared my throat to speak as the others came over to sit down at the breakfast table. "I
had hoped to let all of you enjoy your breakfast and coffee before I shared the bad news of my
discovery." Everyone stopped chewing and looked at me.
I think I had all of their attention now. I continued, "Popov isn't going to help us today,
he died last night."
The first one to speak was my older brother, "Mika, are you sure. Where is he, I will go
check him out."
That is an older brother for you, always doubtful of me. I raised my voice slightly as I
replied to him, "Josef, I went to check on him and found him lying in his bathtub underwater,
you are all welcome to go see for yourselves right now if you like. After all someone needs to
go get him out, and I for one have no desire to see any more of his old wrinkled naked body than
I already have." I stared around the table at each of them, daring someone to doubt me again.
The older three rose and headed to Popov‟s apartment as I stayed with Tannin in our
kitchen. It was almost a half an hour before they returned. Josef and I locked eyes as he stepped
back into the kitchen. He could tell my fuse was short today and I was ready to pounce if he said
anything stupid to me.
Fredrik broke the silence, "Mika and Tannin, we need to fill you in on what else we
discovered. First let me say you were brave this morning Mikhailya and I am sorry you had to
make the grim discovery alone."
He was earning points with me today. I smiled at Fredrik's kind words as he continued.
"We decided it would be best to leave him in there, we can call the hospital and ask them
to send someone over after we are gone for a while, also Alexei found the Petorium crystal we
gave Popov sitting on his bathroom counter. Only half of it was there, next to a hammer. It
looks like he split it in two and then smashed one-half of it to use in his bath, he must have fallen
asleep and slid under the water. Anyway, let's put this half back in our bag."
He handed the half crystal to me.
Fredrik continued, "We can't stay here much longer, so we searched his apartment to
أنت تقرأ
Space & Time
المغامرةWritten in 2014 the storyline involves an almost crystal ball view of Putin's growing aggression towards Ukraine. Mikhailya Groschev was born in the year 1952 in the Soviet Union controlled Ukraine. Her father is an Astrophysicist and a Cosmonaut...
