by Joy Preble
“Babushka,” he said again. “Are you stuck? Do you need help?”
I nodded, keeping my face half hidden in my red scarf. My empty belly growled. He waded to me. Held out his firmly fleshed little hand. My own hands were stuffed into the pockets of my dress. I waited until he came closer, too close to escape. I remember that he smelled sweet and young and juicy as the apples.
I devoured him whole. My mouth opened, my jaw dropped impossibly wide. I reached for him with those hideous hands and stuffed him inside me. He had offered help but I had not wanted any. He had been kind. I ate him anyway. His bones crunched between my teeth. My heart beat wildly with each bite. The part of me that remembered what it was to be human tried to resist. The power I had welcomed did not hesitate.
Afterward I cried again. It was the last time I would ever weep. Back in the forest, I built my hut. Manipulated wood and stones to form a structure. Once I had raised chickens for meat and eggs. Now I placed my hut atop two enormous enchanted chicken legs. Function and amusement. My home would move from place to place. I would outwit my enemies, especially those who would see this strange hut and think it less for its appearance. I would know better. I would know all.
The heads of my enemies began to line my fence. Each skull placed neatly on a pike as though I was planting sunflowers. The legends had begun by them, most of them true. The Russians called me Baba Yaga. Auntie Yaga. The name was a dark humor. I was not benevolent Auntie, stirring soup and boiling potatoes. I was Baba Yaga—the most powerful witch that ever lived. The Death Crone. The Bone Mother.
This is what I remember as I sit before my fire. This is what I know as I rock in my chair. This is—
The connection between me and the witch breaks. Well, mostly. I’m half in and half out of her head. Rocking in the hut, thinking her thoughts—and standing in the hut awake, with her hands squeezing the last bit of breath out of my lungs.
I can barely see, and I definitely can’t breathe, but I understand anyway. What I am now. What I’m capable of. I’m not her, not yet and maybe not ever, but I’ve got a piece of her.
I let that piece—dark and angry—rise inside me. Rip her hands from my neck. She makes a surprised cry as one hand stays attached to her wrist and the other flies across the room. It lands on the wooden floor, turning in confused circles before scuttling back to her arm. She’s watching it when I rake my nails down her cheek. Blood oozes dark and red.
The hut ripples with energy. Mine. Hers. The flames in the fireplace grow so bright and hot that sweat beads on my forehead, drips down my back. We stand facing each other, me and Baba Yaga. The cut on her face heals almost instantly. She laughs. Her breath is hot and horrible.
Next to me, a small whimper. Only then do I realize Tess is still standing at my side.
“Anne?” Her voice a tiny question. I shove her behind me.
“I get it,” I tell Baba Yaga. I’m shaking with anger and fear and a whole bunch of other emotions that I don’t have time to name. I hate her.
“I get it. You can stop choking me and all the rest of it. I get it. You’ve given me something awful. But I asked for it, didn’t I? Just like you did. So now what? Wait for me to get hungry?”
The witch smiles slowly. “So now you ask. And then you move on. Stop Viktor as you promised. Free your silly grandmother from her rusalka spell.”
“Whatever. You’ve just made it clear that it’s more than that. I’ll do what you want but it won’t matter. Like you and the Old Ones. You didn’t control that bargain, did you?” In my head I see her eating that little boy whole. Correction: I see her doing it through her eyes, like it was me. And let me say this is so disgusting that I will possibly never eat again. I can still taste little boy bones in the back of my throat.
She exhales more foul breath in my face. Tess peeps her head around my side, and I elbow her back.
“Ask,” Baba Yaga says. “The questions that you did not have before. I cannot tell unless you ask.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Tess is shaking, but she steps forward again. “She’s changing the rules as she goes along.” I elbow her again and hope that I don’t get pissed off enough that I end up biting off her arm or something.
I swallow. Find my voice. “How did he compel you?” I ask softly. Then again, louder: “How did Viktor do it? You must know. You give me this whole vision of you, and yet here you are—just as stuck as I am. So how? That’s my first question.”
