The Twilight Watch (18 page)

Now, where had the kids come out of the forest?

I found their tracks fairly quickly. A couple of days later and
the faint footprints would have faded away, but they were still
visible. Children leave clear tracks, they have a lot of power in
them. Only pregnant women leave tracks that are clearer.

There were no tracks from the 'female botanist'. They could
have faded already. But it was more likely that this witch had long
been in the habit of not leaving any tracks.

Yet she hadn't erased the children's tracks. Why not? An oversight?
That traditional Russian sloppiness? Or was it deliberate?

Well, I wasn't going to guess.

I recorded the children's footprints in my memory and left the
Twilight. I couldn't see the tracks any more, but I could sense
which way they were leading. Now I was ready to set off.

First I disguised myself thoroughly. Of course, the disguise was
no match for the shell that Gesar had encased me in, but a magician
less powerful than me would take me for a human being.
Maybe we were overestimating the witch's abilities?

I spent the first half-hour vigilantly surveying the area, inspecting
every suspicious bush through the Twilight, sometimes pronouncing
simple search spells. In general working by the book, a disciplined
Other conducting a search.

Then I got bored of that. I was in a forest – only a small
one, and maybe not one that was in great shape, but it was at
least unspoiled by tourists. Maybe the forest was unspoiled
because it was only fifty square kilometres. There were all kinds
of small forest wildlife here, like squirrels, hares and foxes. There
weren't any wolves at all, of course – real ones, that is, rather
than werewolves. Fine – we could get along without wolves.
There was plenty of free food around – I stopped by some wild
raspberry bushes and spent ten minutes picking the slightly
withered, sweet berries. Then I came across an entire colony of
white cep mushrooms. More than a colony – it was a genuine
mushroom megalopolis. Huge white mushrooms, not worm-eaten,
no rubbishy little ones or different kinds. I'd had no idea
there was treasure like that to be found only a couple of kilometres
from the village.

I hesitated. If I picked all those mushrooms, I could take them
home and dump them on the table, to my mother-in-law's amazement
and Svetlana's delight. How Nadya would squeal in ecstasy
and boast to the neighbours' kids about her clever dad!

Then I thought that I couldn't sneak a haul like that back to
the house without being seen, which would mean the whole
village would go dashing off, hunting for mushrooms. Including
the local drunks, who would be happy to sell them on the side
of the main road and buy vodka with the earnings. And the
grannies, who mostly supported themselves by gathering wild
food. And all the local kids.

But somewhere in this forest there were werewolves on the
prowl . . .

'They'll never believe me,' I said miserably, looking at the mushroom
patch.

I felt a craving for fried white mushrooms. I swallowed hard
and carried on following the track.

And five minutes later I came out at a small log-built house.

Everything was just as the children had described it. A little
house, tiny windows, no fence, no outbuildings, no vegetable patches.
Nobody ever builds houses like that in the forest. Even the dingiest
little watchman's hut has to have a lean-to shed for firewood.

'Hey, anybody home?' I shouted. 'Hello?'

Nobody answered.

'Little hut, little hut,' I muttered, citing the fairy tale. 'Turn your
back to the forest and your front to me . . .'

The hut as it was stayed. But then, it was already facing me
anyway. I suddenly felt very foolish.

It was time to stop playing stupid games. I'd go in and wait for
the mistress of the house, if she wasn't home . . .

I walked up to the door and touched the rusty iron handle –
and at that very moment, as if someone had been waiting for that
touch, the door opened.

'Good day,' said a woman about thirty years old.

A very beautiful woman . . .

Somehow, from what Romka and Ksyusha had told me, I'd
expected her to be older. They hadn't really said anything about
her appearance, and I'd pictured some average image of 'just a
woman'. That was stupid of me . . . of course, for children as young
as them, 'beautiful' meant 'wearing a bright-coloured dress'. In
another year or two, Ksyusha would probably have said with
delight and admiration in her voice: 'The lady was so beautiful!'
and compared her with the latest teenage girl's idol.

But she was wearing a check shirt, the kind that men and
women can wear.

