Flight 209

" I demand the return of my normal appearance! " wheezed and grunted the hog, in a frenzied-pleading sort of way. " I have no intention of flying to an illegal assemblage! Margarita Nikolayevna, it's your duty to get your maid off my back! "

" Ah, so now I'm just a maid? A maid, huh? " cried Natasha, tweaking the hog's ear. " Didn't I used to be a goddess? What was it you called me? "

" Venus! " whined the hog, flying over a roaring, rocky stream, and brushing against a hazel grove with his hooves.

" Venus! Venus! " shouted Natasha triumphantly, with one hand on her hip and extending the other toward the moon. " Margarita! Queen! Ask them to let me stay a witch! They'll do anything you ask, you have the power! "

And Margarita replied, " All right, I promise! "

" Thanks! " yelled Natasha, who suddenly shouted sharply, and somehow dispiritedly, " Giddyap! Giddyap! Faster! Faster! Let's get a move on! " She dug her heels into the hog's flanks, thinned out by the mad gallop, and he bolted ahead so furiously that the air ripped apart again. In an instant Natasha was just a black speck in the distance, and then she disappeared completely, the noise of her flight melting away.

Margarita flew slowly, as before, in a deserted and unfamiliar locale, over hü ls dotted with occasional boulders and isolated giant firs. As she flew, Margarita reflected on the fact that Moscow was probably far, far away. Her broom was no longer flying above the tall firs but between their trunks, silvered on one side by the moonlight. Margarita's light shadow slithered over the ground in front of her—the moon was now at her back.

Margarita could sense the proximity of water and guessed that she was near her destination. The fir trees parted, and Margarita floated quietly toward a chalky cliff. Just beyond it, down in the shadows, was a river. Patches of mist dung to the bushes at the bottom of the diff, but the bank opposite was low and flat. There, under a solitary cluster of leafy trees, the light of a campfire flickered and some moving figures could be seen. It seemed to Margarita that she heard a humming, cheerful music coining from there. Beyond it, as far as the eye could see, there were no signs of human life or habitation.

Margarita leaped down off the diff and descended quickly to the water. It looked tempting to her after her aerial sprint. Tossing her broom aside, she ran and threw herself headfirst into the water. Her light body pierced the water like an arrow and sent a column of water skywards to the moon. The water was as warm as in a bathhouse, and when she surfaced Margarita basked in the pleasures of a solitary night swim in the river.

There was no one.in Margarita's immediate vidnity, but splashing and snorting were heard coming from behind some bushes not far away. Someone else was taking a swim, too.