My guest today looks around greedily and breathes deeply, as if she still can’t get enough of the intoxicating sweetness of this world. Every movement of hers radiates energy and sensuality. Only the rough crease at the corner of her mouth makes her face seem just a little… sorrowful.

  I place a cup of hot chocolate coffee in front of her. Beside it are juicy, sweet cherries with green leaves still attached. She immediately reaches for them, gently running her fingers over their smooth, flawless skin before turning her fascinated gaze to her hand — as if seeing her fingers for the first time… or not yet fully accustomed to this body...

  “I went to see Him. That was the first thing I did. So many years had passed. I sat there and asked myself: if it all happened again, would I agree? If I’d known…

  Would I still agree?”

  Silently, I pour more hot chocolate into the coffee. I don’t answer my guests’ questions — especially when they’re so… human. She just hasn’t had enough time yet. Soon, she’ll get used to it and stop torturing herself.

  “I loved Him madly. And he loved me back. It was like the birth of a new universe: a blinding flash, then a wave of heat spreading through my whole body. And all from just one glance. It felt as if we’d known each other forever, and now we’d met by chance and drowned in each other’s eyes.

  There were no intrigues, no envy, no broken expectations. I had stepped into a fairy tale — love at first sight, delightful courtship with bouquets of flowers, walks under the starry sky, and endless conversations about everything under the sun.

  Then came the wedding, the priest’s blessing, and the kind smiles of our parents and friends. And the most wonderful family life. We never argued. There was simply no reason to. Everything was perfect… until one day.”

  My guest sighed and reached for her cup. The bitter line at the corner of her mouth deepened. It’s foolish to regret something you can’t control.

  “I remember that day so well. It was early summer — so much greenery and sunlight all around. He didn’t want to wake up that morning. He kept putting off getting out of bed. And when he finally crawled out from under the blanket… he collapsed in the doorway.

  I was terrified out of my mind. It took all my strength just to roll him onto his back, and for several long minutes I couldn’t tell if he was breathing. I couldn’t even hear his heartbeat — my own heart was pounding too loud from fear.

  Alive. I jumped up and looked around in panic. Then I rushed outside — into the yard — and just started screaming for help. Soon I saw the priest’s young assistant running from the church, and our neighbor, her hands dusted white with flour, came rushing out of the house next door.

  I couldn’t even speak from the horror. I just waved frantically toward the house, urging them to come inside. And after that, everything became a blur.

  He came to, and they helped him sit up and get back to bed. He even smiled awkwardly at the neighbors who had gathered. He said it was nothing serious, that he’d just been tired from the day before — and that I was overreacting.

  But the relief was short-lived. By nightfall, his fever had risen, and by sunrise He no longer woke. He only tossed in delirium and wheezed as if he’d swallowed a handful of red-hot needles.

  The healer could do nothing. He only shook his head sorrowfully and muttered that the sickness had reached us, too. The sickness, it turned out, was raging in the neighboring village as well. A dozen children had already taken to their beds, and one old woman had died.

  I only gripped His limp hand tighter and prayed to every god and spirit I could name, begging them to let Him feel even a little relief.

  The air in our house grew dry and bitter. Neither incense nor wide-open windows helped. Even the sunlight seemed to fade. I myself had become like a corpse — my skin pale to the point of bluish, my eyes red from weeping, my gaze empty. I refused food and spent hours, days, sitting by his bedside, clinging to the hope of a miracle.

  I saw — no, I felt — life slipping out of Him drop by drop. And there was nothing I could do.

  Someone told me about her… I don’t remember who — but it doesn’t matter now.

  There was a witch who lived deep in the forest beyond the next village. She could help. She could brew a potion — since the healer had failed.

  Needless to say, I rushed to her at once. I pressed a fevered kiss to His cracked, burning lips and ran out of the house.

  The cart moved unbearably slowly. I kept thinking I’d reach her faster on foot. But the witch lived not on the forest’s edge — almost on its far side. There were no paths, only a faint sense that I had to keep walking toward the setting sun.

  I wandered through the woods for several days. Hunger, sleeplessness, and exhaustion blurred together — but somehow, I made it.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  A small wooden house stood there, its windows set with colored glass. It was surprisingly tidy, almost cozy. Flowers and herbs grew beneath the windows. Over the door hung bunches of wooden beads, feathers, and tiny bells that chimed softly in the wind — though what wind could reach this god-forsaken forest, I couldn’t imagine.

  She was sitting at a table, watching me closely. Behind her, a fire roared in the hearth, flames rising almost to her height. Because of that glow, I couldn’t quite make out her face.

  She didn’t speak. Only the slow tapping of her fingers on the tabletop betrayed her impatience — a rhythm that matched the faint tinkling of the door chimes."

