Ludmila didn’t even have time to knock before the door opened on its own, quietly and without a creak. A woman in her sixties stood in the doorway wearing a dark work apron. Her hair was neatly pinned up, her hands were steady, and her gaze seemed to go a little deeper than good manners required.
Vera Andreevna said she had been standing by the window, answering a question no one had asked yet, and invited them inside. Alena gave a small involuntary shiver, and Mike, standing beside her, felt it at once. Inside, the house smelled of dried mint, resin, and something else warm and slightly sharp.
The scent was like an old library if, instead of books, it had stored summer all year long. Wooden shelves lined the walls, crowded with dark and pale jars labeled in small neat handwriting on strips of paper. On the windowsill sat a ginger cat with its paws tucked under, studying the visitors with professional indifference.
The stove in the corner hummed low and steady, as if carrying on a private conversation no one else was meant to understand. Ludmila stepped forward, and something in her rigid posture softened at once. Vera opened her arms, and the two women hugged like old acquaintances who didn’t need introductions.
They exchanged a few quiet words about how many years had passed since they had last seen each other. Alena watched with the unpleasant feeling that she had missed an important scene in a movie everyone else had already seen. Vera stepped back and looked carefully, without fuss, at little Arsen.
Holding out her arms, she politely asked Alena if she could take the child. The mother hesitated for a second, then handed him over. Vera took him with practiced confidence, supporting his back the way people do who have held hundreds of children.
Arsen didn’t protest. He looked at her with the same distant expression he gave everyone else. Vera stood still and simply held him. Then came a small shift, so slight it hardly qualified as movement.
She slowly bent her head toward his neck, and her nostrils flared just a little as she drew in a breath. Alena saw the strange gesture clearly. It was so unexpected she couldn’t immediately think of anything to say and simply froze.
Turning to Mike, Alena asked under her breath what exactly this woman was doing to her child. He didn’t answer. He was staring at Vera too. And at that moment, the color began draining from the healer’s face.
She didn’t go pale in a dramatic way or gradually, but the way people do when they’ve been hit with a real, chilling shock. Taking one step toward the wooden bench by the wall, she sat down heavily, still holding Arsen in her lap. The cat on the windowsill shifted uneasily, then went still again.
A ringing silence filled the room. Only the stove kept up its low hum, utterly indifferent to what was happening around it. Ludmila, Mike, and Alena waited tensely, their eyes moving from Vera to the child.
At last the healer lifted her head and said in an even voice that the trouble was reaching the boy through his mother. There was no accusation in her tone, no pity either—just a plain statement of fact. It was the kind of voice a tired doctor might use when delivering a diagnosis no one wants to hear…
