I noticed it immediately — Frau Schwarzenegger was not herself.

  Agitated would have been too mild a word. Her shoulders were slightly raised the entire time, as if she were bracing for a sudden gust of cold or a blow. Her clothes were warm and plain, without decoration, and her scarf was tied unevenly, crookedly, carelessly — something completely unlike her. Usually everything about her sat precise, functional, almost military.

  She took off her gloves — and I found myself staring.

  The long nails were gone. Completely. Her hands looked rough, unfamiliar: the skin in places seemed tightened, shrunken, and on her fingers and the backs of her hands were marks from old burns. Not fresh — no. The kind that had healed long ago but never truly disappeared. I had never noticed that on her before. Not once.

  She caught my look and immediately curled her fingers inward.

  She stepped inside — and stopped at once.

  Her gaze locked onto the small table by the wall.

  The rodent repeller.

  It lay unplugged, pulled from the socket.

  "That..." she began, nodding toward it. "You're no longer using it?"

  Her voice was even, but too quick.

  "No," I replied. "The rodent disappeared."

  And I added, sincerely:

  "Thank you for your help. It's not needed anymore."

  She nodded. Slowly. Her eyes sweeping the house too carefully — walls, ceiling, corners. As if she wasn't checking cleanliness, but something else.

  A chill crept through me.

  "Please don't clean the studio today," I said quickly, before she moved further. "There are fresh paintings. The paint hasn't dried yet. If something touches them, the work will be ruined."

  She answered too fast.

  "All right. Of course. I won't."

  But her eyes were darting — sharp, brief movements, as if she were tracking something in her peripheral vision. She didn't look directly. Didn't linger on anything. She was strung tight like a wire.

  Without further questions, she picked up her things and began cleaning.

  Throughout the day I went into the studio several times.

  Not because of work — because of Pi-Pu.

  I examined the walls, the corners, the floor, the ceiling. Ran my hand along the seams, tapped the boards, checked behind shelves. I was looking for a hole. A crack. Anything that could explain the morning.

  Nothing.

  The house was old — yes. But not so old that creatures could simply vanish and reappear inside it.

  Meanwhile Pi-Pu had eaten, curled into a ball, and was sleeping. Deeply. The sleep of something that feels safe. Sometimes he snored softly. Sometimes he let out a small "pff," as if something in his dream amused him. I tried not to make noise.

  When it was time to cook lunch, I left the studio and locked the door. I even tugged the handle. Locked.

  I still didn't understand how he had gotten out earlier. Maybe there really was some hidden gap I simply couldn't see. Old houses know how to keep secrets.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I went into the kitchen.

  I cooked while half-watching a series on my laptop — familiar background murmuring, almost calming. I took large potatoes, sliced them open, tucked salted pork fat inside, a piece of butter, and generously sprinkled dried garlic over everything. Even before baking, the smell was enough to make you want to eat it raw.

  I slid the tray into the oven, shut the door, and went into the living room to finish the episode while it baked.

  Frau Schwarzenegger followed quietly, cloth and bucket in hand as usual. Silent. Efficient. She began wiping surfaces without lifting her head.

  And then my heart nearly stopped.

  Pi-Pu was in the living room.

  Standing by the Christmas tree.

  I hadn't heard him appear. Hadn't seen him leave. He was simply there.

  The same Pi-Pu I had just locked inside the studio.

  I started waving at him.

  At first carefully — palm down, almost invisible, the way you signal a child to step away from an edge. Then more sharply. Wider. Desperately.

  Go.

  Now.

  Please.

  Pi-Pu did not react.

  He didn't even look at me.

  His full attention was on the Christmas ornaments.

  Then Frau Schwarzenegger turned.

  I froze.

  She walked right past him.

  Didn't flinch.

  Didn't stop.

  Didn't step back.

  Just walked by.

  Her leg passed within inches of his snout. No reaction. No fear. No curiosity.

  Something inside me cracked.

  She couldn't see him.

  Not at all.

  Frau Schwarzenegger calmly continued wiping a table, a shelf.

  "That's impossible..." I whispered.

  Pi-Pu slowly turned his head and looked at me.

  Calm.

  Steady.

  Frau Schwarzenegger muttered something under her breath and moved into the next room, the sound of cloth and water fading beyond the wall.

  I didn't think.

  I grabbed Pi-Pu.

  He was warm. Solid. Breathing. He squeaked softly — not from pain, more from surprise — and pressed against me as if understanding this was not the time to argue.

  I nearly ran.

  Studio. Door. Click — lock.

  I checked again. Pulled. Locked.

  My heart pounded so hard I felt sure the street could hear it. My hands were shaking. I crouched and set him down.

  He sat. Calmly. Looked up at me. His yellow eyes half-closed, like a creature that knows too much and sees no reason to share.

