Chapter 2, Part 1

Mom grabbed a fan from the table, which was crowded with various esoteric trinkets (candles, little mirrors, crystals), and fanned herself several times. Her long false eyelashes fluttered.

"Can you imagine, the assistant director just called and told me the stream would be hosted by some celebrity presenter and a group of experts! And now I'm terribly worried about what they've all cooked up, so I'm weaving a protective web against the evil eye!"

"Ah..."

"Oh, I feel I'm on the threshold of something adventurous."

"What if you refuse? Let them do the stream without you."

"I can't, Diana. I feel that I can't, and that's that!"

Honestly, Mom had no reason to worry. First, over the years she'd proved more than once that she could handle much bigger challenges: battling herself and her own oddities, removing the ink stain Stan had put on Dad's passport, even winning the show "Psychic Showdown."

And second, there was something... real in her esoteric eccentricities. Something that had made even us, the people closest to her, wonder more than once: what if anomalous forces do exist? What if everything isn't as clear-cut as it seems? And take her seriously.

Sometimes we all thought Mom really was a witch. In the best sense of the word. Well, almost.

Especially after one old incident with an airplane.

Back then, our whole family was late for a flight to Turkey. Stan was little and cranky. Traffic had been blocked, and a jam had formed. I was rolling my suitcase. Mom was carrying my brother and breathing like a dragon. Dad was cursing and carving a path with his shoulders as he ran with bags in his hands. We were almost at the finish line...

And then the pretty girl at the counter informed us with a smile: Check-in for the flight is closed. That's it. You're late.

"For fuck's sake!" Dad snapped, I remember. "Great vacation!"

And, overcome with feeling, he added several stronger words.

Mom replied:

"Tony, don't get worked up! Check-in is over, but the plane hasn't taken off yet!"

Then she shoved my brother at me, rummaged in her purse, and twisted a tiny candle out of a lipstick tube. Without thinking twice, she lit it right there on the check-in counter. Then she started drawing an infinity sign over it with her index finger.

"Natasha, have you lost your mind!" Dad looked around in alarm, too frightened now to keep "fuming." "They'll arrest us!"

"Mom!" I tugged at my mother's dress just in case.

"Mama..." Even Stan got scared and started whining.

The pretty girl behind the counter got nervous too and was about to call security... But her intercom suddenly beeped and went dead, and the loudspeaker announced that our flight had been delayed by thirty minutes for unknown reasons.

They didn't just put us on the plane then; they also escorted us to business class along with a group of late diplomats. So it was in Turkey that Dad bought Mom the first crystal ball of her life. Crystal!

Or this one.

Last year, on my birthday, Mom suddenly said that "young energy with a conflicted past and a good body" was looming on my path. And what do you think happened? That very day at the supermarket, when I was taking a little cake down from the shelf, Dennis Demond crashed into me.

He came flying around the corner with demonic charisma, left a bruise on my forehead, and landed my butt on boxes of oranges. Good thing he caught the cake, or he wouldn't have survived.

Later, while the two of us were gathering oranges off the floor, I was so furious I thought about running Demond over with the shopping cart. About twenty times. Unable to resist, I grabbed a tomato from the shelf and smashed it against his T-shirt.

Ugh! I remembered him again!

In short, Mom was worrying for nothing. So what if it was a famous TV channel? Whatever those schemers had planned, they were going to break their teeth on Astralia's abilities!

"Mom, everything will be fine, don't worry!" I hugged Mom, stepping into a cloud of perfume, and smiled encouragingly at her. "The main thing is, eat the sandwiches while you have time. And air the room out from the candles. Otherwise Dad will block every exit to the astral plane if you make yourself faint!"

Mom agreed, and I went off to cook dinner. If only Dad's day off would hurry up. At least then we'd eat proper borscht, and maybe even duck with pie!

***