“Are you sick or something?” her manager asked in confusion when she saw Olesya grab the doorframe for support before carefully lowering herself into a chair.
Olesya had felt weak since early that morning. Every muscle in her body ached, but staying home from work simply hadn’t seemed possible. She still had to finish an important report, and there was no one else in the office who could complete it properly.
“I don’t know,” she replied, looking up at Inga Yuryevna and letting out a heavy sigh.
Her boss stepped closer, pressed a hand to Olesya’s forehead, and immediately shook her head.
“What on earth possessed you to come in with a fever like this? You can barely stand, and now you’re going to infect everyone else too. Go home. I’ll have the driver take you.”
“But I still have to finish the report for Vlasov’s company,” Olesya protested before breaking into a cough. Her throat felt painfully dry.
“What report are you talking about in your condition?” Inga Yuryevna clicked her tongue. “If all the paperwork is in order, I’ll finish it myself. It won’t kill me.”
“Yes, everything’s ready,” Olesya nodded. “Thank you.”
At that moment, the company driver, who had just taken a cup of coffee from the vending machine, gave Olesya a small nod to indicate that he would wait for her in the car. Then he left the office.
Barely able to move her legs, Olesya slowly followed him.
She had no idea what she was going to do once she reached home. Her husband, Makar, had been away on a business trip for almost a week. She didn’t want to bother her mother. Maybe she should simply call the local doctor?
She was so lost in thought that she barely noticed when Alexei turned toward her apartment building, stopped the car, and looked over at her.
“Want me to walk you upstairs, or can you manage?”
“I’ll manage,” Olesya nodded.
She stepped out of the car and thanked him.
“Get well soon,” Alexei said with a wink before driving back toward the office.
By the time Olesya reached the elevator, she realized that perhaps she really couldn’t manage on her own. She had never felt this awful before.
While the elevator carried her upstairs, she finally gave in, called her mother, and asked her to come over.
When Olesya reached her apartment, she inserted the key into the lock.
It wouldn’t turn.
What was going on?
Confused, she pushed the door handle down.
The door opened.
Had she really forgotten to lock the apartment that morning? Had she been feeling so terrible that she had simply walked out and left the door unlocked?
At least she had come home early.
Olesya kicked off her shoes in the hallway and dragged herself toward the bedroom.
The moment she reached the doorway, she froze.
A startled cry escaped her lips.
“What are you doing here?”
Angela Nikolaevna, her mother-in-law, who had been rummaging around their bed, flinched violently. She spun around and straightened so quickly that she looked as stiff as a board.
For a moment she stared at Olesya with obvious fear. Then she seemed to force herself to act as though absolutely nothing unusual was happening.
“Lesenka,” she said, swallowing loudly. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at work?”
“I came home,” Olesya answered quietly, still trembling, though she could no longer tell whether it was from her fever or from shock.
Then she repeated:
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, I… came home too,” Angela Nikolaevna replied quickly. “You do remember that this apartment belongs to me, don’t you? You two are only living here.”
“As long as we live here, it’s our home,” Olesya replied.
She herself didn’t understand where this sudden courage was coming from.
“And this is our bed. We bought it ourselves. What exactly were you looking for?”
“What?” Angela Nikolaevna widened her eyes, pretending to be utterly confused. “I just… wanted to buy the same mattress for myself. I was looking for the label so I could take a picture.”
“You could have asked me. I would’ve sent you the link,” Olesya said before coughing again.
“Lesenka, you’re terribly sick!” Angela Nikolaevna exclaimed, immediately changing tactics. “Come on. Let’s get you into the kitchen. I’ll take care of you.”
She grabbed Olesya by the elbow and practically forced her into a chair at the kitchen table.
Then she began rushing around the room with unnatural enthusiasm.
The kettle rattled.
A mug clinked against the counter.
A jar of raspberry preserves appeared from the refrigerator.
Angela Nikolaevna placed a steaming cup in front of Olesya and pushed a spoon toward her.
“Drink, drink! This is how I always treated Makar when he was little. He’d get himself chilled running through puddles, and I’d give him raspberry tea, tuck him under a warm blanket, and after a good sleep he’d be as good as new. You must have gotten sick as a child too, didn’t you? What did your mother give you? Oh, why am I even asking? Raspberry is raspberry. Best medicine there is!”
Olesya watched her mother-in-law and understood perfectly well what was happening.
Angela Nikolaevna was talking nonstop because she did not want to answer the question Olesya had asked.
She moved restlessly around the kitchen, adjusted napkins that didn’t need adjusting, opened cupboards, and peered inside as though checking whether everything was still where it belonged.
Not once did she look Olesya directly in the eyes.
“There,” Angela Nikolaevna finally said after Olesya finished her tea. “I’ll make your bed now. You’ll sleep, sweat that fever out, and wake up feeling wonderful. Of course, medicine is important too, but raspberry tea does wonders!”
She hurried into the bedroom.
A few minutes later, she returned looking almost suspiciously pleased with herself.
“Come on, come on. I made the bed nicely for you.”
Olesya barely managed to reach the bedroom. She pulled off her sweater and jeans, crawled beneath the covers, and almost immediately slipped into a heavy, feverish half-sleep.
Through the haze, she heard Angela Nikolaevna moving around in the hallway, apparently getting ready to leave.
