Larisa was sitting by the window. For three months in her new apartment, she gradually washed away the painful memories of her divorce.
An unexpected knock at the door made her jump. On the doorstep stood the neighbor from above—Natalia, a brunette whom Larisa occasionally met in the elevator. Usually impeccably dressed, today she looked a little disheveled.
“Larisa, sorry for the late visit, but I really need help,” Natalia said quickly, nervously fixing her hair. “I urgently need to leave for a couple of hours, and I have no one to watch my son. Could you look after him?”
Larisa hesitated. In the few months she had lived in the building, Natalia had indeed mentioned her son, yet Larisa had never seen him. Nevertheless, it would have been awkward to refuse such a request.
“Yes, of course,” she replied, feeling a slight nervous excitement. Natalia immediately brightened and, turning around, called out, “Vanechka, come here!”
A boy of about five slowly appeared from around the corner. The first thing that caught the eye was his clothing: his T‑shirt was worn inside out, and the laces on his sneakers were untied, as if done hastily. Vanya stood in the doorway, not looking up. His light brown hair was slightly tangled, and in his hands he tightly clutched a worn-out plush rabbit.
“Vanyusha, will you stay with Aunt Larisa, alright? I’ll be back soon,” Natalia gently ushered her son into the apartment. The boy obediently stepped forward, still not looking up.
“Just an hour or two at most,” Natalia added, and without waiting for an answer, hurried to the elevator.
Larisa closed the door and turned to her little guest. In the silence of the hallway, his quiet breathing was audible.
“Come in, Vanya,” she said softly. “Would you like some tea with cookies?”
The boy finally looked up—his eyes cautious, surprisingly mature for such a little child. He looked at Larisa intently and quietly asked, “Are you really nice?”
The question caught her off guard. There was something unsettling in his childlike candor, but Larisa pushed that feeling aside.
“I hope so,” she smiled. “Shall we go to the kitchen?”
In the kitchen, Vanya climbed onto a chair, placing the rabbit on his lap. He methodically chewed on a cookie, and when Larisa asked about kindergarten, he merely shrugged. The conversation wasn’t flowing.
“How about we do some drawing?” Larisa suggested, taking out paper and pencils from a desk drawer. Vanya brightened a little and picked up a blue pencil.
While the boy drew, she quietly observed him. Something about his behavior seemed odd—he was too quiet, too guarded for a five‑year‑old. When she tried to ask him about his mother, he seemed not to have heard, continuing to concentrate on moving the pencil across the paper.
“Look,” Vanya offered her his finished drawing. It showed a house, and next to it—a small, lonely figure.
“What a beautiful house! And who is that next to it?”
“That’s me,” he replied simply. “And there’s no one else.”
A chill ran down Larisa’s spine. Before she could ask anything further, the doorbell rang. It was nearly ten—three hours had passed, not just two.
Natalia looked even more agitated than before. She didn’t even apologize for her lateness; she just muttered a brief “thank you” and took Vanya’s hand. But at the door, she suddenly stopped and turned toward Larisa. Her expression changed strangely.
“If he happens to say something… you understand, it’s just fantasies, right?” Natalia’s voice was almost threatening.
Larisa nodded silently, feeling a tremor run through her. After closing the door behind them, she stood in the hallway for a long time, trying to understand what had so disturbed her. In the kitchen remained the child’s drawing—a solitary figure by an empty house—and for some reason, that simple image made her feel uneasy.
The next morning was overcast. Larisa was working on a website layout when her phone flashed an unknown number. It was Natalia—her voice now uncharacteristically soft.
“Sorry for yesterday, I was on edge. Listen, could you watch Vanya again? Three hours, no more. I’ll pay.”
Larisa wanted to refuse—something inside her urged her to steer clear of this situation. But the boy’s face, his guarded look, flashed before her eyes.
“Alright, but let’s not do it too late.”
Natalia brought Vanya after lunch. This time he looked a bit calmer, even smiled when he saw Larisa. The plush rabbit was still with him.
“Maybe we could draw?” Larisa suggested, but the boy shook his head.
“Let’s just talk,” he said in an unexpectedly mature tone. “You’re not like the others.”
“The others? Like whom, Vanya?”
“Like those who came before. They all shouted, just like her.”
Larisa felt a tightening inside. “And who came before?”
Vanya shrugged and stared out the window. “I don’t remember. Back then they called me differently. And now I’m Vanya.”
A strange note crept into his voice. Larisa cautiously sat down beside him.
“What were you called before?”
“I don’t remember,” he said, clutching the rabbit tighter. “She says I’ve always been Vanya. But that’s not true. I remember a different kitchen. There were yellow curtains and a cat. And here everything is different.”
Larisa tried to make sense of his words. There was clearly something serious hidden in what the child said, yet she couldn’t grasp its essence.
“Do you want to play hide and seek?” she offered, trying to lighten the mood.
While Vanya hid, Larisa noticed that something had fallen out of the pocket of his jacket, which was tossed onto a chair. It was a crumpled note, written in an adult’s handwriting: “Help… my real mother…” The rest was torn off.
