Artem stood by the window, clutching his phone, a smug smile on his face. His reflection in the glass smiled back at him—a successful, accomplished man who today would become a father… twice. His thoughts tangled, mixing into a strange and shameful cocktail of pride, fear, and anticipation.
“They took my mistress and my wife to the same maternity hospital…” his own voice in the receiver sounded surprisingly calm and confident. “Everything will be fine! Children are happiness. It doesn’t matter which woman they’re from… I’m sure it’ll all work out. I’ll tell Sveta to keep her mouth shut, not to chat with her ward neighbors. And she doesn’t know Anna’s face anyway. And my wife doesn’t even suspect Sveta exists. Okay, buddy, I’ll call you later!”
He hung up and took a deep breath. Yes, today he would become a father of many. Anna was having twins, and Sveta—a boy. Wasn’t that a reason to sit down with friends in the evening and celebrate his manly prowess? He felt like the creator of his own universe, master of fates, lucky and deft. He had managed to pull it all off, to arrange everything. It seemed nothing could cast a shadow over his triumph.
But that evening, just as he was savoring the thought of his first shot in the company of loyal friends, the phone rang. The name “Anna” flashed on the screen. His heart skipped for a second, but he calmed himself: she was probably inviting him to see their daughter, wanting to boast.
“Our little girl is fine,” his wife’s voice was quiet, flat, lifeless, as if from the depths of a well. “And our son… he’s an angel now.”
There was such an abyss of icy despair in those words that Artem’s breath caught. The world he had so carefully built cracked, and from that crack blew the cold wind of inevitable grief.
“Anna, how? What happened? I’ll come right now… What?..” he babbled, feeling the ground slip from under his feet.
“No. They won’t let you in anyway. Wait for us at home,” Anna hung up without even saying goodbye, cutting off the conversation on the most terrifying note.
In the silence of his own living room, Artem froze, unable to move. He pictured her—his strong, always composed Anna—in a hospital room, alone with her unbearable pain. She set the phone aside and gave a quiet sob. She would live through this grief. They all would. It would just take time. But how monstrous a quantity of time and strength would it require?
That evening Artem canceled all meetings. The bottle of cognac remained unopened. Instead of a noisy gathering, he paced the apartment, pointlessly trying to prepare it for his wife’s and daughter’s return. His universe had collapsed, and he was helplessly treading among the ruins. He told Sveta nothing; he only offered a dry congratulations on the birth of her son.
“Listen, I’ve got problems… It doesn’t matter—don’t think about it. Right now the main thing is that you and the baby are okay…” he spoke into the phone, trying to keep his voice steady.
“I’m not refusing fatherhood! I told you, my name will be on the birth certificate… We’ll sort it out. All right, I have to go. And let’s do this: don’t call or text me for a while. I remember about you and the baby, I just need time right now. Okay?”
“I understand, Artem… Fine, we’ll do as you said,” Sveta’s voice carried hurt and disappointment. She understood that now all his attention would belong to his wife—the “legal” one—who had lost a child. But she knew what she was getting into when she tied her life to a married man, and so she kept silent, burying the resentment deep in her heart.
When Anna came home, she looked like a shadow. She did everything needed for their daughter mechanically, with empty, extinguished eyes. She couldn’t look at the newborn girl without pain—in every breath, in every movement she thought she saw the ghost of the other one, the one they had lost. Yet somewhere deep inside she understood that for her daughter’s sake she had to gather the fragments of her soul and try to go on. Artem repeated this constantly.
“Do you want us to see a therapist? Maybe you’ll need some medication… to help,” he suggested carefully, watching her indifferent face.
“Maybe,” Anna answered softly, almost in a whisper, as she swaddled their daughter. “For now I’ll manage with spiritual practices.”
“Darling, you promised me you’d give up those witchcraft things,” Artem flared, recalling with irritation his wife’s interests that seemed strange to him.
“It’s all right. Don’t worry about me. It’s just… you wanted a big family so much. You wanted many children. And our son…” her voice broke off.
