I woke up to the feeling of an annoying mosquito ringing over my ear. Without opening my eyes, I tucked my head under the pillow. The buzzing didn't go away.

“Alina, there's a mosquito,” I muttered.

There was no answer. I opened my eyes and remembered that I wasn't at home or even in a hotel. I threw back the pillow and rubbed my eyes, as they didn't want to open after the night's tears. I sat up and stretched, turning my head back and forth to stretch my neck, and then I noticed the crumpled paper on the bed. What a dumb bird you are, Katherina! Came up to put a picture under the pillow! I took the sheet of paper, unfolded it, and found no picture of a bird on it. I turned it, went to the window, and looked at it in the light for some reason. Not a trace! The text wishing me luck was a little smudged, but it was still there, and the back of the sheet was pristine.

Now, that's a nice trick, isn't it? I couldn't even tell if I was more upset or annoyed. Emergency call! A mysterious disappearance of a bird! Kind of ambiguous, don't you think, Katherina? Did the magic that the sorcerer performed on Alina work, will my parents succumb to it? Will they not look for me? I waved away unhappy thoughts. It was better to weep in the evening, when no one was watching.

The mosquito feeling did not go away. Apparently, sorcerers wake you up with magical methods, not with a simple knock on the door. That's all right, let it ring, I'm not as irritable as some others. In the bathroom I discovered an inconvenience: I had to somehow manage to turn the water on and off in the shower without getting the note wet. If I waved it away from the shower, the water in the sink would turn on. On the other hand, if a few drops got on the paper, would that ruin the magic? In the process, it turned out that even if I dropped the note directly into the shower basin, the magic would stay in place.

I stood under the stream of water, which I had purposely made hotter. The water was amazingly soft, and the steam quickly filled the small room. I was soaping up with scented soap when I saw her, the missing bird.

What's that supposed to mean? I asked out loud.

First the oath stain, and now this. The rinka nestled peacefully along with its wheat spike on my left arm, just below my shoulder, about ten centimeters in height. Each line was clearly marked out, just like on the unfortunate note. At first I hoped that the drawing had somehow been imprinted on my hand while I slept, so I scrubbed it with soap and water. No, it wasn't a pencil print. It was the second unwanted tattoo in twenty-four hours.

I made my bed somehow, and crumpled up the note from the intelligent old artist and threw it in the corner. It was unclear whether there was something wrong with the sorcerer's house, or whether the old man himself was a visiting tourist wizard. But why would he put a tattoo on my arm? I hoped it wasn't another energy sucker.

I didn't want to go out, but the mosquito alarm in my ears had become unbearable and almost tangible. Felt like it was not far till the black, not silver, sparks in my eyes. I put my jeans back on and also yesterday's red plaid shirt, which still smelled like a bus. All right, Katherina, now you come out, tell the sorcerer that you are a free individual, and demand that he show you the way home immediately!

As I left the room, the buzzing stopped. Jay came out of the kitchen to meet me. Either he'd dusted off his brown pants and black shirt, or his closet offered little variety. He'd washed his hair and put it in a ponytail, but it looked like it was covered in dust. His face was still as tired and drained, with dark circles around his eyes, as if he had never slept.

“Let's make a deal,” he began, and I realized that instead of “good morning”, rule number three was about to be announced. “If I call you, you come right over.”

“I had to wash my face.”

“For half an hour?”

“I was figuring out how it all works!” I started to make pathetic excuses, and got frustrated that the moment to demonstrate toughness of character was missed.

“I'll show you how it works,” the sorcerer said irritably.

He opened the door under the stairs that I hadn't noticed yesterday. There was a large storeroom there. The sorcerer took out a broom, a dustpan, a rectangular metal bucket, and went into the kitchen.

“That's how it works!”

He swept the crumbs from the floor into the dustpan and shoveled them into the bucket, then handed me the broom:

“Your turn.”

“Aren't there any cleaning notes?” I asked hopefully.

“The notes are non-specific,” Jay muttered vaguely, and poured himself some water from the faucet.

