Fortune-telling on Christmas night

 We have a strange ceremony for unmarried girls in our village on Christmas Night. The girlfriends come out, twist the girl and she throws a boot in some direction. Whichever way the boot falls, the groom will come to the girl from that side. And in order to find out for sure about your beloved, you need to go in that direction and ask the first man you meet his name.

Maybe once the girls took it seriously, but the girls and I were just fooling around. Already walking towards the center of our town, we giggled and had fun, anticipating the entertainment. I took an old boot from my grandmother, and it was in these boots that she married my grandfather. We drove the guys away to caroling sweets to us, and we gathered in a circle. We promoted my first girlfriend, she threw a boot, almost hitting the girls. Laughter rang out throughout the village.

I was next in line. They blindfolded me and handed me a boot. When I was being twisted, I remembered my grandmother's proverb: "I'm spinning in place, I want to find out my fate, where the boot will fall – my darling will come from there." I honestly can't understand why these words came to mind, because I hadn't even thought about them before. I dropped the boot, and my friends laughed. As it turned out, I threw it far away. My friends sent me in that direction, while they giggled and discussed further actions.

I stomped down the path, looking for my boots in a snowdrift. A little ahead, I saw the silhouette of a man – he called me. I wasn't scared at all, I knew everyone in the village, and I had nothing to be afraid of. To my surprise, the man was a stranger to me, but he was holding my boot in his hand and smiling. I went up to him and said, "Hello, what's your name?" He smiled and said, "My name is Andrey, and yes, that's what your husband's name will be, but I'm here to warn you not to contact Vladimir in any way." He handed me a boot and told me that my friends were waiting for me. I turned for a second to look at the girls–they were walking right towards me. When I turned around to thank the stranger, there was no one there.

To my surprise, my girlfriends didn't see anyone. It was very strange, and we decided to stop this entertainment. During the fun in the company, everything was quickly forgotten. Two whole years have passed and suddenly I have two boyfriends: Vladimir and Andrey. Vova conquered me with his love of freedom, he rode me on a motorcycle, and Andrei was domestic, but very kind. In the end, I chose Andrey. I married him, and after a while I found out that Vova died riding a motorcycle.