Her eyes study mine. She traces one wide finger over my eyebrows. My eyes close, and briefly, she strokes the lids. I try not to shudder. Tell my thundering heart that I shouldn’t be afraid.
The pressure of her finger lifts, and I open my eyes. Tess is still tucked against me not saying a word. Is she too scared? Or has the witch done something to her voice? I don’t dare take my gaze away long enough to check.
“How do people get what they want? Force. Flattery. The illusion that they are either powerful or indispensable. Kindness, sometimes. And do not look so shocked, Daughter Anne. Even I still know what it is to be kind. To be thankful.”
Oh, right. Who would she need to thank? And even worse, now that I’ve seen into her head, why would she ever feel thankful again? Because she’s alive? Because she’s powerful?
I do my best to sound calm. Nonchalant. I’ve fought back, after all. Give me magic and don’t be surprised when I use it. “So. Which one was it? Or don’t you know?”
Tess digs her nails into my arm.
“Sometimes, daughter, we get what we want only because someone else believes she will profit.”
I let this sink in. Baba Yaga holds my gaze again, so deeply and so fiercely that for a second or two, I think that she’s going to burrow her memories into my head again. Make me be her. But she just smiles and waits.
The words tumble out. Suddenly it’s like I must say them; I must know. “What did you think you could gain from him? You were already manipulating him, weren’t you? Taking out your vengeance on his mother, Marina, or something like that? She came crawling to you to ask you to give her illegitimate son the power he deserved and you told her okay, knowing all the time that down the road, some of that power is going to seep through to his descendants, including me. All of whom are going to be girls because somehow you knew how to make that happen. You already set him up so that his own need for power would defeat him—which, let me add, hasn’t exactly worked like you planned since he’s still out there roaming around making my life a living hell. So what could you possibly want from him?”
Her silence wraps around me, filling the hut with unspoken answers and questions yet to be asked—mine and hers. The memories she forced me to share with her tunnel deeper, sink into my skin, my pores, my everything.
She had eternity spinning out in front of her. What could Viktor give her? What had she wanted?
The answer comes not from Baba Yaga, but from my own heart, beating furiously in my chest. The painful images return, just as she’s shared them. Without thinking, I press my hands to my belly like I’d felt her do in my head. That horrible moment when she understood the price of her power. The daughter she would never have. The one she dreamed of naming Rose.
“How could you?” I ask her. I don’t want to cry in front of her, but this is what happens. Hot, angry tears well in my eyes.
“Forever is a long time,” she says.
“You chose forever,” I tell her. “You. Not her. Not Anastasia. How could you do that to her? You’re not totally evil, you know. You have choices. Okay, a lot of them are gross, but even so. Screw with Viktor—that’s one thing. Hurt a girl who never asked anything from you? Why? My God. All this time I’m thinking only Viktor could be cruel enough to use someone whose only sin was loving him like a brother. But no. Now it’s you too. And you know what? I think what you did is even worse.”
“Anne.” Te
ss tugs on my arm. I can see in her eyes that she understands. “Anne. Anastasia was going to die, remember?”
“So?” My throat is so tight that I have to force the word out. “Shit happens. Haven’t we all seen that lately? People die. History is full of bodies. It sucks, but it happens.”
I turn back to Baba Yaga. Her face is enigmatic, her eyes giving away nothing while mine are full of tears. “Coming here—it was worse than death. And why? So you could relive the whole Vasilisa story like in the fairy tales? Pretend you had a daughter? Pretend you were a mother and not just a witch who let some jerk use her so he could live forever? I hate you right now. I hate you more than I’ve hated anything. More than I hate Viktor, and that’s saying something.
