Late evening wrapped the kitchen in thick darkness, as if the walls had absorbed all the sounds and light. The air was so dense and tense that Igor was afraid even to take a deeper breath. He looked at Svetlana — the woman he had lived with for ten years, loving and trusting — and did not recognize her. Before him sat a strange, cold creature with lips pressed into a thin line and eyes in which all warmth had died out.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said, her voice barely audible, but each sound cut like glass. “We have to get him back.”
Igor flinched as if struck.
“What? Svet, do you realize what you’re saying?”
“I understand better than anyone,” she answered sharply. “I know how much effort, money, time we’ve spent… and for what? To listen to doctors say it’s hopeless? To watch him die before our eyes? That’s not why I started this! I wanted a family, a healthy child! Not this…”
She gestured toward the nursery where their son Dima was sleeping. Igor felt as if icy water had been poured over him by these words. He couldn’t believe what his wife was saying — the woman who had cried tears of joy when they first brought the boy home.
“Thousands of people bring children back, Igor,” she continued, almost justifying herself. “We have good reasons. His diagnosis. We can’t handle it. I can’t handle it.”
“He’s our son,” Igor said quietly but firmly. “He entrusted us with his life. What difference does it make how much time he has left? A month, a year… We have to be with him. We are his family.”
Svetlana snorted, and that scornful grimace twisted her face beyond recognition.
“Family? Igor, wake up. I’m not going to turn my life into a hospital ward. I’m still young, I want to live. Not sit by the bedside of a stranger’s child who will die soon. If you don’t start the procedure to get him back by tomorrow… I’m leaving.”
She abruptly stood up; the chair creaked as it slid back. Igor remained silent, crushed by the ultimatum. He still hoped to see at least a glimmer of humanity, even a drop of love, in her eyes. But there was emptiness.
“I’ll give you a night to think,” she said and left the kitchen. The door slammed, echoing through the room.
Igor lowered his head onto his hands. The world was collapsing. What he had believed in, what he had built for years, was falling to dust. At that moment, little Dima appeared in the doorway in dinosaur pajamas, rubbing his eyes with his fist.
“Dad, did you and mom fight? Because of me?”
Igor’s heart clenched painfully. He picked up his son, holding his fragile little body close.
“No, baby, no… Mom just has some trouble at work. She’ll be back soon. Everything will be okay, I promise.”
But as he spoke those words, he knew: he was lying. To himself and to his son. Nothing would ever be okay. The family he had cherished and loved fell apart in one evening.
He remembered how they had come to this. Ten years of trying to conceive, endless clinics, tests, broken hopes. The diagnosis was clear: infertility — Svetlana’s. She suffered terribly, crying at night, while Igor supported her, saying the main thing was that they had each other. It was then he first spoke about adoption.
At first, she rejected the idea.
“Taking someone else’s? From who knows where? Are you crazy?”
He did not insist. He knew she needed time. Only after two years, when depression finally exhausted her, did she return to the topic herself:
“All right. Let’s try.”
They began visiting orphanages. It was hard — hundreds of eyes full of pain and hope. But when they saw Dima, something clicked inside. A quiet, thin boy with serious eyes, he just sat in a corner building a tower of blocks. Igor immediately knew — this was their son.
The first months were like a fairy tale. He rejoiced at every step Svetlana took toward the child, every smile of hers, every shared reading lesson. He was happy. He had a family.
Suddenly, thunder roared. Fainting at kindergarten. Hospital. Tests. Worry. And then — the very day the doctor delivered the diagnosis.
“A rare and aggressive disease. Surgery is impossible. Supportive therapy is all we can offer.”
Igor could not grasp these words. They seemed abstract. Until he saw Dima losing weight, his face turning pale, the lively spark in him fading.
And Svetlana… Svetlana left.
The day after she left, Igor returned from another doctor’s visit with Dima. The apartment greeted them with emptiness. The closets were open, clothes gone. And money too. He sat on the couch, unable even to cry. Only dull pain in his chest.
“Dad, are you crying?” whispered Dima.
“No, son. Something got in my eye. Come here.”
He hugged his son and said firmly:
“We’ll get through this. Together.”
From that day on, his life became a constant struggle. He spent nights online, gathering information, contacting foreign clinics, parents who had been through the same. Everyone said one thing — chances were almost none.