  "What are you?" I whispered.

  The words spilled out without logic.

  "A ghost?

  A hallucination?

  Am I losing my mind?"

  Pi-Pu adjusted himself more comfortably. His tail flicked. He looked... offended. As though I had just called him something indecent.

  "She didn't see you," I said even softer. "At all."

  I wrapped my arms around myself.

  "But I do. I touch you. I feed you."

  He tilted his head.

  "Pi-pu," he said. Quietly. Almost gently.

  I left the studio completely confused and seriously questioning my sanity.

  First I went to the kitchen. Automatically turned off the oven and pulled out the tray. The smell of baked potatoes with pork fat and garlic was too real, too domestic, to match what was happening in the house. It grounded me. A little.

  Then I went to Frau Schwarzenegger.

  She was kneeling, scrubbing the floor. Her movements were sharp, hurried, as if she expected something to happen behind her at any second.

  "How are you?" I asked as calmly as possible.

  She lifted her head abruptly.

  "Stable, thank you," she replied — and immediately, almost deliberately, changed the subject. "And that... meteorite. After it, nothing strange happened?"

  I tensed.

  "Not really," I said. "Nothing special."

  She looked at me intently. Almost drilling into me.

  "And how are you?" she asked.

  "Fine," I answered. "Well... I fell into a snowdrift recently. Nothing serious."

  I deliberately avoided details.

  She twitched. Just slightly — but I saw it. As if that word had struck something inside her. Her shoulders tightened. Her fingers clenched the cloth for a second.

  Everything about her felt strained.

  I offered her lunch.

  "Thank you, I'm not hungry," she said quickly.

  And then it happened.

  A gust tore through the house.

  I didn't even have time to turn.

  Pi-Pu.

  He burst into the living room and began to expand mid-motion. Fast. Almost instant. His body swelled, fur bristling, silhouette losing its familiar softness. Within seconds he was enormous, nearly reaching the ceiling, massive and coiled like a spring.

  He stopped at the front door.

  Frau Schwarzenegger screamed and grabbed her temples. Not in fear. In pain. Sudden, sharp pain that darkens vision.

  She groaned, then sprang up from her knees. The brush fell from her hand.

  "Weg!" she shouted. "Aus dem Weg!"

  Out of the way.

  And then she looked straight at him.

  At Pi-Pu.

  She saw him.

  And she was not afraid.

  My breath caught.

  Pi-Pu stepped aside. Cleared the path.

  She lunged for the door. Her movements were abrupt, almost inhuman. She flung it open — and from outside came a shout.

  Alexander's voice.

  "Ida! Here!"

  Frau Schwarzenegger shot out like a bullet.

  She ran into the freezing air exactly as she was. Her face had changed — the usual restraint gone. Her eyes were wide, burning. She moved too fast for her age and build.

  She ran left, down the street.

  I slammed the door and rushed to the window.

  My hands shook as I threw it open and leaned out, not feeling the cold. What was happening outside looked unreal, like a dream too sharp to be a dream.

  To the left, near the house where the man in the hat — Jakob, father of the young man who had pulled me from the snowdrift — lived, stood Alexander.

  One arm extended forward, palm out, a rigid, wordless command to stop. His entire body was tense, gathered, dangerous.

  Before him, a short distance away, stood a very old woman. Tiny. Almost transparent. She leaned on a stick, shaking her head as if denying everything at once, constantly glancing around as though searching for escape. I could see her face. It was impossibly ancient. Not just old — ancient. Skin like parchment, eyes sunken deep. She was so thin it seemed wind could break her.

  Behind her, at some distance, stood Frau Schwarzenegger.

  She was shouting, and her voice was nothing like the one I knew inside the house.

  "I am warning you for the last time! If any of you enter under the dome again and attempt—"

  The rest blurred in the air, but I heard the end clearly.

  "We will call an emergency assembly. And then beware. Tell your own."

  And in the next instant Frau Schwarzenegger launched forward.

  I didn't even have time to cry out.

  She pushed off the ground and leapt. Not like a human. Higher. Sharper. For a fraction of a second she seemed suspended in the air. At the same moment Alexander stepped forward.

  They struck simultaneously.

  Ida's fist and Alexander's fist moved almost in perfect sync. And directly before them the space itself shifted. It compressed — as if the air had become glass and someone pressed hard against it from both sides.

  A thin, cutting whistle split the air.

  And the old woman vanished.

  No — she flattened. Became a thin plate. Flat.

  And beneath her, as though spilling out of another layer of reality, appeared a heap of stones. Metallic and ordinary stones. Heavy. Angular. Cold even from a distance.

  I clamped my hand over my mouth.

  I was shaking.

  They killed her.