“And you know what else I hate? That I’m stuck with you forever too. In a different way from Anastasia, but it amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it? You’re right about one thing, though. No one does anything just to do it. I gave myself to you so I could save Ethan. You know, the guy you think I’m too afraid to love. Maybe that’s the lesson here. Sacrifice is a load of crap. Everyone wants something. And I guess we all get what we deserve.”
She watches me impassively, her eyes still giving nothing away. Do I have what it takes to ask my other question? Will she answer?
“Anne,” Tess whispers. “No. Is that what you think? You’re wrong. It doesn’t matter what she did. What you promised her. You’re not her. You never will be. Don’t let her get in your head.”
“Your friend is a nuisance.” So swiftly that I don’t even see her hand move, Baba Yaga slices one long nail down Tess’s face. Blood speckles in a line down Tess’s cheek. One dot, then two, then more than I can count. The skin splits apart in slow motion, the cut far deeper than it looks at first. Tess opens her mouth—a perfect O of shock. Then she presses her lips together, a tight seam. The skin around her lips whitens. She is refusing to scream.
“You cut me. I cut her. My rules, girl. I have allowed you here to ask your questions. But one thing will never change. Nothing is without cost. My own story confirms this. It is the way of nature. You take and you must give. I know you understand this. I am like the world that gives me my power. It is not cruelty, just the way things work. You cannot spill my blood without blood spilling in return. Yours. Hers. Someone’s. I allowed Viktor to use me so I could use Anastasia. I have paid for that weakness many times over. But never more than what it was worth. That is how my forest works.”
I reach to press my hand to Tess’s wound to heal her.
Baba Yaga’s arm is faster. Her hand tightens around my wrist, a vise of pain.
“No. She has bled on your behalf before. Clearly she is willing. Let her bleed until we are done. You are a powerful girl, Anne. Use that power on your emotions. It is a lesson you will need. Look where your anger got you, unchecked. You let your fury at Lily, at that worthless rusalka, guide your actions. You opened the door to the hut. Not fully, but enough. Viktor went free. I know what you will ask me next. It is the only possible question. But know this, no matter what my answer, true or a lie, he could not have used anything he managed to gain unless you let him free. You are complicit, girl. Just as I am. Oh, you think yourself more. Your friend whispers this in your ear. But only you know the truth of what lies inside.”
What lies inside me right now as the strange odors of the hut filter into my lungs—spices and tea and earth and death—is this: I’ve been walking around so absolutely certain that I am not a person capable of taking a life. Right this second, I think that’s a lie.
I force myself to push the thought aside. I have other business now.
“Viktor’s been gone for weeks now,” I say. “You’ve had time to think—at least when you weren’t shipping me off to get some lesson from the past. So tell me. How did he do it? I’m assuming you know what we do. He hid his soul. We’re thinking in Anastasia’s matryoshka doll. So how? When? And where the hell do you think that doll is?”
Baba Yaga’s laughter echoes against the walls of the hut. The cat—koshka—skids toward her from whatever corner it’s been hiding in. She bends, lowers herself impossibly in a movement that is at once bulky and graceful, and strokes its head. It closes those yellow gleaming eyes and purrs with pleasure.
“Souls are tricky things, daughter. They are not easily taken and not easily divested. Of course, you must understand—it has been centuries since I relinquished my own to the Old Ones. Theologians convince humans that the soul goes one place or another. But like everything I have taught you, things are not that simple. It is the oldest of tricks—far older than I or even those who gave me my power. Remove the essence and the body waits for its return. Mortality hangs in the balance until that which gives humans their humanity is once again in place.”
“I get all that.” My gaze shifts to Tess’s bleeding face. But I form my words calmly, like I’ve got all the time in the world. “But how did he manage to do it, do you think?”
She shrugs one giant shoulder. Her joints crack—a powerful snapping sound, like the warning boom that signals the beginning of an avalanche.
“How is not important. What’s done is done. The question is where. Maybe the doll. Maybe something else. This will be for you to discover.”
I gape at her. “No. You need to tell me. You have to tell me. I have no idea what you’re going to want from me in the future. Isn’t that enough? If I destroy him, won’t that make you happy anyway?”
