Morozko reached into his pocket and withdrew a cigarette. He spat sparks onto its end and took a contemplative drag. The moon cut a sliver in the star-pricked sky. Morozko watched as silver vila militias flew on high, heralding a storm.
“Great, it is going to blizzard,” Morozko said, coming to a rickety bridge. He peered at his reflection in the moonlight and cast his cigarette into the water. His image rippled: white hair braided back, youthful faced, with a proud point to his ears like all nechist.
What was Morozko doing, carrying Baba Yaga's bundle like some errand boy? He was keeper of Tsar Dmitri's inn between realms. Sure, he was the inn’s grocery boy, but this was a bit too degrading. What in thrice nine kingdoms was he doing babysitting? Morozko looked into the water, with half a mind to drop Anya in. Giving her to Dmitri would be like sealing his fate as Ded Moroz’s heir. He would become a glorified present deliverer to grubby children throughout the whole Soviet Union.
The stream's surface stirred. A curtain of hair pooled below. Morozko walked away, banishing all thoughts of leaving the girl behind. “Not with that crazy fish.”
“Kolya?” Elizaveta emerged from the stream. The rusalka's flesh shone fish-silver in the darkness. Her wet hair froze. “What did you bring me?”
Elizaveta, Morozko thought. Sweet girl but completely clueless. Too kind for the seductress rusalka, she had sought haven in Dmitri’s kitchen years ago. Now Elizaveta was content to sing her pond weed songs while roasting fowl over a fire. She had never so much as drowned a single peasant or taken a vodyanoi merman to bed, though there were many rowdy vodyanoi that fancied the airheaded rusalka. In fact, she had probably been dented on the head at death. What else would explain her vapid kindness? She had drowned herself over a sailor like Lorelei, but that was many years ago. Now she only loved her baking and her cleaning and her ragtag nechist family.
“Kolya, you are staring at me like I am a ghost. What are you carrying?” Elizaveta repeated.
“Nothing, loon-wife.” Morozko backed away. He tripped on a root and fell to the ground, rolling so that he did not hurt Anya.
Anya awoke, crying out.
Elizaveta froze. “Is that a human?” She touched her midriff. "Rusalka are barren. But now I can finally have a daughter. Oh Kolya, you should never have! Whatever will Dmitri think?”
“Morena’s frost, no! This is Baba Yaga's brat. Why would I give her to you?”
Elizaveta narrowed her eyes. “Why did not babushka eat her?”
Morozko sighed, smoothing his coat. He rocked Anya. “Quiet, mooncalf." Morozko turned to Elizaveta. “The hag has gone demented, that is why. She wants us to raise Anya. As if Dmitri would have any use for a girl not yet out of diapers.”
Elizaveta’s eyes swirled. “Anya, eh? How mysterious.”
Morozko shrugged. “She is an orphan I would guess, from anywhere. There is not a country babushka does not raid children from. From what I can tell, Baba Yaga thinks it is all a grand prank: a human raised by spirits. I cannot see Dima liking this.”
“Dima can suck a mushroom. He can turn as small as one, anyhow. Leshys have such a strange magic. Oh, mooncalf, you poor little lost girl!” Elizaveta said, making to hold Anya.
Morozko backed away. “Chernobog's black heart, you have pond scum for brains swimming around in your fishy head! Mooncalf isn't her name. She is Anya, and she is mine. She will make a nice decoration. I think I will place her in a cage on my dresser. You can clean out the poop.”
“But you wanted to eat her.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Let me just hold her!”
Morozko relented.
Elizaveta glowed, cradling Anya and tucking her deep into her swaddling. “Oh sweet child,” Elizaveta crooned. “Little Annushka. You are sweet as a fish's tail, more darling than pondweed. I love you already like a new mother her dearest child.”
Morozko rolled his eyes.
Elizaveta kissed Anya's cheek, but paused and wrinkled her nose.
“Her mouth smells like fern flower juice.” Elizaveta glared at Morozko. “What the hell did you do? Did you give a human girl an alcoholic mixer?”
Morozko looked at a tree. He began to whistle.
“Kolya!”
“Fine. I fed her witch’s brew. She was hungry!”
Elizaveta's eyes widened. “Idiot! How could you hurt such an innocent child? Have you no heart?”
“You know for a fact that I do not. I am all steam and fire.” Morozko scoffed. “Pfft. Anyways. Witch’s brew will strengthen her. It is a harsh world that Anya will live in. Better to drink up now rather than later when the decades have beaten weariness into her puny human bones.”
“You know how that magic works! Whatever nechist feeds a human fern flower juice marks them as their own, just as lovers on Ivan Kupalo mark their union by mixing fern flower nectar. She is bound to you now through raging blizzard and bone-melt summer suns. Oh Kolya, what have you done?”
