The guy got to the pavilion, where the shooting will begin today, half asleep and in only one surviving boot. His head was buzzing, he himself staggered slightly. Affected night wakefulness. They didn’t even have makeup done. Why waste efforts in vain on someone who will soon faint.
“Go sleep it off! In the meantime, we will shoot scenes with Jane,” the director advised him. “But tomorrow, be kind, get in shape. You don’t want someone to replace you, do you?”
“This someone will have to travel here for a long time, and there is a risk that he will get lost on the way,” retorted Daniel.
“Not everyone drinks as much as you!”
“True, many people prefer to indulge in much more harmful drugs than just alcohol.”
The director had nothing to answer to this, so he pretended not to notice Daniel’s usual impudence and generally did not have free time to continue the argument.
Daniel glanced at the unfamiliar, but very famous woman who will play with him in pairs. It’s good if this pair relationship is not forced to save after filming. Jane looked predatory. He didn’t like her at once. But he had to pretend that he, too, admired her. A young woman with connections like hers was simply doomed to become a star. And it doesn’t matter how much money her patrons spent on bribing the press and critics. Daniel had heard about her for a long time and naturally imagined her to be very capricious. For some reason she, finding herself in this wilderness, did not express her indignation in any way. But she clearly wanted to flirt with him. As soon as he arrived, she winked at him. Daniel ignored this. A lot of unfamiliar employees were turning around on the set. Someone he knew, most of the people he saw for the first time. A lot of local people were hired as extras, who had never stood in front of the camera before to save money. Amateurs are ready to film just for thanks. Yesterday we had a casting all day. Daniel looked around the unknown faces. Which one is definitely local? Who can you talk to about that eerie tree?
It seems the guard at the exit, Kai, is like a local citizen. Daniel sat down next to him during the break, drink coffee and chat a little. One autograph, handshake, and friendship struck.
“Before, I only starred in action films: both modern and historical. Well, sometimes in dramas. This is the first horror film in my practice. I worry. I have never been in my life even in a house where rumored to be ghosts.”
“There is no such house in the whole city,” Kai admitted.
“But there is a tree. I heard. The tree to which sacrifices are allegedly made,” in fact, he could not say for sure. The voices that sounded in the dark could hardly be mistaken for city gossip, but the guard tensed.
“There was a tree,” he recalled. “A teenage boy committed suicide under that tree.”
“How?”
“It is important?” the guard was surprised.
“How?” Daniel insisted.
“I opened his veins.”
Blood stains the tree… Daniel raised his fingers to his temples. The head was bursting.
“Come to us!” voices from the tree sounded very close. But there are no thickets near the pavilion. Here, flower beds with rare flowers are almost invisible.
“And under that tree they killed a famous actor, a well-known sex symbol,” said the manager, who obviously went out to smoke and found the two of them talking. The guard immediately hurried back to his post, and Daniel looked lazily at the elderly man. He that thus prophesies the fate of today’s unlucky sex symbol. Or is he just joking? But the manager continued without irony.
“His adorers then took scores with their lives at the place of his death.”
“That is, under the same tree.”
“Well yes.”
“Why didn’t I know about it before I came to such a gloomy city?”
“Because you are never interested in anything.”
“And what was the name of that celebrity who died here such an inglorious death before me?”
“Who cares? You barely remember even those you are filming with in pairs. But friendship with them is your chance to create additional advertising for yourself.”
He was clearly hinting at Jane.
“You’d better tell me more about that tree,” Daniel cleverly changed the subject.
The manager shrugged.
“Usually the trees on which someone hanged themselves are immediately cut down so that others do not have a desire to repeat it. An old belief! It is believed that such trees spread negative energy and inspire others with the same desire. But no one hung on that tree. People only cut the veins underneath. Blood flowed to the roots. The tree itself is stupid to blame for mass suicide. Simply, actresses and actors are often at odds with their own psyche. Yes, and their life is tense, today you are a star, and tomorrow your roles are given to others, how not to throw a tantrum and not attempt suicide. And there was only one fault on the tree: it was too close to the film studio and looked quite defiant, it looked very much like a set for a horror movie.
“Where is this tree?”
“Somewhere!” the manager suddenly laughed. “If it exists at all. In my opinion, these could be different trees, and everything else is a fiction of the local press. Losers will find a way to commit suicide. Try not to become one of them. And the tree – I personally think it’s a myth.
“Not a myth,” Daniel tensed. “I saw it.”
The recognition cost him a lot, but the interlocutor was not at all impressed.
“Do not think about the trees of Lucifer, it is better to study the scenario about a nobleman who has just returned to his estate from the war and about a devil that he accidentally released. Have you already got used to your role?”
Daniel glanced briefly at the sheets of text that were thrown into his lap.
“What’s wrong?”
He noticed a strange detail just now.
“According to the script, the hero’s name is Rozovsky,” Daniel read uncertainly. And from which he had not discovered it before. You need to carefully review everything in advance: both scripts and documents.
“So what? For a Russian, the surname is quite suitable.”
But it was precisely this surname that his real family bore. Does this mean that the whole story is taken from the annals of his ancestors?
“We will not change the name of the hero,” the director declared in an indisputable tone. “It is taken from a real nobleman who lived and died in those days.”
“Killed?” Daniel didn’t like it at once.
“But the story itself is fantastic.”
“And what does not suit you?”
“Yes, so…” it was not in his habits to be cowardly in front of omens. What you play will repeat in life. He didn’t really believe it. Nevertheless, I knew such actors who refuse some tragic roles, often to their detriment. But who told him that the ending of this scenario is tragic? By the way, he never finished reading the script.
Film about the golden creature
Daniel arrived much earlier than twelve. Although the invitation, as he recently considered, was designated precisely this time. His blood soaked into the cardboard, and the letters and numbers were visible again. The block letters had an unusual look with curls. What printer can this be printed on? Reminds of calligraphy of the last century. It’s strange why Cordelia didn’t say right away that the time of the session was still definite.
It was so dark at the entrance that Daniel had to turn on the flashlight in his smartphone to see the road. Some animals, remotely resembling bats and lizards, darted underfoot. The graceful figures of the sphinxes at the entrance gleamed gold even in the dark. How beautiful they are! Half lions, half women with crafty faces. Daniel wanted to touch them with his hand, but he noticed that a rat with a ripped throat was stuck between the pedestal and the claws of one of the sphinxes. The impression was as if the sphinx caught it and crushed it with his paw. The gilded claws were stained with blood.