Disappearances

After paying off the bank loan, I moved into my own apartment. It might be a one-room apartment, and it might be shabby, but at least it was mine. Complete freedom—an indescribable feeling. My girlfriend and I spent the first two days cleaning out the junk left behind by the previous tenants (the apartment had been rented out for three years, to pay off the debt to the bank). On the third day, we threw a housewarming party, and on the fourth, we sobered up and began living happily.

It must be said that this apartment had a shady history from the start. A moderately drinking single mother had previously lived there. Her son was a drug addict, and when he hanged himself, the mother became a complete alcoholic and died as well. Maybe that's why the apartment was so cheap by Moscow region standards. However, the dead tenants have nothing to do with the story.

 At first, everything was great: I took a vacation, it was summer, and my girlfriend and I spent entire days getting out of bed only to run to the store for groceries. Then things started disappearing, usually small things: combs, keys, cigarettes. I chalked it up to my own absent-mindedness. But then something really strange happened. We returned from the store with four large bags containing food, various shampoos, and soaps... I barely dragged the bags into the kitchen and returned to the hallway to take off my shoes. By the time I took off my shoes, my girlfriend had already taken them off and gone into the room. Then I heard her voice: she was asking where I had put the groceries. I advised her to be more careful, as the huge bags had practically filled the kitchen. She, for some reason, kept slamming the cabinet doors. I stepped over the threshold into the kitchen. The bags were gone.

She didn't believe me and started rummaging around the apartment, even looking onto the balcony and into the closet, thinking I was playing a prank on her. But the food packages weren't to be found: they'd simply vanished into the locked apartment. The extravaganza was further enhanced by the fact that one of them contained a wallet full of vacation money.

Then I vaguely recalled a belief that if a house has a brownie and doesn't like the owners, he'll do all sorts of harm, including stealing things. My friend's grandmother had told me about this. She advised befriending the brownie and offering him a treat. I mentioned this to my girlfriend, and she called me crazy. But I decided to try it anyway (in case he sets my apartment on fire tomorrow): brownies in Russian huts lived behind the stove. The only other option I had, of course, was a gas stove. I poured wine into a small glass, put a candy on top, and placed it behind the stove. From that day on, the thefts stopped, although the treats remained untouched, and the next day, while cleaning, I even found 500 rubles under a coat rack. Although that's most likely a coincidence. 

My girlfriend still doesn't believe me, suspecting some kind of trick or prank—maybe I threw the bags off the balcony. By the way, I now have three cats. On this very balcony, there's an old dresser where I keep odds and ends, like metalworking tools. Lately, the cats have been sitting by the dresser, staring fixedly into the crack between it and the balcony wall. I've moved it a hundred times, rummaged through the contents—there's no one there, nothing. I wonder if this is the brownie's new home, or if something worse has taken up residence there?