There was some kind of magic here, though: the trash was disappearing from the bucket. I slowly ran the broom across the floor. The dust didn't want to go in the dustpan and swirled in gray fluff. There were a few grapes under the table that I'd overlooked or chosen to ignore yesterday. I wanted to put them in the bucket, too, but Jay said:

"No."

He set the unfinished water aside and pulled another bucket from the shelf under the sink, just a regular bucket with a round bottom.

"That' s for food scraps."

Wow, waste separation! I guess the buckets move the garbage to different landfills, and if you mix them up, an angry inspector will come and fine you.

The front door slammed, and Robin came in with fresh muffins, milk, and eggs. The buns were the same as the ones they had at the tavern, round, palm sized, with a pinch of something small in the middle, a nut or a berry or a leaf.

At once Robin was at work in the kitchen, opening shelves and pulling out utensils. In the cupboards he found spices, butter, flour, and other supplies, which convinced me that the sorcerer had had help with the household. I couldn't imagine the grim, dusty fellow at the stove or shopping for spices.

Until Alina moved in, my kitchen had only been stocked with salt, and if one looked around, pepper could be found as well. I continued to sweep, not because it was so dirty, but because I was afraid I would be involved in the process. I don't like to cook and I don't know how to.

"Could you please get the tomatoes," Robin said over his shoulder.

He was already chopping and smashing and mixing.

"Can you cook?" he asked, as if reading my mind, when I passed him some cold tomatoes.

Jay went out on the veranda, sat down on the stoop, and squeezed his head with his hands. I said quietly, so I couldn't be heard from the street:

"I know how to fry scrambled eggs to charcoal."

Robin laughed.

"Well, it's easy, you'll learn."

I grimaced skeptically. Why learn stuff that wouldn't be useful at home?

" I prefer to order pizza and some sushi," I informed him.

Robin put the lid on the omelet, and, while it hissed and grumbled, he demanded details.

"I dropped by the police station early, checked in, and then came straight to you. I didn't have time for breakfast. And when I'm hungry, I like to talk about food!"

It turned out that they also had rice here, but nobody thought of wrapping it in seaweed and putting fish and vegetables inside. They do make pizza-like buns, though. The dough is coated with tomato paste, a hole is made in the middle where they put cheese and tomatoes, sometimes meat, and then they cook it in the oven.

Jay refused to eat, remaining at the veranda. He said the smell of food made him sick, but accepted an apple, which Robin held out to him through the window.

"Why are the notes not specific?" I asked Robin quietly while we were eating breakfast.

"Why don't you ask him?"

I wanted to say, in my Auntie's tone, that it was rude to answer a question with a question, but I kept silent. Robin glanced at Jay, who was flipping an apple from one hand to the other and staring into the thicket of grass.

"He's not really like that, give him time."

I pretended to be very busy gathering crumbs on my plate into a pile.

"So why are the notes non-specific? ' I repeated to change the subject.

"Did you finish your meal? Let me show you."

I ran to get the box I'd left in the room. There I remembered about my new bird tattoo, but I didn't even want to ask Robin. For some reason it seemed important that I have my own secrets in this world.

I returned, and Robin took the light note. With an outstretched hand he drew a wide arc. The lights came on in both the hallway and the kitchen. Robin went to the door, which I hadn't had time to find out about yet, and opened it. The light was on there, too. It was the dining room, a medium-sized room with a table for eight. The curtains were closed, and there was a vase of wilted roses in the middle of the table, another greeting from the housekeeper.

"They just turn the lights on and off, no matter where."

"So what's the problem with making a note to clean the trash off the floor?" I still didn't get it.

"For that you have to describe what garbage is. What is garbage?"

"Well," I hesitated, "Crumbs, dust, dirt from the street... grapes, too!

"Now think about how to describe it. If you write "dust" or "dirt," that's all the note cleans up; if you write "leftovers," you have to take the food out of the room because everything in the area covered by the note would disappear. And if you describe in detail how big the leftovers are, what counts as leftovers and what doesn't, the note will cost more than a week's worth of cleaning services."

I wanted to know what color of letters referred to heating the stove, but decided it might be considered a display of interest in cooking.

