defense, and I sent a thin ray to search for my father. I saw with his eyes a country road rushing madly at me. The car was flinging in different directions, but dad did not slow down. I said that he was chased by three cars without wheels, which are much faster than his own.
“Then,” Papa said, “help me create a ghostly copy of my car. We will put on the road, let them hunt after. And we ourselves will turn into the forest.”
So they did. And on time! Five minutes later, I heard Semen Andreevich talking on the walkie-talkie with his hunters.
“Well,” he told the general, “they’ve already caught him up, in five minutes they will immobilize him and brought here to us. The guys are persistent and protected from mental attacks.”
Five minutes passed, then another ten, Semen Andreevich began to lose patience. He was shouting into the phone:
“How can you not catch up with him?! Shoot the wheels!..”
“How can’t you shoot?!”
“Well, some kind of nonsense turns out. They can’t catch up with an old clunker!”
“Not otherwise than psychology pulled the rug out,” the general smiled. “Well, that is a thought.” Semen Andreevich closed his eyes and concentrated. “But it is true, there is no car there. They are chasing a ghost. But where is the car? Half a moment and I’ll feel, I’ll feel… Here is the necessary trace!.. 45th square.”
“Dad, he felt for you!” I shouted desperately.
“I can’t do anything with him,” Papa said, “his defense is impenetrable. Could you somehow distract him? At least make a small bonfire in his car.”
“Good! I will try!”
I focused towards the sun and thought about where to make a fire. And suddenly the nose of Semen Andreevich caught my eye. It was bulbous nose and I wanted to decorate it with something… After a minute his nose was fuming! I felt that both Lyuba and even her mother mentally support and help me. Semen Andreevich grabbed his nose in horror. And then all four of us (along with dad) dealt a mental blow. Semen Andreevich swayed and fell to the bottom of the car. Soldiers and doctors wererunning around. I heard someone say:
“It seems like a stroke.”
Semen Andreevich was wheezing, the foam was coming from his mouth. He was quickly put on a stretcher and taken away.
The general commanded on the street. He spoke with a helicopter.
“A car, not far from the road in the 45th square. Find it and destroy! Square has to be cordoned off!
“Dad,” I shouted, “fast get out of the car. They will destroy it.”
“I’m trying to get mom out.”
“Quicker, quicker!”
High in the sky above the village, hung a helicopter, and a smoky stream went from it towards dad.
“Lie down!” I shouted to him mentally.
“Well,” the general said with satisfaction to his assistant, “the car is destroyed, the square is cordoned off. If they are still alive, we will find them.
I contacted dad again, he was alive.
“But mom’s body died,” he said.
“You couldn’t save it anyway. Your forest is cordoned off and you have nowhere to run.”
“Well, we’ll see about that,” Papa said and turned off.
“So,” the general said a little later, “only fragments left from the car, a criminal is killed, but her accomplice disappeared. What will we do?”
“What if he hid in a square or got through a cordon?..”
“It’s simple. Shoot the internal cordon! Fill the square with poisonous substances! You can do right now from the helicopter.
“Dad, dad,” I cried out mentally, conveying the whole conversation I heard.
“I’ll try to survive,” dad’s voice came softly to me. “Leave the village and don’t look for me. If I survive, I will contact you in six months.”
This ended our conversations. Lyubochka and I were incredibly tired. We can barely hold our eyes open. We woke up only the following morning, when Fyodor, the adjutant of Semen Andreevich, entered our hut, rattling his boots.
“Well, small fry, get ready! You have five minutes. I’m waiting for you in my car!”
The next day, we were already at the hotel where aunt Valya met us.
Aunt Valya said that she will be my mother now. We spent several interesting days in the city, went to exhibitions and museums. And then we left for aunt Valya’s new job in the forest hospital. There was a whole town in the forest, with a school, shops and gyms. I immediately went to school – first grade. Although I missed the first half of the year, I was able to read and write, so I could do it no worse than others.
Six months passed, there was no news from dad, and I realized that he is dead.
A doctor, who treated my mother, was brought to a closed hospital block. I caught a glimpse of him when he was carried on a gurney, but I immediately recognized him. Then aunt Valya secretly told us that he had been tortured for a long time, they were asking how he managed to cure my mother, but he did not know anything. They will cure him. But it is still unknown what will be next.
A month later, aunt Masha was brought to us and put in a psychiatric ward. It turned out that aunt Masha could no longer cope with her work, she confused and forgot everything. In addition, as the doctor said, she has a serious illness – a split personality. Well, I knew that this was not a split, but actually two personalities: aunt Masha and my mother. Aunt Masha did not fully recover; she stayed to work at the hospital as a cleaner. I often visited to her, and together we thought of our dad and a happy life until his death.
Meanwhile, in a poisoned forest, a strange, unlike anything tree slowly died among other trees of the forest…
Chapter 7. 22 – 13 years uew
Salvation of Ra
The Diary of Radek Kotlovanov
Yes! Such is my surname, and Valentina Semenovna Kotlovanova is my mother now. Everything that was in childhood was just a dream that must be forgotten! And I forgot it! I forgot about my father, who could turn into a dog, I forgot that I could turn into a cat. And aunt Masha, the only one who reminded me of my mother, unexpectedly disappeared then, in that tragic year.
Nine years passed, and nothing much happened. I was going to school, playing with friends, I was not very good at football, but I achieved recognized success in table tennis. With time I began falling in love with classmates, Lyuba as my sister was aware of my adventures. Sometimes she was jealous of me, sometimes she fell in love, and I was jealous. We saw mom only late in the evening: she became the director of the hospital, and her trouble increased. Semen Andreevich came to us several times. Each of his visits was accompanied by great turmoil because everyone was afraid of him, but not my mother, Valya. I remembered his first visit, just after aunt Masha disappeared. This disappearance angered him just insanely, but mother Valya even than managed to calm him down.
My adulthood, as it were, turned the whole world around me. First, an old notebook stirred up a childhood memory. And the next day, mother Valya brought a skinny girl to us. As she explained to us, the gypsies left her, because she was sick. Her name was Rose, and she never went to school. Mom Valya said that Lyuba and I should be her brother and sister and slowly prepare her for school. At least we had to teach her to read and write.
I cannot describe what I felt when I saw Rose. This thin tanned gypsy seemed to look into my very soul and turned