“Do you believe in any ‘devilry’? Have you ever encountered anything unusual?”

“I don't believe in "devilry", but I have no doubt that the world is much more complicated than we think.”

(from Rina's interview with the magazine ‘Brownie’)

After lunch, clouds suddenly crept into the sky, cut off the bright sun in mid-sentence, leaving unsaid, and plunged the day into evening twilight. There was a sharp smell of ozone and wet earth. The silence rang, ready to end at any moment with a clap of thunder. The wind, driving away the clouds, hastily darned the bright heavenly gaps with them. Her heart was booming because of a premonition, the tone of which remained unclear. Rina froze on the porch, greedily inhaling the freshened air and peering into the clouds in anticipation of the first flashes of lightning. Before the forces of nature, she was negligibly small, but at the moment when the silence suddenly became absolute, she felt like a conductor in front of an orchestra frozen in anticipation of her actions. Now she will wave her wand, and a symphony will break out. Rina involuntarily raised her hand, but when she came to her senses, she gently lowered it. And at the same moment, the first flash flashed in the blackened sky. A bright lightning tore the cloud apart, and a downpour fell on the ground like a wall. Rina held out her palms to him, and then, unable to resist the temptation, ran barefoot down the steps, froze in the middle of the courtyard, arms outstretched and face tilted to the sky. Her ecstatic cry was drowned in the thunderous rumble and the noise of the rain. But with this cry, the trouble that poisoned her burst out, and the soul, having got rid of the poison, was filled, as if with spring water, with short-lived joy. Rina squinted from the rain beating on her face, smiled, catching the water jets with her lips, and screamed, screamed until her cry turned into a song – not in her native language, but in the Korean language of Nuliya.

Rina returned to the house only when she finished the last verse. Her soaked clothes clung to her body like a second skin. Rina went straight to the bathroom and stood for a long time under the now hot jets. Such a contrasting ‘shower’ shook her up and for a while got rid of the bitter memories that had filled her teeth.

After changing into a wide flannel shirt, loose jeans and thick socks, she returned to the kitchen, where she had been putting shopping in drawers and putting new dishes on the shelves, and made herself tea. The rain still – a solid veil – hid the visibility outside the window. Bright flashes cut through the darkness of bad weather every now and then. Rina turned on the light and returned to the interrupted lesson.

The fact that something had changed, she, being carried away by the case, didn’t notice immediately. It was only when she got down from the stool for a stack of plates that she realized that silence reigned in the house, no longer disturbed by the pounding of rain on the windowsill. Rina glanced at the street and made sure that visibility was still as bad, only not because of the rain, but because the window was covered with a fog curtain. The haze rose from the ground, swirled as if alive, and something dark was moving in it. Rina put the plates back on the table, slowly approached the window and recoiled in horror when someone's silhouette suddenly emerged from the fog on the other side. She covered her mouth with her palm, stifling a frightened squeak. The silhouette, swaying, approached the window, and behind it loomed several more of the same vague figures. Rina glanced at the other window and screamed when she saw two palms pressed against the glass and someone's flattened face. Someone was looking in the window, perhaps it had been watching her for a long time, but when it saw that it was noticed, it disappeared into the fog again. Rina managed to notice only the coal-black pupils and a wide slit in the place of the mouth.

She didn't realize how she jumped up and jerked both windows shut. The curtains were light, translucent, but still hid the fog and its terrible inhabitants. Rina ran around the whole house, turning on the lights and curtaining the windows. But when she got to the bedroom, she saw that the fog outside the window had already dissipated and the first ray of sunlight was timidly looking into the room. Along with the fog, the terrible creatures also disappeared. Rina returned to the kitchen and squinted at the plates that had not been removed. There was no trace of the recent joy caused by the storm. Fear and anxiety crept into my soul like cold snakes. Longing squeezed my throat with such force that it was difficult to take a new breath. Tears welled up in my eyes. But Rina didn't have time to cry, because she heard a knock on the door.

“No, no, no!” she muttered, grabbing the countertop. The knock was repeated, and with it there was a noise of scuffling, as if someone was wiping his feet on a rug, followed by a rather distinct grunting.

Rina cautiously approached the door and froze.

“Hee-hee!” someone lamented and knocked weakly on the door without any hope. The distressed ‘hugh’ was supported by a piglet grunting, and Rina hastily rattled the keys.

A familiar strange old man gave her a delighted asymmetrical smile and again gave a long hoot. But even though he was smiling, he looked pitiful: the brim of his wet hat hung down dejectedly, and water trickled down from them to the old man's collar, his clothes were soaked, his trousers stuck to his skinny legs. Only the piglet, which the old man still kept on a leash, radiated joy and contentment. The downpour took the dirt off him, and it turned out that there is a rather large spot in the form of a blob on the pink skin near the tail. Rina motioned the unexpected guests into the house.

