Day Watch

And I saw it…

It was a bad dream. The girl was dreaming that she was going home-their session wasn't over yet, but she was being taken away because her mother had fallen ill and her gloomy, frowning father was dragging her toward the bus. She hadn't even had time to say goodbye to her friends, she hadn't had any time to take a last dip in the sea and take some little stones that were very important… and she was struggling and asking her father to wait, but he was just getting more and more angry… and saying something about disgraceful behavior, about how girls her age shouldn't have to be beaten, but since she was behaving like this, she could forget about his promise not to punish her with his belt anymore…

It was a really bad dream. Nastya's departure had affected the little girl very badly…

And anybody would have tried to help the child at that moment.

A human being would have stroked her hair and said something affectionate in a gentle voice, maybe sung a lullaby… anything to interrupt the dream.

A Light Other would have used his Power to turn the dream inside out, so that the father would laugh and say the little girl's mother was well again and go ru

But I'm a Dark Other.

And I did what I could. I drank her Power. Sucked it into myself-the gloomy father, and the sick mother, and the little friends lost forever, and the sea stones left behind, and the shameful beating…

The little girl gave a quiet squeak, like a mouse caught under something heavy. And then she began breathing calmly and regularly. There's not a lot of Power in children's dreams. It's not like the ritual killing that we had threatened the Light Ones with and which provides a truly monstrous discharge of energy. These were dreams, just dreams…

Light nourishing broth for an ailing witch…

I got up off my knees, feeling slightly dizzy. No, I hadn't recovered my lost powers yet. It would take a dozen dreams like that to fill the yawning gap.

But those dreams would happen. And I would do my best to encourage them.

None of the other little girls were dreaming. Well, one was, but her dream was no use to me, a stupid little girl's dream about the freckle-faced boy who had given her yet another of those stupid stones with a hole in them-what they called "chicken gods." I suppose chickens must have their own gods.

I stood beside this girl's bed-she was probably the most physically advanced of them all. She even had the first begi

Never mind. There would be another evening and another night. And my plump donor's dream would come back to her- I had drawn out all of her fear, but not its causes. Her nightmare would return, and I would help her again. The important thing was not to try too hard, not to push the girl into a genuine nervous breakdown-I had no right to do that. That would smack of serious magical intervention, and if the Light Ones had even a single observer in the camp, or even-who knows what tricks the Darkness might play-if there was an Other there from the Inquisition, then I would be in serious trouble.

And I wasn't about to let Zabulon down again.

Never!

It was amazing that he had forgiven me for what had happened the previous summer. But he wouldn't forgive me a second time.

At ten o'clock in the morning I went to breakfast with my charges.

Nastya had been right-I was managing just fine.

When the girls had woken up, they had been a bit cautious at first. How could they not have been, when the leader they had already come to love had gone away in the middle of the night to see her sick mother, and another young woman had come into the dormitory instead of her-a stranger, an unknown quantity, someone quite unlike Nastya? I had immediately felt the unfriendly wary gaze of eighteen pairs of eyes on me-they were all together and I was isolated.

The situation was saved by the fact that the girls were still little and I am beautiful.

If boys of the same age had been in their place, my appearance wouldn't have made the slightest difference. Ten-year-old boys are far more interested in the ugliest of puppies than the most beautiful of girls. And if my charges had been two or three years older, my appearance would have only irritated them. But for ten-year-old girls, a beautiful woman is an object of admiration. They are already begi

So I soon established contact with the girls.

I sat on Olechka's bed because the notes in the exercise book suggested that she was the most quiet and timid of them. I talked to the girls about Nastya, about how bad it is when your mother is unwell, and told them they mustn't be offended with Nastya… she had really wanted to stay with them, but your mother is the most important person in your life!

When I finished, Olechka began sniveling and pressed herself against me. And the eyes of all the others were looking moist and weepy too.

Then I told them about my dad and his heart attack, and I said that nowadays they knew how to cure people's hearts, and Nastya's mother was going to be perfectly all right too. I helped the swarthy-ski

We arrived at breakfast as a united and cheerful group. Only Olga, who was "not Olechka, but always Olga," and her friend Ludmila were still sulky. But that was not surprising since they had obviously been Nastya's favorites.

Never mind… in another three days' time they would come to love me too.

Our surroundings were genuinely lovely. August in the Crimea is just fantastic. The sea was glittering at the bottom of the slope, the air was saturated with the scent of salt water and flowers. The girls squealed and ran about all over the place, bumping into each other. The marching rhymes in the old Pioneer camps were obviously invented for good reason-you can't do much squealing if your mouth's busy trying to sing.

But I don't know any marching rhymes, and I don't know how to march in line anyway.

I'm a Dark One.

In the dining hall I simply followed my little charges' lead- they knew where we were supposed to sit. We were surrounded by five hundred children creating a huge din who somehow managed to eat at the same time. I sat there quietly with my little band of girls, trying to assess the situation. After all, I had to spend an entire month here.

There were twenty-five leaders who had come to breakfast with their brigades. My facile pride in how skillfully I was managing my charges rapidly evaporated. These young men and women were more like the boys' and girls' older brothers and sisters. Sometimes they were stern, sometimes they were affectionate; their word was law and they were also loved.