"And what do you drink here? Well, tea, coffee?"

"Mostly herbal and berry teas. There are tea rooms in town, I'll show you later."

"And we don't have tea rooms, we have coffee shops! And cafes and cafeterias, too," I smiled.

"Coffee grows further south and is exported, so it's expensive. But Jay could have some left over."

I perked up. I love coffee! Coffee and Coke, but there was no point in asking about Coke; even if there was such a thing here, it certainly wouldn't taste like the real thing.

Robin went through the shelves, pulled out a paper bag, opened it, and smelled it. The ground coffee was fresh because it was frozen in the same condition in which the sorcerer had left the house thirteen years before.

"How do you..." I started, but then Robin pulled out something that looked like a turkish coffee pot.

And that was my moment of glory. I pushed Robin away from the stove, sniffed the coffee myself, and closed my eyes in pleasure. It was wonderful! Sweet, medium roasted, with floral notes. I estimated the size of the pot, poured three spoonfuls of coffee. Without looking, held out my hand:

"A note for water."

I filled the pot with water to the narrow neck.

"A note for the stove."

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The words on the note were written in red letters. How sneaky I am! No need to ask!

The aroma of coffee drew Jay from the veranda. He put the bitten apple on the table. Robin brought three elegant cups with a pattern of blue-green leaves and golden droplets from the dining room. As the surface stirred, I took the pot off the stove and waited, letting the coffee particles settle to the bottom. I almost forgot to turn off the stove with a note and grumbled that it wasn't safe magic, but Robin replied that if I didn't put anything on the stove for a few minutes, it would turn itself off.

I poured the coffee into cups.

"And you said you couldn't cook!" Robin complimented me.

Jay shot me a quick glance that meant he hadn't heard us talking.

"It's not cooking," I blushed.

On the one hand it felt good, but on the other, I was already blaming myself for showing some sort of care and demonstrating my skills with the dishes and the stove.

The buns turned out to be all different. The one with the herb on top was spiced, the one with the nut was nutty, and the one with the berry was unstuffed but sweet. Jay watched mesmerized as I devoured bun after bun. Maybe I should have felt embarrassed that a man was suffering and choking on a single bite of apple, plus my Auntie's voice was insistent that a young lady should get up from the table with a slight sense of hunger, but I defiantly didn't stop.

Robin offered to show me around town, but Jay decided that today the garden needed to be tidied up, and it was time to start right away. I sighed in relief. I couldn't take any more buns. Jay told me to do the dishes first before I joined them.

The sink had yesterday's knives and forks in it, and I put plates and pans and cups there, wondering what to do with them. There was nothing under the sink that looked like sponges or washcloths. I plugged the drain, poured hot water, and stood over it as if I expected the dishes to clean themselves. The particles of ground coffee were lying on the bottom, the oil from the frying pan was floating in a dirty slick on top, and bits of tomatoes and green onions were splitting the surface like yachts and ships. I'd been watching the imaginary battle of the red and green pirates for a few minutes when Jay came back.

Of course, he knew where I was. He must have sensed that I'd been standing motionless for a few minutes. He put a stack of towels next to the sink, and poured a milky solution from a glass bottle into the water. It immediately boiled with iridescent bubbles, and my red-green fleet was defeated. It smelled like flowers. The oil slick scattered in fear in small specks to the edges of the sink. The sorcerer put the washcloth in my hands and said, very slowly, as if he were seriously beginning to doubt my mental capacity:

"Here's the deal. If you don't understand something, ask me."

Rule number four, I calculated. Maybe I should really ask next time. Either way, he's going to be mean. He didn't seem as scary as I first thought, just harsh.

After I washed the dishes, I somehow got them to the shelves. Except for the pretty coffee cups, which definitely should be kept in the dining room, in a cabinet with a whole showcase of different plates and cups for guests. For purely hypothetical guests, because if I were a visitor, I would have run out of here after five minutes. The dining room was dusky and unfriendly, and the bouquet of dead roses suggested that this room had been abandoned long before the sorcerer had frozen the house.