“Will it please you?”
“Stop with the damn questions. Just tell me.”
“A story, then.”
“Let me heal Tess.”
“After.”
We growl at each other—really, that’s how it sounds. But she gets her way. We seat ourselves at her table. She places a mug of tea at each of our places—hers, mine, Tess. Tess holds a hand to her cheek. Blood seeps between her fingers. Drips into her cup of tea.
Baba Yaga takes a long slurp of tea. She swallows, the liquid flowing audibly down her throat like water swirling in a drain.
“As you say, daughter, forever is a long time. The things I once was, once dreamed of being—they were gone. Eventually, certain desires eased. I was lonely, yes, but time—even here—has a way of filling the gaps. Years do not pass as years but as days, moments, seconds. I found ways to control my hunger. I picked my victims thoughtfully. The greed of the thing I’d become settled into a routine.
“Still there were moments when I found myself thinking of the girl I once was. Almost as though I dreamed of a stranger, I remembered her smooth skin, her bright eyes, her shiny dark hair that glinted hints of gold in the sunlight. That girl had desires, appetites. And sometimes in the remembering, I understood that there were ways to satisfy them. I could force matters, certainly. Or use my power to glamour my appearance. Show myself only when my needs were filled and I had no more need to hide my true nature. A certain pleasure is to be had from the fear on a man’s face when he understands that his lover is not who he believed she was.
“And then I came upon Koschei. Monsters we were. Both exchanging our human frailties for the promise of power, of life everlasting. We fell upon each other like two starved animals.
“For a while.
“Eventually, I saw him for what he was. Do not think me hypocritical or blind to my own truths. I knew what I was, just as I know now. But Koschei was different. He had always been an evil thing—just in human form. Taking what he wanted, who he wanted. Like the man whose betrayal had loosed my own desire for power. The one who never knew and would not have cared about the child I lost when I turned. Here is where we parted ways: Koschei always believed that he deserved to be the Deathless. And there is a recklessness that comes with such arrogance. For when one is absolutely certain that he will never suffer defeat, he sets his own downfall in motion.
“You have read the tales about me. Not
a single one mentions my demise. Always, I return. I may be tricked. I may be evaded. But no one mentions a plan for my destruction.”
Baba Yaga leans across the table. Her enormous face looms next to mine, our foreheads touching. Her breath makes me want to puke. Bile rises in my throat, burning my tongue as it spills upward into my mouth and burns again when I swallow it back.
“I will not give you the answers you desire. But understand this. Viktor believes himself to be Koschei resurrected. In all ways, this is how he presented himself to me when he was my captive. For a time, I thought him quite delightfully mad. For a while, I hated him. Either way, I was willing to use him and he was willing to be used.
“You already know the folklore. Koschei hid his soul inside a needle, hidden in an egg, stuffed into a duck, placed in a hare, then locked in a box as iron as my teeth, and buried under a tree on an island. That is how the story goes. You, of anyone, should know that stories are only that. Your travels to the past—have they not shown you that memories are malleable? That truth has many guises?
“Viktor thinks himself to be Koschei, but know this, girl, he is not Koschei. Not exactly. He is a man who has found another way to cheat death. And death can only be cheated for so long. The natural order, girl. Remember. You must follow truth. The doll is only part of it. Koschei’s story is not truth—it is only a reflection of it. To know how to find Viktor’s soul is to understand what he most desires. As I have asked you. As you have answered.”
Baba Yaga pauses for another gulp of tea. She drains the cup, slams it on the table. The sound echoes through the wood. The walls of the hut shudder in and out like they’re breathing. Below my feet on the wooden floor, a skittering vibration. The chicken legs must be running. Taking us who knows where.
Really, I want to strangle her. If I could, I would. Questions. Riddles. Circles and circles and what? Tess still bleeding and me still sitting here listening to a crazy witch babbling.