The old man crossed the threshold and timidly turned his head. The piglet grunted merrily and trotted down the corridor as far as the leash allowed. Rina cautiously looked behind the old man, fearing to see the fog and its frightening inhabitants. But outside the door, the day was already blazing with a bright sun, and the sky was shining with innocent purity again. And only wide puddles and rain-beaten grass reminded of the recent storm.

Rina closed the door, locked it and motioned to the old man to take off his wet hat and jacket. The guest took off his shoes, took off his jacket, remaining in a large-knit sweater and trousers, but refused to take off his hat. Rina didn’t insist and escorted him to the kitchen. There she put the kettle on, reasoning that a wet and cold person first of all needs to be given something hot to drink. Then she turned on the heater and brought a blanket from the room. The old man wrapped himself up, stretched out his feet in soaked socks and grunted gratefully. While he was warming up, Rina made tea and a simple treat, moving around the kitchen with extreme care so as not to step on a piglet getting in the way. When she pushed a mug of tea and a bowl of cookies to the guest, the old man looked at her with such pleading pity that Rina filled her own mug, even though she didn’t want to eat.

It was an unusual tea party in an extremely strange company. The piglet grunted contentedly over a saucer of chopped vegetables. The old man, sipping tea and carefully biting off cookies with one side of his mouth, hooted and hooted with pleasure, and Rina was silent, thinking what to do next. What should she do with this old man? Take him to the bus stop where she met him for the first time? But she wouldn't dare leave him alone. So, we'll have to call other people's houses and look for someone who knows him. And she didn't want to communicate with anyone. How did he get to her? Did she come on purpose or did she lose her way when the storm started?

And one more question haunted her: had her guest seen scary creatures? He had to catch the fog: too little time had passed from the moment when Rina saw the creatures outside the window to the knock on the door. But the old man didn't look scared, just cold and a little worried. As he warmed up, his face also smoothed out, and the haunted look disappeared from his watery eyes. The guest put down his cup and smiled his crooked smile.

Rina asked and pointed to the teapot. The old man shook his head negatively, and then stretched his neck anxiously, looking out of the window.

“It's not raining anymore! The sun is out,” Rina explained.

But it wasn't the weather that seemed to bother the old man. His face wrinkled again, the corner of his mouth went to his ear.

“No! Poof!” he said and waved his hand.

Rina involuntarily shuddered, remembering again the terrible creatures peeping at her through the windows. But she nodded cheerfully:

“No. Poof!”

The old man cast another wary glance out the window, and then frowned and wiggled his fingers, trying to show something to Rina. But she, not understanding him, shook her head. The guest grunted, got up from his seat and looked for his jacket.

“It's already dried out,” Rina said, realizing that he had decided to leave. “Shall I help you?”

But the old man had already neatly folded a blanket on a chair, dressed and smacked his lips, calling the pig.

On the porch, the guest paused and pointed to a wide crevice in the ground.

“Bang!”

And spread his hands. Rina realized that he was trying to tell her about the rift. The old man had already pointed his finger at the darkening tree in the distance.

“Heh! No! No-o. The bird! No.”

Then, with a rueful wave of his hand, he left the porch and wandered away from the house. The pig trotted obediently next to him. Rina watched the strange couple and noted that the old man was trying to stay away from the crack. After making sure that he had reached the road leading to the village, she returned to the house and locked the door. For some reason, even though the old man could not tell her anything, it seemed to her that he understood what had happened here. And that he, too, like her, saw frightening creatures in the fog.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

The sister took the dog to the first lesson, which they hastily called Pencil for the black and glossy coat after washing with Manya's shampoo, and Yura was left alone in the apartment waiting for their return. He could have gone back to his room, but he knew that he would not be satisfied with a telephone conversation and would still rush to his sister to find out how the first lesson with the dog handler went and whether she managed to find out anything about Rina's disappearance. Manya, of course, was skeptical and tried to convince Yura that the idea was actually a failure. But he didn't lose his enthusiasm, so he helped his sister load Pencil into the car and even waved goodbye with a pen.

Only when Manya returned to the apartment, nervousness took hold of him. After wandering aimlessly around the small but tastefully furnished room, he drank two mugs of coffee and reasonably reasoned that work would distract from the excitement. Yura returned to the room, turned on the laptop. There were few files in the folder with the name ‘Rina’ so far, apart from the article that cost Yura his dismissal. Why he was fired, he guessed, although the boss did not personally explain to him. Surely Lebedev put pressure on the magazine's management, demanded the blood of the one who first wrote about the couple's separation. The page was restored, but Yura's articles were removed. It was a shame, as if he had never worked in this publication. But annoyance only fueled his activity and desire to write sensational material. Yura, of course, called a couple of colleagues with whom he was on more or less friendly terms, but the conversation didn’t work out. Some didn’t pick up the phone, others referred to their busy schedule and quickly curtailed the conversation, confirming the suspicion that Lebedev was behind all this. Well, Yura wasn't going to give up.

