Victoria is flying somewhere. She doesn’t understand why and where but some power pulls her as if she was in the middle of the strongest whirlpool. She has no possibility to resist spontaneous forces that are pulling her forward.

She turns out to be at Vagankovo cemetery. There is no one on the paths but only a young girl and walking old lady. The girl is staying near a grave of a man. The hill is new-made. The black ground hardly had time to get covered with dry crust, the flowers are still alive, come out with the buds, giving beauty to the dead. I wonder if they know they’re already dead, too.

The girl is near the new-made hill and has tears in her eyes. She carefully wipes them away with her palm, a smile appears on her face for a second, full of happy memories and desperation. She asks the questions which no one hears but only the dead and her own mind. It’s not a surprise that there are tremendous scales of hopelessness.

The old woman is slowly walking along the path, at a modest pace tapping with her walking cane made from some wood. She’s mumbling words, speaking and asking someone. The old woman lifts her eyes up and sees the grieving girl. Serpentine, fast and swift moves and the old woman, seemed before to be hardly stand on her feet, turns out to be near the mourning girl. The woman touches the girl’s palm with her bony and sinewy hand. It is wet because of tears…

‘You…’

Victoria opened her eyes. There was Kharon’s face with an obvious riddle on before hers.

‘What an interesting dream,’ he whispered. ‘You seem to be coming to yourself.’

The girl carefully moved her fingers and she was so happy when her limbs responded to the call of the brain. She couldn’t help smiling.

‘Kharon’ she said in a strident voice, having understood her organism functioning again. ‘I’ve been so scared.’

‘Hush,’ he put his finger on across her whispering lips, ‘you have no need to speak now, to expend your energies to describe the thing I’ve been watching the whole day.’

Victoria looked at him in surprise. What did he mean the whole day? She thought she was sleeping for ten minutes. Victoria shifted her gaze at the clock and got surprised: it was seven pm. The picture behind the window told the same.

‘7 pm?’ Vic decided to confirm the seeing.

‘No, it’s 58 minutes and 32 seconds to 7 pm. You have to rest. Don’t speak and move.’

‘I need to go to the bathroom.’

‘Bathroom?’ Kharon asked in amaze. ‘Oh, sure. Bathroom!’

He took her in his arms and went to the bathroom.

‘I need to put on.’

‘Why? You look beautiful. When finished your business, call me. I’ll bring you back.’

Touching every inch Victoria was moving forward, holding the wall. Having done her business Vic got into the shower cubicle also by inches of the wall. The night before was too pleasant not to let any tracks which had to be washed off despite she’d like to keep them forever.

Water quietly purled, enveloping the body with cool freshness. Vic had to sit on the floor under the shower as she had no strength to stay but she had to wash herself.

Having heard water sounds Kharon came up to the bathroom door and closed his eyes. He wanted so much to read the girl’s mind, understand and accept it. But her heard nothing. Unconscious instinct of the witch worked well, and the demon realized it. Not knowing Vic hid and closed everything that was on her mind from him. Witches were usually very powerful and strong creatures. However, to have any impact on incubus she had a little strength, but she would obviously try. That was for sure. Kharon didn’t want that to happen. But he didn’t also want Victoria to hide her mind from him. If he said to her that it was her exactly who closed her from him, there would be many questions which the demon wouldn’t like to answer.

A loud crash distracted the demon from thinking. He immediately came into the bathroom. Under the water pressure, having leaned on the glass wall, the girl was sitting with a smile on her face. There were bottles lying around which had fallen with crash.

The demon silently and thoughtfully looked at the smooth legs, holding together, tucked up beneath the girl. The smile was on her face. The stupid one. Shameful eyes yearned him to see her nudeness and by leaps and bounds being afraid of it. Her fingers nervously touched the lying near bottles. Her wet hair, having become different colour, curled because of water, hid the upper part of her body.

Kharon was serious, quiet and pensive. Slightly screwed his eyes up, he was intently looking at the girl’s smile. How much strength she needed to smile? To keep that smile? Why did she do that if she couldn’t almost stand it? She had no energy, it’d been taken away. The died-out site of life fire was still in her eyes, her fingers shook, the heart beat quiet, she had barely energy to take a sigh to fill her lungs with air… And now she was wasting energy to smile.

‘Why are you…’ Victoria closed her eyes, made a pause, exhaled and whispered again, ‘looking at me… like this?’

Her question didn’t sound like a question. If there’d been no “why” Kharon would hardly have got that Vic had asked something.

‘You’re strange people. I’m getting more and more interested – why? Why are you smiling when your heart’s crying?

Kharon squatted down near the girl. She closed her eyes and was about to faint again, relaxing her body as her strength failed her quickly. But she didn’t wipe her smile away.

‘Because it’s always more pleasantly to look at a smile,’ she muttered, throwing back her head, gasping.

Kharon kept silence. He didn’t understand. Who carried what others like? Why did she need to think of it?

‘You have to think of obtaining your energy stores not of smiling. It’d be better and… more logically.’

‘I don’t think…’ a deep inhale. ‘I just wanna smile… at you. Wash me, please, I’m exhausted.’

The girl stopped moving her fingers and got frozen. Then her smile died on her lips. She seemed not to be breathing, looked like a dead. Kharon took the washing spray and directed the gentle water trickles on the weak girl. The goosebumps appeared at once, but Victoria didn’t shiver.

The man carefully raised slightly her head to kiss her wet lips. They were lifeless fully. He wetted her red, grown dim hair again.

‘Every time I touch your head, by force of will I can hear your thoughts streaming in your head… I can hear you want to smile because you’re happy with what’s going on now… But you have no energy to do what you want to. I feel your thoughts speaking impudently and unwittingly, begging me to lay your body in arms of fondling… now. Tell me, Victoria, are you… out of your mind?’

Having heard the question Vic tried to open her eyes, move somehow, deny persecution. But all was for nothing.

‘No, don’t. Don’t speak.’ Kharon stroked her with water then put his hand on her forehead. ‘No, dear, I didn’t mind offending you. Don’t take it so hard. I’m just trying to understand you.’

The demon didn’t take his hand away from her head, reading all the information like if he had been blind touched with his fingers Braille script in a speechless book. Her thoughts were so pleasant for him! He loved her thinking about him, he liked that she liked him. He just liked… But Kharon even didn’t try to get that unusual feeling of love. He had never felt nothing of it and in fact he didn’t understand why he needed it.

Kharon brought the weak girl in the room and got her to bed. For a long time, he was sitting near her, examining the night coming down, made him deep into his thoughts.

He glanced at the sleeping girl and, having grinned, he left home. His interest in everything around him didn’t leave him alone. He wanted to study people…

4

^th

October 2013 (Friday)

A week later after the night spend with almost the Devil Victoria finally felt healthy, found energies and easiness. That was Friday. Victoria was at work, tried to project a new design of company product.