Tall – but not so tall as to make a man of average height feel
insecure. Slim – but not at all skinny. Legs so long and straight I
felt like shouting: 'Why the hell did you put jeans on, you fool,
get into a miniskirt!' Breasts – well, no doubt some men prefer to
see two huge silicone melons, and some take delight in chests as
flat as a boy's. But in this particular matter any normal man should
go for the golden mean. Hands . . . well, I don't know exactly how
hands can be erotic. But hers certainly were. Somehow they made
you think that just one touch from those slender fingers and . . .

With a figure like that, a beautiful face is an optional extra. But
she was lovely. Hair as black as pitch, large eyes that smiled and
enticed. All her features were regular, with just some tiny deviation
from perfection that was invisible to the eye, but nonetheless allowed
you to see her as a living woman and not a work of art.

'Er . . . h-hello,' I whispered.

What was wrong with me? Anyone would think I'd been raised
on an uninhabited island and never seen a woman before.

She beamed at me.

'You're Romka's dad, are you?'

'What?' I asked, confused.

The woman was slightly embarrassed.

'I'm sorry. The other day a little boy got lost in the forest, I
showed him the way back to the village. He stammered too . . .
a little bit. So I thought . . .'

'I don't usually stammer,' I mumbled. 'I'm usually always spouting
all sorts of nonsense. But I wasn't expecting to meet such a beautiful
woman in the forest, and I just choked up.'

The 'beautiful woman' laughed:

'Oh, and are those words nonsense too? Or the truth?'

'The truth,' I confessed.

'Won't you come in?' She stepped back into the house. 'And thank
you very much. Round here compliments are hard to come by . . .'

'Well, you won't meet people here very often,' I observed, walking
into the house and looking around.

Not a trace of magic. A rather strange interior for a house in
a forest, but then you come across all sorts of things. True, there
was a bookcase with old volumes in it . . . But there were no
indications that my hostess was an Other.

'There are two villages near here,' the woman explained. 'The
one I took the children back to and another, a bit larger. I go
there to buy groceries, the shop's always open. But it's still not a
good place for compliments.'

She smiled again.

'My name's Arina. Not Irina – Arina.'

'Anton,' I replied. And then I showed off my schoolboy literary
erudition. 'Arina, like Pushkin's nanny?'

'Precisely, I was named after her,' the woman said, still smiling.
'My father was Alexander Sergeevich, like Pushkin, and naturally
my mother was crazy about the poet. You could say she was a
fanatic. So that's where I got my name . . .'

'But why not Anna, after Anna Kern? Or Natalya, after Natalya
Goncharova?'

Arina shook her head.

'Oh, that wouldn't do . . . My mother believed all those women
played a disastrous role in Pushkin's life. Yes, they served as a
source of inspiration, but he suffered greatly as a man . . . But
the nanny . . . she made no claims on her Sasha, she loved him
devotedly.'

'Are you a literary specialist?' I asked, putting out a feeler.

'What would a literary specialist be doing here?' Arina laughed.
'Have a seat, I'll make some tea, it's really good, with herbs.
Everyone's gone crazy just recently about maté and rooibosch and
those other foreign teas. But we Russians don't need all those
exotic brews. We have enough herbs of our own. Or just ordinary
black tea – we're not Chinese, why should we drink green
water? Or forest herbs. Here, try this . . .'

'You're a botanist,' I said dejectedly.

'Correct!' Arina laughed. 'Are you sure you're not Romka's dad?'

'No, I'm . . .' I hesitated for a moment, and then said the most
convenient thing that came to mind, 'I'm a friend of his mother's.
Thank you very much for saving the children.'

'Oh, sure, I really saved them!' Arina said and smiled again. She
was standing with her back to me, sprinkling dry herbs into a
teapot – a pinch of one, a tiny bit of another, a spoonful of a third
. . . my gaze automatically came to rest on the section of those
worn jeans that outlined her firm backside. And somehow it was
immediately clear that it was taut, without any sign of that favourite
city lady's ailment, cellulite. 'Ksyusha's a bright girl, they'd have
found their own way out.'

'What about the wolves?' I asked.

'What wolves, Anton?' Arina looked at me in amazement. 'I
explained that to them – it was a stray dog. Where would wolves
come from in a small forest like this?'

'A stray dog with puppies is dangerous too,' I observed.

