why did they always develop a passion for gardening, scrabbling in the earth? Were they trying to get used to it?

'Grandma's joking,' I said, and thumped my chest. 'We do have a real man here, and he'll paint the fence! If necessary, he'll paint all the fences in the village!'

'A real man,' Nadya repeated, laughing.

I buried my face in her fine hair and blew. Nadiushka started giggling and kicking out at the same time. I winked at Svetlana as she came out of the house, and lowered my daughter to the ground.

'Run to Mummy.'

'No, better go to Grandma,' said Svetlana, sweeping Nadya up in her arms. 'For a drink of milk.'

'I don't want milk!'

'You have to,' Svetlana retorted.

And Nadiushka didn't argue any more, she set off meekly to the kitchen. Even ordinary human mothers and children have a strange, unspoken understanding with each other. So what could you expect from our family? Nadya could sense perfectly well when she could play up, and when it wasn't even worth trying.

'What did Gesar say?' Svetlana asked, sitting down beside me. The hammock started to sway.

'He gave me a choice. I can look for the witch on my own, or I can call in assistance. Will you help me decide?'

'Look at the future for you?' Svetlana asked.

'Yes.'

Svetlana closed her eyes and lay back in the hammock. I pulled up her legs and put them across my knees. From the outside it looked perfectly idyllic. An attractive woman lying in a hammock, resting. Her husband sitting beside her, playfully stroking her thigh.

I can look into the future too, but not nearly as well as Svetlana. It's not my speciality, so would have taken me a lot longer to do. And my forecast would have been unreliable.

Svetlana opened her eyes and looked at me.

'Well?' I asked impatiently.

'Don't stop, keep stroking,' she said with a smile. 'You're in the clear. I don't see any danger at all.'

'The witch is evidently weary of her evildoing,' I laughed. 'All right, then. I'll issue her a verbal warning for not being registered.'

'It's her library that bothers me,' Svetlana confessed. 'Why would she hide away in the back of beyond, with books like that?'

'Maybe she just doesn't like the city?' I suggested. 'She needs the forest, fresh air . . .'

'Then why just outside Moscow? She should go away to Siberia, where the environment's less polluted and the rarest herbs grow. Or to the Far East.'

'She's local,' I laughed. 'Patriotic about her own little homeland.'

'Something's not right,' Svetlana said peevishly. 'I still can't get over that business with Gesar . . . and then suddenly this witch!'

'What's so strange about the Gesar business?' I asked with a shrug. 'He wanted to make his son into a Light One. I for one don't blame him. Imagine how guilty he must feel. He thought the child had died . . .'

Svetlana smiled ironically:

'At this moment Nadiushka's sitting on a stool, dangling her legs and saying she wants the skin taken off her milk.'

'So . . . ?' I asked, puzzled.

'I can sense where she is and what's happening to her,' Svetlana explained. 'Because she's my daughter. And I'm not as powerful as Gesar or Olga . . .'

'They thought the boy had died . . .' I muttered.

'That could never happen,' Svetlana said firmly. 'Gesar's not a block of stone, he's got feelings. He would have sensed that the boy was alive. Olga certainly would have. He's her flesh and blood . . . she couldn't have believed that her child had died. And if they knew he was alive, the rest was straightforward enough. Gesar has the power, and he had it fifty years ago, to turn the entire country upside down in order to find his son.'

'You mean they deliberately didn't look for him?' I asked, but Svetlana didn't answer. 'Or . . .'

'Or,' Svetlana agreed, 'the boy really was an ordinary human being. In that case everything fits. They could have believed he was dead and found him entirely by chance.'

'The Fuaran,' I said. 'Maybe this witch is somehow connected with what happened at the Assol complex?'

Svetlana shrugged and sighed:

'Anton, I want desperately to go into the forest with you, find this kind botanist lady and subject her to intensive interrogation.'

'But you're not going to,' I said.

'No, I'm not. I swore I wouldn't get involved in Night Watch operations.'

I understood everything. I shared the resentment Svetlana felt towards Gesar. And in any case I preferred not to take Svetlana