“Cry if it will make you feel better. I’ll be here,” Artem tried to hug her, but she pulled away sharply, almost desperately.
“Don’t. Tears won’t help. Nothing will help. He can’t be brought back. Can you bring him back? No! Then leave me alone—I have to live through this grief by myself!”
Anna went into another room, slamming the door. Artem was left alone, and he picked up the sleeping baby girl. She was so small, defenseless, and smelled so touchingly of childhood and innocence.
“How could this happen?” he whispered, holding back rising sobs. “Why to us? Why to me?”
And in that moment he felt with a sharp, almost physical pain that he wanted to hold the other child. The son Sveta had borne him. The thought was treacherous and horrible, but it came and settled in him, tormenting and tearing him apart.
TWO MONTHS PASSED
Life was slowly returning to its course, but a quiet, muffled sorrow had taken up residence in their home forever. Anna was humming a lullaby to their daughter when Artem finally returned home. It was well past midnight; he hadn’t even bothered to warn her. The woman quietly stepped out of the nursery and looked at her husband with a tired, questioning gaze.
“Anna, we need to talk. The timing is bad, I know, but this has to be decided right now,” his voice trembled, and his hands were visibly shaking.
“What happened?” there was alarm in her voice.
“I have a son. By another woman. He was born the same day as our daughter,” Artem paused, trying to master the surge of emotion. “But today there was a tragedy… His mother… she died. A chunk of ice fell from a roof while she was out with the stroller. The baby is fine, it didn’t even touch him. But her… she’s gone.”
He sobbed, unable to hold back tears. Anna froze, staring at him with wide-open eyes. She felt the floor vanish beneath her feet, and the room begin to slowly swim before her.
“What are you saying? Where are you going with this?” her own voice sounded alien to her, coming from far away.
“The child is registered to me. There are two options now. First: I sign a relinquishment, and my son grows up in an orphanage. Second: we take the child home and raise him as our own.”
Anna swayed and slowly, as if cut down, slid to the floor. Artem sank down beside her, took her cold, lifeless hand in his. She didn’t resist. The news her husband had brought struck with such force that it burned everything inside—pain, anger, the last scraps of hope. Only emptiness and icy stupor remained.
“I’m asking you, I’m begging you… He’s my son. He’s little and needs care. He needs a mother! Right now he needs a mother, and only then a father. I’m telling you right away, and you have to understand—there will be no going back. So think carefully. In the morning—by evening at the latest—I need your answer. Anna, this isn’t just some boy. He’s my child, my son. My own son. I want to be with him. Are you ready to walk this road with me?”
“W… where is he now?” Anna asked quietly, barely audibly, closing her eyes as if trying to hide from an unbearable reality.
“He’s with a frie— his mother’s friend took the boy in. She also had a baby recently and promised to help for the first few days. I know how hard this is for you. Everything has piled on. It’s… Forgive me, Anna! I’ll get on my knees…”
“In the morning we’re going to get your son. What time does this friend wake up? Better set an alarm. Otherwise we’ll oversleep,” Anna rose from the floor slowly, with an inhuman effort, and without looking at her husband, went to the bedroom.
Artem, stunned and shaken by her reaction, shuffled after her. He had expected tears, hysterics, accusations—anything but this icy, unnatural calm. Anna behaved as if her husband had informed her of an upcoming trip to the store, not of the most monstrous betrayal of their lives. She didn’t cause a scene. She didn’t shout. She silently set the alarm and lay down, turning to the wall.
All the necessary documents were processed with frightening speed. The little boy, named Misha, gradually got used to the new home, to his new mother, to his sister. Anna treated him with a surprising, almost painful tenderness. It seemed she made no distinction between him and her own daughter. The two babies became absolutely, wholly hers. Artem, relieved, thought that a terrible accident had somehow incomprehensibly returned a son to Anna. He was afraid to admit this monstrous thought to himself, but the tragedy had come at a very convenient time. He no longer had to tear himself between two families, lie and wriggle. Now his children were under one roof. And his wife, it seemed, had forgiven him.
