The Most Precious Thing You Have

“She is strange.” A man visits a family psychologist to understand his wife’s frightening behavior. After a car accident they both survived, she disappears from the house and then returns without any explanation. She cries at one moment and laughs at the wrong moment, or talks to herself. He feels like she has gone mad—and that her madness is driving him insane. She has become strange…

“The most precious thing you have.” Irene was foretold an incredible future thanks to her otherworldly beauty, but she had to marry a poor man. She can only see a beautiful life in her dreams—until she meets a flower seller who offers to let her buy little yellow liras. People say these flowers turn all dreams into reality. But Irene will have to pay for them…

“The Scarlet Ribbon.” The legend of how a Polish gentlewoman and a Ukrainian Cossack admired one another and fell in love. Those were ruthless times. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was at war, and Ukraine was at war too. They cut, burned, raped—whole villages were wiped out and cattle stolen. The Ukrainian ataman amused himself with the gentlewoman, then cast her aside, sent her a note that he had married someone else…

“The Bride.” …I noticed her not right away, and when the headlights swept white silhouettes out of the darkness, I swore out loud, jerked the wheel to the side, and flew into the bushes. I slammed my hands on the steering wheel and looked back—there she stood, drenched, under a wall of water pouring down. You could have your heart broken that way. What is she doing out here in this wilderness?