Day Watch

She was flung back as if she had run into an invisible wall. Natasha shrieked as she fell at the seer's feet; the bottle went flying out of her hand and shattered against the wall with surprising ease. A tiny patch of sticky, colorless liquid appeared on the linoleum.

"Tiger Cub, pick up the pieces for the report," Garik said calmly.

Natasha burst into tears.

No, she wasn't afraid, although Garik's tone of voice left no doubt that they really would wipe her memory clean. They'd clap their hands or do something else to wipe it clean. And she would find herself standing out in the street, firmly convinced that the seer's door had never opened.

She cried as she watched her love dribble across the dirty floor.

Someone stuck their head in through the open door from the landing. "We've got company, guys!" Natasha heard the alarmed voice, but she didn't even look around. There was no point. She was going to forget it all anyway. It would all be shattered into sharp little fragments and soak away into the dirt.

Forever.

Chapter one

–«¦»-

I NEVER HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO GET READY IN THE MORNING. I CAN GET up at seven, or even at six, but I still need another five minutes.

Why is it always like that, I wonder?

I was standing in front of the mirror, hastily putting on my lipstick, and as always happens when you're in a hurry, the lipstick was going on unevenly, as if I were a schoolgirl who'd secretly borrowed her mother's for the first time. It would have been better not to bother at all and go out without any makeup on. I don't have any complexes about that-I look good enough without it.

"Alya!"

Here we go.

That just has to happen, doesn't it?

"What is it, Mom?" I shouted, fastening my sandals in a hurry.

"Come here, my little one."

"Mom, I've already got my shoes on!" I shouted, adjusting a twisted strap. "I'm late, Mom!"

"Alya!"

It was pointless arguing.

Deliberately clattering my heels, although I wasn't really angry at all, I walked into the kitchen. Mom was sitting in front of the television, the way she always does, and drinking yet an-other cup of tea with yet another cake. What is it she likes so much about those repulsive Danish cakes? They're such terrible garbage! Not to mention how bad they are for the figure.

"Little one, are you going to be late again today?" Mom asked, without even turning her head in my direction.

"I don't know."

"Alisa, I don't think you ought to let it happen. Normal working hours are one thing, but keeping you there until one in the morning…" Mom shook her head.

"They pay for it," I said offhandedly.

And then Mom did look at me. And her lips began to tremble. "So you hold that against me, do you?"

My mother always did have an expressive voice, like an actress's. She should have worked in the theater.

"Yes, we live on your wages," my mom said bitterly. "The state robbed us and threw us out to die at the side of the road. Thank you, dear daughter, for not forgetting about us. Your father and I are very grateful to you. But there's no need to keep reminding us…"

"Mom, I didn't mean anything of the sort. You know I don't have a standard working day!"

"Working day!" My mom flung her arms in the air. She had a crumb of cake on her chin. "Working night, more like! And who knows what you get up to?"

"Mom…"

Of course, she didn't really think anything of the kind. On the contrary, she was always proudly telling her friends what a fine, upstanding girl I was. It was just that in the morning she felt like arguing. Perhaps she'd been watching the news and she'd heard yet another disgusting story about our life here in Russia. Perhaps she and Dad had had a fight first thing in the morning-that would explain why he had left so early.

"And I've no intention of becoming a grandmother at forty!" my mom went on, without following any particular logic. What logic did she need, anyway? She'd been afraid for ages that I would get married and leave home and she'd be left living with just my father. Or maybe she wouldn't-I'd taken a look at the reality lines, and it was very probable that my dad would leave her for another woman. He was three years younger than Mom, and unlike her, he took care of himself.

"You'll be fifty this year, Mom," I said. "Sorry, I'm really in a hurry."

When I was already in the hallway, I heard my mom's voice, full of righteous indignation: "You never did want to talk to your mother like a normal human being!"

"There was a time when I wanted to," I muttered to myself as I skipped out the door. "When I still was a human being I wanted to. But where were you then…"

I knew for sure that Mom was taking comfort in thinking about the argument she would have with me in the evening. And she was dreaming about involving Dad in it too. When I thought about that, it instantly put me in a foul mood.

What kind of way to behave is that-deliberately provoking a fight with someone you love? But Mom just loves to do it. And she doesn't understand it's her own character that killed my father's love for her.

I'll never do that to anyone.

And I won't let Mom do it either!

There was no one in the hallway, but even if there had been it wouldn't have stopped me. I turned back to face the door and looked at it in a special way, with my eyes slightly crossed… so that I could see my shadow.

My real shadow. The one that's cast by the Twilight.

It looks as if the gloom is condensing in front of you, until it becomes an absolutely black, intense darkness-so black it would make a starless night look like day.

And against the background of that darkness you see a trembling, swirling, grayish silhouette, not quite three-dimensional but not flat either… As if it had been cut out of dirty cotton wool. Or maybe it's the other way around-a hole has been cut through the great Darkness, leaving a doorway into the Twilight.

I took a step forward onto the shadow and it slid upward, enfolding my body, and the world changed.

The colors almost completely disappeared. Everything was frozen in a dark, gray blur, like what appears on a television screen if you turn the color and contrast all the way down. Sounds slowed down, leaving silence, with nothing but a barely audible background rumble, as faint as the murmur of a distant sea.

I was in the Twilight.

I could see Mom's resentment blazing in the apartment. A bitter, lemon-yellow color mixed with self-pity and her acid-green dislike of my dad, who had chosen the wrong time to go to the garage and tinker with his car.

And there was a black vortex slowly taking shape above Mom's head. A curse directed at someone specific, still weak, on the level of "I hope that job of yours drives you crazy, you ungrateful creature!" But it was a mother's curse, and they're especially powerful and tenacious.

Oh no, my dear mom!

Thanks to your efforts, Dad had a heart attack at thirty-seven and three years ago I barely managed to save him from another… at a cost that I don't even want to remember. And now you've set your sights on me?

I reached out through the Twilight as hard as I could, so hard I got a stabbing pain under my shoulder blades, and grabbed hold of Mom's mind-it twitched and then froze.

Okay… now this is what we'll do…

I broke into a sweat, although it's always cool in the Twilight. I wasted energy that would have been useful at work. But a moment later Mom no longer remembered that she'd been speaking to me. And in general, she was really pleased that I was such a hard worker, that I was appreciated and liked at work, that I went out when it was barely light and didn't come back until after midnight.

That's done.