In the fireplace, the logs crackled, mysteriously whispering to one another, while the young Nastasya Danilovna Mordvinova recalled how this whole strange, tangled story began. Thinking, she softly stroked the bumpy skin of a hand-raised creature with her fingertips. Her best friend, sitting on her knees, watched the fire without blinking, savoring the warmth and light coming from the hearth. Nastasya Danilovna still didn’t understand how she had survived that dreadful ominous night when, by the will of a criminal, she found herself on his abandoned estate alone with bewitched people and reanimated corpses. And it all started because of a forged will. Who needed to pull her into someone else’s games and force her to risk her life? That remained a secret.