Obviously the tea had gotten cold, but Robin warmed the teapot and the cake with a flick of his hand. I couldn't see anything again, just the steam coming out of the spout. Cabbage and egg pie was almost as good as the one my Granny used to make. When I was just a little birdie, I used to spend my summer vacations in the village with my Granny, and in the winter I would often run to my her city apartment after school and on weekends to enjoy the pies. Later, my Granny died, and for some reason my dad's older sister, my unforgettable Auntie, moved into her apartment, though my Granny had no relation to her. My mom, who was always at the office, decided that I would benefit from the company of an elegant woman who would teach me manners and make a real lady out of a tomboy. I suited dad as a tomboy, however, he always lost his willpower in the presence of his sister, who was almost twenty years older and had raised him like a son.

I was supposed to go straight from school to the Auntie's house to learn serving and cutlery rules during lunch. Then, seated in an armchair by the window, she listened to me reading by heart the poems she had chosen the evening before. This was followed by piano lessons. Then I had to run to the supermarket for cakes and cookies, because in the evening my Auntie's friends, equally elegant ladies, came over for tea. One of the girlfriends brought breakfast and lunch - Auntie didn't eat dinner on principle, to maintain her figure. Despite this sacrifice, the figure bore the memory of all the eclairs and cherry liqueur chocolates she had ever ate.

At first, Auntie wanted to put the responsibility of cooking on me. According to her, real ladies don't cook, but I had to learn all the womanly tricks before I could become a lady. After I had been roasting all kinds of food to charcoal for days on end, Auntie got a migraine, and then one of her friends volunteered to provide her with provisions. After that, I was trusted only to make tea and serve dessert on delicate porcelain plates to the high society.

While society discussed the latest gossip from the lives of those girlfriends who could not attend, and planned to hold a spiritual séance on the next full moon, I was supposed to do my homework. But their clucking could be heard through the closed door of the other room, and I could never concentrate.

I'd come home exhausted. Mom was working late, and dad was checking students' papers and preparing lectures every evening, so I'd order pizza and stare into the TV, not even knowing what was playing on it. When my parents noticed that my grades were creeping downward and that I wasn't getting any elegant, they reduced my visits to Auntie to three days a week.

This did not help much, because Auntie, determined to prove her worth as a mentor, took on me with redoubled vigor. What are you doing, Katherina! Straighten up, Katherina! Who eats like that! Who drinks like that! Hair should be longer, eyelashes must be colored, you must fasten the top button! Are those jeans? Are those sneakers?! Why do you have ink on your cheek? Wash your face right now. And comb your hair. And straighten up. And so on and so forth. I shrank, slouched even more, and slowly stopped being a tomboy, but never turned into a lady.

In addition, Auntie had a taste for mysticism. She adored horoscopes, kept track of the phases of the moon, taught me to throw salt over my left shoulder, knock on wood, put a mirror in front of an unpleasant person, put a pin on the back of my sweater to prevent the evil eye, and she also held Ouija sessions. She had a heart attack during one of them. Auntie's girlfriends claimed she saw the ghost of her ex-husband, who hadn't left her a penny in the divorce.

I entered university, and my parents let me live in my Granny's apartment with Alina, who happily escaped from the dormitory. The first thing I did was I got rid of the hated piano, Auntie's velvet armchair, and then the rest of the furniture. The writing desk was followed by a large collection of poems by different authors, which I could not get out of my head, as well as my Auntie's disgruntled exclamations and lamentations.

"Rina, would you like some more tea?" Robin's voice brought me out of trance.

I handed the mug to him and took a second slice of pie, sat up straight in my chair, took a fork and knife, and began to cut off small pieces, as a lady should. They eat eclairs and tartlets, though, not cabbage pies.

Jay stared at me, studying me like a painting in a museum. Too bad he wasn't as impressed with the roasted food as Auntie had been. But maybe a couple more days and he'd be down with a migraine, as well. Besides, I didn't mess up the omelet on purpose; it just comes naturally - and I'm not going to learn or try better.

After lunch we went out to the back patio, overgrown with grass, spikes, and a sprout of young trees. Jay figured out what to do with the mice and birds. He couldn't put it all together in one spell though, so he got a little angry.

Robin and I watched from the veranda. The sorcerer had a professional interest, and I wanted to see how Jay did magic, because he hadn't done it since I'd gotten here, and I secretly hoped it wouldn't work. On the other hand, there was a chance that when he did his magic, I might see silver sparks after all, since I was connected to him. I rubbed the spot on my right palm.