“I am only counteracting Baba Yaga's claim! The hag cannot have her all to herself. Anya belongs to us all,” Morozko said, stubborn.
The howling of wolves silenced them. They shared a furtive look.
Morozko stiffened. “Curse it, it is Dima,” he said. “Quick, hand her to me.”
The blizzard intensified, snow like a slaver's whip. The vila were skirmishing over territory, Dmitri’s battalion waging icy war against Tsar Vladimir the Bent, Dmitri’s jealous brother to the North’s ragtag forces. Their icy arrows and frosty spears and icicle swords brought the fury of nature down upon Buyan. Morozko tucked Anya into his coat and let steam pour from his skin, ridding her of the cold. Maybe she would look better on his desk. He could teach her to sing like a songbird and dress her up in exotic outfits like a dancing monkey perhaps. Humans could not be that hard to teach tricks.
The vila forces moved their enemies to the left, clearing the sky. But in their absence the woods stirred. A flurry of animals - foxes, caribou, bears - spiraled out from the birch. In the distance a great figure, tall as the tallest fir, moved across the land. He oversaw his flock of beasts. It was Dmitri, the leshy lord of the forest.
He sang a lilting melody, his dinner plate eyes like clover. The leshy's great antlers were rimed with frost. The leaves in his green-gold hair formed a halo in the buffeting wind. Birds nested in his beard, and his bluish skin was like water. He carried a cudgel, signifying his sovereignty over beasts.
Dmitri paused in his song, eyes zeroing in on Morozko. The wolves that thronged round Dmitri's ankles let out plaintive cries.
Their howls froze Morozko's bubbling marrow. The last thing he wanted to deal with was Dmitri's wrath.
Steeling himself, Morozko called out to his tsar: “Dima, get your head out of the clouds and come home with us. There is fresh blini with caviar waiting and medovukha if you are so inclined.”
Dmitri's pupils dilated. “I need vodka to warm my sap,” he grunted. With great strides he approached, shrinking all the while until he was the size of a burly man. Dmitri buried his hand in the mane of a white wolf. He spread his other arm wide in welcome. “Kolya. Liza. Kinder faces never graced Mother Mokosh's earth.” His voice was like the mountains. “What tricks have you two been up to?”
Elizaveta glanced at Morozko. “Help. This is your fault!” she mouthed.
Dmitri's nostrils flared. “A human girl?” he said, cheer gone. In a bolt of lightning he was at Morozko's side. “I smell a child on you, son.” The tsar lifted Morozko's coat and saw Anya hidden within the thick white furs.
Dmitri’s eyes were cold emeralds. “I told you to never bring mortals to my realm again,” he said. Dmitri kneaded his brow. “I know that you have a taste for humans - that banniks delight in trespassing souls - but this is inexcusable. I pardon your unappetizing habits on Earth, but this is the realm of nechist, our home. Her kind does not belong here, not any longer. The girl cannot be your plaything. Return her at once to whatever hole you fished her from.”
“I would,” Morozko said through gritted teeth, “except that Baba Yaga dropped her into my arms like a demented stork. She is meant as a present to you for whatever idiot reason babushka has. I swear that hag is senile!”
“What?” Dmitri breathed.
“Babushka wants us to raise her,” Morozko muttered. “She would at least make a cute decoration.”
Elizaveta waited with bated breath for Dmitri's decision. “I could feed her, Dima. I am sure she is so small she could survive off kitchen scraps and my milk.”“Curse that witch.” Dmitri appraised Anya then sighed, weighing his cudgel in his hands.A wolf whined, wanting to be petted. Dmitri obliged. “I guess we should keep her then, or we will invoke babushka’s black magick. What Baba Yaga wants with this child I cannot imagine.”“Oh Dima,” Elizaveta said, embracing Dmitri. “Do not worry. I will braid fern flowers into her hair on Ivan Kupalo and love Anya with all my gills. I will keep her out of your way. It will be like she does not exist.”“No,” Dmitri said. “She is our child now. I will treat Anya as I would any child of my forests. Bring her here. I will bless her with the spirit of
The nechist family sat round the kitchen table next morning. A bright storm-born dawn painted frosting on the snow outside the large bay window.Iosif gazed into his bowl of salted kasha, stirring it with a furred hand. He looked into the cereal as if divining portents from entrails. Witches used organs to tell the future, domovois used cereal. Beside him Dmitri read a newspaper, chuckling occasionally. Elizaveta rocked Anya, singing a song about drowned kisses and sailors lost in Siberian fjords.“Do not coddle her, Liza,” Morozko said. “She was the devil last night, keeping me up with her wailing. I had to change her not once but twice." He indicated the improvised cloth diaper torn from Morozko’s shirts that Anya wore beneath her blankets.Elizaveta's fish-snout flared. She smoothed her sarafan. “Anya is an angel, and you are too stupid to realize it
