LITMIR.BIZ

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but saw no one. He was still here alone.

      There were no indentations from footprints on the velvet smooth surface of the snow. Only those that he left. Between the trees, the figure of a pursuer or a wild beast could not be discerned. It seemed that there was no one but the only traveler in the whole area. “So it seemed to me.”

      Marianne continued to walk forward, blaming his fears on the rustle of his clothes and the echo of his own breathing. Suddenly a shadow slid along the ground on the right hand, overtook Marianne by several steps, but then just as quickly darted back and disappeared.

      Marianne was frightened. Shadow? The moon has not been shown for a long time. Not a single star is visible overhead. Twilight reigned everywhere. Then what is it? And this time it was seen? Marianne immediately stopped, looked around more attentively, with suspicion of everything he could see. Something or someone was or was near. It should be here. There is no doubt about it this time. And it is now invisible, perhaps lurking among the black tree trunks. It followed Marian for a long time, because the first time he heard an extraneous sound half an hour earlier.

      – Who’s here? Marianne asked loudly, trying to firm up his voice. But the sound of his own speech seemed uncertain.

      Silence and loneliness suddenly surged in a wave. Fear was born in the lower abdomen, so light and weak that it could be mistaken for anxiety. And all around, it seemed, there was only an indifferent winter landscape.

      Marianne hurried away. You need to leave this place as soon as possible. Ahead, the trees thinned and opened up a spacious lawn. Marianne headed there.

      Twenty steps later, the trees parted, and behind them was a steep descent. Blue immense clouds hung low above the ground, sheltering the fantastic landscape from the silver light of the Moon. The cozy valley seemed to be a reflection of the shadows of the wavy sky. Underfoot in the twilight was a perfectly flat curve of the railway. A little to the left was a small yellow light. Marianne looked closer and recognized the house almost covered with snow to the very roof. He must have been standing right next to the tracks.

      Marianne decided not to waste time on a detour, but to go down the mountain here.

      He stepped carefully onto the snowy slope. Another step, and Marianne lost her footing. The snow was slipping from under my feet. Falling and tumbling down the slope, Marianne rolled down. A few seconds of falling – and he felt a blow from his shoulder to the ground. In addition, the top was covered with a dense snowdrift. Unwittingly, he caused a mini-avalanche, disturbing the loose and unreliable snow of the slope, and now scolded himself for indiscretion.

      Out of breath, Marianne, lost in direction, with sticky snow behind the collar and on his face, stood up on his throbbing legs. But he was stuck up to his waist in a loose snowdrift. My shoulder ached. After a dizzying descent, it took a while to recover. The rumble in my ears subsided. The cackling of anxious birds spread in the sky. There was anxiety and anxiety in him. Marianne himself has not yet seen a single night bird in this forest. Maybe it just seems to him? The unnaturally ringing clatter of hooves overlapped a displeased croak. He was walking right up to Marianne. No! It is a metallic rumble, frequent and sonorous. A second ago, barely perceptible, now he stood up as a loud curtain, an impenetrable wall for other sounds. A bright light emerged from the darkness, hit me in the eyes. Marianne, unable to escape, fell into a snowdrift again and, floundering in the snow, saw danger. He lay very close to the rails. Just a couple of meters and it would all be over. The train roared past with a roar, lifted up a whirlwind of small, sharp snowflakes and hit Marianne with a gust of wind. The iron giant had already fled far away before the youth could see it.

      Something made me look up. And his breath stopped. Above him, at the very top of the hill from which he had just rolled, a black figure could be seen. Immobile. Surely this one was looking at him.

      Marianne hastened to get out of here as quickly as possible. Having got out of the snow onto the rails, I again noticed a dim light of light in the distance, and now I was almost running towards it as fast as I could, turning around every ten to twenty meters. But I saw no one behind.

      Chapter 3. Mignis

      Marianne knocked on the heavy door. The knock was muffled. Marianne took off his mitten and knocked again. His knuckles ached, but this time the knock was louder. No sound came from behind the door. The young man pushed the door, and it yielded.

      – Is anybody here? Marianne asked. There was no answer. Then he cautiously went inside and looked around. There was no one in the house, but the burning lamp was alarming. “Someone lit it.”

      The room was small. Unpretentious furniture made of rough boards: table, bench. Marianne closed the door behind him.

      A mouse sat behind the leg of the bench and looked at the guest. Black eyes gleamed from the lamp. And when this only inhabitant of the house noticed that they were looking at him, he immediately began to scratch behind his ears, rub his face and, in general, show with all his appearance that he did not care about the guest.

      The lamp stood at the edge of the table. She flickered with a yellow light in the window. The light from the lamp itself was barely enough for half a room. It was cold in the house. The hearth stood out as a blackened spot against the wall. Logs lay near the hearth. One fell under Marianne’s foot as he came closer. Wood chips were scattered across the floor. The young man looked under the bench: the mouse was no longer there. Marianne looked around for a match, but in vain. He threw off his backpack and in a small side pocket immediately found what he was looking for. Lighter. He bent down for the chips, and a couple of minutes later cheerful tongues of flame danced in the hearth. First, Marianne warmed his hands by the fire, then looked around again. The room looked a little better. In the far corner, the darkness dissipated, revealing a shabby, dirty chest and a wad of rags.

      The house looked abandoned, but there was no better place to wait out the night. There was only one room in the house, and not a soul. “Where is the one who lit the lamp?” Now this question worried the young man most of all.

      Marianne sat down on the bench and put the mittens beside him. The dust on the table was disturbed. The marks of small paws and thin grooves were clearly visible near the lamp itself and on the edge of the table by the bench.

      The mouse slowly crawled out, carefully treading with its paws. She picked up her tail and climbed onto the bench with lightning speed. She was not afraid of the person and behaved quite confidently. As a hostess. Marianne recoiled at first from the dark woolen ball, but then saw in it a mouse and calmed down. And she looked attentively with her eyes, in which the light of the lamp walked with sharp sparks, and moved menacingly towards the mittens. Marianne found this scene comical. After all, the mouse was very small.

      Suddenly, a faint, thin voice, like the creak of old door hinges, said:

      – Paul, by the way, is cold! Move over and don’t crush me inadvertently!

      – What? – From surprise Marianne nearly fell off the bench.

      – Winter outside, as you can see. You didn’t think that I would sleep in an ice-covered hole, did you?

      Marianne instinctively wanted to grab the mittens, his hand was already reaching for them, but he thought that the beast might bite, and withdrew his hand. The mouse settled comfortably on the mitten and froze. From such insolence, Marianne was speechless. He wanted to object to something, but there was no limit to the surprise at what the mouse was saying. Marianne could only open his mouth.

      – Have you ever seen talking mice? Asked a faint, quiet, thin voice. “Does she also read thoughts?”

      Marianne said doubtfully somewhere into the room:

      – You say?

      And, to my surprise, I heard the answer in the same thin voice:

      – Who’s talking? What does he say?

      – Can you talk? You’re a mouse! – Marianne

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