Baba Yaga was aback her mortar and pestle with her witch-daughter Morena, the wind-wild goddess with a body like a birch. Morena flew aback a broom in a red velvet cloak and black rags of a dress. They were flying as fast as an eagle over the Caucasus Mountains, sending their flocks of crows and owls to harvest ingredients: poisonous herbs and dwarven treasures, alongside a fair amount of children’s first breaths and mother’s last words.
This spell would be one in a long line against Chernobog, the Black God, who longed to unseat Morena and her consort Jarilo from the heavens and spread sterile, cold perfection with the infection of his cursed deathless lands upon Buyan. Nature abhors a vacuum, but vacuums abhor nature, and Chernobog was the void that ate all he drained of blood and left his victims cold and lifeless.
Russia was both light and dark, poison and honey, and black Morena was the queen of immortals. Passionate but feral, she carried madness with her like a worm in her brain. Watching her bare milky-breasted, nipples like pink daggers as she beat at her chest with venik branches to guide the winds, Baba Yaga was proud of Morena’s ferocity. Her witch-daughter was all wolf, all wild, and the best hope at destroying Chernobog for good.
If Morena was a wolf, then Chernobog was a vulture, circling in the sky waiting for a feast. Would this spell or the next seal the coffin in his box? The Zorya’s whispered in their prophetic trills that Morena would birth Bilobog, the remedy to Chernobog’s destruction, but so far her union with the sunlit god Jarilo had proven tempestuous and fruitless.
Baba Yaga had tried spell after spell to make Morena’s inhospitable womb of ice and night a planting ground for Jarilo’s seed, but stillborn embryo after bloody abortion followed. It drove Morena deeper into her madness and desperation, and it drove Jarilo farther from Morena. They failed again and again, Chernobog’s blackness spread, and Buyan was growing darker. The crops failed more, the spirits thirsted, and the deathless maidens haunted the outer boundaries, hunting for ungiven comfort.
It was time for Baba Yaga to tell Morena, her dearest godchild, a heartbreaking truth. They had sent a fetch in the form of a giant to Chernobog’s deathless lands with the fruit of that night’s labor, enchanted to wreak havoc on his palace of glass and ice and tear the oak tree of his heart from its roots. Each egregore and familiar that died at Chernobog’s hands infuriated him more, and drew him further into no man’s land, where they might strike him in earnest with spells and curses, but Chernobog was wily, and deathless to boot. It would take a mortal to kill him, and a mortal man to bring life to the goddess of death, as only humanity tasted of the black cup of destruction and passed on into the great unknown no god or nechist knew.
Baba Yaga told this to Morena, that her marriage to Jarilo would prove fruitless, and that she should seek a mortal’s bed. There were rats on Morena’s shoulders and crows in her black black hair. She gave a ragged sigh, moths leaving her mouth as she exhaled.
“I suppose it is true, witch-mother. Burning day and dark night are never on earth at the same time, and for Bilobog to walk the earth, my child must have mortal blood. All the heroes, from Ilya Muromets to Dobryna Nikitich, were partially human after all. They were the ones to slay dragons, not insipid Jarilo or my stubborn father Perun.” Morena looked out the window of Baba Yaga’s chicken hut and the darkness of the night shuddered under the death goddess’s gaze. “I will travel Russia for however long it takes to find the father of Buyan’s avenger, though my trek may span centuries.”
Baba Yaga gave a weak smile. “This war is tiring for us both, and you have a heavy cross to bear, dear Marzanna.”
Morena plaited her tangled hair. “If I could but have one child, one witch-babe to suckle at my breasts and coddle under the starlight and winds, it will have been worth it.”
Baba Yaga did not want to tell the daydreaming Morena that to keep a half-mortal child in a house of immortals at war would be a death sentence, but for once in her long long life, she kept quiet.
Morozko became famed for his treatment of guests at banyas and his divination prowess. Word traveled of the tenderness with which he beat bushels of green peeled venik against patron’s backs. He could steam and ice the different pools just so, and his reputation began to precede him. Morozko worked for different leshys in different kingdoms who had carved Buyan up between them in a patchwork thanks to games of chess and war. Leshy tsars sometimes lost half a forest to an ill-thought bet. Winners led their pampered squirrels in great migrations to their new lands.First Morozko traveled on foot, then on horseback when he had saved enough money. He possessed his mother’s wandering heart, always searching for a place to belong but never finding it. He was camping by the Volga River one night when he heard the click-clack creak of a hut on chicken legs. A hag with iron teeth and a fence of bones sat smoking her pipe in a
Centuries passed, but Buyan stayed the same. Morozko settled into tending the banya and thought of Dmitri as his father and the staff as his brothers and sisters. He delighted in Dmitri’s annual councils with his leshy noblemen and the celebrations in the village that followed. He would chase after vila warrior women and flirtatious, dangerous rusalka on St. John’s Eve, searching for fern flowers that would lead to an evening of lovemaking. Many times he sat with Dmitri in the kitchen by the woodstove on rainy evenings and read from Dmitri’s collection of human literature.Baba Yaga watched, waited, and smoked her perpetual pipe. She took Morozko under her hoary wing to become the babushka he never had.It could have been today or tomorrow when Morozko got the letter of a present to deliver. Perhaps a package just like Ded Moroz and Snegurochka carried on the winter holidays. He had not forgotten his wor
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 he
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