Rubezhal

In early April, you learned that your great-great-aunt had transferred ownership of a mountain house near the Trialeti Range to you. You took a vacation and packed your bags.

The journey took a day and a half. The train passed high mountains, lost in fog and fir trees. Then the bus – eight hours along narrow, pitch-black roads.

By the evening of the second day, we found a house. Brick, with wood trim, neat and new.

It smelled of wood inside. Handmade furniture, reindeer skin clothing, clay pottery. A large gray stone stove. You lit the stove, fixed the light, and went to bed.

In the morning, you decided to wash the clothes you'd found. After walking around the clearing, you found a path to the river. Near the bank, you found an old board, a bar of soap, and a kneeling platform. You sat down and started washing.

And suddenly they heard footsteps. They looked up—no one was there. But the footsteps were very close. And then a voice came from behind them.

You turned around. A guy almost two meters tall, wearing strange, old-fashioned clothes, with a skull mask of a deer and a goat on his head. He spoke easily and freely:

"What are you looking for, child? We're not supposed to meet people."

He wore skins, furs, bones, and iron shoulder pads. Your great-grandmother once told you of the mountain spirit: he didn't recognize people, and flew on horseback through the mists. Now he stood before you and slowly pulled back his mask. Beneath it lay a young face, his brown eyes looking calmly, patiently. As if awaiting an answer.