  The guest repeated the tune perfectly, drumming it out on the table with her fingers. She’d had more than enough time to learn it. I should hang such trinkets on my own door someday…

  “She said she could save Him. I just nodded and dropped to my knees before her. I couldn’t even speak — I was so afraid that this old witch would laugh in my face and send me away.

  I knelt before her, my hands clasped desperately at my chest. Only at that distance could I truly see her. The witch had no face. Or rather, as if a strange cloth mask had been sewn onto it. Only through the slits for eyes shone living, human eyes.

  She asked what I was willing to give for His life. And she heard the only possible answer: Anything.

  She even asked again if I was certain. And I repeated it.

  She laughed — a harsh, rasping laugh — pushed me aside, and stood up. I stayed kneeling while she, still chuckling, went to an old cabinet and began moving glass bottles around until she found one.

  The bottle was shaped like a teardrop. But it wasn’t glass — it looked as though it had been pieced together from hundreds of mirror shards. Even the stopper gleamed with a mirror shine.

  She handed it to me and told me to drink. Then He would live. Her wrinkled hand hovered right before my face. Here it was — salvation.

  Without thinking, I snatched the bottle and pulled out the stopper. I neither smelled nor tasted anything — and what did it matter, if it would save Him? He would live!

  At first, I felt nothing. Then came nausea — violent, twisting. It was as if the liquid had turned into molten wax, clinging to my insides and trying to turn me inside out.

  I choked on pain and screams, tears streamed from my eyes, and then the world began to spin and fade into darkness.

  When I opened my eyes, everything around me seemed dreadfully dim — as if I were looking through cloudy glass. But that wasn’t the worst part. My body trembled with unbearable weakness; even breathing hurt. And before me, crouching on the floor, was… me.

  Me.

  She smiled — joyful, carefree — watching my agony with calm detachment. Then she sprang to her feet and walked briskly toward the door. On the threshold she turned back and said the promise still stood. He would live.

  I remained lying on the witch’s floor, half-conscious from pain and horror.

  It took me many hours to comprehend — to accept…

  She had taken my body, my face, in exchange for His life. And I wasn’t even able to find out whether she had kept her promise.

  She did…”

  In these last words of my guest, I heard so much — relief, mad love, and… regret. The bitterness of an irreparable loss.

  No sweet coffee or sunlit summer cherries could wash that away.

  People have no medicine for this kind of bitterness.

  “I once sneaked into the village. Months… maybe years… had passed.

  She had chosen to stay with Him — a perfect family with wide, happy smiles.

  I stood in the shade of an old maple tree and watched as He gently moved her aside and took up the heavy buckets himself.

  She kissed him softly on the cheek, one hand resting on her rounded belly.

  I returned to the house in the forest — what else was left for me?

  Over the years, I learned thousands of recipes. The witch — I — had so many books on herbs and spells.

  Needless to say, the potion from the mirrored flask was the first one I ever brewed.

  And through all these long years, it has been steeping in my unprocessed emotions — absorbing everything: from carefree childhood memories and the sweet languor of a lover’s kisses to that terrible, all-consuming despair when I first found myself trapped in someone else’s mutilated body.

  And that potion wasn’t even the hardest or the most precious one. The spellbooks contained knowledge far deeper and far darker.

  All I had to do to master them was learn not to take anything personally — to surrender, to wait, and to live in anticipation...

  And, you know, I even managed to build quite a fortune. People came to me from nearby villages, sometimes even from the capital, looking for all sorts of things.

  And then the bells began to ring…

  At first, I didn’t understand — I couldn’t believe it. Then I sat down in the old creaking chair and just stared at the door.

  My fingers began to echo the chime, tapping the rhythm on the armrest, while my mind sank deeper and deeper into a tangle of thoughts and fears.

  Was it worth it… was it right… had I deserved it… or had she?

  It took her three days to reach me. All that time, the bells kept ringing softly, and I sat motionless, waiting.

  When she entered, she fell to her knees before me — such a sharp, painful sense of déjà vu…

  It took me several minutes to understand — to truly grasp and accept — this was not the same witch.

  She had long since died. As had my beloved. As had their children… and even their grandchildren.

  Before me now stood a completely different girl. Not a single familiar feature on her face — yet the story was exactly the same.

  History, it seems, never tires of repeating itself.

  All I could do was ask what she was willing to sacrifice to save the one she loved.

  And I received the inevitable, the only possible answer…

  Then I handed her the mirrored bottle.”

  The guest set down her empty cup and once again tapped that silent melody with her fingers.

  “The first thing I did was visit His grave. The witch not only kept her promise — she exceeded it.

  He was happy with her. He lived a long, beautiful life.

  Now it’s my turn…”

  The guest left.

  Indeed — it was her turn.

  Her turn to bring happiness to another… or perhaps to find it herself.

  I can make a drink for you too. Just say the word.