"Run, Witch" by Tatyana Korsakova, summary Automatic translate

"Run, Witch" is the final installment of the "Don’t Wake the Witch" trilogy, published in 2015 by Eksmo. The three books tell the story of Arina, a young woman who accepted the gift of the witcher Storyteller and was reborn as a witch. The third book concludes this journey: Arina returns from the world of shadows, comes to terms with the cost of her past choices, and encounters a history rooted in the nineteenth century.

The World of Shadows

The book opens in a place devoid of color and time. Arina is in a world of shadows, held captive by her own shadow, telling her stories and showing her pictures. Memories have faded, emotions have faded, and only fear remains in its full force. The shadow explains: its task is to gradually take Arina’s place in the world of the living until she dissolves completely.

Arina is saved from this by the Storyteller, a mysterious old witcher whose black blood once gave her power. He enters the shadow world against the rules, not looking Arina in the face and not allowing her to turn to him. The Storyteller breaks the contract between Arina and her shadow, warns that the transition back will be painful and without any guarantees, and pushes her toward the world of the living. Arina, disobeying the prohibition, turns around anyway — and sees a tall, stooped old man, with darkness raging behind him. The transition tears her apart, and she awakens in a psychiatric hospital.

Clinic

Arina spent almost eight months in a state of catalepsy — since last October. The clinic staff treated her like a terminally ill patient: Nurse Lydia read her Andersen’s fairy tales, orderly Zhorzh-Zhorik looked at her with disdain, and the caretaker, Nikodimych, stood alone in defense of the "little girl." The head doctor, Helena Genrikhovna — a well-groomed woman with a chiseled profile and icy eyes — kept Arina in a private room with a barred window and was clearly interested in her for more than just medical reasons: someone was paying a considerable monthly fee for her care.

Emerging from her trance in the midst of a nighttime thunderstorm, Arina smashed the window from the inside — with a steady pressure, like a huge, invisible cushion. Her skin became covered in a network of cracks — marks of the transition between worlds. The staff struggled to calm her down and restrain her with straps. Helena examined the patient and asked in a whisper, "Will you tell me what you saw there?" — confirming that she was perfectly aware of the nature of what was happening.

Alone at night, Arina discovered that a "horse dose" of sedative didn’t render her unconscious — the Storyteller’s black blood protected her. Cold water neutralized the drug. Gradually, her strength returned, and — most importantly — her memories.

Memories

Black the ghost dog, blacker than night, appeared in the room and lay at her feet. His touch triggered a chain of memories that came back in flashes.

Arina remembered dying and accepting a dangerous gift from the Storyteller — the black blood of a witcher, reborn as a witch. She remembered her enemy, Dementyev, who had placed a spiked steel collar on her and held her as a "pocket witch." She remembered Volkov, the Gray Wolf — the man who had followed her first as an enemy, then remained by her side as a protector and, perhaps, something more. It was his fury and demand — "Do something!" — that helped Arina remove the collar and strike Dementyev with her witch’s power: the enemy’s charred hand, covered in road dust, was the answer to years of humiliation.

After everything she’d been through, Arina lived in a gingerbread house in the middle of a feral cherry orchard, writing books with a gold pen — Volkov’s parting gift. Their paths diverged: Volkov had his own life, his own woman. Arina tried to accept this, even though she saw him in her dreams every night.

Then Margot appeared — a dead witch with a cat’s skull painted in Gzhel style, coming for help. The witches were being killed one after another, and Margot demanded an investigation. The killer turned out to be a man with wheat-colored curls and the sensitive fingers of a musician: he paved his path with the bodies of witches and dead colchicums, believing it to be justice. Behind this entire chain of deaths stood Salome — an old witch who killed her sisters for their strength and life.

While dealing with this case, Arina almost died again.

Lisa’s Story

The novel goes back far, to the revolutionary era. Elizabeth and Lisa found themselves trapped by Petrusha, a man without conscience who had murdered the family’s patron, Count Potocki, and intended to get rid of Lisa and her newborn daughter. In the night scene by the pond, Lisa swung her cane at Petrusha, but he proved stronger: he strangled Sophie, the greyhound, and clamped his fingers around Lisa’s neck.

Lisa plunged into the pond’s water — deliberately, waiting for the killer to leave. At the bottom, a shadow approached her, proposing a partnership: removing the silver medallion and handing it over so they could defeat the enemies and survive together. Lisa almost agreed, but at the last moment, she hid the medallion in the hollow of an old linden tree instead of handing it over to the shadow.

The shadow took on flesh and emerged ashore as an independent person. Lisa remained a shadow without a master — and without the medallion. The former shadow, unfazed, killed Petrusha and Lily that same night, took the jewels, and left. She promised to protect Lisa’s daughter — and the fate of this girl will stretch throughout the narrative, linking the past with the present.

Return

Returning from the shadow world changes Arina. The storyteller warned: the changes would be unpredictable. The shadow, knocked from her body, is now forced to obey a living mistress — shadows know how to lose and accept new rules. Helena with her questions and hidden agendas, the clinic with its barred windows and paying patients, the secret of who exactly is paying for Arina’s upkeep — all this adds up to a new threat from which she must escape.

Black is nearby. Memories returned. Arina is a witch again — a mediocre one, as the Storyteller said, but alive. And that’s probably enough to begin.