Jay flattened the stalks with his feet to clear the space, got down on one knee, and rested his palms on the ground. His hair was loose, covering his skinny face, but I could hear him whisper something. Then he was silent, and his back stiffened. Outwardly the sorcerer didn't seem to do anything, but through the bond, I felt a powerful jolt of energy that made me gasp and hold my breath.

At the same moment a flock of small birds with red breasts and a few sparrows flew out of the bushes, and a gray-black crow took off heavily from a branch of a thin aspen and rushed toward the hills with an indignant caw. A swarm of flies, bees, and moths rose and scattered around. The mice surged toward the house, some of them climbing the steps of the veranda. I lifted my legs, and Robin jumped up from his chair and slammed the door to the kitchen. The mice rushed to the sides, beyond the hedge, to the neighbors. There came a woman's squeal from the left. Robin snorted, holding back laughter, and Jay proceeded to the second part.

He stood up, threw his hair back from his face, and I could see that he was smiling. Unlike Robin, who seemed to be smoothly conducting the orchestra as he removed the leaves, Jay's movements were abrupt, short, sparing. He outlined the air with his palms. The sparks must have formed a geometric shape if one saw the magic.

The sorcerer spread his arms as if to embrace what he'd drawn in the air, and then he joined his palms together briskly. The grass, the trees, everything was gone. In front of us there was a square of empty land, traced by the curves of the exposed stony pathways.

Jay turned toward the house and suddenly swayed to the side. Robin helped his friend up the steps to the veranda and sat him down on a chair.

"Why don't you?.." I began, and interrupted myself. You're a dumb little bird, Katherina.

Master Sorcerer, would you please stop staring at me, I'm not a museum piece! Jay, of course, understood what I was going to say. Come on, pump the energy out of me, since I was the one who stupidly suggested it. There was a sudden feeling of energy running out, but it didn't last long - he took only a little.

I went back to the kitchen, picked up the teapot with a trembling hand, and poured the rest of the tea into a mug.

Of course, no one was going to take a rest. To plant the field with the seeds Robin had bought, the ground had to be dug up. And why didn't you, sorcerer, do it right away with a spell? Luckily, the ground was soft, preserving the empty space from the vanished roots, and I worked the rake monotonously, moving from one edge to the other. I changed back into my Mickey Mouse T-shirt, and Robin questioned what this creature was and why I was calling it a mouse. He had yet to see my T-shirt with the Batman symbol on it!

Jay returned to the library, and the smoke started coming out of the chimney with renewed intensity. Robin filled a bucket of water with magic to irrigate the soil. I dug in the storeroom for the watering can and wondered why they hadn't invented the garden hose. It turned out they had, there just wasn't one in the house.

Finally, we finished with the backyard. There were still some seeds for the front garden, but Robin thought we'd do that tomorrow. Right now he couldn't wait to get back to the library so Jay wouldn't burn anything useful. I told him I needed a shower first, but in fact, when I got back to my room, I lay face down in my pillow and didn't move until the mosquito peeping in my ears got me up. I reluctantly stood up, grumbling, dragged myself to the bathroom, washed my face quickly, and headed for the library.

Jay divided the books into a pile to burn, a stack to sell, and those worthy of his library. Some went straight back on the shelves, and the most interesting ones went on the table. I couldn't read, so it was my duty to carry the volumes from the shelves to the fireplace, where the two sorcerers sat on the floor, flipping through books and arguing about their sorcerer stuff. I furtively set the books with beautiful pictures aside on the top shelves, so they wouldn't be visible from below. I still climbed the stepladder with apprehension, but it was sturdy and the shelves were solid, so no accidents occurred, except that I was occasionally dropping books on my way to the fireplace.

At sunset, I, smelling of smoke and sneezing and covered in book dust, had to stand next to Robin at the stove and pretend to memorize what he was doing with the leftover vegetables.

I guess there's a limit to fatigue, after which a person can no longer fall asleep. I hugged the pillow, tossed it aside, twisted, tangled in the blanket and untangled, and then a cloud of thoughts rolled over me, thundered through my head and poured out in a shower of tears.

I felt like a slouchy teenage girl again, forced to spend hours with a weird old aunt while my classmates went for walks, to the movies, just generally had a social life. I was trapped in this nightmarish prison, and now, after several years of freedom, which I hadn't been able to fully enjoy, I was back in the cage.

I would briefly forget myself in a shallow sleep full of familiar and unfamiliar faces, wake up, and fall back into the viscous nightmares. I would dream of my Auntie in a pointy hat trying to sell me seeds that would sprout a Chinese dragon, or of me reciting poetry to mice that surrounded me and glared with their swamp-green eyes, or of me and my parents eating a moss pie, and my mother screaming into the phone that the report was useless and should be burned in the fireplace.

