Forgive me, for God’s sake,» Vera dialed the phone number announced on TV, «I… I think I know where your son is! Please listen to me, don’t hang up! I saw your boy in a dream, he told me to look for him outside the city. He’s in the water, near the shore. He’s caught his pants on a snag…»
Vera was now afraid of herself. A few months after the accident, the young woman’s life changed drastically. Vera barely remembered the moment of the tragedy—her brain somehow erased the unpleasant memories. But she vividly remembered the dream she had in the hospital during emergency surgery. In it, Vera spoke with a gray-haired old man.
«It’s too early for you,» the old man said gently, smiling at Vera, «your time hasn’t come. Go!»
«Where should I go?» Vera asked, frightened, «Grandpa, where am I?»
«Over there,» the old man pointed somewhere below his feet, «go, my daughter. It’s time…»
Vera tried to open her eyes but couldn’t. From somewhere far away, a thin girl’s voice was heard:
«San Sanych, she’s moving her hand! She just twitched her finger!»
An unfamiliar male voice asked:
«Young lady, can you hear me? If you can hear me, squeeze my hand.»
Vera obediently squeezed the warm palm and heard:
«She will live. She made it!»
Doctors literally put Vera back together piece by piece. The girl had to relearn how to sit, hold a spoon, and walk. It took almost a year of rehabilitation, and Vera gradually returned to her normal life. Her problems began later.
Vera woke up completely exhausted. The night before, she had trouble falling asleep, only dozing off late at night. She had a strange dream: a young man asked her to find someone.
«Help me! Find her. Tell her not to believe him. He will ruin her. Ruin!»
Somehow, the young man was in her bedroom. Vera tried several times to get out of bed but couldn’t. The man stood over her, tilting his head. Vera asked twice who she needed to find.
«My wife. Her name is Olga. Tell her…»
«Where can I find her?» Vera was surprised, «there are so many women with that name in our city!»
«She lives nearby,» the young man explained, «Lesnaya, twelve…»
Vera woke up. A nightlight was on in the bedroom, and it was absolutely empty. Vera turned over and muttered:
«Just my luck to have such dreams! If only I could fall asleep now.»
Of course, Vera had no intention of looking for anyone, she had enough problems already. She had forgotten about the strange dream by morning, but the young man came to her again at night.
«Find her,» the stranger demanded, «tell her not to go anywhere with him. Only you can help me, only you can hear me! Save her before it’s too late.»
Throughout the week, Vera saw this unknown young man in her dreams. First, he pleaded, then demanded, and on the seventh day, he became aggressive. Vera was tired, fed up with these nocturnal visits, so in the morning she decided to visit the address the persistent guest kept mentioning.
«Lesnaya, twelve… Why didn’t he mention the apartment number!» Vera was angry, approaching the high-rise building, «My God, what am I doing! It’s not like I have nothing better to do than to check theories from a dream! On the other hand, what if someone is really in danger? Who knows what’s happening!»
Vera couldn’t enter the building—the door had a code lock. She sat on a bench and decided to wait. People would soon be going to work, maybe someone could tell her which apartment this mysterious Olga lived in.
The first person to exit the building was a young woman. Vera jumped up and rushed towards her.
«Excuse me, could you tell me which apartment Olga lives in?»
The woman became wary.
«Why do you want to know? Why are you asking?»
«Understand,» Vera hesitated, «I don’t even know how to explain… Just please, tell me the apartment number. I need to talk to this Olga, I have a message to pass on.»
«Well, I’m Olga,» the woman stepped back cautiously, «and who are you?»
Vera felt like a character in a cheap comedy. How do you explain your reason for visiting?
«Please, don’t laugh,» Vera pleaded, «the thing is, for the past week I’ve had the same dream. A young man in a blue shirt with a blue tie asked me to find Olga, his wife. He said she was in danger, asked me to tell her not to go anywhere with some man, Lord, I probably sound so confused…»
The woman’s lips trembled:
«In a blue tie? Tall blond? And very blue eyes?»
«Yes,» Vera confirmed, «him.»
Olga sat down on the bench:
«That’s my husband, he died a year and a half ago. Some thugs attacked and robbed him… Did he ask you to tell me something?»
«Yes, he said not to get involved with this man. That he will ruin you. He asked to tell you not to get into a car with him. Do you have any trips planned? Better cancel them.»
«There is,» Olga echoed, «we were planning to go to the sea…»
«I should probably go,» Vera stood up from the bench, «forgive me if something is wrong. Just your husband hasn’t let me sleep for a week, I can’t sleep because of him. All the best, goodbye!»
Vera left with a peaceful heart. The stranger no longer appeared in her dreams. Three days later, Vera saw a news report on TV about a crime that happened the day before. The correspondent talked about a woman killed by her lover. Olga’s face stared back at Vera from the photo.
