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 rocking chair. Her wood-dark eyes were like kindling.
She smiled like a shark.
“You are lost, Prince Morozko,” Baba Yaga observed.
Morozko stood up and dusted off his trousers of snow. “I have no compass to guide me, babushka. Every day that I wander farther into the wilds I find that I am losing my way. I do not know what I am looking for still! After all these godforsaken years, I am alone.”
“Family, a home, a father, love – I can give it all to you if you give me something precious.”
Morozko peered up at the famous witch who Snegurochka had sometimes entertained in his grandfather’s kingdom. “I have nothing of value – I threw my inheritance away, I travel with only a quiver full of cheap arrows and a doddering broken horse. What could you possibly want?”
Baba Yaga took a gigantic pestle from beside her rocking chair, set down her pipe, and pointed the pestle in Morozko’s direction: “Your word, half-blood bannik. One day I will ask you to do me a favor. If you value your life, you will not refuse me. If you accept my offer, I will give your wandering heart a home.”
“Where? I have searched nearly every inch of Buyan and I have found nothing but petty leshys. I know warring vila and seductress rusalka and absolutely nothing that suits me. I have had my heart broken by a vampir with hair like autumn leaves. My money was stolen by leshy tsars that shortchanged me and my services. My name has been lost to the wind. All I know is that a bastard belongs nowhere!”
“Pah, soap shavings! Everyone belongs somewhere, even a down-on-his-luck half-breed. Come, sit on my porch, drink my vodka, eat a pierogi, and stop wallowing in your misery. I will take you to Tsar Dmitri’s emerald forests where I make my home. There is no place kinder or sweet as baby’s bubbling marrow in Buyan.”
Morozko’s eyes widened. “I thought Dmitri was a myth. He is the famous leshy that won his woods from Saint Vladimir the Great when Russia was first formed. The one with an army of a thousand vila and an inn famed for its beauty. Its banya must be splendid…”
“Hah!” Baba Yaga laughed like a crow. “A banya that needs tending. The old bannik died. Climb up my steps, I promise the snakes do not bite.”
Morozko did.
“Hut, hut, turn your back from this wintry waste and your face to Dima’s realm!” Baba Yaga commanded, smacking her pestle on the porch.
The chicken-legged hut spun like a drunk duck; their surroundings blurred. Morozko steadied himself on the femur railing. When they landed, they were in a hollow tucked away into autumn woods. Ferns bordered the fence next to an herb garden raked with spines.
Baba Yaga ambled along the porch using her pestle as a cane. “Come come soap shavings! I told Dima he would have a visitor. His staff are excited to meet you – that or scared of what I may bring. They never do like my presents very much, especially the squealing children.”
Morozko followed Baba Yaga – the crone moved faster than her hobbled appearance let on. She mounted her hovering mortar, churned the air with her pestle, and was off. Morozko ran to keep up.
“Hah! The wind in my hair makes me feel young again. Being chased by a pretty boy, why, it’s just as in my youth!”
Morozko frowned. “I cannot imagine you were ever much to look at,” he muttered between breaths.
They came to a wooden three-story inn fronted by a millpond with the most perfect banya Morozko had ever seen. He quaked at the sight of it. His smoky magic reached out and sensed the power and enchantment of the bathhouse. He measured the potency within its wall and suddenly knew how it would bend to his will. It would be his work, bread, and soul.
Tsar Dmitri and his staff waited in the meadow fronting the inn. The smile on the leshy’s face was like sunlight on water:
“Welcome home, my son,” Dmitri said.
“Tsar Dmitri, it is an honor,” Morozko said, kneeling before the forest king.
Dmitri’s blue face crinkled in a smile. The bells on his antlers chimed as he extended his hand to help Morozko up: “No use bowing, dear lad. Here we are all just keepers of the woods, wayward souls in the haven that is my forest. Here you will find lecherous vodyanoi mermen that can outdrink you by ten gallons of vodka. There are witches who will steal your heart away if you are not careful. Here, come, Liliya, help Morozko to his quarters.”
Morozko found himself inside a banya that was built for him. The fire in his belly simmered to a gentle steam. He stretched on his wolfskin bed and looked up at the ceiling, which would look just so studded with trespassing human’s souls. Dmitri’s wolves called to salute the rising moon.
He got up and settled at a rickety desk, dipped a quill into an inkpot, and began a letter to Snegurochka:
“Mother, I am finally home. My wandering heart is now, despite all my dreams, content.”
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
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