For almost a year everything went nearly perfectly. But then strange, frightening things began to happen to Anna.
She was getting the now-toddling children ready for a walk. Brother and sister, two little whirlwinds, tore around the apartment, yanking off the tights and sweaters she’d just put on them, laughing and delighting in their impunity. Anna was already at her wit’s end.
“Enough!” Artem barked sternly, appearing in the doorway. “Kids, stop driving Mom crazy. Sit nicely and let’s get ready for a walk.”
“Oh, Artem, stop. They won’t sit still. They’re children. But it’s okay, soon they’ll be bigger and able to dress themselves. And we… All we can do is wait. But I personally was ready for our twins to grow up very active. They kicked so hard before they were born they bruised all my ribs.”
Artem looked at his wife with growing alarm. Of course, legally she was the mother of both children. And between themselves they had agreed not to let outsiders in on the details of Misha’s origins. But Anna clearly understood that he wasn’t her biological child. Then why was she saying “they” kicked? Was it her attempt to draw closer, to erase the line? Or something more troubling? Maybe she really did need a therapist? And he could use one himself—because the older Misha grew, the more he looked like Sveta. At that thought alone Artem’s heart clenched. Poor, poor Sveta…
Anna smiled as she dressed the children. She tied a pink scarf for her daughter, a blue one for her son. The boy tugged at the scratchy wool in annoyance.
“Don’t bundle up my child!” came a quiet but distinct whisper behind him.
Artem whirled around. There was no one in the room but them.
“What do you mean ‘don’t bundle up’! It’s windy out,” Anna said without turning her head, tying the scarf. “And what do you mean ‘your child’? He’s our child! I gave birth to him, and I know perfectly well how to dress children for the weather!”
“Anna, what are you talking about?” Artem asked in fright, feeling goosebumps race down his back. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You did. I heard you. You said: don’t bundle up my child,” now Anna herself was frightened. She had clearly heard the words, but they sounded quietly, as if through sleep or a hallucination.
Artem decided not to pursue it, but a hard, cold stone of anxiety settled in his soul. Something was clearly wrong with his wife. And his own nerves were at the breaking point. He thought of Sveta more and more often—her laughter, her look. He felt monstrously guilty—before her, before Anna, before everyone. He was alive and healthy, his children were growing up beside him, and she was gone. The thought devoured him from within.
One evening the man came home late from work, exhausted and drained. He wanted only silence, a hot shower, and bed.
That day a new hire had appeared at the office—Lenochka. Young, very pretty, with a sly, promising gaze. She spent the whole day hovering around him, “accidentally” brushing against him, fluttering her eyelashes. A year earlier he might have taken the bait. But after the whole story with Sveta, the idea of a new affair, new lies, stirred only nausea and disgust. He coldly rebuffed the beauty, and it enraged him—in himself, in his weakness, in the whole situation.
Anna met him in the hallway. She stood motionless, like a statue, and looked at him with a calm but piercing gaze.
“I’m warning you: if you take up with another woman, you will never see me and the twins again. You wanted a big family, many children, didn’t you? Well then, one more act of infidelity—and you’ll have to start over… start building a family from scratch.”
Artem felt the icy fear again. She was saying “twins” again. And he was terrified that someone might have told her about Lenochka. How else could she know? The thought that he was being watched, that his life was under a bell jar, was unbearable.
“I don’t have anyone. And won’t,” he answered wearily, almost automatically. “Did you make an appointment with a therapist?”
“I don’t need one. I’m fine,” Anna brushed it off. “The kids are asleep. Sit in the kitchen and have dinner. Don’t go into the bedroom.”
“Why?” Artem craned his neck, trying to make out something in the dark bedroom. The streetlight picked out a strange scene from the gloom: tall thin candles burned on the floor, a fat, worn book lay open, there was a metal bowl and… a knife.
