Larisa sat by the window. Three months in her new apartment gradually erased the painful memories of her divorce.
An unexpected knock at the door made her startle. Standing on the doorstep was her 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 fixing her hair. “I urgently need to leave for a couple of hours, and there’s no one to leave my son with. Could you look after him?”
Larisa hesitated. In the few months she had lived in the building, Natalya had indeed mentioned her 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 brightened up, turned around, and called out, “Vanechka, come here!”
A boy of about five slowly appeared from around the corner. The first thing that struck her was his clothing: his shirt was on inside out, and the laces on his sneakers were untied, as if he had been hurriedly dressed. Vanya stopped at the threshold, not raising his eyes. His blonde hair was slightly tousled, and in his hands, he tightly clutched a worn plush rabbit.
“Vanyusha, you’ll stay with Aunt Larisa, okay? I’ll be back soon,” Natalya gently pushed her son into the apartment. The boy obediently stepped forward, still not looking up.
“Just two hours maximum,” 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 raised his eyes—wary, surprisingly mature for such a small child. He looked at Larisa intently and asked quietly, “Are you really nice?”
The question caught her off guard. There was something unsettling about the child’s straightforwardness, but Larisa dismissed 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 didn’t flow.
“How about we draw?” Larisa suggested, pulling out paper and pencils from a drawer. Vanya perked up a bit and picked up a blue pencil.
As the boy drew, she covertly watched him. Something in his behavior seemed strange—he was too quiet, too cautious for a five-year-old. When she tried to ask about his mother, he seemed not to hear the question, continuing to focus on moving the pencil across the paper.
“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’s this beside it?”
“That’s me,” he replied simply. “And there’s no one else.”
A chill ran down Larisa’s spine. Before she could ask anything, the doorbell rang. It was nearly ten o’clock—not two hours, but three had passed.
Natalya looked even more agitated than before. She didn’t apologize for being late, just threw a quick “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 suddenly says something… you understand, it’s just fantasies, right?” Natalya’s voice sounded almost threatening.
Larisa silently nodded, feeling a shiver run through her body. She closed the door behind them and stood in the hallway for a long time, trying to understand what exactly had alarmed her. In the kitchen, the child’s drawing remained—a lonely figure by an empty house, and somehow, from this simple image, it became unsettling.
The next morning was overcast. Larisa was working on a website layout when her phone lit up with an unknown number. It was Natalya—her voice unusually soft.
“Sorry about yesterday, I was on edge. Listen, could you sit with Vanya again? Just for 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 wary face appeared before her eyes.
“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 draw?” Larisa offered, but the boy shook his head.
“Let’s just talk,” he said unexpectedly in a mature tone. “You’re not like the others.”
“The others? Who, Vanya?”
“The ones who came before. They all screamed, like her.”
Larisa felt everything inside tighten. “Who came before?”
Vanya shrugged and stared out the window. “I don’t remember. Back then, I was called differently. Now I’m Vanya.”
There was a strange note in his voice. Larisa cautiously sat down beside 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 a different kitchen. There were yellow curtains and a cat. Everything here is different.”
Larisa tried to make sense of what she heard. The child’s words clearly hid something serious, but she couldn’t grasp the essence.
“Do you want to play hide and seek?” she suggested, trying to lighten the mood.
As Vanya hid, Larisa noticed something fall out of the pocket of his jacket, thrown over a chair. It was a crumpled note, written in adult handwriting: “Help… my real mom…” The rest was torn off.
Her heart skipped a beat. She hurriedly stuffed the note back in 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 this 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.”
That evening, after the guests left, Larisa couldn’t sleep. She opened her laptop and started searching for information about Natalya on social media. The neighbor’s profile was full of selfies and posts about travels, but there were no photos with a child. This seemed strange 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 old.” The photograph of a blond boy with the same wary eyes made her shiver. The date—six months ago, a neighboring town.
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 stick your nose in other people’s business!” Natalya abruptly cut her off. “He’s my son…”
The connection broke off. Larisa sat in the dark, staring at the laptop screen, where the lost boy smiled, so much like Vanya. His words resurfaced: “Back then, I was called differently.”
Rain began outside, and in its monotonous noise, she imagined the child’s whisper: “Are you really nice?”
Early in the morning, Larisa noticed Natalya hurriedly taking out the trash. Something about her movements seemed strange—she nervously looked around, clutching a bulky bag. When the neighbor disappeared into the entrance, Larisa, following a sudden impulse, went down to the trash bins.
The bag lay on top. Inside were 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 saw in the newspaper article. Misha Voronov. On the back, it read: “Birthday, 4 years.”
Now all the pieces fell into a horrific picture. When Natalya again asked to sit with Vanya during the day, Larisa agreed, feeling fear and determination trembling inside her.
The boy looked particularly subdued. He huddled in the corner of the sofa, wrapping his arms around his knees.
“Vanya… or Misha?” Larisa asked softly.
The child flinched, his eyes widening in horror. “She said, can’t… can’t talk…”
“Do you miss your real mom?”
His chin trembled. “Dad 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 rising within her. “Tell me everything, please. I’ll help.”
The story, haltingly told by a five-year-old child, turned out to be scarier than any assumptions. Natalya took him from a playground, administered 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 abandoned me. But it’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 said quietly, holding out the found photograph. “And I know what you did.”
Natalya froze, her face contorted. “You don’t understand anything! Nothing!” she tried to snatch the photo. “He’s my child now! Mine!”
“What happened to your real son?”
Natalya collapsed on the floor, covering her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook.
“Three years ago… illness. We fought for two years, but… I couldn’t, understand? Couldn’t live in an empty apartment, looking at his photos. And then I saw Misha on 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, though everything inside was boiling.
“They’re young, they’ll have other children!” Natalya jumped up, a feverish gleam in her eyes. “I can’t have any more children. Never! He’s needed by me! You wouldn’t dare…”
“I dare,” Larisa took out her phone. “I’ve already called the police.”
Everything happened very quickly. Natalya’s scream, footsteps on the stairs, the crying of the awakened boy. Police officers, medics, social workers. Photos of Misha’s real parents, their tears of joy over video chat.
Larisa would often dream of the moment when Misha went home. He turned around and waved at her, clutching that same worn rabbit. “Thank you for being really nice,” he said then.
Natalya was arrested. At the trial, it turned out that she indeed lost her son three years ago, after which she started watching for similar children in a neighboring town. The story made the news, and Larisa didn’t turn on the TV 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, written in a child’s handwriting: “Hello! I now have a cat, like before. And yellow curtains.” At the bottom, in an adult’s hand: “Thank you for saving our son.”
Larisa stared at the photo for a long time, feeling tears stream down her cheeks.
Now, passing by playgrounds, Larisa always stopped, listening to the children’s laughter. In those ringing voices, she imagined the quiet whisper of the boy: “Are you really nice?”