He opened a search engine, typed in the name of the singer and made sure that the competitors did not write anything new about the disappearance of Rina. Then he wandered through forums and fan communities, but the versions that were put forward there seemed either too banal – illness or pregnancy, or too fantastic. However, Yura didn’t consider versions like the abduction of Rina for the purpose of blackmailing Dimitri to be unthinkable.

He wrote out to himself all the assumptions discussed, flipped through the tape and was pleased to see that the fan communities reposted his material as well. Yura carefully read the last two interviews, trying to find something between the lines that would indicate the mood of the singer in the last days before her disappearance. But he didn't notice anything strange. So, it is necessary to talk to those who knew the singer personally – her colleagues, concert organizers, stylists. He had some contacts, he hoped to get some. Yura sent several messages and again dialed the number of the informant who sold him information about the couple's separation. But the phone was out of range again. Yura suspected that the informant had changed the number. Well... expected. But it's too early to get upset, because Yura was hoping for Manya's help.

While reading the usual news, he accidentally stumbled upon an interesting note. It had nothing to do with Rina, but it seemed funny. In one town that has been empty for many years, stalkers have recently begun to notice something unusual: light in empty apartments, shadows, rustles. Someone even captured a dark silhouette on camera. And in a nearby park, according to rumors, broken rides began to move.

Yura chuckled and looked for the location of the town. Then he Googled the topic and was happy to see that there was little news on it. Rina is Rina, but he wanted to start his own channel and was just thinking about its concept. Yura wrote about celebrities in a magazine, but for his personal page he wanted something else. He didn’t want to get involved in politics. Writing about ecology, the environment and the rescue of seals seemed boring. But blogging about mysterious and abandoned places is not a bad idea. This is much more interesting than interviewing the celebrities of the nineties that are coming out in circulation and the modern idols that are quickly flaring up, but just as quickly fading out.

Yura rubbed his hands, glad that he had found a topic for the channel. And at that moment he heard the key turn in the lock. Following this, a loud barking and Manya 's voice were heard in the corridor:

“Okay, baby! At home, we are already at home!”

By the fact that she didn’t swear irritably at the dog, but cooed affectionately with him, Yura concluded that the first lesson went as well as possible.

“Well?” he asked, looking out into the corridor with a joyful smile. “Did you find out anything about Rina?”

“Wait a minute!” there were still notes of discontent in the sister's voice, but they did not relate to Pencil, noisily slurping water from a bowl in the kitchen, but to Yura. “I didn't find out anything about your Rina!”

“Didn’t!?” Yura was upset and was about to scold Manya, but she went to the bathroom to wash her hands.

“Manya!” he reproached, standing in the doorway and leaning his shoulder against the jamb.

The sister raised her head, and her face was reflected in the mirror – pretty, round, with good skin and brown eyes like her brother's. By her almost forty years, Manya managed to keep her face fresh and young, while she was not fond of any injections of beauty. Perhaps it's all about good genetics, perhaps it's that Manya lived alone, didn’t waste her nerves on young children and her husband, did what she loved and walked for at least two hours every day. She was married in her youth, but the marriage quickly broke up, and since then Manya preferred to live alone. ‘And she wants to marry me with someone,’ Yura thought resentfully, frowning at his sister's reflection in the mirror. But Manya suddenly smiled.

“Let's go get some coffee.”

“I'd like to eat something,” Yura replied.

“So prepare it,” the sister retorted and grinned.

Big deal! And he will cook! He cooks deliciously, all the passions highly appreciated for his culinary abilities. Therefore, when Manya appeared in the kitchen, applying cream to her washed face, Yura was already in full charge, taking out eggs, vegetables and a saucepan with meat soup. Without asking if his sister would eat or not, he put the saucepan on the fire, then coarsely chopped tomatoes, red peppers, onions and threw everything into the pan. And while the vegetables were toasting, he whipped up a few eggs in a mug. Soon there was a delicious smell of warmed cabbage soup and omelet with vegetables. Manya silently set the table, and Yura poured the first into two bowls, took sour cream from the refrigerator and put portions of omelet on flat plates. Slate, who was closely following his actions in the hope that he would get something tasty, put his head on the table and sighed noisily. Yura had no choice but to share a piece of meat from his plate with the dog and cut off a piece of vegetable omelet.

