Piotr looked at her suspiciously. "So now I'm not supposed to think you cast some spell on them? To help them get past their... shyness, or whatever it was?"
"I don't do love potions," said Esther. "Those are never about love, they're about coercion. And besides, they already loved each other, they were just too stupid to know it."
"But you didn't do nothing" said Piotr.
"I cast a spell of Truth on the house," said Esther. "It's very simple, really. It makes people willing to act according to what they believe. To say what's in their hearts, regardless of shame. It doesn't change what they feel, what they want. It just helps... loosen them up."
"You needed magic for that? Wine has been around for centuries. In vino veritas."
Esther laughed. "The amount of wine that it would have taken to get Vanya to forget his pride and speak his heart - well, let's just say that it might not have helped him later, when they finally understood each other."
"I married a Pandarus," said Piotr.
"I don't manipulate people, Piotr. I just help them achieve their good desires."
"Not Pandarus, then. The tooth fairy?"
She kissed him, then slapped him playfully. "Let's go out and blow things up, shall we?"
After the coolness of the night, the day was already turning muggy. They got out the Molotov cocktails and the gunpowder crackers. Ivan let his father throw the first cocktail, lighting the fuse and heaving it at the piled-up logs. It worked much better than they expected - or wanted. Burning alcohol splattered all over the logs, yes, but also onto the weeds five yards beyond. They had to turn the hose on all the little fires to put them out, and for a few moments they were afraid the whole thing would get out of hand. They didn't relish explaining to the police why they had a dozen Molotov cocktails - not the traditional fireworks for the Fourth. And when they tried the first of the crackers, it was even more disastrous. For one thing, the fuse, made out of homespun string, burned about ten times faster than they expected - Ivan barely got it out of his hand before it blew up. And then it exploded with more force than they imagined possible for such a small amount of gunpowder. Logs that were still burning from the Molotov cocktail were thrown thirty feet across the yard; one of them hit Piotr in the chest, knocking him down, though fortunately it didn't catch him on fire. And the window over the sink in the kitchen broke - when the bomblet boomed, the glass collapsed in shards all over the sink inside and the patio outside.
It was an insane five minutes, running around after burning logs, picking them up with garden tools and carrying them back to the bonfire. Checking Piotr for serious injuries - nothing broken, though, just a bruise. Cleaning up glass inside and out and then discovering that all the glaziers in town had taken the Fourth as a holiday. They spent hours then, reducing the charges in the firecrackers and pouring out alcohol from the cocktails.
And all the while, they had to keep answering the phone, telling neighbors that they had bought inferior fireworks and nobody was injured and no, they wouldn't be setting off any more like that. Then Terrel came over with his kite and sadly reported that there wasn't a breath of wind today. "The only way to fly a kite is to take it out in a convertible," he said.
But Ivan wanted to show Katerina what a kite was anyway, so he and Terrel took turns a couple of times, running up and down the yard, trailing the kite behind them. Ivan tried to explain to her that when there was a wind, it rose even higher, and you didn't have to keep running. Finally, after Terrel went home, Ivan explained to his parents and Katerina what he had in mind. "A book on hang gliding. If we can make a hang glider out of materials there in Taina, it gives us a way to fly over the walls." Katerina kept her doubts to herself - if big metal buildings could fly without even flapping their wings, then maybe a man could fly by wearing a kite. Though it was hard to believe even the kite could fly, considering that it kept crashing to the ground whenever they stopped running. Add the weight of a man with a