“Lesenka, I’m going!” she called from the corridor. “And don’t rush with that mattress link. Send it when you feel better. I really do like your mattress! I’ll come by again sometime, all right?”
The front door slammed.
Silence filled the apartment.
Olesya was just beginning to fall deeply asleep when the doorbell rang.
Then it rang again, more insistently.
“Lesya, it’s me!” came her mother’s voice from the hallway.
With enormous effort, Olesya dragged herself out of bed and shuffled toward the entrance.
Her mother, Elena Viktorovna, came inside carrying bags in both hands.
“I brought medicine, honey, lemon…” she started talking rapidly as she removed her coat. “I’ll make you some tea. You can drink it with honey…”
“Mom, please, no more tea,” Olesya groaned as she sat down on a small stool. “My mother-in-law already gave me some. With raspberry jam.”
Elena Viktorovna froze.
“Your mother-in-law? Angela? What was she doing here?”
“She came in without telling me,” Olesya said, lowering her eyes. “I caught her in our bedroom when I got home. She said she was looking for the label on our mattress because she wants to buy the same one.”
Elena Viktorovna frowned.
“On the mattress, you say?”
She quickly walked into the bedroom and looked around suspiciously.
“Let’s see.”
Without hesitation, she pulled all the bedding off the bed.
She turned over the pillows and squeezed them, feeling through them carefully. She checked the pillowcases and examined the sheets.
Then she walked around to Olesya’s side of the mattress and lifted its edge.
“Oh, dear God,” she breathed.
Attached carefully to the mattress fabric with black-headed pins were three strange objects.
One pin was covered in something that looked like sticky wax.
Another had a faint coating of soot.
The third was wrapped tightly in black thread and pushed through a small piece of fabric stained with some dark, oily substance.
Elena Viktorovna slowly straightened.
The color had completely drained from her face.
“What kind of disgusting thing is this?” she whispered. “Olesya, have you seen this before?”
“What?”
Olesya forced herself up from the small upholstered stool and came closer.
When she saw the pins, she recoiled.
“She was trying to destroy you!” Elena Viktorovna suddenly cried. “Do you understand what this is? This is some kind of curse! Witchcraft! I always knew there was something evil about that Angela! Get dressed. Do you hear me? Get your things right now. We’re leaving!”
Olesya stared at her mother with wide eyes.
A chill ran through her body, and this time it had nothing to do with her fever.
“But the bed…” she murmured helplessly. “We bought it ourselves.”
“Then let her keep it!” Elena Viktorovna snapped while opening the wardrobe. “Since she likes the mattress so much, she can have the whole thing. Get dressed, Lesenka. And don’t leave any personal belongings behind. I’m calling a taxi.”
She helped her daughter pull on her jeans and sweater, then quickly packed her passport, phone, charger, jewelry box, and cosmetic bag.
Forty minutes later, they were leaving the building.
Behind them remained the apartment, the bed, and the strange black-headed pins.
The door closed.
Olesya had no intention of ever returning.
At her parents’ house, she remained bedridden with a fever for another two days.
She took medicine, slept for hours, and still couldn’t get the image of those pins—or her mother-in-law’s frightened expression—out of her mind.
On the third day, when her fever had finally broken, her phone rang.
“Lesenka, sweetheart, how are you feeling?” Angela Nikolaevna sang cheerfully into the phone. “I’ve been so worried about you. When are you going back to work?”
“Do you want to come over and look for the mattress label again?” Olesya asked quietly.
Her voice remained perfectly steady.
“Don’t bother. I left you my mattress. Enjoy it.”
Then she ended the call.
When Makar returned from his business trip and learned that his wife was living with her parents instead of at the apartment, he was completely bewildered at first.
Olesya didn’t argue or explain.
She simply handed him her phone.
On the screen were photographs.
Before leaving, Elena Viktorovna had taken close-up pictures of everything: the pins, the wax, the soot, the black thread, and the dark-stained fabric.
“Your mother was doing this in our bed,” Olesya said calmly. “I came home sick and found her in there performing some kind of ritual.”
Makar stared at the photographs for a long time.
His face first turned gray, then flushed red.
His jaw tightened.
Finally, he nodded and exhaled slowly.
“I’m not going back there either,” he said. “If your parents don’t mind, we’ll stay with them for a while. My company has offered me an installment plan for an apartment. In a couple of months, we can buy a place of our own.”
He wrapped his arms around his wife and pulled her close.
For the first time in days, Olesya felt warmth and relief spread through her chest.
More than anything, she was grateful that she had become sick on that particular day and had returned home earlier than expected.
Who knew what might have happened if she had stayed at work until evening?
Several months later, Olesya and Makar bought a bright new apartment of their own.
It had large windows, plenty of natural light, and a cozy bedroom connected to a small enclosed balcony.
Angela Nikolaevna was never invited there.
Whenever she called and demanded to know their new address, Makar gave her the same short answer:
“Mom, you were the one who closed the door to our home.”
Every night, Olesya fell asleep in the comfortable new bed she and her husband had chosen together.
And whenever she thought about the future, one thing was absolutely certain.
If they ever had children, they would never leave them alone with Angela Nikolaevna.
That innocent little excuse about “looking for a mattress label” could have cost their family far too much.
