The Witch begins on a night filled with storm and ten­sion, with Save­ly Gykin and his wife Rais­sa trapped inside their small hut. Wind howls through the cracks, and thun­der shakes the rafters, but Rais­sa remains undis­turbed, focused on her needle­work. Save­ly, how­ev­er, lies rest­less, brood­ing and uneasy. He stares at the shad­ows and mut­ters under his breath, con­vinced that his wife has sum­moned the storm by some arcane means. Their mar­riage, dry and stag­nant, seems to crack­le with hid­den bit­ter­ness, where silence is more telling than words. Save­ly watch­es Rais­sa with sus­pi­cion, not­ing her calm amid chaos. Her beau­ty, still radi­ant despite the gloom, unnerves him.

When a lost post­man and his dri­ver knock at their door seek­ing refuge, the evening’s mood shifts. The storm out­side now has com­pan­ions inside, and Save­ly’s thoughts grow dark­er. To him, this is not coincidence—it is fur­ther evi­dence of Rais­sa’s strange pow­er over men. He notes the way she looks at the post­man and how her voice soft­ens, her cheeks flush slight­ly. Rais­sa does not deny him out­right, nor does she encour­age him open­ly, but the air between them is charged. Save­ly grows more con­vinced that Rais­sa’s allure is not nat­ur­al, that she some­how beck­ons these men to their home like moths to flame. His accu­sa­tions fall on deaf ears, yet they are not with­out foun­da­tion in his mind.

The post­man, weary and cold, accepts their hos­pi­tal­i­ty, shar­ing food and silence with his unex­pect­ed hosts. Rais­sa becomes more ani­mat­ed, her eyes lin­ger­ing on him longer than nec­es­sary. She laughs soft­ly, a sound rarely heard in their house­hold, and offers tea with a warmth that sur­pris­es even her­self. The post­man, while guard­ed, can­not ignore her pres­ence. The flick­er­ing light from the hearth casts shift­ing pat­terns across her face, mak­ing her seem both mys­te­ri­ous and aching­ly human. For a moment, the storm out­side feels like a back­ground hum to the storm that brews between the trio inside the hut.

Save­ly feels pow­er­less as he watch­es the sub­tle inter­play. His jeal­ousy is thick, but so is his strange fas­ci­na­tion with the sit­u­a­tion. He is both repulsed and drawn in by Raissa’s charms, unsure if what she pos­sess­es is some­thing wicked or sim­ply beyond his under­stand­ing. The post­man, sens­ing the grow­ing ten­sion, ris­es to leave. Duty calls him back to the trail, but some­thing about Rais­sa seems to pull at him. He hes­i­tates at the thresh­old, his hand brush­ing hers in a fleet­ing moment nei­ther of them expect­ed.

When the door clos­es behind him, the room feels cold­er. Rais­sa stands silent­ly for a while, her sewing for­got­ten, her gaze fixed where the post­man once stood. Save­ly, unable to hold back his anger, mum­bles anoth­er accu­sa­tion. Rais­sa, drained, doesn’t respond. She low­ers her­self to the floor, stares into the fire, and lets the silence speak. Her life, filled with long­ing and suf­fo­cat­ed by Savely’s bit­ter­ness, stretch­es ahead like a road with no end in sight.

Out­side, the wind calms, but the emo­tion­al storm remains. Save­ly sits in the cor­ner, unsure of what has passed or what will come. His thoughts are tan­gled with fear, desire, and resent­ment. He does not tru­ly under­stand Rais­sa, nor the forces that move her heart, but he sus­pects he nev­er will. She, in turn, remains a mystery—not a witch by spell or potion, but per­haps by the sheer inten­si­ty of her buried dreams and unlived life.

This tale, steeped in atmos­phere and sub­tle con­flict, cap­tures more than a rur­al superstition—it reveals the qui­et tor­ment of those bound to lives they nev­er chose. Raissa’s mag­ic lies not in hex­es, but in her vitality—so rare in her dull sur­round­ings, so threat­en­ing to a man like Save­ly who prefers con­trol to won­der. The sto­ry asks whether witch­craft is mere­ly a label for what can­not be con­trolled or under­stood, espe­cial­ly when found in a woman trapped by fate but not yet bro­ken by it. Through the storm and the flick­er of desire, The Witch lays bare the ache of lives con­strained by fear, pride, and unspo­ken dreams.