Surely, the bat creature with a wide piggy nose and sparkling eyes is crawling to me, for I’m the closest to the fireplace. I shrivel ready to be bitten and eaten eventually, but Billy like a furious harpy grabs a fire iron and bats the bad bat like a baseball player.

“Leave my sister alone!” she screams angrily. Prince Erik catches the beast and throws it through the half open door and immediately closes it, “Nice punch, Billy!”

Billy doesn’t respond but gives a sniff of resentment, “We must call the Animal control,” she says at last. I’m about to cry, but Billy’s resolute mien and igneous mood makes me change my mind.

“People must not know about the shifters. Witches spend too much time to protect our world from humans and their invasions,” says Astrid’s boyfriend. Nina is nodding her head in agreement: her funny narrow face seems concerned.

“But who will protect us humans?!” Billy makes her hands into fists and stubbornly raises her chin. She has always been cocky talking to adults. I usually feel shy and try to be a good girl even if I think they are wrong: I desperately avoid scandals and suffer in silence while Billy is like a petrel who is always searching for a dangerous thunderstorm.

“Stop that!” I raise my voice. Everybody is watching me in amazement. “Just stop this argument!” I repeat my words, feeling the audience attention at last. “I just want to say that we should not fight while these creatures are outside and...we...” I stumble, feeling a little bit shy again, “...and we should stick together, because the cabin has no local phone service or any contact with the outside world.”

“That’s true,” confirmed the young man.

“Medieval hermit!” hisses my sister. “Can’t you move to the city and work like any normal person? You don’t deserve Aunt Astrid. She needs a man who has at least a cellphone. Sure! What's so hard about being a strange forest hermit and mooching off our Astrid?” Billy smiles, showing her beautiful blond hair back: she seems to poke Astrid’s boyfriend where it really hurts.

Nina and I are standing by like two crows with open mouths while Billy is precisely hitting the young man with her spiteful words.

“You are right,” says the man with a lion tail. “I don't deserve her! I can give her nothing: only this shack my parents and their grandparents and lots of previous generations used to live...”

“I really hope you and your parents are not the part of some cult!” my sister interrupts him.

Astrid’s boyfriend smiles bitterly, “No, we are not. But we can’t leave this place,” he pauses, “I can’t leave this place.”

“You're nothing but excuses!” Billy copies Mom’s manner of speech. “You are no good for her. You can’t even chase these creatures away!”

A loud noise like a devastating thunderstorm is heard outside. We all give a start. Nina turns into a squirrel and jumps on my shoulder, hiding between my dark locks, tickling my sensitive skin with teeny tiny tarsal claws of her paws.

“Stay here!” commands the man and takes a fire iron from Billy’s trembling hands. From one of the bookshelves he takes a white crystal that looks quite sharp and gives it to Billy, “If anything happens to me, smash this crystal against the floor. And run along with the girls as far as you can. Nina knows this forest good enough to show you the way home. The bat shifters are not natural creatures. They used to be humans or mages who were turned into shape shifters or lycanthropes. They cannot turn into humans again when they want it like Nina. Believe me: they never bring good tidings once you see them!” with these words he turns and goes off towards the door at a smart paсe couching the fire iron like a spear or a pike.

Everything seems placid and soundless outside. Prince Erik is at the door holding a handle of a solid wooden door. We all keep silence. Billy stands in front of me squeezing a milky white crystal; her knuckles are getting white too. I notice some dark billets in the fireplace and decides to take one of them on the safe side.

“It would only make our Feather laugh!” whispers Billy, looking at my silly attempts to look like a lady warrior.

My lips are trembling, but I don’t let a half burnt log fall from my hands. I think about our tender and sometimes mischievous Feather. Maybe Billy is right and going to Aunt Astrid was a bad idea: we have been quarreling only or got into troubles since the moment we set in our car. At home it would be almost the same, but I could, at least, cuddle up with my dear Feather or play video games with Dad. I would not even mind the workers with deafening perforators and annoying hammers or Dad’s drafts and schemes that would be scattered around the house so no one would know where to put a cup of tea or make a step, for everything is working, cramming, and easy busy in general: “Life is easy?” Dad likes to say, “A house renovation will make it busy!” A shack full of bats will make our life busy, no doubt!

Prince Erik bursts the door open. I squeeze my eyes shut tightly; Nina is growling squeakily behind my neck.

“Take it easy, champion! Don’t poke your own eye with this lethal weapon!” I open one eye myself to see chuckling Astrid in a door way. “A party is in a full swing, as I could see,” she says with a crooked grin on her serene face. I would normally run to her and hang on her neck and, more likely, cry a little. But I’m too scared to move: what if the bat shifters are hiding somewhere behind the bright green hazel shrubs?

“Astrid, how lovely to see you,” smiles the young man. “You're right on time!” he gives her a light kiss.

“You guys seem pretty helpless without me!” says Astrid, slightly pulling his elf-like ear as if he’s a naughty puppy.

“Can we go home now? Did you get rid of them?” Billy ruins the idyll between the love doves.

“Sure,” Astrid doesn’t look irritated at my sister’s words. “The simple spell was quite enough to chase them away. But where did you find them I wonder? These days it’s hard to come across such a great cloud of bat shifters,” she broods, stroking her chin.