“What are you doing in there? What is this?” he tried to push past his wife and enter the room, but she clutched the doorjamb, fiercely defending her space.
“I need to perform a ritual,” she hissed, and there was an unfamiliar, wild fire in her eyes. “You have no right to come in!”
“What ritual—what are you talking about? What nonsense?”
“Sveta is… following me. She talks to me and won’t let me interact normally with my son,” Anna took a stance, ready to defend herself to the end. “If I don’t do this, something terrible may happen. I can feel it, I can feel it!”
“Darling, you promised me you wouldn’t do this black magic! We agreed! It isn’t safe!” he begged, panic tightening his throat.
“And you once promised to be faithful. And now what?” her scream was sharp, hysterical, despite the children sleeping in the next room.
“God… I thought we’d already discussed this. It’s over.”
“Discussed, sure. And I’m lucky it all turned out just as I planned,” Anna said with a sort of detached, eerie smile. “Otherwise… Otherwise we wouldn’t now be happy parents of twins…”
Silence hung in the air, thick and menacing. Artem felt the blood in his veins turn to ice.
“What did you say? I didn’t understand—what do you have to do with it? What did you plan?” he approached her slowly, as if afraid to startle a terrible suspicion. “Do you have anything to do with what happened to Sveta?”
Anna stared at him, stricken, and an honest, animal terror flashed in her eyes. She had managed to keep her dreadful secret so long… and now she herself, by her own words, had flung open the door to that nightmare. She closed her eyes, and against her will her memory dragged her back—to that maternity hospital, to that ward where it had all begun…
Anna, silent, empty-eyed, stroked tiny blue booties. At the same time her daughter whimpered plaintively in her crib. The set of baby things for the newborn son still lay in the bag. Today she had been able to dress only one of her children. The pain was so all-consuming there was no room even for tears.
“Hey, friend!” a quiet voice pulled her from her stupor. “I get it… No, I don’t. I can’t understand or imagine what you’re feeling. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But you have a daughter. She’s little and really needs you. Listen how pitifully she’s crying. Probably hungry. Help her, and she’ll help you.”
Anna turned slowly. Behind her stood her ward neighbor, awkwardly rocking her newborn.
“Yes, thank you. You’re right. I need to take care of my daughter,” Anna got up sharply, obeying another’s will like an automaton.
When the fed baby fell asleep, a faint, barely noticeable smile flickered on Anna’s lips. Then she looked gratefully at her neighbor. Such simple, homely care had briefly pulled her away from the abyss of grief and reminded her of duty. The neighbor smiled back and whispered:
“Good. That’s right. Keep your head and hands busy so it won’t hurt as much. By the way, my name’s Sveta. And let’s say ‘you’ (informal).”
“Anna… Is this your first child?”
“The first. And I think the last. You know, I won’t let men close to me anymore.”
“And I hope I’ll have more children. And my husband wants a big family.”
“You see, you have a husband… And the father of my baby already has a family. A wife and children. That happens too… Oh, sorry, it must be unpleasant to hear.”
But Anna only shrugged. A strange sense of relief stirred in her. It turned out not everything in this world was perfect and cloudless. Someone else suffered too, someone else made mistakes. That thought, however monstrous it sounded, slightly softened her own pain.
“Yes, that happens. I don’t blame you,” she lied, to hear more.
“And it’s good you don’t blame… I hadn’t planned any relationships—I got burned before. Though I did want children. And then he appeared. A good man. Well-off. Married. We agreed on everything from the start. About the children too. He was pleased, since I wouldn’t intrude on his family. And he craved heirs. In fact, I think it doesn’t matter to him which woman they’re from. The main thing is lots of kids. Funny, isn’t it…”
Suddenly Anna’s heart seized. A vague but powerful sense of dread came over her. She looked intently at Sveta. Just then, Sveta was distracted by a message that popped up on her phone.
“How are you?” Sveta read aloud. “And please, don’t be too frank with your ward neighbors. My wife is in this same maternity hospital.”
