The brothers tied their sister to a tree and wanted to cruelly punish her, considering that she had disgraced the family’s honor; the girl, with tears in her eyes, begged to be released, repeating that she was guilty of nothing, but suddenly the one who came out of the forest clearing was the one they had fled in terror from… 
The whole village was shaken by one news story. Someone spread a rumor that a young girl named Anna was secretly meeting a married man from the neighboring village. People quickly began to discuss the story, and each day it was filled with increasingly incredible details. No one tried to figure out where the truth lay and where the ordinary gossip was. For many, everything was decided in advance.
The two older brothers of Anna were the most outraged. They were sure that their sister had disgraced their family in front of the whole village. The girl tried again and again to explain that she had never met this man and barely knew him, but the brothers did not want to listen. They repeated that too many people could not be wrong at the same time.
— You must believe me. I did nothing, — Anna said, with tears in her eyes.
But her words only made the brothers angrier.
The next day, they took the girl deep into the forest. There, they tied her to a big old tree with a thick rope. Anna cried, begged to be released, and said she would definitely prove her innocence, but the brothers were blinded by anger and shame in front of their fellow villagers. They were going to humiliate their sister and make her confess to something she had never done.
The forest around stood unusually quiet. Even the birds seemed to have stopped singing. The wind slowly swayed the tops of the pines, and somewhere in the distance, a strange, prolonged howl echoed.
One of the brothers just smiled.
— No one will find us here.
But at that very moment, a strange sound came from the forest, and a few minutes later, the one the brothers definitely did not expect to see came out of the depths of the forest. 