In the garden, Jay was tearing the clusters of grapes off the wall, and Robin was turning a large stone vase that had been knocked over sideways by the feral branches.

"The garden shears are in the storeroom. You'll be cutting bushes," Jay said.

"Aren't there any notes for the garden?" I asked without much hope.

"There are garden shears," Jay barked, losing patience.

"The notes are non-specific, I see," I whispered grudgingly, heading for the storeroom and hoping the sorcerer would hear and burst with anger for everyone's enjoyment.

The shears were as long as my arm, heavy and stiff. I walked along the path, cutting off the ugliest and most protruding branches.

"Maybe you should tear off a leaf at a time," Jay voiced from behind the house.

Maybe I should! Angrily, I cut off a bush right at the foot of it, and it tumbled into the path, scratching me on the cheek with its thorny branches. Robin managed with the vase, found a second pair of shears, and joined me. He dealt unceremoniously with the plants, and soon the pathway to the house was clear.

We dragged the branches to the road, because Robin said it would be easier to move them all together into the woods. I wondered why we couldn't send the whole plants from the garden into the woods to keep them growing. Robin asked me again, in his teacher's tone, what a tree was.

"Well... a trunk, branches, leaves... roots."

"That's right," rejoiced Robin for some reason. "Roots. Where would you put them? Every tree has to be extracted carefully, and you have to know an exact empty place in the forest to put the roots. Magic is not always more effective than ordinary physical work."

Here and there, in the neighboring houses, the curious faces of the neighbors appeared. Everyone immediately had something to do in the garden, as well. Many decided that on this sunny spring day it would be a good idea to clean the windows overlooking the sorcerer's house. A woman passed by, saying a short hello, with a dog that resembled a mixture of a bologna and a poodle. The woman was dressed in bright bloomers and a narrow white blouse, as opposed to Robin's suit, which had a narrow bottom and a wide top.

During the day I noticed that this was in keeping with the local fashion - both men and women wore either bloomers combined with narrow blouses, or vice versa, narrow pants and wide blouses with puffy sleeves, as if to strike a balance. Some carried cloaks in their hands. There was no color preference, ranging from bright, contrasting to muted, earthy hues.

We were a little farther into the garden, and I was dragging a new batch of branches outside, when a rather cheeky-looking boy, in short ragged pants, a shirt half-tucked in, a cap pulled up over his forehead, and barefoot, came running up to the wicket. He did not step behind it.

"Is Master Robin here?" he asked, and before I could answer, he yelled: "Master Robin!"

Robin came up, leaned over, and the boy whispered quickly in his ear.

"Tell him I'm on my way."

The boy nodded and darted off down the street.

"Jay," Robin called out.

The sorcerer emerged from behind the house, shaking off the leaves. His hair was mussed up again, and his pale cheeks were streaked with pink.

"You could get some rest," Robin said doubtfully. "I've got business in town, maybe I'll take Rina along to show her around."

Jay brushed the suggestion to rest aside and shook his head:

"Tomorrow. We need to get this place cleaned up today."

My hands, used to keyboard typing and mouse clicking, refused to lift the heavy shears, so I wandered down the path, picking up the trimmed branches and putting them in a pile. I took my time, why not? Some sorcerers have Napoleonic plans to clear an area that has overgrown for years in a day, but I have no such ambitions. My ambition is to stop before I get tired of working.

"It seems like bushes don't only grow along the road," Jay informed me venomously when he saw me carrying a bouquet of thin twigs.

The sun was blazing, and, ignoring Auntie's voice in my head that told me that a top was underwear and that I shouldn't even leave the room in it, I pulled my shirt off over my head, hung it over the proud but dirty lion's head, and went to get the shears.

Jay came after me.

"What's that?"

You're a brainless hen, Katherina. Of course he saw my bird tattoo.

"Nothing," I muttered as I went.

"Wait. Where did you get that?"

"Who cares? I've had it for a long time."

It didn't come out smart. I turned to go on, but the sorcerer grabbed my elbow and yanked me toward his side.

