«I… d… don’t know,» Kanny began to stutter, but when he stumbled upon the host’s cruel, boring gaze, he broke off and, lowering his head, fell silent.
«Do not lie! How is it that these two are still alive and ended up here?» the sorcerer lowered his voice almost to a whisper, and then sharply and demandingly shouted: «Answer me!»
Startled, Kanny muttered plaintively:
«They… they climbed the tree. I couldn’t get them there. They got lost and… climbed up to spend the night. They fastened their belts to it, and… I p-passed them, and… th-thought that… I can’t get there, but… there’s not enough time, and they won’t come down anyway and… they won’t find the house… and… ran here.»
The sorcerer swung his hand, and Kanny shuddered and drew his head into his shoulders in fright. However, the master did not beat him, but only asked with displeasure:
«Did they see you?»
«No. I… think n-no.»
«Do you think or are you sure?» the master almost shouted.
Startled, Kanny still quite firmly answered:
«I’m sure.»
«You know that only at this time of day do I turn off the field so that you can freely enter the house. And you know that people are less sensitive to it than you are, and can come much closer. That is why at night time I demand that you destroy those who at this time may be nearby. I was sure that if there were any in the area, you would finish them off. And… Now what?!»
«Didn’t you turn on the field after you let me in?» Kanny asked with the intonation of a small perplexed child.
The sorcerer, out of annoyance, swung his hand at him again and at that moment thought: «By the way, it’s strange, I did turn it on.»
The werewolf reflexively pulled his head into his shoulders, but the master suddenly went limp and asked more calmly:
«Now what do you want me to do with them?»
Shrugging his shoulders, the werewolf, though very timidly, dared to answer:
«Only you give orders here, Master.»
After a moment of silence, considering his words, Alex shook his head and said:
«Okay, now get dressed, go to your place and wait there so that there is not a sound from you. And I will deal with these two.»
Kanny nodded and quickly walked away, and the sorcerer, having opened the inner door, began to slowly open the locks of the outer, deliberately stretching the time.
Chapter 3
The morning sun shone mercilessly directly into the eyes, and terribly interfered with sleep, but the dream was strong and stubbornly did not want to let the human consciousness out of its power, keeping it in a painful state of languor.
However, soon the strange sound of a running motor joined the bright sun, which, becoming louder, then quieter, periodically intervened in a restless sleeping state, penetrating deeper and deeper into the unsteady ripples of a morning dream.
At some point, the sound of the engine sounded so close and strong that Lera woke up abruptly and saw that the tractor Belarus was rushing towards her at speed, threateningly pointing at her the sharp forks of the harvesting mechanism.
From surprise and fright, she screamed piercingly, and her cry, despite the loud noise of the engine, nevertheless reached the hearing of the tractor driver, and he sharply pressed the brakes.
The tractor stopped, just a few centimeters short of her head with protruding fork teeth.
Apparently, the girl’s cry was so sharp and loud that it woke her brother Andrey, which neither the noise of the engine nor the morning sun could do, and he, waking up from a heavy sleep, now looked around in surprise, trying to understand what was happening and how he ended up of being here.
The driver leaned out of the tractor cab in surprise and, seeing the guys, swore in his heart, remembering all the obscene expressions that he only had in his not very rich rural verbal arsenal.
«Are you completely out of your mind?! What is the kind of place you’ve found for that matter! Come on, get off the field before I grab something heavier and go over your shameless asses.
Without forcing himself to be persuaded for a long time, Andrey nimbly jumped up, grabbed his sister by the hand, and tried to get away as quickly as possible from the angry tractor driver and the ill-fated ruined bale of hay at the edge of the field.
Having run back to a safe distance, the guys stopped and looked back at the working tractor, which, with the help of a special device, moved the collapsed hay bales to the edge of the field.
«What is he all about?» Lera asked.
«What, what? He works on the field, that’s what he’s all about.»
«Well… than… what are we doing here?»
Andrey, apparently, tried to find an answer to the same question, helplessly rummaging through his memory and, finding nothing, answered irritably.
«Probably, when we wandered through the forest yesterday, we were so tired that we fell into this hay without strength, and therefore we don’t remember anything.
«It seems to me that there was nothing like that,» the sister shook her head doubtfully.
«I don’t remember either, so what? But I remember how we got lost, and I remember how we wandered through the forest, looking for the way back.»
«There was also a tree… it seems… kind of… on which we climbed.»
«Tree? Hmm… I don’t remember the tree.»
«We still seemed to be fastened to it, remember?»
«Mm… no, I don’t remember such a thing. Apparently… We were very tired.»
The remembrance of the tree was so distant and vague that Lera herself doubted whether there was a tree or not, as if her brain stubbornly did not want to think in this direction. So, finally she said:
«Ok, it does not matter. Do you know where we are?»
Andrew looked around.
«No, I do not know. I have never seen this field.»
«Maybe we should ask the tractor driver?»
«After everything he told us?»
«So what?»
«What if he doesn’t tell us?»
