A desperate man brought a 90-year-old healer from a remote village to his fading wife, and as soon as she touched her belly, she RECOILED in shock and uttered words that made everyone freeze….

John bent down to collect them when his gaze caught a yellowed page from a five-year-old newspaper «Miraculous Healing in Greenvale». New York journalist Anna Summers healed from an inoperable brain tumor after visiting a herbalist from the village of Greenvale. Next to it was a photo of a happy woman and a blurry shot of an ancient cabin on the edge of the forest.

John reread the article, then typed the village name into the search engine. Greenvale, a small village two hundred miles from New York, mentions of healers, local legends. And strangest of all, the name sounded vaguely familiar.

He opened his work laptop, checked corporate email. 23 unread messages from Victor marked «Urgent». The bank director demanded a meeting to discuss the next tranche for research.

Lawyers warned of risks of experimental treatment without proper permits. The world continued to spin, demanding his attention, money, decisions. John slammed the laptop shut and stared at the newspaper clipping.

Everything in him, the scientist, businessman, rationalist, resisted the very thought of what he was about to do. But did he have a choice left? The decision came suddenly, like despair comes, swiftly and irrevocably. Alex, prepare the car, he commanded into the phone.

I’ll drive myself. And not a word to anyone. John slowed down when the asphalt road turned into a dirt one.

The SUV, seeming inappropriately bulky among the field roads and rural landscapes, carefully navigated bumps and puddles. October sun pierced the crimson foliage of oaks, turning the ordinary landscape into a canvas blazing with red and gold. John had never paid attention to such details before.

The season was always just a backdrop to his business life. But now he absorbed the colors of dying nature with excruciating acuity, as if seeking answers to his questions in this fading. The navigator had long lost the signal, and John followed the directions of an old paper map found in the glove compartment.

A strange deja vu had not left him since leaving New York, as if he had been here before, although he knew for sure he had never visited these places. «You’re ruining yourself for her, like your father!» Echoed in his memory his mother’s words, said during their last meeting. Ariana Birch, former prima ballerina, who retained her steel posture and sharp tongue, flew into a rage upon learning of John’s decision to postpone important negotiations for the sake of searching for another experimental treatment.

«You, Crawford! You have responsibilities to the company, to your father’s legacy!» John smirked bitterly. «Father’s legacy!» All her life, his mother extolled the late David Crawford, who died in a car accident, as a genius who created an empire, and how much artificial pathos and unspoken pain there was in this cult. He remembered little about his father, who worked around the clock, always rushing somewhere, bright and distant like a comet.

From childhood memories surfaced a conversation overheard at six years old. His mother shouted, «You almost ruined her with your crazy ideas! I won’t let history repeat!» Who it was about, he never found out. The road turned, and suddenly around the bend opened Greenvale, a village as if descended from the pages of a historical novel.

Carved window frames, logs darkened by time, a well with a wooden crane in the middle of the square, everything here breathed antiquity. It felt like the last fifty years had bypassed this place, only adding mandatory attributes of modernity – satellite dishes on roofs and internet wires stretched between houses. John stopped the car at a lopsided sign with the village name.

The strange feeling did not leave him, as if he had returned to a place where he had never been, but which longed for him like a prodigal son. The appearance of the black SUV on the only street of Greenvale produced an effect comparable to the landing of an alien ship. Curious faces peeked from behind curtains, local old women spilled out onto the store porch, whispering and casting wary glances at the stranger.

John got out of the car, looking around. His suit, even without a tie and with an unbuttoned collar, looked defiantly alien here. «Excuse me,» he addressed the nearest group of residents, «I’m looking for the local herbalist».

They say she helps the sick when ordinary medicine is powerless. People exchanged glances. The silence dragged on, becoming almost tangible.

«We have no herbalist,» snapped an elderly woman with a face wrinkled like a baked apple. «Go to the city, there are hospitals there». I read in the newspaper.

John began, but was interrupted by a sturdy man in work overalls. A lot is written in newspapers. All fairy tales.

John felt anger boiling up. He was not used to refusals, especially in matters where Laura’s life was at stake. «Listen,» steel notes appeared in his voice of a businessman accustomed that any obstacle has its price.

«I’m ready to pay for information.» Pay well. The atmosphere changed instantly.

Faces showed an expression with which villagers always looked at city folk, a mixture of contempt, pity, and wariness. «Money won’t help here, son,» suddenly said an old man sitting on a bench by the fence. John hadn’t noticed him before.

Hunched, with a cane, he seemed merged with the time-darkened boards. Velesa doesn’t accept everyone. «Especially ones like you».

