I went into my room with a smile of stupid satisfaction. I got undressed slowly and lazily, standing in front of the mirror, then ran my hands sensuously over my thighs and stretched like a satisfied cat.
An insane night. A magical night. I must have done just about all the wild things that a woman can do when she’s in love with a man. Even things I hadn’t liked before had suddenly become tantalising pleasures that night.
Surely I couldn’t really have fallen in love with a human being?
It wasn’t possible …
Not with an ordinary man, even if he did understand me better than anyone else in the world.
It just wasn’t possible.
‘Dark, let him be an Other,’ I whispered. ‘Great Dark, I implore you …’
It’s a dangerous game to bother the primordial Power with such petty requests. Although … I don’t believe the Dark is able to hear a simple witch. But I expect Zabulon can shout loud enough for it to hear him.
Zabulon.
I sat on the bed and covered my face with my hands.
Only two days ago nothing would have brought me more joy than being loved by him. But now?
Of course, he himself had suggested that I should amuse myself. And of course, he couldn’t give a damn for banal human dogmas, especially those that made up the credo of the Light Ones. Unfaithfulness meant nothing to him. And as for jealousy … he wouldn’t even say a word against it if Igor and I—
Stop! Where is this taking me?
‘Alisa, you’re lost your wits,’ I whispered.
Was I really still so much like ordinary people? Could I really think – what a terrible thing to say – of getting married? To a human being? Of cooking him borscht, washing his socks, bearing his children and raising them?
It was just like the old saying: The Watch by day disgrace by night …
But yes, I could …
I shook my head, imagining how the other girls would react. No, there was nothing unusual about the actual fact. Most witches are married and, as a rule, to human beings. But …
It was one thing to cast a spell on some wealthy and influential man, an oligarch, or even a deputy of the State Duma or some big-time Moscow gangster. But a simple young guy, a student, without money or contacts? I imagined the kind of jokes that would be thrown at me … and with good reason, that was the most terrible thing.
But it wasn’t the sex that was driving me insane.
What was it that was happening to me?
It was as if I’d been enchanted by an incubus.
I shuddered at the monstrous thought. What if Igor was an ordinary incubus? A colleague … one of the primitive Dark Ones?
No. It was impossible.
An incubus would have sensed that I was an Other. A Dark Other, even if I had been temporarily deprived of power. And he would never have turned his power on a witch, knowing the price he would have to pay. I’d grind him into dust if my power returned and I discovered love had been imposed on me.
Love? So it was love then?
‘Oh, Alisa,’ I whispered. ‘What a fool you are.’ Well, all right, so I am a fool. I took a clean pair of pants out of my bag and went into the shower.
I dashed about like someone possessed all day long, until the evening. Everything went badly, but that didn’t bother me in the slightest. I even had a bit of a quarrel with the camp commandant when I was trying to get good places for my girls at the film festival. But I got them, and I think I left her with an improved opinion of me! Then they gave out the pieces of dark glass that had been brought from somewhere in Nikolaev for us to watch the next day’s solar eclipse. Five pieces of glass were given out to every brigade, but I managed to get hold of six. I hadn’t even expected anyone in Ukraine to think of making them, but since they had …
After that came the beach, but of course didn’t it just happen that today the boys’ brigades had gone off on some stupid trip. Even the sea brought me no joy. But at a certain moment I looked at Natasha, understood her sad glance and realised the comedy of the situation. I wasn’t the only fool, there were two of us: the girl, pining for her boy and barely even daring to fantasise about kisses, and me, who had done things the night before that you wouldn’t even find in that alley with the porn videos at Gorbushka market. Opposite extremes coming together.
‘Are you missing him?’ I asked in a quiet voice. Just for a moment it seemed Natasha was going to get furious and she looked at me indignantly; then suddenly she sighed:
‘Uhuh … are you missing yours too?’
I nodded without speaking. The girl hesitated for a second and asked:
‘Were you with him until morning?’
I didn’t lie to her, especially since there was no one else there. I just asked:
‘Did you follow me?’
‘I felt scared in the night,’ the girl said quietly. ‘I woke up. I was having such horrible dreams … I came to you, but you weren’t in your room.’
‘Until the morning,’ I confessed. ‘I like him very much, Natasha.’
‘Were you making love?’ she asked in a businesslike tone of voice.
I wagged my finger at her:
‘Natasha!’
She wasn’t embarrassed at all. On the contrary, she lowered her voice and told me, as if I were her bosom friend:
‘I can’t get anywhere with mine. I told him that if he tried to kiss me, I’d punch him in the eye, and he said: “As if I wanted to!” Why are boys so stupid?’
‘He’ll kiss you,’ I promised her. And I thought to myself: ‘I’ll do my best to make sure he does.’
After all, what could possibly be simpler? The next day I would have my powers back, and the boy with ginger hair and freckles would follow Natasha around, gazing at her with eyes filled with genuine love. Why shouldn’t I give my best donor a little happiness?
‘What were you dreaming about?’ I asked.
‘Something horrible,’ the girl answered briefly. ‘I can’t honestly remember. But it was something really really horrible.’
‘About your younger brother?’ I asked.
Natasha wrinkled up her forehead. Then she replied:
‘I don’t remember. But how did you know I have a younger brother?’
I smiled mysteriously and stretched out on the sand. Everything was all right. The dream had been extracted completely.
That evening I realised I just couldn’t stand it any longer.
I found Galina and asked her to keep an eye on my girls for a couple of hours.
There was a strange look in her eyes. No, it wasn’t hurt, although she’d obviously understood everything, and she’d had designs on Igor herself. And it wasn’t anger. It was more like the sad look of a dog who’s been punished unjustly.
‘Of course, Alisa,’ she said.
That’s the trouble with these so-called good people. Spit in their faces, thwart their desires, trample on them – and they put up with it.
But then, of course, it is also very convenient.
I set off towards the fourth brigade’s small house. Along the way I frightened two little boys in the bushes – they were smoking shards of glass on a little fire of disposable plastic cups. Actually, to say I frightened them is putting it rather strongly. The kids frowned and tensed up, but they didn’t stop what they were doing.
‘Tomorrow they’ll give everyone special pieces of glass,’ I said amicably ‘But you’ll cut yourselves with those.’
‘There aren’t enough of the special ones,’ one of the kids objected reasonably. ‘We’ll smoke some for ourselves, the cups make great smoke.’