This story happened fifteen years ago. In summer and autumn we often went with the whole family in our Volga to the forest for berries and mushrooms. We had several of the most cherished places - "honey agaric", "boletus", "chanterelle" and others.
One of the most favorite places was located near Raubichi (not far from Minsk). All kinds of fungi were found there at once. We went there very often, over the course of twenty years, because that forest massif was walked by us up and down, every path, path, almost every stump is known.
There was a military training ground nearby, because the massif was all cut through by glades and trenches, which divided it into a kind of squares. So we found our bearings there easily, especially since the ring road passed very nearby, the noise from which was heard at a very great distance.
That day, getting out of the car, we dispersed one by one: my mother and I went to one side of the road (albeit in different directions), dad to the other. As soon as I entered the forest, it immediately became clear that there were practically no mushrooms there. Even fly agarics and toadstools are not visible. I quickly ran the first square, crossed the clearing of the second … And suddenly I felt: something had changed!
At first, I didn't even understand what it was. Everything seems to be as always, but somehow it is not so. And then I realized: I was surrounded by absolute, literally dead silence. The noise from the road, which had just annoyed the ear, suddenly disappeared, replaced by a ringing void. It was as if a soundproof curtain, an invisible hood, had suddenly descended on the area.
Invisible eye
However, I did not have time to get scared, because I was stunned with delight: everywhere around, wherever my eyes fell, there were boletus. They were located not in groups, but one by one, at a distance of about four meters from each other: identical, as if from an incubator, strong, ten centimeters, with small elastic brown caps. Of course, I was amazed, because just a minute ago I was sure that the day was not a mushroom. And yet, in complete ecstasy, I rushed to collect this miracle. She began to rush around the square, feverishly filling the bucket, as if afraid to miss the "catch".
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Finally, the bucket filled up with a slide. I stopped to take a break, take off my top shirt (in order to collect mushrooms in it), and at the same time call my mother, because I still could not carry so much harvest …
And suddenly I felt fear, and an eerie and growing one. I looked around - nobody! But at the same time, I had a persistent feeling that someone was looking at me, very intently, studying. At the same time, it seemed to me, they were looking at me from somewhere above, from the height of the tops of the pines. I looked up, but there was nothing unusual about it. Fear literally paralyzed me. It began to seem to me as if the invisible person watching me was slowly approaching.
Escape
I found the strength to call my mother. She immediately responded, to which I was even surprised, since all other sounds did not break through the “veil”. It turned out that my mother was also in this mysterious square. Mom ran up to me with a full bucket of the same boletus as mine. I saw the same expression of panic on her face. We literally clung to each other, vying with each other asking: "Do you feel that someone is looking at us?"
Then my mother and I began to get out of this terrible place. And - lo and behold: as soon as we crossed the clearing, the fear disappeared and all sounds returned, even the noise of the highway (this despite the fact that the road was now much further from us than in that ill-fated square). Plucking up courage, we decided, already out of curiosity, to enter that square again. And again, as soon as we crossed the clearing, fear returned and the sounds disappeared.
We decided not to risk it anymore and went to the car. On the way, we noticed that there were no mushrooms around. And dad came back from the other side of the road with one dry russula. When we told him about our adventure, he first laughed at us, and then decided to go there himself and check. But we didn't let him in, we were afraid. After all, we did not want to return there at all, and we did not dare to let Dad go alone. We managed to convince him to return home.
The harvest is normal
Honestly, at first, upon arriving in the city, we even wanted to throw out all the mushrooms collected in that square. What if they are infected? And yet they regretted it. What a beauty! One to one! In Minsk, we checked the mushrooms - everything turned out to be normal. No radiation was found either.
The next weekend we returned to the same place. All went to the mysterious square together. Only this time nothing unusual happened. The sounds did not disappear, the road was noisy as usual, as if an experimental cap had been removed from the square. And not a single mushroom!
Tatiana Konstantinovna GRIGORENKO, Minsk