The Girl in the Ravine
Tatiana had never borne children. The doctors had been blunt—she was infertile, and always would be.
For years, she kept the truth from her husband, Nikolai. Out of fear, mostly. Fear of disappointing him. Fear he’d leave.
Eventually, unable to carry the weight of the secret, she confessed.
“There won’t be any children, Kolya,” she said softly. “The doctor was clear. It’s because of me.”
She was 35 at the time. Not young by village standards. Most women her age already had three or four little ones tugging at their skirts.
Nikolai, a kind and grounded man ten years her senior, looked at her for a moment. Then he smiled gently.
“Then it’ll just be the two of us,” he said. “Whatever life brings, I’m glad it brought me you.”
Their home was always spotless, cozy and warm. Tatiana looked after Nikolai with the care of a woman who loved deeply, and with no children to tend to, all her nurturing flowed toward him. Their days were quiet but content—some hens, a modest vegetable patch, and the peaceful rhythm of a simple life.
They had made their peace with childlessness. Or so they thought.
One dusky evening, Tatiana was walking home from a neighboring village. The path curved through a wooded ravine. She was halfway down when she heard it—a thin, strange sound. A squeak, or maybe a whimper.
She froze. The forest was still.
Again, the sound.
Heart pounding, she hesitated, then scrambled down toward the noise, gripping at tree trunks and brush. Something within her stirred—a pull she couldn’t explain.
At the bottom of the ravine, near a trickling stream, she found a patch of flattened grass. And in the middle, on a crumpled men’s jacket… lay a baby.
Naked. Newborn. Skin flushed crimson. A girl.
She was mewling weakly, her tiny limbs twitching, her soft skin already peppered with mosquitoes.
Tatiana gasped and rushed forward. Wrapping the baby in the hem of her skirt, she held her close. The baby went quiet.
Home. Now. Feed her, Tatiana thought, breath quickening. But where was the mother?
She called out. No one answered. The ravine was empty. The child began to squirm again, hungry and cold.
Clutching the infant to her chest, Tatiana clambered out of the ravine, slipping and scraping herself on branches and roots.
By the time she reached their cottage, night had fallen. Nikolai was finishing his supper—borscht, with garlic rolls and cured pork.
“I found a baby, Kolya,” she said breathlessly, eyes wide. “In the woods. In a jacket.”
Nikolai calmly set down his spoon and walked over.
“Well then,” he said after a moment, gazing at the bundled girl. “Looks like God decided to give us a daughter.”
They called the police the next day. Tatiana told everything. Authorities searched for the mother, asked around. But no one was missing a baby. It was as though the child had fallen from the sky.
They were allowed to keep her. And within a few weeks, the adoption was official.
Peace vanished from their home—but so did the emptiness. Chaos came with the child—crying, feeding, sleepless nights—but also joy so radiant it made Tatiana’s heart ache.
She bloomed. Suddenly, she had her own child to talk about with the other women. And more importantly, someone to pour her love into.
They named the baby Yana. Not a typical village name—but Yana wasn’t a typical child.
Delicate and fair, with graceful features and a quiet demeanor, she didn’t resemble the sturdy, noisy children of the countryside. She was curious, dreamy.
Tatiana often called her my little snowdrop, watching her move with quiet dignity through muddy gardens and dusty paths like a misplaced princess.
Yana had a birthmark behind her neck, hidden under her hair. A perfect heart.
“A kiss from heaven,” Nikolai would say, touched beyond words.
As she grew, Yana became enthralled by books. She learned to read early and spent hours perched on the windowsill, nose buried in stories. When scolded to rest her eyes or play outside, she would obediently leave—only to sneak off to the village library, a humble wooden shed resting atop dirt and, curiously, sleeping pigs.
By the time she was seven, she had read nearly everything the library had to offer. Her thirst for knowledge was unquenchable.
She began to write. Poems, tales, entire notebooks filled with stories. “I’m a writer,” she declared one day. Her parents didn’t argue.
In fact, Nikolai started visiting the city library once a week, bringing back armfuls of books. If she loved something, he reasoned, it deserved to be nurtured.
“Thank God she doesn’t want a car,” he chuckled, watching her scribble by candlelight.
Years passed. It became clear to Tatiana and Nikolai that Yana wasn’t meant for farm life. She didn’t belong in barns or with chickens.
“She needs the city. She needs to learn,” they agreed.
And so, with their blessing, she left for Moscow to study at the Literary Institute—her dream.
She excelled. On the second year, she began publishing stories. Her first book of fairy tales did well. Her adoptive parents beamed with pride.
She belonged in the world of words. Of libraries, museums, theatres. She had never been so happy.
Her mentor at the institute was Amalia Petrovna—a refined, melancholy woman with soft blonde hair and aristocratic bearing. She took a special interest in Yana from the start. They grew close, spending hours together reading, discussing, even cooking.
People often remarked on their resemblance. “Like sisters,” the rector once joked.
At graduation, they both wore elegant updos. Standing side by side, they shared a quiet moment.
The rector wandered by with a glass of champagne, laughing: “Even the same birthmark! A little heart—on both your necks! What are the odds?”
Both women froze.
Amalia turned pale.
“We need to talk,” she whispered.
Outside, in the garden, Amalia asked gently, “What do you know of your real parents?”
Yana told her everything.
Amalia wept.
Two decades earlier, she had fallen in love with a gentle boy named Boris. Her father, the Dean of Literature, disapproved. When she got pregnant, he exploded. Boris was expelled and drafted into the army. He died soon after, in a training accident.
Ashamed, her father took her to a remote village to give birth. When the child was born, he took her. Said she’d been “placed.” Refused to say more.
Years passed. Her parents died. Amalia searched, but the trail was cold. She gave up.
Until now.
They went to Tatiana and Nikolai the next morning. At first, Tatiana bristled—but then she saw the matching heart-shaped birthmarks.
She broke into tears and told the story of the baby in the ravine. She even brought out the jacket. Amalia recognized it instantly.
Yana had two mothers now.
But fate had one more surprise.
Two months later, Boris returned.
He’d lived in the far north all these years, alone. Amalia’s father had told him the baby had died, and Amalia had married someone else.
He believed them. Gave up. Stayed away.
But something drew him back to the city. And as he arrived at the Institute, he saw two women leaving the building—so alike they could have been sisters. Both with heart-shaped marks on their necks.
The rest, as they say, was destiny.
Two years later, Amalia gave birth to a second daughter—blonde like her sister, but without the mark of fate.
She often visited the village, where her older sister Yana would sit under the old cherry tree, writing stories. And inside the little house, Tatiana and Nikolai would smile, knowing they had been chosen, long ago, to change the course of many lives—with one walk through a quiet ravine at dusk.