But I didn't dare get into the driving seat to check how the diesel engine had survived its long ordeal at the hands of the farm mechanics. I walked quietly through into the house and listened – my mother-in-law was already asleep in her room, but there was the faint glow of a night light in ours. I opened the door and went in. 'Did everything go all right?' Svetlana asked. The way she asked, it was hardly even a question. She could sense everything perfectly well without words. 'Pretty much,' I said and nodded. I looked at Nadiushka's little bed – our daughter was fast asleep. 'I didn't find the werewolves. But I had a talk with the witch.' 'Tell me about it,' said Svetlana. She was sitting on the bed in her nightdress, with a thick book lying beside her – The Moomintrolls. Either she'd been reading to Nadya, who would listen to anything as she was falling asleep, even a list of building materials, as long as it was read by her mother. Or she'd decided to relax in bed herself with a good book.