'Well, maybe you're right.' Arina sighed. 'But even so, I don't
think it would have attacked the children; an animal has to go
completely mad to do something like that. People are far more
dangerous than animals.'

I couldn't argue with that.

'Don't you find it boring out here in the wilderness?' I asked,
changing the subject.

'I'm not stuck here all the time,' Arina laughed. 'I come for the
summer, I'm writing a dissertation: "The ethnogenesis of certain
species of crucifers in the central region of Russia".'

'For a doctorate?' I asked, feeling rather envious. I was still disappointed
that I'd never finished writing mine, because I'd become
an Other, and all those scholarly games had suddenly seemed
boring. They were boring – but even so I felt sad.

'Post-doctoral,' Arina replied with understandable pride. 'I'm
thinking of presenting it this winter.'

'Is that your research library you have with you?' I asked,
nodding at the bookshelf.

'Yes,' said Arina, nodding in reply. 'It was a stupid thing to do,
of course, to drag all the books here. But I got a lift from . . . a
friend. In a jeep. So I took the opportunity and brought along
my whole library.'

I tried to imagine whether a jeep could get through this forest.
It looked as though there was a fairly wide track starting just at
the back of the house . . . maybe it could get through . . .

I went over to the bookcase and inspected the books closely.

It really was a rich library for a botanical scholar. There were
some old volumes from the early part of the last century, with forewords
singing the praises of the Party, and Comrade Stalin in particular.
And some even older ones, pre-revolutionary. And lots of simple
well-thumbed volumes published twenty or thirty years earlier.

'A lot of them are just lumber,' Arina said without turning
round. 'The only place for them is in some bibliophile's collection.
But somehow I can't bring myself to sell them.'

I nodded gloomily, glancing at the bookcase through the Twilight.
Nothing suspicious. No magic. Old books on botany.

Or an illusion created so artfully that I couldn't see through it.

'Sit down, the tea's ready,' said Arina.

I sat down on a squeaky Viennese chair, picked up my cup of
tea and sniffed at it.

The smell was glorious. It smelt like ordinary good-quality tea,
with a bit of citrus, and a bit of mint. But I would have bet my
life that the brew didn't contain any tea leaves, or citron, or plain
ordinary mint.

'Well,' Arina said with a smile. 'Why don't you try it?'

She sat down facing me and leaned forward slightly. My gaze
involuntarily slipped down to the open collar revealing her
suntanned cleavage. I wondered if 'the friend with a jeep' was her
lover? Or simply a colleague, another botanist? Oh sure! A botanist
with a jeep . . .

What was wrong with me?

'It's hot,' I said, holding the cup in my hands. 'I'll let it cool off
a bit.'

Arina nodded.

'It's handy to have an electric kettle,' I added. 'It boils quickly.
But where do you get your power from? I didn't notice any wires
round the house.'

Arina flinched.

'An underground cable?' she suggested plaintively.

'Oh no,' I said, holding the cup at a distance and carefully
pouring the brew onto the floor. 'That answer won't do. Think
again.'

Arina tossed her head in annoyance:

'What a disaster! And over such a little thing . . .'

'It's always the little things that give you away,' I said sympathetically.
I stood up. 'Night Watch of the City of Moscow, Anton
Gorodetsky. I demand that you immediately remove the illusion!'

Arina didn't answer.

'Your refusal to co-operate will be interpreted as a violation of
the Treaty,' I reminded her.

Arina blinked. And disappeared.

So that was the way it was going to be . . .

I raised my shadow with a glance, reached towards it, and the
cool Twilight embraced me.

The little house hadn't changed at all.

Except that Arina wasn't there.

I concentrated hard. It was too dim and grey to find my shadow.
But I finally managed to find it and stepped down to the second
level of the Twilight.

The grey mist thickened and the air was filled with a heady,
distant drone. A cold shudder ran across my skin. This time the
little house had changed – and radically. It had turned into an old
peasant hut; the walls were bare logs, overgrown with moss. Instead
of glass, there were sheets of semi-transparent mica in the windows.
The furniture was cruder and older, the Viennese chair I was sitting
in had become a sawn-off log. Only the distinguished scholarly
bookcase hadn't changed. However, the books in it were rapidly
changing their appearance, the false letters were dropping to the
floor, the leatherette spines were changing to real leather . . .