Anya continued, pointing at the leshy. “Da?”Dmitri paled beneath his bluish skin. “Did she just call mefather?”“Da da doo da.”“Sweet Mokosh, I need a drink,” Dmitri said. He rubbed his temple. “I have never had a child before. Sure, I have imagined what it would be like, but… but… oh, just look at her. She is irresistible. I have never stolen a human like Vladimir does his wood wives but now I know why. They are too precious to bear!”“We have no mortal mistress,” Iosif said, his voice hallowed. “She is a witch, an enchantress, a Circe or Medea, but encapsulated in a miniature form.”“I doubt she is a witch, just precocious,” Morozko snorted, smoothing Anya’s damp bark curls.“Ozya!” Anya cried. She continued to babble, toying with Morozko
Morozko peered at it too. Its surface was smooth as water, reflecting Anya's chubby face. He picked it up.Instead of his visage in the mercury, he saw Anya giggling. Morozko traced the gold filigree on the edge, his lips forming an O of surprise.“It is enchanted?” Morozko turned the mirror in his hands. “I would expect no less from you, babushka. Even your mirrors have devious uses.”“Of course,” Baba Yaga clucked. “This is so your wayward family can watch over Anya when she is off wandering like witches do. I have a personal investment in her, so make sure you keep her safe, leshy who calls himself tsar. And you especially – wayward prince after my own heart.” Baba Yaga took Anya into her wizened arms. “Oh, little bird, what I have in store for you! You would never guess if my hounds were at your throat and you needed the answer
If there was a curse upon Anya, it seemed to work in reverse. The more she grew, the more her adoptive family fell in love with the preternatural child. Elizaveta carried her in a sling on her back, twirling around with a mop as she sung lullabies to the child who burbled along like a songbird. Liliya had to be dissuaded by Dmitri from beginning training the small girl on bow and arrow. She could not yet walk, just play with blocks and crawl around the inn like a missile headed straight for disaster. Iosif was never not slipping Anya freshly pared fruit slices or spoonful’s of apple sauce. And Morozko? He played and played with her, tucking her in each night as he sang a glimmering winter lullaby.Frost's kiss on the ground melted. Dmitri began taking Anya on his sojourns through the woods as the weather warmed. Seasons turned as Mother Mokosh woke from her winter hibernation at the base of the Tree of Life. Dm
Dmitri chuckled, the ivy on his antlers bristling with green shoots. “For once you want a soul to stay put and have no desire to hang it from your rafters, my son,” Dmitri observed. “It seems you have had a change of heart for once. You have even been avoiding bars as of late. I cannot remember your last bender. Not even your last frolic with a vila or that rusalka with the bad teeth but rather… well, busty assets. Ahem…”“Yum!” Anya approved. Morozko spooned apple sauce into her rosy mouth.“I have all the souls I need,” Morozko said, distant. “My banya could not be lighter if I set it aflame. As for the girls and the booze, that would not be a good example for Annushka. I feel like this girl is judging me with her raskovnik eyes, unlocking my every sin. I see why you and Osya compare her to plants so much,” Morozko referred to th
Baba Yaga had insisted on familiarizing Anya's guardians with her homeland. Nechist naturally knew human languages, so speaking English was never a problem, but the cultural divide still existed. Americans seemed too loud for Morozko's taste. He also hated the specific breed of literati that populated the D.C. metropolis, reciting poet’s pamphlets as they walked headfirst into grimy alley walls. He could never tell the difference between them and the homeless – anyways, Baba Yaga could pass for a bag lady. A bloodthirsty one, at least.Den' parked at a nondescript family-owned mom and pop store. Morozko caught sight of himself in the store’s window, glamoured so he blended in with the humans. His nechist features were softened, his fangs gone. Still, Morozko was too vain to rid himself of his white-gold hair, just like his mother's. At least his skin wasn’t blue and iced in snow fractal tattoos.
Den' awaited Morozko in the parking lot beyond. The horse-turned-car drove pell mell back to Baba Yaga's. Baba Yaga was in a rocking chair, smoking a pipe as the moon sailed past. The smoke formed wisps of worms and inched off into the horizon slowly.Den' shifted into a mare and stooped low so Morozko could dismount.Baba Yaga wrinkled her nose, spotting the red on his teeth. “I can smell the delicious sweat, blood, and soul of a human on you. A hapless young woman, as usual?”Morozko shrugged, taking the groceries from the horse's back onto his shoulder. “I have my dalliances, just like you. Banniks always love souls, after all.”“Pah. My dalliances are more of the eating limbs and bone variety, not easy seductions of boring mortal maidens. You kept me waiting, boy! My hut is not just a door you can stroll through at your own leisure. This place is the watcht