Vera wasn’t often disturbed by the deceased. After Olga’s death, the girl promised herself that from now on, she would take her own dreams much more seriously. At the beginning of the summer, the city was shaken by another tragedy: an eleven-year-old boy went missing. Every evening, Vera watched a video appeal by the mother on TV, asking everyone who knew the whereabouts of her child to contact her. Vera sincerely worried for this family. She even joined a group of volunteers searching for the boy around the city and its outskirts.
The search was complicated by the vague testimonies of the missing boy’s friends. On that fateful day, four classmates decided to take a walk. First, they went to the park, then decided to ride the tram, and from there, the testimonies of the three boys varied. One said the missing boy went home, another claimed the friend was supposed to meet someone, so he got off at the last stop and just walked away. The third was silent, only repeating:
«I don’t know! We split up to go home. Where Kolya went after that, I can’t imagine.»
The search had been going on for two weeks when the missing boy came to Vera in a dream. Vera immediately guessed that he was no longer alive.
«Where are you?» she asked the child, «your mom is looking for you. We’re all looking for you. Help us, show us where you are.»
«I’m in the water,» the boy said, «in the lake. I didn’t want to, they pushed me.»
The boy’s silhouette began to fade, and Vera heard:
«Tell mom where I am.»
Waking up and jumping out of bed, Vera immediately went online and found a post by the missing child’s mother in a local group. There was also a phone number. Vera, despite the late hour, decided to call her.
«Hello, Elena,» Vera said as soon as the call was answered, «I need to talk to you. I think I know where Kolya is.»
«Where?» the woman immediately perked up, «please, give me the address! I beg you, tell me, don’t be silent! I’ve been looking for my boy for two weeks, I haven’t slept or eaten. Please, tell me where my son is! I’m ready to pay a reward, I’ll give you whatever you want. Just tell me where he is. Don’t torture me!»
«He drowned,» Vera managed to say.
«It can’t be,» Elena burst into tears, «that can’t be! My boy is alive, someone is just hiding him somewhere! If this is a joke, it’s not funny. God will punish you for such jokes!»
«Please, give me the address. I’ll come now and explain everything,» Vera requested.
Within fifteen minutes, the girl was getting into a taxi. Ahead of her awaited a conversation with a mother stricken with grief, for which she needed to prepare.
Elena met Vera at the entrance. She looked terrible, it was clear the woman really hadn’t slept for several days.
«Is that you?» Elena grabbed Vera’s hand and shouted, «did you call me?»
«Yes, I called you. Shall we sit down? Yes, we can sit here, on this bench. You see, I’ve been having strange dreams recently. People who are no longer alive come to me for help. Ghosts, it turns out… Typically, they ask to warn their loved ones about something. Your boy came to me just a few hours ago. He really wants to be found. Kolya told me he’s lying in the water. There’s only one body of water I know near the city—the lake, the one where the abandoned recreation area is. You need to thoroughly question the friends he was with that day. The boys definitely know how your son died. There’s a snag at the bottom, Kolya got caught on it. So…»
Lena fainted. Vera was frightened and started to revive the woman. When Lena came to, she burst into tears. Vera’s heart squeezed with pity for the poor woman, and tears rolled down her face on their own.
«Thank you so much! You know, I suspected that my Kolya was no more… He also came to me in a dream, stood far away, silently looking at me. I reached out my hands to him, but he moved away… You can’t imagine how scary it is to live in this uncertainty… There’s nothing worse…»
The next evening, Elena called Vera to thank her again.
«My boy was found,» the woman sobbed loudly, «in the lake, just where you said. I thank you for your help! Thank you for not being indifferent to our grief. If it weren’t for you, my boy would still be lying there… And now I have the chance to say goodbye to him.»
Later, the investigation revealed that Kolya was killed by his friends. They had a disagreement, lured him to the lake, and knowing that he couldn’t swim, pushed him into the water. The boy could have been saved, but the boys simply silently watched as their friend drowned.
Vera didn’t really want to be a conduit between two worlds. Initially, the girl sought a way to rid herself of the unexpectedly acquired ability. She even went to a very famous fortune teller, whose service ads were in every newspaper. Already at the appointment, Vera realized that she was sitting before a real… charlatan.
«I know why you came to me,» the lady dressed in all black intoned in a grave voice, closing her eyes, «your boyfriend left you, found another. Some redhead, cheeky girl took him away! But don’t worry, your grief is easy to fix. Easy, but expensive! Do you have money with you? If you don’t have cash, you can transfer it to my card. For an extra fee, I can send some illness to the other woman. Want me to make her go bald?»