I stumbled, almost lost my balance, and when I looked up, I met his gaze and felt cold. Didn't you, Katherina, just now assumed that he wasn't so scary? The sorcerer smelled of dust, as if he had soaked it in the mirror for eternity. His swamp-green eyes burned me through. A wave of irritation overflowed and whipped at me like a branch from a feral tree. In that moment, for the first time, I felt my invisible connection to him in a new way - not as an outflow of energy, not as a demanding buzzing in my ear, but as a sense of his mood.

"Do you remember what I told you?"

If I say "yes" now, I'll admit that I lied, and if I say "no", I'll lie again. I didn't say anything.

"I'm warning you one last time," the sorcerer said quietly, and turned his gaze to the drawing.

Finally, he let go of me and headed toward the house, tossing:

"Come on."

When he turned away, I wiped away my tears with a shaky hand.

In the kitchen, the sorcerer said in a mundane tone: " We must get something to eat". He poured water into two mugs, and placed one in front of me. He sat in front of me, took a bite of an apple, chewed it with disgust, but swallowed anyway.

Outside, the wind rustled the leaves of the trees, crows croaked and little birds chirped. Jay rolled his bitten apple across the table. I tried to stifle the sobs that wouldn't stop. I took the mug with my trembling hand and took a few sips.

"Where did you get it?"

I was afraid he was going to get angry again, but I answered honestly:

"I don't know."

"Did it appear at home, or here?"

"Here, but I already had the drawing.

"What drawing?"

" Grandpa from the bus drew it for me," my voice sounded faint, like it was coming from a mirror. "He drew everyone in a sketchbook. He got off halfway and left me a drawing with a note."

"Where's the note?"

I went into the room, picked up the crumpled piece of paper from the floor, and brought it to the sorcerer. He looked at it from all sides, unfolded it, and read the text. I wasn't even surprised that he read in Russian.

"Robin will look at it tonight. Get some rest, then we'll get back to work."

He put the paper in his pocket and left. His words made me nervous, and I wanted to ask if it was dangerous, but of course I didn't. Robin can explain. I couldn't figure out what upset me more - the fact that the sorcerer had found out about the picture, or his reaction. Or maybe it was the sudden empathy that must have worked both ways.

It was very convenient for the servant to know what mood his master was in, and not to annoy him unnecessarily. My hopes that the sorcerer would bring me home if I simply stomped my foot and demanded it were fading. I was ready to indulge in sad thoughts of the world's injustice to one unfortunate girl, but my rumbling stomach brought me back down to earth.

I picked up a plate of buns, tomatoes, and cheese, and spent some time on the veranda in the midday sun.

Jay noticed that I was already having trouble lifting the shears, and that my effectiveness as a branch-cutter was fading. He decided it was time for a new activity, so he ordered me to grab a bucket, soapy water, and a brush and scrub the lions clean of years of dirt and moss. The sorcerer spoke calmly, and I, with my newfound sense, tried to understand his mood. Either I had failed, or his irritation had gone away.

Washing lions was a little easier than trimming trees, because my head was about level with the sitting lion's, and the sleeping lion was at my chest level, so I didn't have to lift my tired arms high. Rubbing the overgrown marble with the brush wasn't easy either, though, so I didn't really strain myself as long as the sorcerer didn't look at me.

When the sun was about to set and the shadow of the house covered the garden, Robin returned, whistled in surprise, told us to call it a night, and dragged me into the house. I couldn't remember myself with exhaustion. I don't think I'd ever worked so hard in my life. Jay looked really sick, but he didn't say anything. I suppressed gloating, afraid that he would feel it.

The first thing I did in the kitchen was wash my hands. The abrasions from the prickly twigs and blisters pinched and I had to blow on them. My plaid shirt was damaged, too. Robin pulled the big kettle from the dining room cabinet and made the herbal tea he'd brought with him.

"Let me see," he asked me.

I was scared that he wanted to look at my tattoo, but he meant the abrasions. He had said something about being a healer.

"Do you indulge in time magic?" asked Jay glumly, watching as Robin held his hands over my scratches, and they healed before my eyes.

"This subspecies is not among the forbidden, you know that."

"I don't know anything anymore."

