Larisa was sitting by the window. Three months in the new apartment were gradually erasing the painful memories of her divorce.
An unexpected knock at the door made her start. Standing on the threshold was the upstairs neighbor—Natalya, a brunette whom Larisa occasionally met in the elevator. Usually impeccably dressed, she now looked somewhat disheveled.
“Larisa, sorry for the late visit, but I really need help,” Natalya spoke quickly, nervously adjusting her hair. “I urgently need to leave for a couple of hours, and there’s no one to leave my son with. Could you watch him?”
Larisa hesitated. In the few months she had lived in the building, Natalya indeed mentioned having a son, but Larisa had never seen him. However, it was awkward to refuse such a request.
“Yes, of course,” she replied, feeling a slight nervousness. Natalya immediately beamed and, turning around, called out, “Vanechka, come here!”
Around the corner, a boy of about five slowly appeared. The first thing that caught the eye was his clothing: his t-shirt was inside out, and the laces on his sneakers were untied as if he had been hastily prepared. Vanya stopped at the threshold, not looking up. His blond hair was slightly tousled, and he tightly clutched a worn plush rabbit.
“Vanyusha, will you stay with Aunt Larisa? I’ll be back soon,” Natalya gently pushed her son into the apartment. The boy obediently stepped forward, still not looking up.
“Just a couple of hours,” Natalya threw over her shoulder and, without waiting for a response, hurried to the elevator.
Larisa closed the door and turned to her little guest. In the silence of the hallway, his quiet breathing was audible.
“Come in, Vanya,” she said softly. “Would you like some tea with cookies?”
The boy finally looked up—his eyes wary, surprisingly mature for such a small child. He looked at Larisa intently and quietly asked, “Are you really nice?”
The question caught her off guard. There was something unsettling in his childlike directness, but Larisa brushed off the feeling.
“I hope so,” she smiled. “Shall we go to the kitchen?”
In the kitchen, Vanya climbed onto a chair, placing the rabbit on his lap. He methodically chewed on a cookie, and when Larisa asked about kindergarten, he just shrugged. The conversation was stalling.
“How about we draw?” Larisa suggested, pulling out paper and pencils from a drawer. Vanya perked up slightly and took a blue pencil.
As the boy drew, she watched him surreptitiously. Something about his behavior seemed strange—he was too quiet, too guarded for a five-year-old. When she tried to ask him about his mom, he seemed not to hear the question, continuing to focus intently on his drawing.
“Look,” Vanya handed her the finished drawing. It depicted a house with a small, lonely figure next to it.
“What a beautiful house! And who is this next to it?”
“It’s me,” he simply replied. “And there’s no one else.”
Larisa felt a chill run down her spine. Before she could ask anything, the doorbell rang. It was almost ten—three hours had passed, not two.
Natalya looked even more agitated than before. She didn’t apologize for being late, just threw a short “thank you” and took Vanya by the hand. But at the door, she suddenly stopped and turned to Larisa. Her face strangely transformed.
“If he happens to say something… you understand, it’s just fantasies, right?” Natalya’s voice sounded almost threatening.
Larisa nodded silently, feeling a shiver run through her body. After closing the door behind them, she stood in the hallway for a long time, trying to understand what exactly had disturbed her so much. In the kitchen, a child’s drawing remained—a lone figure by an empty house, and somehow, that simple image was unsettling.
The next morning was overcast. Larisa was working on a website layout when her phone lit up with an unfamiliar number. It was Natalya—her voice unusually gentle.
“Sorry about yesterday, I was on edge. Listen, could you watch Vanya again? Just for about three hours, no more. I’ll pay.”
Larisa wanted to refuse—something persistently told her to stay away from this situation. But the boy’s face, his wary look, came to her mind.
“Alright, just not so late.”
Natalya brought Vanya after lunch. This time he seemed a bit calmer, even smiled when he saw Larisa. The plush rabbit was still with him.
“Maybe we draw?” Larisa suggested, but the boy shook his head.
“Let’s just talk,” he said unexpectedly in an adult tone. “You’re not like the others.”
“The others? Who, Vanya?”
“The ones who came before. They all screamed, like her.”
Larisa felt a tightening inside. “Who came before?”
Vanya shrugged and stared out the window. “I don’t remember. They called me something different then. Now I’m Vanya.”
There was a strange note in his voice. Larisa cautiously sat next to him.
“And what were you called before?”
“I don’t remember,” he clutched the rabbit tighter. “She says I’ve always been Vanya. But that’s not true. I remember another kitchen. It had yellow curtains and a cat. But here, everything is different.”
Larisa tried to make sense of what she heard. There was clearly something serious in the child’s words, but she couldn’t grasp the essence.
“Do you want to play hide and seek?” she suggested, trying to lighten the mood.
