This story was told to me by a neighbor - an old and gloomy woman who often asked for help with the housework. Valentina Mikhailovna lived quietly and never quarreled with anyone, although some children were a little afraid of a strange granny. Her main oddity, according to the children, was that she almost never left the house. If she needed something, she called Aunt Vera from the house opposite. I hardly saw Baba Valya, and I was never interested in her life, but once I still had to talk to her and learn the sad facts from her life.
Once Valentina Mikhailovna called my mother and asked to buy food, because Aunt Vera went to stay with her relatives and it is not known when she will return. Mom was at work and sent me to a neighbor. To be honest, I absolutely did not want to go to her, she was too strange, especially since I did not really know her.
I knocked on the door, they didn't open it for a long time. Then I heard a shuffling gait and the sound of a lock opening. The door creaked open: in front of me stood an old dry woman in a dressing gown a century ago. She looked at me suspiciously, but still offered to enter.
The decor of her house reminded me of a hospital: yellow wallpaper, darkened with age, a small table, a gray cabinet, the smell of alcohol and some kind of medicine. On the dresser was a photo in a blue frame, on it was a girl of about 7 years old and a woman hugging her. Seeing that I kept my eyes on the picture, my grandmother tensed and looked at me closely. But, apparently, having read only innocent curiosity in my eyes, she decided to tell me …
When Valentina Mikhailovna was 22 years old, she had a child. Girl Mashenka grew up, began to play with her peers. Like all children, she often ran away with her friends from home to the forest, then to an abandoned house by the lake. This house had a bad reputation. No one really remembered why, but the parents strictly forbade their children to approach him.
As you know, bans often lead to the opposite result, and one day Masha and her friends decided to get inside the house. There, the children found old pictures, newspaper articles and a bunch of other junk. The girl's eyes were drawn to a mirror in the corner covered with a dusty rag. She, without hesitation, pulled off the rags and began to admire herself.
Suddenly the guys, who were looking at various junk at the other end of the room, heard a shrill cry. They got scared and rushed to Masha. The girl sat on the floor, neither alive nor dead, with empty eyes full of horror. She didn’t move. The guys noticed that Masha's hair turned white. Everyone in the room fell into a stupor. Only a few minutes later the children rushed out of the house.
The whole village came running to the heart-rending cries of the guys for help. Valentina Mikhailovna almost died of grief when she found out what happened to her daughter. Masha was taken out of the house by the lake by local police officers. The child still looked creepy. Someone even fainted when they saw the girl.
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The investigation in this case was conducted for about a year, they questioned the guys who were with Masha that day, but they could not clarify the situation. They only talked about the mirror hung with a rag and about Masha screaming.
The girl was sent to a psychiatric hospital. Valentina Mikhailovna resisted with all her might, but the doctors were adamant: Masha now needs special care. Her mother visited her in the hospital, but her daughter apparently did not recognize her. The girl turned into a plant: she did not talk, did not answer questions, only sometimes nodded. And if someone tried to find out from her about that terrible day, she began to cry and scream furiously … And still no one knows what the girl saw in that mirror …
The old woman burst into tears. I was truly sorry for her.
- Is she still alive? - I asked.
- No, she died long ago. Mashenka spent 10 years in the hospital, but the doctors did not manage to put her on her feet, - answered Valentina Mikhailovna.
I left her house as if struck by thunder. For so many years I have been living next to a woman about whom I know nothing. I felt uneasy, because I could do nothing to help her. The only thing I could do for her was to visit if possible in order to brighten up loneliness. I learned enough about her to understand how deluded I was in thinking she was strange. There is nothing worse than the grief of a mother who has lost her child.
PS There is not a single mirror in Valentina Mikhailovna's house.