Kharon kept on telling his fascinating story. Victoria looked at the woman sitting near Vasya. She was silent. She had so whitish eyes. Vic had never seen such eye colour before. They were empty, terrible and colourless like transparent lenses sold for a half of a coin at a second-hand sell. The pupil was dirty with fat fingertip prints, the colour disappeared. You could hardly have looked at such eyes: you would look away because you’d feel sympathy or sick.

Victoria didn’t feel quite herself because of the way the silent woman was looking at her in. Victoria felt like that because of the woman’s paleness and white-pink lips, chapped thoroughly. Her lips were so dry that Victoria instinctively wanted to give water to that woman just to help her in any way.

‘Who’s it?’ Vic asked, interrupted Kharon’s story.

‘Where?’ Vasya looked around.

‘The woman sitting near you. You haven’t introduced us.’

‘The woman?’ Vasilisa asked in surprise, looking over the empty chairs near her.

Kharon was frowning. His face was so serious as if he was in the edge of discovery of something unusual. Maybe it was. Vasilisa smiled, put the rest of her sandwich at the tray and instantly pierced into her friend with her eyes.

‘The woman, right?’ she summed up. ‘What woman? What’s wrong with you, Vic?’

‘This one!’ Victoria said but not in such a confident voice as before, staring into the stranger’s eyes.

‘Listen, you started scaring me. There’s no woman.’ Vasilisa demonstratively got up and sat down on the empty chair.

It seemed like no one, but Victoria saw a greyish fog cloud raised up after Vasilisa sat on “the woman” and next second it came down again at another chair still near Vasilisa.

Little by little Victoria started understanding what woman she saw who no one else saw.

‘You don’t see her, neither, do you?’ Vic asked Kharon with fear.

The man shook his head confusingly, taking the last hope from Victoria to believe her not to be an insane.

‘You mean that you’re still seeing her?’ Vasilisa asked.

‘No.’ Vic said quickly and looked away from the woman. ‘No, I’m just kidding.’

‘I’m glad that it was your trick.’ Kharon decided to say anything.

He, of course, understood more than others that there was nothing about jokes. He perfectly remembered Lucifer’s words and was too afraid of that what was going to happen in future. The wandering witch near the demonic essence was bad for the witch and the demon…

‘Fine.’ Vasilisa exclaimed and turned her eyes to the man. ‘You’ve met in such a romantic way, Kharon!’

‘Yes,’ the man destructed himself from his thoughts. ‘From that very minute it seems to me that I’ve been faced love and I wanna it be nearby.’

Vasilisa mercilessly tortured the poor demon with questions which he answered let his amusing imagination be free. He studied to speak in reality, carefully following the girl’s reaction. He was important to understand what she liked and did not. It was an attempt to put, immerse into a human psychology that the demon thought was something impossible and changeable. He spoke something funny as he thought he expected the girl to laugh but there was confusion and perplexity on her face. He tried to speak of serious things, and she smiled. What could be in her head? How to work with it he didn’t know also.

Victoria wasn’t listening to Kharon’s stories. She was staring at what that no one could see, at what that didn’t exist for anyone. She was observing the woman… the woman spirit which had been following her friend.

Victoria looked aside, called herself a crazy fool in her thoughts. What spirits? Could they exist? Idiotism! Vic didn’t want to think any more about it. There were no ghosts, spirits and other dead.

Vic stared at Kharon trying to switch over to his unbelievable beauty.

Vasilisa was telling him about her painful feelings after she had broken up with her young man, whom Victoria even didn’t have time to see. Her friend was talking about that life was unfair to mock her in such a way. She asked, when she was able to fall in love. She was getting through again and again.

Kharon was listening carefully and didn’t understand what was going with that girl. The demon could hear not only what she was speaking about but what she was thinking about. And she wasn’t thinking about her broken up and a poor fate but about she was unlucky because such man as Kharon wasn’t sitting near her but near the red-hair witch.

The demon was sincerely surprised why it went like that. How could she speak one thing while she was thinking of completely different…?

He heard Victoria’s thoughts who was clearly gave probably studied answers to Vasilisa, thinking about the woman with whitish eyes. At once she could be understood: how many times did Victoria listen to the same stories? How many tears did Vasya shed on her friend’s shoulder? How many times did Victoria try to help? Then she got fed up with it.

There were three months of unrestrained passion, burning in agony love, languorous desire and that’s all. After it doom and emptiness came. The feeling of loneliness… A lone wasp, striped, beautiful and bright… dead and covered with dust layer.

‘Jesus…’ Victoria whispered, taking her cell out of the bag, ‘It’s my mum…’

The girl looked up at the display: that’s right, that was her mum calling her.

‘Yeap’ she answered with no desire. ‘It’s ok. It seems like I’ve got a job. I’m gonna prepare my papers tomorrow. Are you at home today? Good. Me? In the centre, at Mayakovskaya Vasilisa and me are drinking coffee. Late, mum. Ok. I’ve got it.’

Victoria was getting angry with every asked question, but her mother insisted on her question being answered by her daughter.

‘Why do you speak with your mum in this way?’ Kharon asked unexpectedly.

Vic looked at him, at Vasilisa and dropped her head. She touched the napkins, taking sighs but kept silence. What was she supposed to say? She didn’t like speaking about her family atmosphere.

‘It’s complicated to explain,' at least she made herself speak.

The girl looked at the man with eyes full of tears.

Her mother and Vic’s relations left much to be desired. They loved each other like other parents and their children did, but they didn’t understand each other. Her mother wanted one thing, the daughter wanted absolutely another. For long time no one had listened to Victoria. Parents always had a great argument – “I know better because I’m older” and you could have nothing to do.

Olga Vladimirovna had been proving her daughter that she shouldn’t get bad marks at school. She expected her daughter would follow in her mother’s footprints and become a doctor. Victoria didn’t want it. For some time, there had been flaming conflicts in their family until Vic entered the university to get degree in design art.

In her childhood her mother tried to make her daughter be in gymnastics because she had wanted to be the one when she was young. Victoria didn’t like it and she got in dances.

That was what was going on for all her life. There was an opposition even about food: Olga Vladimirovna never made macaroni that Victoria liked…

At the deep evening Kharon was holding Victoria’s hands and looking at her eyes, trying to smile. Vic was perplexed.

When Vasilisa left for home the demon, being tired of her gossips, breathed with relief. Victoria was watching the woman walking away.

‘What time shall I come to you tomorrow?’ Kharon asked to switch her thoughts over to him.

‘I’m gonna get my insurance for work and… that’s really difficult. Let’s meet at three at the Arbat? I’ll be waiting for you in the beginning of the street. Deal?’

‘Deal. May I kiss you?’ he asked for permission carefully.

Vic smiled and reached her lips to his.

‘I wanna tell you something.’ Kharon whispered after he had torn his lips away from hers.