PART I. ALLEGRO

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“That’s it. Now turn the light off.” Mom smiled triumphantly at the small tongue of flame dancing over the last candle—the fourteenth—on the birthday cake.

Out of habit, her hand went to tuck the lighter into her pocket, but instead, it slid down the smooth silk of her pocketless evening gown and fell onto the carpet. Squatting gracefully, she picked it up and dropped it on the table.

“Blow them out, Anya.” Mom stepped aside, letting me step up to the firing line.

I had just started to take a giant breath when…

“Hey!” Mom interjected, interrupting my attempt. “No. You have to make a wish first.”

I let the air out through closed lips. “Please, Mom…”

She made a guilty face.

The guests coughed and smirked, doing their best not to smile. Each was a familiar face that had attended each of my birthdays.

Sitting right behind me was Uncle Sasha, my godfather. Once I take a deep breath, he would start commenting on my attempts to blow out the candles. It wouldn’t bother me so much if it weren’t for the fact that he always used the voice from the cartoon Droopy to say things in the “You know what, I’m happy” drawl.

Hearing his Droopy imitation would always cause me to burst into laughter, interrupting my breath. So this time I looked back and firmly spoke to the invisible uncle hiding in the dark. “Don’t you dare, Uncle Sasha!”

“Sure, Anya. I’m silent,” he replied, pretending to be scared. By his side, Aunt Natasha choked on laughter.

Well, okay. Here goes.

Taking a deep breath and holding my hair back, I puffed at the candles.

Sure enough, Droopy’s voice instantly advised from behind, “Hold onto your chair or you’ll get blown awaaaay.”

Awaaaay.

Haaaappy.

I barely managed to blow out the damn candles while laughing my head off.

Mom hit the lightswitch. Everyone squinted in the bright light that flooded the room. Laughing, Aunt Natasha pointed at my godfather, who gave me his most innocent expression, lifting his hands helplessly.

As we finished the cake and washed it down with tea, we spent a while browsing through old pictures.

“Oh, what a pretty baby Anya was!”

“Time goes by too fast.”

“I wish my Vitya lived to see her now.”

Mom shed a tear. After the guests left, the two of us washed the dishes, talking casually, then went to sleep.

***

I rolled over in bed, unable to sleep, the events of the past day flashing before my eyes.

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I had nearly forgotten to make a wish when blowing out the candles. How could I? It was a good thing that Mom reminded me. But still, my mind had been a mess at that moment. Too much pressure and no clearly worded thought deserving the name “wish.” But...maybe whatever power that’s supposed to grant wishes would still be able to make it come true.

Honestly, it was the first time that I had struggled to express my wish with a single, clear word. All the other years, I’d had no trouble doing it. I always knew exactly what I wanted: a bicycle, a smartphone, a laptop.

But not this time. I just couldn’t pick the right word for this wish. It seemed to escape any definition—visual or verbal. Vague as it was, it still wouldn’t leave, taking root in my mind.

Was it because I was growing up? It’s adults who never know what exactly they want, always so hesitant and evasive. Am I becoming that sort of a bore? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? A good thing. Maybe…

I began to doze off, my flow of thought becoming viscous like honey. I seemed to feel new ideas appear, not in my mind but on my skin, creeping like snails over my forehead and temples and through my hair. Some of them moved clockwise. I could read them. So hesitant and evasive…becoming that sort of a bore…a good thing…maybe…

Coming counterclockwise was a different sort. Not actual thoughts, but blurry images of an alien world, strange creatures breathing danger, and some reliable presence close by my side. I could see myself, tiny and fragile, walking on the mist-enveloped edge of the unknown, with that reliable presence jolting me away from death’s grip again and again. My heart was racing, my breath caught in my chest, my head swimming. I wanted to cry and to laugh at the same time, wishing my walk on the edge would never end. I wanted it to last forever.

Distantly, I watched these images move before my eyes like a merry-go-round as I drifted somewhere between dreams and consciousness, reluctant to move but still aware of my real-world surroundings…

…when I sensed a presence in my bedroom.

No sound betrayed them. Not even a disturbance in the air. Just cold, merciless knowledge. They are here.

Right over me.

My thoughts vanished, the blurry images shattered into hundreds of icy ants swarming away all over my temples and the back of my head, escaping that thing.

I stayed down on my belly, petrified, my face turned to the side, my eyes closed tightly as if I were a child who believed my closed eyes could make me invisible.

The thing I could not see bent over me.

I held my breath.

Then it was all over me, pressing my head down into the pillow.

I struggled to break free. To scream. But I could not even take a breath. Its weight seemed to be soaking into my body, filling my head, my lungs, and spine with lead, trapping the scream in my throat.

This was our first meeting. Tomorrow, I’ll come again.

I heard these words clearly inside my head, spoken in a strange language, and yet I understood every single one.

The crushing weight disappeared. Falling off of my bed, I landed on my feet in the middle of the room, air rushing into my nose. I couldn’t stop gasping for more and more until my lungs were full to the point of bursting. Then I screamed the loudest I had ever screamed.

Mom stormed in, almost breaking down the door.

“Hey, what’s happened? Anya?!” Turning the light on, she stared at me with scared eyes, still half-asleep.

Standing there in my pajamas, barefoot, with my fists clenched to my chest, I could not say a single word.

Mom came closer to look in my eyes, trying to understand what was going on. “Anya? What’s wrong? A bad dream?” she asked in a softer voice.

Not a single word could make its way through my numb lips. Cold and shivering, I stared blankly through her. “M…M…M-mom…”

“Oh, dear. What’s happened to you?”

I kept staring at her.

“ANYA!” she screamed, losing her temper. “Snap out of it!” Grasping me by the shoulders, she gave me a shake. “What’s happened? Tell me. Tell me!”

“I…I was…almost…s-strangled…”

“Oh my God. By who? Who was strangling you?” Running to the window, she checked to see if it was locked.

It was.

Coming back, Mom sat me down on the bed. “Anya. It was a bad dream. Just a bad dream.” She hugged me.

Burying my face in her neck, I cried, my whole body shaking so badly I could not say a word.

I spent an eternity weeping loudly, clutching Mom’s arm, and refusing to stay in the dark bedroom alone. Mom went to get my old nightlight, then lay down by my side. We stayed that way till dawn, Mom half-dozing and whispering soothing words into my ear whenever I screamed in my dreams.

***

When I woke up the next morning, I heard Mom’s voice in the kitchen. “I learned about you from Marina. No. Not me. My daughter. Thirteen…no, fourteen. Anya. She says…Come to your place? Sure. Hey, wait. Without her? But why? It’s her… Oh. I don’t think…Okay. Lane…seven…twenty-two…Yeah. Me? Iryna. Nice to meet you, Valery. Eleven works for me. See you then.”

I stayed down, lying on my back and staring at the ceiling.

So it was not just a dream.

Mom was really scared.

So scared she must’ve called Marina, an old friend of hers who was really into psychic stuff, to get the number of some self-proclaimed wizard, psychic, or some other kind of a quack making his living from overly trusting women like the two of them.

How could it get any worse?

I tried to roll over, but I was stopped by a sudden pain jolting through my entire body.

What the hell?

But I had to get up, despite the pain, to try to talk my mom out of visiting that quack. Although I doubted my advice would win against Marina’s, I at least had to give it a shot.