Darkness had already fallen over the forest, the trees barely visible in the twilight. Everyone had long been home, warming themselves with a cup of tea or getting ready for bed. But in the distance, among the shadows, three silhouettes appeared. It was an old woman leading her grandchildren deeper into the thicket.
“We’re here!” Valentina Igorevna said loudly, almost cheerfully. “I was told you are evil, and you need to be gotten rid of as soon as possible!”
The boy frowned:
“Grandmother, why are we evil?”
“Be quiet! You will turn into worms and devour others!” she snapped, but immediately softened, stroking their heads and beginning to cry.
“Don’t worry, your mother will thank me for freeing her from you,” the woman whispered.
She sat down on the ground and began digging a hole with her hands. When she finished, she placed an old broom inside—as if a symbol of what was meant to happen there.
“Grandmother, I’m cold… Let’s go home,” the girl pleaded.
These words touched something inside the woman. Suddenly, she laughed loudly:
“No! You killed your mother, so you will stay here. You will never return home!” she shouted, jumped up, and quickly disappeared into the darkness.
Anya burst into tears. Her brother hugged her shoulders and led her along the path, hoping to find the way back to people. They were shivering from the cold—the grandmother had dressed them completely inappropriately for the night forest.
Nadezhda had just finished sorting trash at the dump. She carefully gathered the most valuable finds and loaded them onto a cart. Her little house was far from the forest—a lonely but familiar place. Not long ago, she had married a man she loved deeply.
However, he was an alcoholic and a master liar: he claimed he had once been a deep-sea captain. And Nadezhda was a hard worker—she worked as a milkmaid on a collective farm, took on extra jobs wherever she could to make their life a little more comfortable. But all the money she earned with such difficulty, her husband found and drank away with friends.
Nadezhda had two children whom she often took to work with her. Gradually, her patience wore thin. Even such a strong woman could no longer endure the endless drunken brawls.
She decided to get a divorce, gathered the documents, but made one big mistake—she didn’t take the children with her. That very day, her replacement worker got sick, so Nadezhda had to work in her place. Her husband stayed home sober, and the children were asleep.
But as soon as the woman left, Nikolai started drinking again. He closed the stove’s chimney too early, and the whole family was poisoned by carbon monoxide.
Nadezhda couldn’t survive this tragedy—she went mad from grief. She wandered the cemetery all day, lost the meaning of life, and then began drinking herself. Over time, she was fired from work and kicked out of the house. That’s how she ended up at the dump.
One evening, in a state of deep depression, Nadezhda headed to an old factory to warm up and brew some tea. Suddenly, she heard a child crying. She stopped and approached closer.
On a tree stump sat small frozen children. The boy was persuading his sister to get up and move on, but the girl didn’t want to.
“Children, how did you end up here?” the woman asked in surprise.
“We are nobody’s… our grandmother abandoned us in the forest. She said we bring misfortune. And we don’t have a mother—she died in the hospital. That’s how Anya and I ended up here,” the boy answered.
Nadezhda couldn’t believe her ears.
“Come with me, I will feed you, warm you. Don’t be afraid of me. I also had children your age… I couldn’t protect them and lost them…” she cried.
The children were not afraid. What did they have to lose? They followed the woman.
Soon they found themselves in a building that became warmth and shelter for them. Nadezhda laid the children down to sleep, covered them with a thick blanket. She sat nearby, looking at them for a long time—as if she saw her own relatives in them.
“I won’t leave you in trouble. You’ve suffered enough. While I live, I won’t allow you to end up in an orphanage,” she whispered to herself.
Then she took out the birth certificates of her children from a secret place and sat thinking. Only by morning was she able to sleep a little.
In the morning, Nadezhda washed up, got ready, and decisively took the children by the hands. Together, they set off for the station. A new life was beginning for all three of them.
At the very moment the children were abandoned in the forest, their real mother was restless. Liliya was a beauty—she was barely twenty-six.
She had many admirers, but she chose Dmitry—a kind, caring man. She had graduated from university, got a job as a kindergarten director, and had two children.
Her mother helped her—a powerful official in the preschool education sector. But over time, her husband changed. Having tasted stability and wealth, he turned from a simple, soulful person into a selfish playboy. When offered a job abroad, he left, promising to return for his family. The promise turned out to be empty words—he disappeared from their lives forever.
Liliya’s mother, feeling guilty for the family’s collapse, turned to religion. But her path was mistaken—she fell under the influence of a cult. Under their pressure, the woman lost her mind, leaving all her property to the “spiritual mentors.” Liliya tried to save her mother, but all efforts were in vain.
One day, returning from kindergarten with the children, Liliya was in an accident: she was hit by a motorcyclist at a crosswalk. Fortunately, the children were unharmed, but the woman was urgently hospitalized. She underwent a complicated surgery, but her main concern was the children—how were they living now with their grandmother?
Meanwhile, Valentina Igorevna, that is, her mother, was completely detached from reality, constantly disappearing at “spiritual meetings,” and for a whole month took no interest in her grandchildren’s fate.
Liliya understood: if she told about her fears in the hospital, the family would be deemed socially disadvantaged, and the children would be taken away. She didn’t even guess how much trouble her mother had already caused.
As soon as the woman recovered a little, she ran away from the hospital. During her absence, Valentina sold everything valuable in the apartment. The woman had completely lost her mind—she walked naked around the house, laughed for no reason… But the worst was something else: the children were not home.
When asked by her daughter where the grandchildren were, the mother only cried and laughed. Liliya had to commit her mother to a psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed as mentally ill.
Over time, Liliya began to recover. She managed to return to work. There were moments when she thought about ending her life, but something inside stopped her.
It was during this period that a woman named Nadezhda came to her kindergarten. This was the very woman who had found the children in the forest and taken them in.
Nadezhda decided to radically change her life—move to the city and start fresh. Before that, she and the children lived who knows where: at the station, at an old man’s dacha, where they helped with chores. But the season ended, and the old man, though regretful, had to ask them to leave—water and electricity were turned off for winter.
Seeing an announcement for a nanny vacancy, Nadezhda came to the interview. She decided to present the children as her own—their ages fit. But as soon as she entered the headmistress’s office, Liliya fainted.
“Mommy! Beloved mommy!” the children cried, rushing to the woman, kissing her hands, hair, and face.
Nadezhda stood confused, not understanding what was happening. Having learned the whole story, Liliya did not punish her for the deed. On the contrary, she accepted her as her own.
Two women, who had gone through terrible trials, found in each other support, warmth, and peace. Liliya had her children again, and Nadezhda became a second mother to them—the grandmother of Daneka and Anechka.