«Like what?» John approached closer. «Unbelievers». The old man looked at him with faded but unexpectedly penetrating eyes.

«What do you care about our healer? You have your own doctors, in white coats, with smart devices». They couldn’t help. John sat on the bench next to the old man, suddenly feeling mortal fatigue.

«My wife is dying». The old man was silent for a long time, studying his face, as if reading in it the whole history of despair of recent months. Grandpa Nicholas, church caretaker, he introduced himself finally.

«And who are you?» «John Crawford». Something flashed in the old man’s eyes. Recognition? Surprise? But he quickly controlled the emotion.

«Crawford, you say?» He shook his head. «Interesting. Didn’t think anyone from your kin would show up again».

«You knew my father?» John tensed. «No». The old man smirked with a toothless mouth.

But Crawfords have been in these parts. Long ago. He rose, leaning on his cane, and pointed toward the forest darkening beyond the outskirts.

«See the path along the stream? Follow it to the fork at the old oak. There turn left and keep going until you see the cabin with blue shutters. That’s where Velesa lives.

Only will she accept». «Thank you,» John rose. «I can thank you».

«Go already,» the old man waved off. «And remember, this place is special. Here the boundaries between worlds are thinner than anywhere».

«And your kin?» «Your kin has its own accounts with this place». «What do you mean?» John frowned. «You’ll find out yourself if Velesa decides to talk to you».

The old man suddenly grew serious. «Just don’t forget, everything we take from this land, sooner or later we’ll have to return». Such is the law of ancestral memory.

It is passed through blood and word, from father to son, from mother to daughter. Knowing about it doesn’t mean freeing from it. John wanted to ask more questions, but the old man, limping, was already leaving, leaning on his cane.

And there was something in his gait that stopped the desire to catch up and demand explanations. The path along the stream meandered between old oaks and pines, leading deeper into the forest. John walked, listening to the sounds of nature, so unfamiliar to a man whose life passed among glass offices and concrete highways.

The smell of decaying leaves, damp earth, and pine enveloped him, penetrating deep into his lungs, as if the forest was trying to fill him with itself. At the fork by the mighty oak, he turned left, as the old man instructed. The trail became narrower, sometimes turning into a barely noticeable strip of trampled grass.

The sky clouded over, and in the gathering twilight, the forest took on an ominous look, as if trying to warn the uninvited guest. When John was already beginning to doubt the correctness of the path, the trees parted, revealing a small clearing. In the middle stood a cabin, not a fairy-tale gingerbread house, but not an abandoned forester’s hut either.

A sturdy log cabin with a porch and indeed blue shutters looked lived-in and well-kept. Around the house spread a garden, strikingly different from typical rural vegetable patches. Here grew not potatoes and cabbage, but dozens of types of herbs, shrubs, and flowers, many of which John, despite his biotechnological education, could not name.

The air rang with strange aromas, bitter, sweet, spicy, merging into a single symphony of smells, from which his head spun slightly. John headed to the porch, but before he could raise his hand to knock, the door swung open by itself. On the threshold stood a tall woman in a long dark blue dress with embroidery along the hem.

Her hair, braided in a complex braid with woven herbs, shimmered with silver, but her face, despite the wrinkles, retained remarkable vitality. Gray-blue eyes looked at him with such penetrating attention that John felt uneasy. «I!» — he began, but the woman interrupted him.

«Crawford!» — she pronounced, and it was not a question, but a statement. «Finally! I was waiting for one of you to return!» John was stunned. «How do you? Your eyes give you away!» The woman smiled with the corners of her lips.

«Crawfords always return when trouble comes. You have it in your blood — to seek salvation here when science is powerless!» She stepped aside, gesturing for him to enter. «I am Veleslava.

But the locals call me simply Velesa. Come in, since you’ve come!» Inside the cabin it was warmer than one could expect given the cool weather. It smelled of dried herbs, honey, and something elusively ancient.

Walls hung with bunches of plants, shelves with jars and vials of colorful contents. In the corner, a hearth crackled, spreading soft orange glow. «Sit down!» — Veleslava pointed to a wooden bench at the table.

«Tea?» «Thank you!» — John answered automatically, still stunned by her words. «You said you know my surname? Have we met before?» «Not with you!» — Veleslava placed a clay mug with aromatic drink before him. «With your grandmother?» «Anastasia Crawford.

She came here. God bless my memory!» «Yes, exactly seventy years ago. In forty-three!» «That’s impossible!» — John set the mug down without bringing it to his lips…