By day, he learned to be both mother and father. Cooking, washing, cleaning. Working remotely. Holding his son’s hand. Watching him suffer, powerless to help.
One day, while Dima slept, Igor ran to the pharmacy. In line, two women were excitedly discussing a story about a child with a hopeless diagnosis who was cured by a healer in a remote village.
Those words, ridiculous and absurd to a man with a technical mind, suddenly became the only possibility. Hope. Faint, crazy — but hope.
He rushed out of the pharmacy after one of the women, asking questions, writing down what he could. He got the name of the village, a description of the house — far from others, near the forest.
He made his decision instantly. Packed a bag, took the last money, arranged for a neighbor to watch the apartment, and set off.
The journey was long and hard. Dima didn’t handle the trip well; he was nauseous, and they had to stop often. What should have taken two days stretched into four. But finally, they arrived at a small village lost among the forests — a few crooked houses seemingly forgotten by time.
Igor rented a cozy room in the house of an elderly but still strong woman named Agrafena. She immediately showed sympathy and care when she saw them: the exhausted, pale Dima, whom Igor supported by the hand. Without hesitation, she lit the stove to warm the guests, creating an atmosphere of warmth and peace.
During a modest dinner of simple village dishes, Agrafena cautiously asked who they had come to see here.
“To Veronika,” Igor replied, frowning slightly with worry.
Her eyes lit up with understanding.
“Ah, to Veronika… The road must have been hard, right?”
She fell silent, as if gathering her thoughts, then, as if making an important decision, began telling a story full of drama and tragedy:
“Veronika had a grandmother — a powerful healer, herbalist, wise and respected in the area. But she was not the only one who possessed ancient knowledge. In the neighboring village lived another woman with extraordinary powers — a sorceress. She had a grandson named Pyotr. The young people, despite old family feuds, found each other and secretly married, hoping their love would end the long-standing enmity.
Agrafena sighed deeply, as if recalling that dreadful day.
“But it didn’t work. One day, a terrible fire broke out — in both villages at once. The houses of both grandmothers burned down, along with those inside. Pyotr died. Veronika was then pregnant with his child. From grief, she lost her mind and fled into the forest. A storm began, so fierce it seemed the earth itself trembled from the lightning strikes. People say they saw Veronika fall lifeless, then rise, and the lightning no longer touched her. It was then, probably, that the powers of both grandmothers passed to her, leaving her the inheritance of all their wisdom and control over the elements.”
Igor listened to this strange story with disbelief he did not try to hide.
“Sorry, but I don’t believe in all this… witchcraft,” he finally said.
Agrafena only smiled, twitching her mustache slightly.
“But you came to her yourself. Whether you believe or not doesn’t matter. The main thing is that she believes in you. You must believe, son. It will be easier for her to work if those around her believe. And one more thing — call her Veronika. Rita was what only Pyotr called her. No need to remind her of the pain she went through.”
The next morning, gathering strength, Igor gently lifted his weakened son in his arms and headed to the healer’s hut. Agrafena accompanied them to a barely visible path that disappeared among the trees, crossed herself, and quickly left as if afraid to stay longer.
The deeper they went into the thicket, the worse Dima became. His breathing grew shallow and wheezy; his small body went limp, as if giving up. Igor almost ran, overcoming exhaustion, driven by the fear of losing his son. Finally, through the thick wall of trees, the hut appeared. It looked more like a dugout — a low structure seeming to grow out of the ground, with a moss-covered roof. Dima was choking; his face had turned blue.
Without hesitation, Igor pushed open the low door and rushed inside. The air was heavy with the scent of dried herbs and ancient smoke. By the hearth, in the dim light, sat a young woman with a long blonde braid. Her eyes, light and almost transparent, met his gaze with knowledge and confidence.
“Why so late?” she asked, as if she had been waiting for him for a long time.
Without waiting for an explanation, she decisively took the boy from Igor’s arms and gently laid him on a wide bench covered with skins.
“Sit. Drink some water,” she indicated a wooden dipper standing by a bucket.
Igor obeyed, took a few sips of cold water with an unusual taste that left a sensation of something ancient on his tongue. His eyes closed, his eyelids grew unbearably heavy, and he fell into a deep sleep without realizing it.