Her heart skipped a beat. She quickly put the note back when she heard the boy’s footsteps approaching.
During the game, Larisa noticed a thin scar on his neck—neat, as if from a medical procedure.
“What’s that on your neck?” she asked as casually as she could.
Vanya instinctively pulled his collar up. “That was a long time ago. Where it hurt.”
In the evening, after the guests had left, Larisa couldn’t sleep. She opened her laptop and began searching for information about Natalia on social media. The neighbor’s profile was full of selfies and travel posts, but there wasn’t a single photo with a child. This struck her as odd for a mother of a five‑year‑old boy.
Almost by accident, she stumbled upon an old article in the local newspaper. “Missing Child: Misha Voronov, 4 Years Old.” A photograph of a light-haired boy with the same guarded eyes made her shudder. The date—six months ago, from a neighboring town.
The phone rang so suddenly that Larisa jumped. It was Natalia.
“Did you ask Vanya something about his life?” her voice sounded hoarse.
“No, we were just playing…”
“Don’t pry into what isn’t yours!” Natalia snapped. “He’s my son…”
The call ended abruptly. Larisa sat in the dark, staring at her laptop screen where the lost boy smiled—a boy so much like Vanya. His words echoed in her memory: “Back then they called me differently.”
Outside, the rain began, and in its monotonous patter, she imagined a child’s whisper: “Are you really nice?”
Early the next morning, Larisa noticed Natalia hurriedly taking out the trash. Something in her movements seemed strange—she nervously glanced around while clutching a bulky bag to her chest. When the neighbor disappeared into the building, Larisa, following an impulsive urge, went down to the trash bins.
The bag lay on top. Inside was a stack of photographs, carelessly torn but not completely. In one of the snapshots, a young woman was smiling with a boy—the same one Larisa had seen in the newspaper article. Misha Voronov. On the back was written: “Birthday, 4 Years Old.”
Now all the pieces were coming together into a horrifying picture. When Natalia again asked Larisa to watch Vanya during the day, she agreed, feeling her heart tremble with both fear and determination.
The boy looked especially dejected. He huddled in the corner of the couch, hugging his knees.
“Vanya… or Misha?” Larisa quietly asked.
The child flinched, his eyes widening in terror. “She said it’s forbidden… not allowed to speak…”
“Do you miss your real mother?”
His chin trembled. “Daddy didn’t want to give me up. He yelled. And then there was an injection, and I fell asleep.”
Larisa cautiously sat beside him, struggling with a rising nausea. “Please, tell me everything. I will help.”
The story, haphazardly recounted by a five‑year‑old, turned out to be scarier than any assumptions. Natalia had taken him from the playground, given him an injection. Then came a long move, a strange apartment, a new name. “She says that now I am her Vanechka. That my mother is bad and abandoned me. But that’s not true. I remember my mother. And my dad.”
When Natalia returned, Larisa was already waiting for her in the hallway. The boy slept in his room, exhausted by memories.
“I know who he is,” Larisa said quietly, extending the photograph she had found. “And I know what you’ve done.”
Natalia froze, her face contorting. “You don’t understand anything! Nothing!” she snapped, trying to snatch the photo away. “This is my child now! Mine!”
“What happened to your real son?”
Natalia sank to the floor, covering her face with her hands. Her shoulders trembled.
“Three years ago… illness. We fought for two years, but… I couldn’t, you know? I couldn’t live in an empty apartment, staring at his photos. And then I saw Misha on the playground—he looked so much like my Vanechka. The same smile, the same eyes…”
“You stole a child from loving parents,” Larisa said, striving to keep her voice calm even as anger boiled inside her.
“They’re young, they’ll have other children!” Natalia suddenly sprang up, a feverish gleam in her eyes. “And I can never have another child. Ever! I need him! You wouldn’t dare…”
“I dare,” Larisa said as she took out her phone. “I’ve already called the police.”
Everything happened very quickly. Natalia’s scream, the pounding footsteps on the stairs, the cry of the awakened boy. Police, medics, social workers. Photographs of Misha’s real parents, their tears of joy streaming during a video call.
Later, Larisa would often dream of the moment when Misha was leaving for home. He turned and waved at her, clutching that very same worn-out rabbit to his chest. “Thank you for being really nice,” he said then.
Natalia was arrested. At the trial, it emerged that she had indeed lost her son three years earlier, after which she began stalking similar children in the neighboring town. The story made the news, and for several weeks Larisa refused to turn on the TV, unable to relive the events over and over.
One day, she received a letter—a photograph of a smiling Misha with his parents. On the back was written in childish handwriting: “Hi! Now I have a cat, like before. And yellow curtains.” And at the bottom, in an adult’s hand: “Thank you for saving our son.”
Larisa stared at the photo for a long time, feeling tears streaming down her cheeks.
Now, whenever she passed playgrounds, Larisa would always stop and listen to the children’s laughter. In those bright voices, she imagined the quiet whisper of the boy: “Are you really nice?”
