She decided this person was unscrewing a tube of toothpaste. Somewhere behind the wall, a hairdryer was buzzing. A clock in the hallway was ticking.
A refrigerator in the kitchen was humming. Water dripped from the faucet. Nancy turned to listen, noticing sounds she never noticed before.
After washing her face and brushing her teeth, she went to make coffee, but her mother beat her to it. Two cups of coffee and scrambled eggs and cheese smoked fragrantly on the kitchen table. They ate breakfast in peace, trying to avoid talking about the future, much less the past.
However, it decided to be reminded by a message from Jacob. I have some of your books left. What other books are in the surgical handbook? Keep them.
I wanted to write Nancy, but the prospect of seeing his face again seemed suddenly so tempting that she just answered ock, hastily packing up and saying goodbye to her mother in the entryway. The girl headed for the bus stop. It was rush hour and raining, and there was no time.
She risked being late for work. As luck would have it, not a single minibus wanted to stop. They were all full to the brim with passengers.
Nancy felt a rush of incredible energy. Something unfamiliar rumbled in her chest and threatened to burst out. A minibus came around the corner.
She could see that the interior was full of people, but it suddenly stopped. The doors opened, and the young man standing on the threshold almost fell over. However, after looking at Nancy, he suddenly jumped down from the step of the car and said, Girl, are you wet at all? Please come in.
I’ll wait for the next one. Nancy was embarrassed and wanted to refuse, but something held her back. Something strange.
Muttering words of thanks in utter bewilderment, she jumped up the vacated step. The shuttle doors closed, and the last thing she saw before that was the bewildered face of the guy left out in the rain at the bus stop. Nancy wasn’t late for work.
She got there just in time for her shift change. Back in her office, on the desk in the resident’s office, she found a bag of books. Your sweefer came by.
He brought books. The nurse informed her. My floor was angry.
Like hell he didn’t even ask about you. He just threw the package on the table and took off. So I won’t see you.
Nancy could hardly suppress the urge to cry. The day flew by at a frantic pace. Nancy rushed back and forth.
There were more sick people than usual. Near the end of the day, a girl was brought in from a car accident and rushed to the operating table. Her artery had been severed, and she was bleeding profusely from her neck.
While she was being lifted in the elevator to the surgical ward, Nancy clutched her wound feverishly with all his heart, wishing that the girl would be saved, that help would be given in time. What was Nancy’s surprise when in the operating room, it appeared that the wound was no longer bleeding, and it was as if the wound itself had healed. Its edges had been fused with new tissue, and it was no longer life-threatening.
In total bewilderment, Nancy mechanically assisted the surgeons, trying not to look at the place where her hands had recently been. When she returned to her residency, she again turned her attention to the bag of books Jacob had brought. There, indeed, appeared to be a medical reference book, a dream book, a couple of textbooks, and a strange unfamiliar book in a thick antique binding.
The book had no title. Neither was the year of publication. The book was written in a foreign language, either Old Slavonic or Latin.
Nancy was completely clueless about it, and it looked like a recipe book, completely confused. The girl dialed Jacob’s number. What kind of book did you bring me, the one in the antique binding? It’s not mine.
You know, I always suspected you were strange, but not that strange. Jacob’s voice trembled for some reason. I don’t need any more of that occult crap in my house.
Listen, don’t call me again. Nancy hummed up and looked thoughtfully at the book, which suddenly seemed alive to her, the pages, as if vibrating. And the girl could not leave the feeling that something very, very strange was going on.
Unexpectedly, she remembered the references she had read on the internet about witches, wreaths, and nine-herds. She opened the folio again on the first page and only now noticed the little monogram in the upper right corner. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end when she recognized it as the same sign painted on the door from her dream.
It was an intricacy of nine sacred plants. Her heart seemed to skip beat after beat and silence. The room became humming.
Unfamiliar, unfamiliar sounds were clearly audible in it. Nancy was ready to swear she could hear the rustling of her dress on the cold parquet, the residence room. When she reached home, she went straight to the shower.
After standing under the hot stream, she calmed down a bit and tried to find a logical explanation for everything that had happened to her that day. But no matter how hard she tried, she could do nothing. Once in her room, Nancy turned on her laptop again and opening the browser, typed nine sacred herbs into the search box.
Google brought up references she was already familiar with and many others, but her gaze was hooked on an unremarkable one. It seemed to be an entry at the very end of the list giving nine herbs for the White Witch conspiracy and a small icon of a wreath made of various plants already familiar to her. The girl clicked on the link and began to read the alliance of sacred herbs.
Wormwood, chamomile, nettle, plantain, fennel, fatwort, apple, bruise, and chervil. There is a means to an end for those possessing the power of the White Witch. They are together or separately the main integral ingredient for any conspiracy and ritual dedicated to the moon and serve for the good of the White and all mankind.