He awoke to a soft whisper. Veronika was sitting beside the bench where Dima slept peacefully, sorting bunches of herbs and whispering something. Igor could not take his eyes off his son’s face — it was calm, relaxed, even slightly smiling. He hadn’t seen such tranquility on the boy’s face in months.
“What did you do?” he whispered, feeling an incredible gratitude rise within him.
“I did what I had to do. Go drink some tea,” she pointed to the table. “I needed you not to interfere. I agree to take on the treatment. There is a chance, and it’s good. But it will take time — a month, maybe two.”
“I’m ready,” Igor replied immediately. “Ready for anything.”
“Then live here or in the village. But the boy stays with me.”
“I will stay with him,” he said firmly.
The first three days Igor wandered around the hut, not knowing what to do. On the fourth day, he couldn’t stand it and went outside. First, he fixed the crooked fence, then decided to clear the forest path so a car could reach the hut. A week later, a smooth clearing opened before him, and he went to the nearest town to order materials for repairs.
When he returned, Veronika met him at the door with a slight reproach in her eyes.
“Why do you torment yourself like this? Maybe just rest?”
“I’m bored without work,” he answered.
For the first time, she allowed herself a smile — barely noticeable but warm.
“You just don’t notice the beauty around you,” she said softly.
From that moment, Igor threw himself completely into work. He built a new sturdy fence, reroofed the house, restored the barn, gathered firewood for the winter. Every day he worked from morning till night, putting all his strength, fear, pain, and hope into each movement. And a miracle began to happen — after a couple of weeks, Dima not only started standing up but also going outside. At first with support, then more confidently. Soon he helped his father, bringing small twigs and stacking them into a woodpile. Igor looked at his stronger son and couldn’t believe his eyes. He wanted to ask Veronika how it was possible, but she only smiled mysteriously.
“Everything is going as I thought,” she said.
He began to notice that he looked at Veronika more and more often and for longer. Her beauty was special — wild, natural, the kind you don’t find in the city. But the main thing was in her eyes, which hid the deepest sorrow, harbored there for years. However, now this sorrow was gradually receding, and her gaze became warmer when she looked at him or Dima.
One evening, sitting by the fire, Igor suddenly realized: he was in love. Madly, to the point of pain in his heart. With this quiet, mysterious woman living in the forest, the “young witch,” as the city would mockingly call her. What to do with this feeling? Confess? But what if she pushed him away? He could not risk it — the main thing was to cure his son.
Days passed, and the torment did not end. One day she approached him while he was chopping wood. She was silent for a long time, watching his movements before speaking:
“It hurts me to see you suffer. Do you understand who I am? Are you ready to accept not only my power but also the pain that comes with it?”
Igor slowly lowered the axe, looked into her serious eyes, and smiled.
“Getting used to you knowing everything beforehand is not easy. But I want to try.”
Three years passed unnoticed. One day Svetlana received an official letter from the court — Igor had filed for divorce and division of property. Confident in her rightness, she came to the courtroom determined to defend her interests, ready for a hard fight.
But in the corridor, she saw Igor. He had changed — become more masculine, with calm confidence in his eyes. Beside him stood Dima — healthy, tall, cheerful boy, laughing and excitedly telling something to his father. Svetlana froze, shocked. This simply could not be. Because he was supposed to…
Her gaze slid toward the woman standing next to Igor. Young, beautiful, she held his hand and looked directly at Svetlana. Her gaze was piercing, so deep and heavy that a chill ran down her spine. Svetlana quickly looked away, one thought flashing through her mind: “It’s her. The witch.”
The judge read the decision — the apartment was to be sold, the money divided equally. Svetlana’s lawyer wanted to start a dispute, but she stopped him herself:
“I agree,” she said quietly, not understanding why she agreed. She just wanted it all to end as soon as possible. She did not dare look at the trio anymore.
When they left the courtroom, Svetlana watched as Igor, his son, and Veronika walked away, tightly holding each other like a real family. They looked happy. Only now did she notice that Veronika was pregnant — her belly gently rounded under a loose dress. They were going into a new life, and Svetlana remained alone, with heaviness in her heart and bitter thoughts about how she destroyed her own happiness and failed to create a new one.
