Chapter 18: Honey Lily

Anya was nine, scrappy and rambunctious, and finally, she was learning to fly.

“Ah ah ah, little bird, balance on your broomstick like a steady spindle shaft, not a seesaw.  It is not often us witchfolk take to the sky, why, only for Witches’ Sabbaths where we flash our witch marks and dance sky clad in sacred groves while our cherti familiars beat child skin drums.”  Baba Yaga chuckled, steadying Anya’s grip on her broomstick outside her hut on chicken legs.  Fern flowers bloomed amongst bones.  “You are raring to go the Witches’ Sabbath, but how will you get there if you fall off your broom’s tail end like a cluster of eager dust bunnies!”

“Why can I not have a mortar and pestle like you, babushka?  I could even ride on the back of yours…”

Baba Yaga smoothed Anya’s red sarafan.  It was summer, never too hot in Buyan as it got in swampy Washington, D.C., and t