“This one,” Billy points at me, “decided to play a lovely Little Red Riding Hood. We got lost, of course, and met those creatures among Witches Circles.”

“Wait a minute!” I gasp, being filled with indignation. It seems that everybody knows something but I. “What’s going on?! Astrid, are you a magician? No one will leave the place until you tell me all about magic, and spells, and shifters, and ... and... I don’t know what!”

Billy gives a nervous giggle, “Have you just fallen from the oak tree, sis? Don’t pretend again that YOU don’t remember anything! You are not too stupid to forget about Nina, are not you?”

Astrid is looking at me very attentively, “And you don’t remember anything about magic?”

“No, I don’t remember! I wouldn’t ask if I remembered anything!” I cry out bitterly.

Billy and Astrid look at each other in genuine surprise.

“You know,” says Billy. “Last summer she fell from the bike and raised a big bump on her forehead. Maybe the doctors overlooked something serious in her poor weak brain,” she says it on purpose to make me scared.

“Don’t say nonsense,” retorts the young man. “There must be a simple explanation. Sarah is only ten, and she has not been here for almost two years. She might have forgotten Astrid’s light spells.”

“I’m almost eleven!” I grumble.

“Let us not lose sight of this variant,” says my aunt. “When I’m in the city, I never use my spells. And last time I visited you, I said nothing about magic or anything of this kind. Not in your mother presence, Hecate forbid!”

“So you remember Nina and Prince Erik,” I ask Billy.

Astrid bursts into laughter, “From now on I will call you only Prince Erik, Lev!”

“I don’t mind,” he answers lightly.

“I don’t know him,” Billy sniffs. “Only Nina. We used to be friends. Sometimes, you would stay with grandma and do some boring things, while we would play with Nina in the attic or in the garden.”

“It was so funny climbing apple trees together,” a tiny voice is heard near my ear. I completely forget about the squirrel on my shoulder.

I turn to Astrid, “And you are a magician, aren’t you?”

“I’m a witch. But you may call me a magician,” she stretches out her arm ringed with lovely Indian bracelets, and with a little pop a big black top hat appears. Laughing joyfully, she pulls a chubby rabbit out of the hat and gives it to me. Nina pips angrily and jumps on the mantelpiece. “But don’t get attached to it,” Astrid adds hastily “It is almost like a pumpkin carriage for Cinderella!”

I gingerly put the rabbit on the floor, fearing lest the chunky one turns into something extraordinary. I’d rather have Nina on my shoulder than something unknown in my arms.

“Lev, right?” I ask the young man. He nods amiably in turn. “You said you can’t leave the place. Why?”

“Don’t tell us that you had been cursed by a bad witch and sentenced to stay here forever and ever. Life is not just a fairytale,” Billy chimes in again, twitching her pretty nose. “Astrid doesn’t have to stay here because of you. It’s not charity, and it’s not fare that she is ruining her life living in some kind of wilderness. If she lived in our neighbourhood, we could visit her every day, without this village nonsense! Don’t you think so?” It is a great surprise for me: I didn’t know that she cared about Astrid; I didn’t know she wanted her to live in the city next to us!

“Awww, my little Aunt’s Right Defender!” Astrid is hugging my sister while she’s trying to break free. It is so amazing to watch this Oscar-worthy scene!

Lev chuckles, but the sadness in his eyes has not escaped my attention. And I really feel sorry for him.

“Being a half blood is not a curse, in a certain sense. I’m half shifter, half human. That’s why I can’t transform into a lion entirely,” he points at his long tail, that is whipping either a bookshelf or the wall (just like nervous Feather!), and opens his mouth showing two sharp fangs (‘vampire’ whispers Billy). But at the same time I can’t turn into a human fully,” he ignores Billy’s comment. “We are alike with Nina, but she’s a true shifter and can turn anytime she wants.”

“It sounds like one another excuse,” my sister was able to get out of Astrid’s warm embrace. “In the city one can come across hordes of freaks, especially on the tube: it’s their natural habitat! I think you'd be a good fit there.”

I can’t disagree with one thing: he could really hide his tail with a long coat, or Astrid may put a spell on him...

“I can hide my ears or tail for some time, of course,” he said as if overhearing my thoughts. “But it is always a risk. I’m not the only one who hides from people in remotest villages or forests. If some powerful humans know who I am, they may know about others,” he sighs as if feeling guilty. “And I don’t have any special skills for modern human world. I’m just a forester: I look after some creatures or help Astrid with her potions,” he casts a tender look at Astrid.

Billy laughs, “I must say, Lev, you are not very great at looking after some creatures!”

“OK, that’s enough!” Astrid takes an iron poker from her boyfriend and a crystal from her niece. “Is not a toy for a little girl,” she looks into Billy’s eyes, making her shrink a bit. Astrid is not Mom: one glance of her serious eyes and you want to sink through the floor. “Let’s go home and find out what’s wrong with your quite selective memory, while you, Prince Erik, will do your best to find out who might have sent these pretty bats to our forest. My library is all to you.”

The chunky rabbit disappears with a loud pop.