"What about you? Let me see," Robin turned to him after he healed the scratch on my cheek from this morning. I wanted to pull away when his hand came within an inch of my face.

"It's nothing, it doesn't bother me," Jay brushed it aside.

"If you don't eat, one sneeze would kill you," Robin tried to reason with him.

Jay waved again. Like a conductor, honestly.

"You better look at this," Jay said, and put a crumpled note from the old man on the table, and then he said to me, "Let us see your hand."

I unbuttoned my shirt and pulled down the left sleeve.

"Have you seen anything like this?" asked Jay his friend.

The latter twirled a piece of paper in his hands and now was examining my bird tattoo.

"Amazing," he finally voiced his verdict. "Fine, layered work!"

"What do you see?"

"Very confusing. There's a condition left on the paper that will make the magic work. On the drawing itself, the first layer, the obvious one, is luck. The second is hidden and hard to make out, I'll have to dig through the books. Where does it come from?"

"From the old man on the bus," I replied.

"It's a vehicle," Jay explained and looked at me heavily. I stared at the floor. "Tell us about this man."

Robin frowned, glancing at me and then back to Jay.

I told them how the old man had compared people to plants and painted them. As I tried to describe his appearance, it turned out that I couldn't remember anything except his corduroy jacket and the general sense of intelligence.

"That's it?" asked Jay.

I nodded. I berated myself, but there was nothing I could do. This was the second time today I'd cried in public. You wanted to sob secretly into your pillow in the evening, Katerine! But what if Robin could help me if he saw me miserable?

"Okay," Robin said.

Jay pressed his lips together. I could feel him getting irritated again, and I squeaked:

"Can I go now?"

"Yes," Jay said dryly.

Robin shoved a cup of tea and a plate of buns and cheese into my hands. I wanted some real food, if not pizza, at least pasta with ketchup, but I grabbed what I was given and hurried out of the kitchen.

I didn't even make it to my room before they started arguing. Robin spoke softly, but with a tone that didn't promise anything good:

"You know who you look like right now?"

"Who do I look like?" asked Jay challengingly.

"You tell me!" Robin raised his voice.

"The old jerk Tin? Sorry, that's the only teacher I've ever had," Jay shouted back at him sarcastically.

"Me neither!"

"I don't know how you yourself treat your prisoners!"

"She's not your prisoner!"

Then one of them thumped his fist on the table. It got quiet.

"You got her into this yourself, that's number one. You took me as a witness, that's number two. I'm responsible for her now. Even though you're my friend..."

I decided not to continue listening, so I closed the door carefully, hoping that they wouldn't start throwing spells and curses at each other... It was only now that I noticed that there was no lock or bolt on the door.

I put the cup and plate on the table and lay on the bed without undressing. It was still relatively bright - the sun hadn't set, and there were no more branches or grapes hanging out the window. It would soon get dark, and I had forgotten the box of notes in the kitchen.

I fell asleep unnoticeably, but woke up a couple of hours later, waking myself up by crying again. I was dreaming about home. I started to calculate when was the last time I had slept in my bed. Was it really only two days I'd been here...? A week we'd been traveling... and it felt like an eternity of hotels, souvenir shops, motley tourists, sorcerers, and everyday magic. This world was becoming more and more real, and home was beginning to feel like a dream, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to remember in detail my apartment, the familiar sounds and smells, but I couldn't.

The tea that was already cold smelled unfamiliar and tart, and the smells of the room were alien, not even like hotel smells. Nothing disturbed the silence of the night, except the voices of birds. No sounds of highways, or planes, or distant sirens, or disturbing car alarms in the yard. No upstairs neighbors unfolding the couch, no baby crying behind the wall, no TV rattling.

I groped for my backpack, picked at random for a piece of clothing that still held the smell of the bus, and placed it on my pillow.

I woke several times from mossy, green dreams, where I was lying in moss that wrapped around me, covering me, hanging from the trees, but smelling of exhaust fumes. At least it was soft and didn't try to scratch me like the angry wild bushes. It seemed as if the night would last forever. Let it, because then I wouldn't have to tidy up the garden anymore - there would be nothing to see.