“Ok,” Sveta typed back curtly, a displeased grimace on her face. It was clear the situation was weighing on her more and more.
“What’s the name of your… that man?” Anna asked, and her voice quivered.
“Hm?” Sveta looked up from the phone. “Artem. His name is Artem.”
Anna’s world collapsed in that instant. When Sveta fell asleep, Anna walked to her bed. She stared at the stranger’s infant for a long time, until her eyes hurt, searching for familiar features. Then, with trembling hands, she picked up Sveta’s phone. There was no passcode. And everything was confirmed. The latest messages, photos… The father of that boy was her Artem. It was with him this woman had been “having fun” for the past year while Anna carried his children under her heart.
“She wanted children,” Anna clenched her fists, and a cold, engulfing fury boiled up inside her. “But she didn’t want to destroy a family!”
Secretly, she slipped the tiny anti-scratch mitten off the infant’s fist and carefully took from the pillow one of Sveta’s long, fair hairs. She didn’t yet know exactly how she would use these tokens, but she was absolutely certain: their time would come. And she firmly decided she would say nothing to Artem. Not until she had a ready plan for revenge; until then, his link to Sveta had to remain secret.
Her hour struck a few months later.
“Darling, I’ll be late today. Work is a mess. The meeting starts only at six. I think I won’t be home before midnight,” Artem hurriedly got ready for work, not looking at her.
“Yes, of course. I understand,” Anna understood perfectly that her husband was going to Sveta.
When the door closed, a nasty, triumphant smile spread over her face. She took from a hiding place the old, battered book she had concealed from her husband—an inheritance from her grandmother, who knew her way around the dark arts. And she found what she was looking for.
“I’m sorry, baby. None of this is your fault. But your mother did something very bad to me. For that I will do something worse to her. But don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. You’ll become my little one. You’ll replace the little son who sleeps among the clouds.”
She kissed the anti-scratch mitten and placed Sveta’s hair into the metal bowl. Everything was ready for the dreadful ritual. All that remained was to speak the ancient, forbidden words…
“What? What did you say? You had a hand in this?” Artem’s voice trembled with horror. He looked at his wife and couldn’t believe what he read in her eyes.
“No. Of course not. I meant I had planned to raise your son as my own… And I’m succeeding…” Anna turned away, but it was too late. The shadow of truth flickered between them, and there was no hiding it.
Artem exhaled heavily.
“All right. Yes. That’s what I thought.”
He looked once more at the strange paraphernalia in the bedroom. He didn’t believe her. But to seek the truth now, here, in the half-dark, with a person who might have crossed the most terrible line, was deadly dangerous. His thoughts tangled. If she was capable of that… what could she do to him? To the children? She had to be stopped. Neutralized. But how?
“Anna, I’m very tired today. Please, do your ritual tomorrow. I want to rest now.”
The woman nodded silently. In any case, such a thing required quiet and solitude. She would do it later. Sometime when he took the children out for a walk.
In the morning, the kitchen bustled as usual. Anna fussed at the stove, the children finished breakfast, and Artem drained his coffee. And suddenly…
“Enough!” Anna’s piercing scream shattered the morning calm. “Enough! Don’t stick your nose into my family!”
She snatched a bread knife from the table and shook it helplessly in the air, addressing the empty space.
The children burst into tears from fright. Artem, horrified, grabbed them and pulled them aside. Anna kept standing in the middle of the kitchen, waving the knife and threatening an invisible enemy.
“I’m not afraid anymore,” came a mocking whisper only she could hear. “A knife doesn’t scare me!”
“Out!” she screamed again, madness in her eyes.
While his wife raged around the kitchen, sobbing and shouting, Artem, hands shaking, locked himself in the bedroom with the children and dialed emergency services.
Everything happened very quickly. The team arrived, and Anna ended up in the hands of strong strangers. She thrashed, kicked, cursed everyone, continuing to threaten the ghost of Sveta. And that ghost, invisible to anyone but her, followed at her heels, whispering its terrible words into her ear.