Awake for the umpteenth time, in the ghostly pre-dawn twilight, I got out of bed and went to the window to open it. I must have been asleep again. The lying marble lion stood up and stretched like a cat. The other looked at him and showed his teeth in greeting. The front door opened, and Jay slipped out into the garden. I hid behind the curtain so he wouldn't see me. But since it was my dream, he wouldn't see me if I didn't want him to. And I didn't.

With each step he took, everything around him was transformed - the trees turned translucent, melting into the cold morning mist, and the ground loomed up in mounds and became covered in soft green moss that crawled up the path and hid it underneath. Fallen columns appeared all around, shards of marble scattered across the green sea, along with the ruins of stone walls. The ground sprang beneath the sorcerer's boots. The white lions rushed toward him like a pair of joy-crazed puppies. They ran around the sorcerer, jumped, tried to lick his face, and then threw him down, and he laughed and rolled with them on the soft mossy carpet, burying his hands in their fur.

At last they had had enough, and one lion jumped back onto its pedestal, and the other followed the sorcerer into the mist that drifted among the marble and red stones.

I closed the curtain, curled up on the bed, and didn't wake up until morning.

Today was to be my first day out on my own. I took the wicker basket that Robin had cast a weight-reduction spell on yesterday - that's why customers at the market filled them up and carried them easily at the bend of their elbows. In the storeroom I found a black purse on a long string, embroidered with a rose, and I hung it around my neck. Next to the box of notes now stood a tubby wooden casket. I was told to take money from it when I went shopping, and to put the change back.

On my way out, I glared sternly at the two lions. Indeed so! The one under the flowering bush is sitting today, and he's dirty all over again! Only harm is done by this magic!

Outside, I felt preposterous. The white blouse with the wide sleeves could somehow pass for local clothes, especially when I was walking under the cover of Robin, who distracted the girls with his graceful stature and radiant smile. Now the passersby were staring at my outfit. Jeans, sneakers, everything tight, and that stupid purse and basket! The blue long-sleeved T-shirt I had gotten from Alina didn't fit me, either.

I decided to start by buying eggs, because it was an understandable product. The redheaded hen, all fluffed up, looked at me unkindly from the counter. I responded in the same way. The old seller, instead of helping me, turned away and shifted something in the boxes. He must have felt uncomfortable, too. How could I approach this difficult task? Do I have to put the goods in the basket myself? Or give it to the salesman? And what do I say? When do I pay?

I was firmly pushed aside by a large middle-aged woman. She nodded at the seller, who was relieved to greet a normal customer.

"Ten," the woman said, and one by one she threw the eggs right on top of a bunch of greens and a bundle of carrots, handed the seller some coins, and walked away, glancing disapprovingly at my T-shirt.

Before the seller turned away again, I quickly said:

"Ten!"

"Ten?" wondered the old man for some reason.

I blushed and began to carefully put the eggs in the basket. After struggling with the purse for a good minute, I held the coins out in the palm of my hand for the old man to get what he needed. He was even more surprised, but he picked out a few coins and hastily said goodbye.

My hands were shaking and my face was burning from the stress I'd been under. I walked back to the fountain. My parents would be laughing at me right now. A grown-up lady doesn't know how to do shopping!

"Surely I do!" I protested aloud.

The pigeon, perched on the edge of the fountain, jumped frightfully on the ground and ran away.

I sighed. I must get on with my shopping before the mosquito buzzing starts hurrying me up. With some difficulty, I bought tomatoes, apples, and potatoes. After some thought, I bought the same bunch of greens as the resolute woman had. The merchants surreptitiously stared at my clothes while I crept around the counter, then dug embarrassedly into my palm of coins.

Overall, everything went fine, and I was quite pleased with myself. Finally, I stopped at a table with straw figures and wreaths. It was so interesting! At the side sat little mustachioed mice of dried green grass and golden straw. Some were tied with colorful ribbons. This time I had a look at the salesman. His long mustache, below his chin, was braided into pigtails that ended in beads. He was sitting on a stool under the awning, winding straw around a sphere-shaped frame and saying something leisurely.

A young girl was helping him. She gave him beads and ribbons, which he wove into the grass. She turned around for a second, looked at me carefully, and smiled. The girl looked like the princess from a fairy tale book - the first thing that caught my eye was the lush wheat-colored hair, put in a high ponytail. She wore neat bangs cascading down her forehead almost to her blue-gray eyes. Peach blush emphasized her broad cheekbones. A doll nose and thin pink lips completed the image. That's who Alina's T-shirt would suit!

