Semyon was just a simple tractor driver who had been going about his day when he found himself face-to-face with a woman whose presence would alter his life forever. Early in the morning, he had made his usual rounds to the farm and was on his way back to town when he noticed the woman — standing on the roadside, tired and desperate, with a child in her arms. She was homeless, shivering, and seemed to be lost.
With a sympathetic heart, Semyon approached. She explained her plight with a trembling voice, asking if there was any way she and her child could find shelter, just for a night. Semyon, who had always been kind-hearted, couldn’t turn her away. He handed her the keys to his small house on the outskirts of the village, telling her to rest there until she figured things out.
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Please, make yourself comfortable,” Semyon said before climbing back into his tractor and heading off to his next task. He felt a sense of relief knowing the woman would have some warmth and safety for at least a short while.
As evening descended and the sky turned dim, Semyon returned, expecting to find the house just as he had left it. But when he approached the door, he was halted by an unexpected sight. Through the window, a strange light glowed inside — not the regular warm light of his oil lamp, but something softer, gentler, almost ethereal. A glow that seemed to have been waiting for him.
Semyon stood frozen, eyes fixed on the figure standing by the window. She was wearing an old-fashioned dress, dark with faded embroidery, and she held the child in her arms. The pale light from inside barely illuminated her form, yet her presence was undeniable. The child looked impossibly fragile, its form flickering like a tiny flame, flickering in and out of focus.
Then, as if sensing his gaze, the woman turned. Her eyes met his — not with fear, but with an intensity he had never encountered. There was a sorrow in them, yes, but something more. A deep, ancient knowing, a question that went beyond time, beyond explanation.
Semyon’s heart raced. He rushed to the door, the key cold in his hand as if it were warning him. When the door finally opened, the air inside felt wrong — too still, too quiet, like stepping into a place where time itself had stopped.
Everything was just as he had left it: the crackling stove, the scent of wood, the familiar creak of the floorboards beneath his feet. But somehow, it felt as though he had entered someone else’s dream, someone else’s memory.
Then he saw it — a letter, placed carefully on the table. It looked old, the paper yellowed with age. His hands trembled as he picked it up, reading the neatly written words:
“I beg you, if anyone finds this letter… I don’t know where to go with the child. We have been thrown out. We will knock no more. If misfortune happens — let at least someone remember us. Masha and little Ivan.”
The date at the corner of the letter read: June 8, 1956.
Semyon’s pulse quickened. His fingers gripped the paper tightly. This wasn’t possible. How could this letter, from so many decades ago, be here now? How could this be a coincidence?
His eyes darted around the room. There, on the floor by the stove, lay a porcelain doll. He had never seen it before — it wasn’t here this morning. It wasn’t here yesterday, or even a year ago. Yet, there it was, with a cracked arm and its hair tangled by time.
Semyon’s breath hitched, and a chill ran down his spine. He bolted outside, the wind picking up, the sky darkening as though nature itself sensed the unease that had gripped him. The road was empty. No signs of the woman. No footprints, no sounds. Just the howling wind and the distant caw of a crow.
He rushed to the local policeman, his thoughts swirling like a storm. He had to tell someone. He had to know what was happening.
“You’re completely crazy, brother,” the policeman said after hearing the story. “Who showed you that old woman?”
But no one believed him. No one, except for one old neighbor, Marfa. She crossed herself when Semyon told her what had happened.
“So, you saw them…” she whispered, a look of fear crossing her weathered face. “The ones who’ve been gone for so long…”
Semyon’s world shifted that day. He had handed over his keys to a stranger, and in return, he had unlocked a mystery that had been buried in the past. What had he seen? Who were the woman and the child? And why had they returned after so many years?
The answers, it seemed, were locked away in the house — in the forgotten corners of time. And Semyon would spend the rest of his days trying to unravel their secrets.