Simple Truths of Life - стр. 8

I woke up. It was a gray, cloudy day.

We had breakfast in the kitchen of the Big House when Uncle Vitya came to visit us at eleven o'clock. He briefly said that he saw a smoke coming from our dugout as he walked past it through the backyards, walking from a bus stop, which is one and a half kilometers from our house. I thought then that Lena was there, who was the only one who, except me, came to the village on that rainy weekend.

Having finished eating, I went to the dugout. I calmly went to its entrance and opened the door. There was no one inside. I immediately noticed how coals were smoldering in the fireplace of the dugout, and a barely visible smoke was coming from them. It was at that moment that I for the first time remembered the dream that I had that night…

I immediately went to collect Lena, but she was still sleeping. It was about twelve o’clock, and she often slept for a very long time.

Of course, now I understand that the girl most likely would not go to burn a fire in a dugout in the backyard on a cloudy day – and on any other. I asked another friend if he was in the dugout that day, to which he answered negatively. In addition, he would not leave the coals not extinguished. Each time we burned bonfires, he always extinguished them to the end, being a responsible person. The question of who made the fire that day in our dugout remains unanswered, as well as why I had a dream about it, and why in it I saw someone completely covered in black fur…

It is worth saying that almost all the unusual cases that happened to me before my eighteenth birthday took place in the village.

There was a moment when I woke up in the middle of the night. I heard floorboards bend in the kitchen of our house. The frequency of steps indicated that someone was walking in a slow, calm step. I thought that my mother was returning home from the toilet, but when I turned my head towards the door, I realized that my mother was sleeping in her bed. Nobody else could walk in the kitchen that night – my father was in Moscow, and aunt Liza very rarely went to our Little House during the day, and she certainly would not have walked in our kitchen in the middle of the night in the dark. The Big House has its own exit to the garden.

Another incident occurred when I was sitting on the porch of the Little House while repairing my bike. I remember clearly how I felt then that someone was looking at me from behind. I turned around, but there was nobody – neither in the kitchen, nor on the terrace. But I could feel someone's presence.