Recently, my grandmother passed away at the age of 96. She often told me intriguing stories, and one of them still sends shivers down my spine…
Nina Arkadyevna, that was my grandmother’s name, was born in a village. Her mother, Antonina, had five children in total, and Nina was the youngest. The father of the family died young, right after Nina was born. He drowned in the river, and his body was never found. Antonina raised all the children by herself. It was tough back then, but there was no escaping it. The village was inhabited by all sorts of people—both kind and cruel. Some helped with potatoes and lard. Others, on the contrary, stole crops from the gardens in the fall. But Antonina raised and fed all her children and lived in her own home until her old age. The village was small; everyone knew each other. Antonina had a friend, Klavdia, who had a hard-won only daughter. Klavdia cherished her daughter, whom she called her little sunbeam instead of her actual name, Zhdana, which means ‘long-awaited child’.
Zhdana grew up to be a hardworking girl. Her father had left for the city to earn money and never returned. Antonina helped Klavdia as much as she could, and vice versa. But tragedy struck. A merchant came to the village with various trinkets, the likes of which the village women had never seen before. He took a liking to Zhdana when she bought jewelry from him. He came to propose, but Klavdia would not let her daughter marry a stranger. Zhdana herself was not thrilled with the man, who was 20 years her senior. At that time, she was just 18, blooming like a flower. With long hair down to her waist, rosy cheeks, a slender waist, and blue eyes, she floated through the village like a swan.
The merchant was infuriated. Before leaving, he entered Zhdana’s hut (Klavdia was not at home) and brutally assaulted the girl. He violated the poor thing, tormented her, cut off her braids with a knife, and left her to die on the floor.
Klavdia entered the hut to find the floor covered in blood, and her daughter barely breathing. She suffered for three days before she passed away. Klavdia turned pale, wailing inconsolably. Something unimaginable happened in the house until the funeral. Klavdia, before losing her mind, managed to tell Antonina about it. Zhdana was still alive. In her fever, she kept whispering the same word: “I will avenge.” Before her death, her face seemed to brighten. And when they laid her in the coffin, she bloomed even more. Klavdia noticed a devilish detail—the hair that the merchant had cut off had grown back in curls on the girl’s shoulders. The bruises on her body disappeared, her cheeks flushed. And on the night before the funeral, Zhdana rose from the coffin and walked around the hut. Klavdia woke up and couldn’t believe her eyes; her daughter was standing by the window, alive. She jumped up to embrace her daughter, but she was cold as ice, her eyes unnaturally red as if filled with blood. “Mother, do not be afraid, I will return, I will avenge everyone. You will see me in the village in the evenings. I will walk the road, seeking vengeance, making men suffer. No longer shall our land’s daughters suffer from men’s strength,” said the daughter, then lay down in the coffin and fell into a deep sleep. No matter how much Klavdia pleaded with her daughter to rise, or shook her by the shoulders, nothing helped. She had to bury the poor girl the next morning. And as they buried the coffin, a flock of black ravens circled above the grave, forming a vortex. Klavdia understood that her daughter craved vengeance, but she told no one about it.
After Zhdana’s death, men started dying one after another. Only the honest, glorious, pure-souled ones remained. Drunkards, brawlers, loafers, and womanizers disappeared, perishing by unnatural death. Villagers saw at night how a girl with long, curly hair, a slender waist, and a dress like a bride’s, pure white, walked the street. Anyone who encountered her on their path disappeared.
Widows were left one by one in the village. Their good-for-nothing husbands were found dead in the river, tangled in nets, crushed under logs, or having drunk themselves to death. Fear gripped the entire village. How to live when men died young, leaving no one to father children? Everyone knew it was Klavdia’s daughter avenging from beyond the grave, but they were afraid to approach her house. Yet one brave girl took the risk and went. She saw an old woman, practically driven mad with grief. Klavdia sat by the window, completely white-haired from sorrow, constantly whispering something to herself with dried lips. The girl sat down next to her, afraid to speak. Then Klavdia started: “She will not leave the village, she will keep wandering, her soul is not at rest. I don’t even know how to help my daughter. And it’s not even my daughter at all, but some kind of spectral monster, a bride from beyond. Apparently, she endured so much pain that she will not forgive the entire male gender… Why did you come? Leave while you are still whole.” The girl sat, neither alive nor dead, and dared not say anything more. Her visit to Klavdia’s hut was in vain.
Three days later, Klavdia passed away. Antonina buried her. No one else came, no one remembered the good deeds of a good woman, everyone feared the vengeance of her daughter. A few days later, the same merchant who killed Zhdana came to the village. But his trade did not prosper. The villagers recognized him, and one woman could not hold back, approached his stall, and cursed him in front of everyone.
The man stood pale as death. He became ashamed, remembering his unrepented past sins. By that time, he had already aged, while Zhdana had not had time to live. The man packed his bags and was about to leave. But then no one came for him. A thunderstorm broke out in the village, it was terrifying to step outside. The merchant spent the night in an old barn at the edge of the village, with nowhere else to go.
That night, villagers saw flashes of lightning and a girl in a wedding dress; someone even heard her laughter. The bride was rolling in the grass, tossing from side to side. Dogs in their kennels howled as if someone was cutting them. Trees bent under the wind and lost branches. And Klavdia’s house was struck by lightning. It burned to the ground, the fierce wind aiding the terrible fire. Not a single coal remained from the once happy family’s hut.
The next morning, villagers came out to clear the aftermath of the storm. They scooped water out of barns with buckets, cleared branches from the roads, and mended fences. And by evening, boys—the village scamps—found the merchant hanged in the old barn. Those who saw him and took him down from the noose said that his eyes were open and full of terror. Apparently, he saw something terrible before his death. It seems the bride came to him.
Since then, men in the village stopped dying. Life settled down. Only occasionally did people see at night on the village road two figures walking. A girl in a white wedding dress held a rope to which a man was tied by the neck. He, hunched over, carried a chest on his back, but meekly followed the bride…