Vera left. She no longer intended to consult fortune tellers. The girl decided to seek advice from her mother—there was no one else she could share her problem with. Daria Vasilyevna listened to her daughter. After a pause, the woman unexpectedly declared:
«I’ve always feared this. I still hoped that the fate of my grandmother wouldn’t catch up with you. My great-grandmother, Marfa, was able to do what ordinary people couldn’t. Just like you, she talked with the deceased, could even summon them specifically. My mother inherited part of this gift from her grandmother—she had prophetic dreams but couldn’t heal or anything else. People advised her to develop her ability, but mom didn’t want to. And this gift, interestingly, manifested itself, just like with you, after a strong shock. My mom was struck by lightning in my childhood. A storm started, and she didn’t make it home from the field in time. After that, she also started seeing the deceased. I don’t know what to advise you, Vera. If you want to help people, then help, but if not… You need to find a way to suppress this gift inside you. Probably, some knowledgeable old woman is needed for such matters.»
Vera didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, she sometimes didn’t want to see absolutely unfamiliar dead people in her dreams, but on the other hand… She couldn’t get the boy Kolya out of her head. Vera remembered the eyes of his mother for the rest of her life. After all, if not for her, the boy might not have been found. Vera thought for a long time and decided not to rid herself of her gift—since it was given to her, she seemed to have no right to refuse it.
The gift once saved Vera’s life. On the eve of Christmas, she dreamed of some old woman. In the dream, the setting never changed: Vera always lay on the bed, and a ghost stood beside her. This time, the unfamiliar grandmother sat at Vera’s feet.
«Don’t go anywhere tomorrow,» the old woman murmured.
«Why?» Vera was surprised, «my friends and I were going to go caroling, wanted to fortune-tell.»
«Don’t go,» the stranger became angry, «trouble awaits you. Disobey—you’ll part with your life, understand?»
«Who are you?» Vera asked, «usually people come to me to pass on a message to someone.»
«I’m Marfa,» the grandmother answered sternly, «I know you don’t really like seeing us, but don’t refuse your gift, like my granddaughter. You’ll save many people, avert disaster from them. Don’t go anywhere tomorrow, stay home!»
Vera had learned to trust her dreams, so in the morning she called two friends and lied that she was sick.
«Girls, I can’t go with you,» Vera «confessed,» «I have a runny nose, my throat hurts! I can’t even get out of bed, I have no strength. Let’s see each other tomorrow? I’ll get some rest, lie down…»
The taxi in which her two friends were traveling to a cafe that evening got into an accident. The front of the vehicle, where the passenger side was, suffered the most damage. Vera always sat in the front seat—she felt cramped in the back. Fortunately, her friends were unharmed. Later, Vera, talking to one of them, heard:
«It’s really something that saved you!» her friend told her, «We sat in the back seat so we could chat on the way. And you would definitely have sat in the front seat, I’m just sure of it! And what would have happened if you had gone with us? It’s scary even to think!»
«Really,» Vera murmured, remembering her recent dream, «good that I didn’t go with you. How are you?»
«Fine, you could say we got off with a scare. Some kind of devilry is happening, I swear! You have a strong guardian angel, Vera. I used to not believe in such things…»
Marfa often came to Vera in dreams. Moreover, she appeared not always before some danger—sometimes the grandmother just came to «chat» with her descendant. Vera asked the grandmother questions that interested her, and Marfa answered them. Vera was always curious about how ghosts made it to the world of the living. Marfa knew the answer to that question too:
«They let us go.»
«When you want to?»
«You have to earn it. Life continues there, we, just like you, have to do good deeds.»
«Grandma, what will happen next?» Vera once asked the old woman, «how will my life unfold?»
«Who knows,» the grandmother unexpectedly smiled, «it all depends on you. Everyone chooses their own path.»
Vera continued to help people. For several years, she worked simply as a «messenger,» and then decided to develop her gift. She searched for a mentor for a long time, but eventually found one in a remote Siberian village. Daria Vasilyevna didn’t stop her daughter. At farewell, she told her:
«Perhaps that’s how it should be. You can’t run away from this. Go, daughter. Just remember that God made you special for a reason. Your gift should help people. Don’t harm anyone. I understand that magic is multifaceted, but I really wouldn’t want you to embrace the so-called dark side.»
Vera lived nearly three years with her mentor. She learned a lot from the healer. When it was time for the old woman to leave this world, Vera became her successor. Almost immediately, she decided to leave. The local residents had disliked the old woman, and after her death, all their hatred turned to Vera.
Vera returned to the city and continued to help people. People often came to her for help, and sometimes they asked to harm someone or punish someone. Vera didn’t take on such tasks. She healed, advised, tried to guide people on the right path. Everyone who came to her for a consultation was surprised: so young, beautiful, and… a witch.
Vera chose her path. Ghosts continued to come to her in dreams and leave messages for the living. Vera didn’t plan to start a family and knew for sure that she would never have children. For the sake of others, she sacrificed the most important thing—personal happiness. So far, Vera has no regrets. And further… Who knows.
