IV

The guttural sounds of squelching meat almost made me puke, but as soon as I moved, high green flames leaped across Anna’s body; and a voice of the priest, desperately trying to come closer to the child, moaned:

“You will all die here! All of you! Find your place in the Hellfire!”

The smoke was sickening and Arne, who was holding the old man all this time, drew back in a sudden cough attack, accidentally pushing the opponent right into the burning flames. Myriad small tongues started tickling, burning his feet and then – the whole body, enjoying every cry for help, every high note of the screeching man. The yell of the priest merged with the terrible howl of the distorted child, all squirming like a worm on the hot floor. At this point, it was almost impossible to breathe, and we could no longer see, where the words “Unholy! Unholy!” were coming from. Somewhere in the depth of the smoke, I could hear a faint cry of Madam Viktoria. Frozen by a shivering fear, we witnessed thousands of tiny, diabolic faces laughing at us from within the green fire. The flames were so intense we could not see Anna nor the priest anymore. The witch was gone, and in my last powers, grabbing suffocated Arne by the shoulder, I walked him out of the burning shack. A couple of seconds saved us from being trapped in the falling caravan. We dropped on the grass; and no matter how badly I tried not to fall asleep, a choking grip of the Hellfire and the swarm of laughing flames stole my last seconds of consciousness.

When I woke up, a fresh morning dew was already on a lush grass. My head hurt immensely, but among the blurred vision, I could see Madam Viktoria, sitting unmoved on bent knees right in front of the burned building. Next to her, crying in her solidified hands, was a man, holding a child with a hair of bright gold. Anna was asleep, being, presumably, her old self. But it wasn’t her that made my heart flinch, for Madam wasn’t just sitting – she was frozen. The woman looked like every nerve in her body just collapsed, leaving an empty vessel without any reactions or emotions.

Later-

Arne and I tried to bring her back to some consciousness that day and later, took her swooned body to the doctors of Novorossiysk and Anapa. And despite all our efforts and calls, the doctors were powerless to change her condition. Anna, with all her young cheerfulness, didn’t understand, what was going on.