While Vanya was hiding, Larisa noticed something fall out of his jacket pocket, thrown on a chair. It was a crumpled note, written in an adult’s handwriting: “Help… my real mom…” The rest was torn off.
Her heart skipped a beat. She hastily put the note back when she heard the boy’s footsteps.
During the game, Larisa noticed a thin scar on his neck—neat, as if from a medical procedure.
“What’s that on your neck?” she asked as casually as possible.
Vanya instinctively pulled his collar up. “It’s from a long time ago. Where it hurt.”
In the evening, after the guests had left, Larisa couldn’t sleep. She opened her laptop and started searching for information about Natalya on social media. The neighbor’s profile was filled with selfies and posts about travels, but there was not a single photo with the child. This seemed odd for the mother of a five-year-old boy.
Almost accidentally, she stumbled upon an old article in a local newspaper. “Child missing: Misha Voronov, 4 years.” A photo of a blond boy with the same wary eyes made her shiver. Date—six months ago, the neighboring city.
The phone rang so unexpectedly that Larisa flinched. Natalya.
“Did you ask Vanya about his life?” her voice sounded hoarse.
“No, we just played…”
“Don’t meddle in what’s not your business!” Natalya cut her off sharply. “He’s my son…”
The call ended. Larisa sat in the darkness, staring at the laptop screen where the lost boy, looking so much like Vanya, smiled. His words echoed in her memory: “They used to call me something else.”
Rain began outside, and in its monotonous noise, she seemed to hear a child’s whisper: “Are you really nice?”
Early in the morning, Larisa noticed Natalya hurriedly taking out the trash. Something about her movements seemed off—she nervously looked around, clutching a bulky bag to her chest. When the neighbor disappeared into the building, Larisa, following a sudden impulse, went down to the garbage bins.
The bag was on top. Inside was a stack of photographs, carelessly torn but not completely. In one of the pictures, a young woman smiled with a boy—the same one Larisa had seen in the newspaper article. Misha Voronov. On the back, it was written: “Birthday, 4 years.”
Now all the pieces were coming together into a grim picture. When Natalya asked to watch Vanya again during the day, Larisa agreed, feeling a tremble of fear and resolve inside.
The boy looked especially subdued. He curled up in a corner of the sofa, hugging his knees.
“Vanya… or Misha?” Larisa quietly asked.
The child flinched, his eyes widening with horror. “She said I can’t… can’t talk…”
“Do you miss your real mom?”
His chin trembled. “Daddy didn’t want to give me away. He yelled. Then there was a shot, and I fell asleep.”
Larisa cautiously sat next to him, fighting the nausea that was rising. “Tell me everything, please. I’ll help.”
The story, haltingly told by the five-year-old, turned out to be worse than any assumptions. Natalya had taken him from a playground, given him a shot. Then there was a long drive, a strange apartment, a new name. “She says I’m now her Vanechka. That my mom is bad and left me. But that’s not true. I remember mom. And dad.”
When Natalya returned, Larisa was waiting for her in the hallway. The boy was asleep in the room, exhausted by memories.
“I know who he is,” Larisa quietly said, handing over the found photograph. “And I know what you’ve done.”
Natalya froze, her face contorted. “You don’t understand anything! Nothing!”—she tried to snatch the photograph. “He’s my child now! Mine!”
“What happened to your real son?”
Natalya collapsed to the floor, covering her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook.
“Three years ago… an illness. We fought for two years, but… I couldn’t, you understand? I couldn’t live in an empty apartment, looking at his photos. And then I saw Misha at the playground—he looked so much like my Vanechka. The same laugh, the same eyes…”
“You stole a child from loving parents,” Larisa tried to speak calmly, although inside everything was boiling.
“They’re young, they’ll have other children!” Natalya jumped up, a feverish glint in her eyes. “I can’t have more. Never! I need him! You wouldn’t dare…”
“I dare,” Larisa pulled out her phone. “I’ve already called the police.”
Everything happened very quickly. Natalya’s scream, the stomping of feet on the stairs, the crying of the waking boy. Police officers, medics, social workers. Photos of Misha’s real parents, their tears of joy over the video call.
Larisa would later dream of the moment when Misha was going home. He turned and waved at her, clutching the same worn rabbit. “Thank you for being really nice,” he said then.
Natalya was arrested. At the trial, it was revealed that she had indeed lost her son three years ago, after which she began to watch for similar children in the neighboring city. The story made the news, and Larisa turned off the television for several weeks, unable to relive the events again and again.
One day she received a letter—a photograph of a smiling Misha with his parents. On the back, in a child’s handwriting: “Hi! I now have a cat, like before. And yellow curtains.” And below, in an adult’s hand: “Thank you for saving our son.”
Larisa stared at the photo for a long time, feeling tears run down her cheeks.
Now, passing by playgrounds, Larisa always paused, listening to the children’s laughter. In those ringing voices, she imagined the boy’s quiet whisper: “Are you really nice?”