“They won’t believe you… No one will. Better be quiet, or the dose of meds they give you will rob you of the ability to speak… Calm down, Anna, I’ll keep an eye on you…”
“She’s completely lost it! I’m scared for myself and the kids,” Artem, pale and at a loss, said on the phone to his friend. “And I begged her, right after we came back from the hospital I begged: go to a therapist, help yourself… And now what? She’s in a clinic… Yeah, she signed the papers herself, agreed to treatment… I don’t know, the doctor throws up his hands. Says the therapy isn’t helping. It’s even getting worse. She hears voices…”
Yes, his wife would have to stay under treatment longer. In that state she couldn’t be with the children.
Nothing helped Anna. She was either in a complete, ringing emptiness, or she heard only Sveta’s voice. Sveta didn’t leave her side, becoming her eternal, cursed companion.
“I’ll be with you now… I don’t know why I can’t go to the children. But maybe you’re my punishment. And I’m yours…”
“Go away, please, be quiet! My head will split,” Anna moaned weakly, almost soundlessly, not noticing the nurse nearby carefully writing in her chart. “Sveta, have mercy. I take care of our children.”
“I can’t leave. I’m bound to you. But don’t worry. I won’t bother you too much. We’ll just chat sometimes, that’s all. I understand what it’s like for you now. All alone, without support. But I’ll give you support,” the ghost snickered soundlessly.
Anna flailed in despair, trying to grab the airy vision.
“Oh, that’s enough! Or they’ll make you try on a straitjacket.”
Anna shut her eyes, defeated. How were the children without her? How was Artem? And she… what would happen to her? Would anything remain in her life besides these endless hospital walls, the smell of medicine, and a ghostly whisper?
Suddenly she felt unbearably bitter and offended. It was a monstrous injustice! She—the deceived, the betrayed, driven to despair—was here, in confinement. And he, the culprit of it all, the source of all this pain, was at home, with the children. Free. Free to do whatever he wanted.
“Everyone is free to do what they want,” Sveta read her thoughts with relish. “You just can’t forget about the boundaries you mustn’t cross. You wanted to punish me for a nasty—yes, I admit, a very nasty—act. But for some reason you decided you had the right to take my life. You answered evil with a greater, the greatest evil. Is that fair? Think about it when you envy Artem.”
Anna clenched her fists and cried quietly. Was Sveta right? Possibly. But that thought didn’t make it easier. Only worse. More hopeless.
“There, there,” the ghost’s voice sounded almost comforting. “Artem is an ordinary, perfectly ordinary weak man. You can blame him, hate him, want revenge. But how his fate turns out isn’t for us to decide. Everyone answers for their sins themselves. Sooner or later it happens. I’m probably already answering for mine. You, I think, too… By the way, everything is going fine for Artem so far. That’s how it goes, huh? He cooked the porridge, and it’s not him who has to eat it… Well then, that’s fate.”
Fate… Like iron chains shackling the will.
Soon Artem got together with that same Lenochka from work. She gladly took on the care of his children, and later bore him another child. Later, another woman, Lyuba, appeared in the father-of-many’s life. She easily left their child to him and dashed off in search of new love. Ten years after that, Lera came into his life. But she never bore him a child. Or didn’t want to.
And on a creaking hospital cot sat Anna. From the abundance of powerful drugs she spoke very quietly and indistinctly, so she preferred to conduct endless dialogues with her invisible, eternal companion in her mind. The latter seemed to understand her. Or merely pretended to.
Or perhaps there had never been any Sveta at all. Neither her whisper nor her sneers. Perhaps it was all only a creation of Anna’s own mind, tormented by guilt and pain, slowly and inexorably sinking into darkness, trying to find at least some explanation for the nightmare her life had become. And in that quiet, hopeless darkness nothing remained but the ghosts of the past and the bitter realization of the price one has to pay for mistakes, for lies, and for trying to seize what belongs only to fate.