At home it turned out that I forgot about the milk, so today for breakfast we had my signature scrambled eggs with charred edges and dry yolks. Unlike scrambled eggs, there was something edible in them. There was an oppressive silence in the kitchen, interrupted by the scraping of forks against plates. The sorcerer gave up first, put down his fork, poured himself some tea, and watched as I persistently separated the bits that more or less looked like food from the charred underlay. I had no intention of giving up! Finally, Jay got fed up and broke the silence - which meant I'd won.

"Clean up in here and then wash the lions."

I was annoyed by my signature scrambled eggs and still hungry, so I asked defiantly:

"What's wrong with them?"

"Nothing's wrong with them."

I wasn't satisfied with his answer.

"Then why do they keep getting dirty?"

"Because they're hunting."

I frowned, and Jay explained:

"Not here, in the shadow of the world."

So it wasn't a dream! But I preferred to keep quiet about what I'd seen. After all, he didn't ask if I knew anything so I didn't lie.

"This, too, is a form of sai. All incorporeal beings desire, to a greater or lesser degree, to have a body. I offered them bodies in exchange for them guarding my home."

"But these aren't real bodies, they're statues!" I argued, realizing that he was about to leave without explaining anything.

"They are statues here, in the shadow of the world they are real lions, as much as anything can be real there. They take turns hunting other ethereal beings. One guards the house, both here and there, then his statue sits, while the other hunts and rests, and the second statue looks asleep."

The sorcerer's voice became hoarse, and he finished his tea in a gulp, thus ending the conversation.

I realized that it was useless to ask him about the shadow of the world, for he had already exceeded his daily quota of conversations. Besides, I didn't want to tempt fate. He seemed relatively friendly now, but I remembered that any second he might reveal his Mr. Hyde.

The second lion was a little messed up, too - well, they were all rolling around in the moss together. Jay was cutting the hedge from the street side. The neighbors had gotten used to the fact that there was something going on in the garden, and they no longer stuck their curious noses out of every window. The occasional passers-by said hello, but for some reason the sorcerer always had his back to them, and I had to answer. When Jay was finished with half the hedge, he went inside, and a feeling told me that he had gone up to the library. At last I could get some rest!

I slowly ran the rag over the lion's skin and pondered the shadow of the world. What was this place? Another parallel world? Since I'd seen it, maybe I could get there, and then home from there? I'd have to get a magic amulet to see the magical sparks. I remember the sequence of worlds, so I'll get to mine somehow, I assumed lightheartedly.

" Do you know how I can get home?" I asked the lion with his shaggy head held high. The lion smiled indifferently.

"Right," I added, " You know nothing, don't you? My name is Katherina, and I dreadfully want to go home. That sorcerer of yours tricked me into coming here, forcing me to cook and wash your marble skin. By the way, if you're alive, you must have a name. What's your name?"

A man who was passing by stumbled on an even spot and quickened his stride.

"I'll call you Bonifacius," I informed the lion, scrubbing away the stain under his mouth. The lion continued to grin happily.

I was about to complain about the fact that I also am not allowed to sleep as much as I want, when I heard a ringing in my ears.

"See!" I exclaimed.

Immediately a cup of coffee appeared in front of my inner eye. Well, there you go, that bond is functioning that way, too. Maybe the sorcerer would soon stop talking to me altogether. That would be wonderful. Only when I was in the kitchen, watching the coffee brewing, did I realize that I was being short-sighted again. It would have been wiser to pretend that I did not take his signal. Oh, Katherina, you just made the sorcerer's life easier! I promised myself that next time I would think before I did anything.

The sorcerer came down from the library with a book in his hands, sat down at the table and, without taking his eyes off his reading, took a cup and sipped from it. I watched, lips pressed together, as he flipped through the pages with the same hand he used to break off bits from a buttery bun. The book was thick, with a dark blue cover and no pictures at all. Jay frowned and occasionally shook his head skeptically. I thought he looked a bit better than he did a few days ago. The shadows under his eyes had lightened, his skin looked less like parchment, though he still looked as if he'd been dusted, and his hair in a ponytail was dull and lifeless.

Jay didn't say a word until he'd finished his coffee, but as he left the kitchen he suddenly said, without turning around:

"The floor needs to be washed sometimes, too."

And out he went. I just pressed my lips together harder to avoid answering. Hands need to be washed before you touch a book! I found a mop and a rag in the storeroom, fetched a bucket I'd left by the lions, and filled it with fresh water. The rag became filthy from the first contact with the floor, hair and crumbs and dust stuck to it. I realized I should have swept first. I had to go back to the storeroom to get a broom. As soon as I started sweeping, I managed to knock the bucket over.

