The feeling that I was being watched has not left me since the last day. And it wasn't about my lover, peacefully snoring with a stuffy nose on the pillow next to me after a night of madness. Not in his suspicious sister, who takes care of her brother unnecessarily and looks at me without warning in a neighborly way. It's absolutely not that my friend is preparing a festive evening for my birthday with guests and gifts, which I can't stand. I feel uneasy for another reason.
A ragged ringing in my head… today I'm 31. Every year on my birthday on October 31, HE gives me a gift that I don't want to accept…What will happen this time? –that's what really bothers me. Stretching, I jumped out of the warm bed onto the cold parquet floor and headed for the kitchen.
It's almost blooming. It was raining outside the window. His drops, running down the glass, seemed to look into the house, wanting to make sure that I was ready for today.
A good omen for a birthday, I thought.
While my lover was sleeping, I filled the kettle with fresh water and put it on the stove. I fed the cat. Grabbing a clean towel of my favorite berry color from the closet, I went to the shower.
"I don't recognize myself," a premonition of danger took hold of me when I caught my wild look for a moment in the reflection of the bathroom mirror. I have always lived alone, after the orphanage and studying at the university, I absolutely did not need company, except for one night. But now I suddenly caught myself thinking that lately I've been like a different person. And…is there a person at all?
Something changed in me gradually, and so imperceptibly from each of my birthdays. I was no longer afraid, but I was still afraid of the unexpected. Everything should go according to plan, it's safer and calmer for me. But today is not the day when this is possible…
My thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door and a boiling kettle. Taking a bitten-off apple – my dietary breakfast of the gifts of autumn, I turned off the gas and went to find out who is so impatient to disturb me in the morning. My stupid neighbor was standing on the threshold with a pumpkin pie in his hands.
– Here, Sivana, here, my mother baked for your holiday, – he said, as if mocking, handing me a gift. His mother was a strange woman, once I noticed her on my doorstep muttering gibberish.
– Very nice, thank you. Tell your mother, thank you, " I was about to close the door and get rid of his vulgar shifty look, when he added
"And this was in your drawer, another gift," he winked, holding out a white envelope. His voice sounded creepy and slow, as it seemed to me.
I slammed the door. I threw the pumpkin pie into the bucket, since my plans did not include poisoning myself with the brew of a local witch.
The envelope is as always without the return address and the sender's stamp. They come to me every year and on my birthday. She opened the envelope. It contains a postcard with a picture of a deer with human hands, standing on its hind legs with a golden halo in its horns. On the back of the postcard is printed:
"I command you, SIWA, my goddess of autumn and garden fruits, to be naked today at the agreed place after sunset, holding a red apple in your right hand and a bunch of red grapes in your left. The time has come.
An old silver chain with a pendant in the shape of a deer's head fell out of the envelope. Fine Celtic work…The hands reached out to her of their own accord. I held the gift to my neck, and the chain fastened by itself. I shuddered with fright, but reassured myself that the lock of the chain is probably magnetic and it is as easy to remove as to put it on.