They cannot be used against men or for no good for this prohibition is associated with black magic. A power that destroys whoever dares to disobey it. The witch draws her power from the mother earth for all the wisdom, the art, the understanding of the world is embedded in her and so much more.
Nancy felt her head spinning. Her eyelids were slipping and the room was spinning around her before she could put the information she had received into her head. She fell into a deep sleep.
In the dream, the woman with the pale face was there again. This time she greeted her with a wreath in her hands. Nancy was no longer afraid, only very, very cold.
She suddenly realized that a darkness had thickened around them. It became almost tangible and the girl saw nothing but strange burning eyes and a happy winning smile. The woman approached and put on a wreath.
Nancy’s head was suddenly all gone. Nancy was tossing and turning in her sleep. She was now hot and now cold.
She was now falling down, then suddenly soaring up. Her heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest. It beat heavily against her ribs.
She thought she was dying, somewhere on the edge of consciousness. At the very edge of it, the old Nancy remained. On the morning of her 20th birthday, she woke up a different person, her eyes open.
Nancy felt an unprecedented rush of strength and energy. She had never felt so good in her life. Surprisingly, all the sadness, resentment, and bitterness eating away at her yesterday dissolved with the moonlight of this unusual night.
Her mother greeted her with a joyful smile and the cake she baked for each of her daughter’s birthdays. On the table, there was a small box tied with a red bow. It is for you, my beloved woman, held out the box to Nancy.
May it bring you happiness. The girl warmly thanked the one who raised her, opened the gift, and almost dropped it on the tiny backing. From the velvet rested a silver pendant in the form of a wreath-like weave of plants.
There were stems. Nine. Nancy counted them several times.
Where did you get that? She asked her mother in a trembling voice. She was immediately upset. I misinterpreted her reaction.
I ordered it from a jewelry shop. But where did you get the symbol? For heaven’s sake. Nancy was close to fainting with surprise and bewilderment.
Too many coincidences. Too many mysteries. Too many questions.
It all seemed a little creepy to her. You won’t believe this. The mother excused herself.
But that wreath was a dream, I add. I saw that pendant on you and decided to order it. In fact, it upset you.
She hugged her daughter sympathetically, disconsolate, and embarrassed. Asked all is well. Mammy, has the girl pulled herself together yet? I just did not expect such an unusual gift from you.
She tried to squeeze out a smile. The squeals of joy nearly knocked Nancy off her feet. When she opened the door to the residence room after a warm hug and congratulations, she and her colleagues sat down to drink tea with the cake-brought birthday girl.
Suddenly, the girl’s eyes fell on the newspaper lying on top of the files with medical records. She did not know why she picked it up and began to flip through it. When she reached the classified section, Nancy caught her eye on the ornate telephone numbers.
Underneath a small piece of text, a country estate urgently needs a qualified nurse to care for a disabled resident. Payment on a weekly basis. Something obviously strange was going on in Nancy’s mind.
For as she stepped out into the hallway, she dialed the number. After three rings, a woman’s voice came into the receiver. Hello.
Hello. I’m calling about the ad. Suddenly, excitement came over her, but Nancy pulled herself together.
Are you still in need of a nurse? Oh, well, thank goodness. Yes, of course. Very, very much needed.
The voice on the other end of the line was obviously that of an older woman. It was low, but pleasant. Then I could come in for an interview, for instance, tomorrow.
If it’s convenient for you, that would be fine. I’ll text you the address to this number. Yes, please.
Nancy disconnected the call and stared at the wall. The phone beeped. A text message came in with the address.
Her head was spinning and her soul was overflowing with emotion. She suddenly felt as if she had touched something that would change her life forever. Her hand reached for the pendant and she could have sworn she felt a strange and inexplicable vibration from the cold surface of the silver.
If someone had asked her in the morning the next day how her shift had gone, she would not have been able to say a word, for the day flew by like a fog. She automatically did her job. Fortunately, the night was quiet and Nancy looked forward to the morning.
Rushing home and changing clothes, Nancy ran out of the house with such speed that she nearly knocked her neighbor down with her dog, muttering words of apology. The girl hurried to the bus stop. Within minutes, she reached the train station, bought a ticket at the suburban ticket office, and in half an hour, she was already sitting in the train.
Her heart pounded in her chest like crazy. Her throat was dry. She had never been so nervous in her life.
Behind the window of the train, she saw high-rise buildings, parks, and then factories. Then came rows of industrial plants, with their chimneys breathing heavily, then rows of summer houses and farmlands with tractors scattered here and there. Finally, the landscape changed radically.