“Don't spoil the dog for me,” Manya disapproved. “Pencil has his own diet. I discussed it with Vsevolod, and he agreed with all the recommendations of the veterinarian. By the way, Violet, Vsevolod's wife, also graduated from veterinary medicine. Everything is well arranged for dogs there!”

“You're not talking about dogs, but about the topic, Manya,” Yura interrupted. “I take it you didn't manage to talk to Volkov about Rina?”

“And how do you imagine it, Yur?” Manya sighed. “I brought the dog to class. By the way, Pencil is a great fellow. Despite being homeless. And domestic dogs are so spoiled!”

“Listen, did Volkovs turn you into their dog sect?” Yura couldn't stand it. “If not with Vsevolod, then I could talk to his wife! As women, you would understand each other perfectly! I would have started asking her about the diet for Pencil, then came up with some heartbreaking story about the disappearance of a friend, you see, Violet would have bought it!”

“I came up with it,” Marya suddenly answered and smiled, not to her brother, but to her thoughts - dreamily. “There was such an incident... There was one crumb on the playground. Italian Greyhound with a behavioral disorder.”

“You're talking about dogs again!”

“Listen a minute! If you interrupt me again, I won't tell you anything!”

“I'm silent,” Yura gave up, barely restraining his irritation.

He didn’t think that his sister would be so imbued with the dog theme! Now he still has to listen to some greyhound with problems! Once Yura had to listen for an hour to a long story from an elderly celebrity about her ‘best creature ever’ - a bug-eyed misunderstanding the size of a glove, which someone mistakenly dubbed a dog. But she answered any interview question with enthusiastic exclamations about her dog.

“This greyhound is extremely nervous,” Manya continued. “Even sparrow chirping can scare her. And she also can't stand other dogs, just sees – and falls into hysterics. The owner already took her to the veterinarians, and gave her all sorts of sedatives. But the problem was not in physical health, but in the wrong upbringing. Greyhound got a new owner from some relative. So the previous owner ‘spoiled’ the dog. Whether she indulged her in everything unnecessarily, or something else, I didn't get into it. But Gennadiy Sergeevich now takes Shusha to individual classes with Vsevolod. And then Shusha will study together with other dogs on the playground.”

“Gennadiy Sergeevich?” Yura asked.

“Yeah. The owner of the greyhound. A nice man,” Manya replied and smiled slightly. “We met because there was embarrassment. Gennadiy Sergeevich and Shusha were already leaving, and then we met them with Pencil. The pencil just reached out to meet them…”

“And greyhound went into hysterics and died?” Yura joked darkly, but Manya gave him a look full of indignation.

“No. It didn't die. But it was so scary that it peed.”

“I would also pee if I were a lefty, and Pencil came up to me,” Yura agreed and looked with respect at the huge dog, who stretched out near the table, occupying almost half of the kitchen, and while waiting for another piece of meat, he did not take his eyes off Yura.

“That's why Shusha was scared. I was just trying to pull Pencil away from him, so Shusha accidentally wrote to me on a sneaker.”

Yura snorted with laughter.

“The owner was very embarrassed, even though I said it was okay. But, can you imagine, he waited for me after class and said he was ready to pay for the damage! He was going to buy me new sneakers. Of course I refused! The sneakers are old, and even Shusha pisses like she's squirting from a syringe, but if Pencil had doused my foot, then yes, it would have turned out flawed. Then Gennadiy Sergeevich invited me to a cafe, and I agreed.”

“And how did they let you and the dogs in there?” Yura was surprised.

“There, at the end of the street, there is one cafe with a terrace! Owners often come there after classes with their dogs. The owner of the cafe is friends with Volkovs, so… We sat for a while with Gennadiy Sergeevich, and got acquainted. Shusha, of course, was nervous. But Pencil was well done, he lay quietly, he didn't climb to Shusha anymore.”

“If I were in his place, too, I wouldn't climb to such a…” Yura wanted to add ‘asshole’, but eloquently kept silent. He has already accepted that Manya will not talk about business, but about dogs and a new acquaintance who seems to have charmed his sister.

“Word for word, we had a conversation with Gennadiy Sergeevich. And I don't remember how, but we started talking about missing people. No, not about Rina. I decided to keep quiet about her. Gennadiy Sergeevich talked about one case. And I came up with the idea that a close relative of my friend had disappeared, they were looking for her, but without success. At least go to a detective! And then Gennadiy Sergeevich said that he just had a detective friend who, among other things, had once been engaged in the search for the missing. Once upon a time, because now he is doing something else. But Gennadiy Sergeevich gave his phone number to Vsevolod recently, because he also seems to have someone missing. Do you understand?”

“Manya!” Yura exclaimed and jumped up so that he almost dropped, to the joy of Pencil, a plate with an omelet. “I need this detective's phone number!”