"Ugh!" I exclaimed, bounced off the puddle and knocked over a chair. My sneakers got wet in an instant.

I almost cried, but I pulled myself together quickly. If Jay senses anything now, he'd come down from the library and glare at me and negotiate new rules. Let's make an agreement, Rina, that you don't burst into tears during daylight hours anymore. Is that how you mop the floor, or have you invented a new method? Let's have a deal that from now on you'll clean the floor the classic way. And that you won't walk around the house with wet shoes on!

I took off my sneakers and hung them by the laces on the sun on veranda. It was uncomfortable to step barefoot on the wet floor, but I didn't want to mess up my other shoes, either. There were a pair of gym shoes and ballerinas in my backpack. Alina believed it was necessary to have extra shoes on a trip.

Some of the water had leaked under the shelves and stove, some had seeped into cracks in the floor, and the wood had darkened and swollen. At first I tried to collect the puddles in a bucket, but then I decided that it would be easier to distribute water around the kitchen and hallway with a rag - it was kind of like cleaning the floor. It wasn't that easy, but I managed to do it in an hour. There were clumps of wet dust hiding in the corners, and in some places I could see some stains, but it was cleaner than before. While the rag was wet, I wiggled it across the floor of my room and even up the stairs. I didn't bother going into the dining room - no one was using it anyway. On second thought, I dipped the rag in the bucket again and wiped the stairwell floor with its bleak decorations. I was standing thoughtfully in front of the stairs to the third floor when the library door opened and Jay informed me that I had no business being up there, but that the library was worth checking out. He either didn't see my bare feet or ignored them.

For the second time that day, I promised myself to think first. Instead of cleaning up the kitchen and hiding in the garden I just got myself an extra day's work. Fortunately, the sorcerer was too absorbed in reading to judge my cleaning methods.

After I scrubbed the library floor, all I wanted to do was get to bed, lie down, and not move until the evening. But it was getting close to lunchtime. The sorcerer still wasn't eating much, and I always preferred a hearty breakfast, so the lunch was late. Robin seemed to have decided not to come today.

I cursed all the sorcerers and their mossy world, while I threw the potatoes into the pot, poured water over them, and put them on the stove. I realized that the potatoes needed to be washed, so I had to drain the water that was already hot, wash the potatoes, and pour the water in again. It had been a long time since I had felt as clumsy as I did today.

I sat down, put my head on the table, and before I knew it, I was asleep. I woke up when the water was almost boiled out and the potatoes were cracked and falling apart. Thanks not burning! I poured the potatoes into the sink, peeled off the skin, scalding myself, and put them into a big bowl. The greens I'd bought this morning came in handy - I put some dill on the unsavory ruins.

Jay walked into the kitchen and stared at the swollen, wet floor. I got scared, but recalled my Auntie's method. I quickly pictured the mirror between me and the sorcerer. He frowned and said nothing. Dinner passed in silence. Jay peeled off the remaining skins and drank water with every bite of potato. He hadn't eaten much at all, then told me to get busy with the hedges, and retired to the library again. Will it ever be my turn to sit in an armchair with a book?

By nightfall I was exhausted, my mind jumbled and jumped from one thing to another. I remembered the sneakers on the veranda and immediately forgot about them, remembered the mossy world, wondered how I could get home through it, switched to memories of my Auntie, and fell straight to sleep.

Waking up to mosquito calls, I felt angry at myself for not being able to see the shadow of the world again. Today, the stone Bonifacius was asleep. He was clean, but I brushed the street dust off him anyway. Now I had to come up with a name for the second one, too. I wiped the pollen from the overhanging white flowers off him, rubbed his sloping forehead. Of course! I counted the syllables - each one had four. Just like in "Katherina", a royal amount for this world.

"I name you Dostoevsky!" I said solemnly.

Now I had two friends who had to listen to me complain - they couldn't escape.

The next few days passed wonderfully. I went to the market every morning. I could have bought more groceries and shopped there less often, but I took every opportunity to avoid the sorcerer, even if it meant very slowly and carefully washing Dostoevsky and Bonifacius, equally carefully cutting the wild hedge along the perimeter, thoughtfully watering the flowers Robin had planted which had already begun to sprout. Robin dropped by for coffee a few times, once to bring Jay a book, which he clung to and wouldn't even leave the library for lunch. I couldn't sympathize with him - no reason to drag anyone, and that was me, out of a world without magic. He should have found an experienced maid around here.

Even though I'd gone to bed earlier and wasn't so tired, I couldn't see the shadow of the world again. Even when I woke up at dawn a couple of times, the same garden was outside the window, green and tidy, but not the one I wanted to see again.