Chapter 4: Anya, You Are Mine

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 word, and it was in his blood to fulfill letters requesting parcel delivery.

After so many years and so many moons Morozko had lost track it had come time for Morozko to make good on his promise to Baba Yaga.  She summoned him in the dead of night. He was hoping to get some cigarettes from her storage.

What he got was nothing what he expected.

Night played like a worn balalaika, strumming stars across the sky.  Firs bent like widows in the wind.  It was a familiar scene in Buyan, minus the human visitor.

Morozko unwrapped the so-called present, unfolding bits of tissue paper to reveal swaddling.  He was surprised to see that he held an infant in his arms. “A baby?” he asked, thinking it one of babushka’s pranks.  “Smells tender.  I bet she tastes like chicken.  Is this your afternoon palate cleanser?” 

“You wish!  Hungry for baby soul sashimi, eh?”  Baba Yaga’s iron teeth flashed.  “Spill a drop of her blood and I'll cook you in my pot.”

“Yeah right.”  Morozko pulled back her swaddling and examined the child’s face.  “Her soul is too appetizing to be anything but a snack.”

“Her name is Anya.  That is all you need to know.”  Baba Yaga laughed.  The wrinkles on her skin were like furrows in brown earth.  “Take her home to your tsar courtesy of your babushka.  Bathe her in the banya and ruddy her flesh with birch bark.  Make her a child of the woods.  When she has ripened like fruit from the love of your inn, send her to me.”

Morozko looked at Baba Yaga in confusion.  “What?  Dima will never stand for this.  The borders to Earth are all closed save your world-hopping house.  It’s unheard of for mortals to come to Buyan anymore.”

“Pfft.  Your tsar will see my way, even if I have to pluck his eyes out and wear them so he sees my point of view.”  She cackled like a crow as she rested on her hovering mortar.

“But babushka-”

“No buts!  Go, Kolya: back to the banya with you.”  Baba Yaga took her pestle, ground it into the air, and flew away.

Morozko looked down at the infant.

“Well, mooncalf.  Looks like you won't end up in my stomach after all.” 

Anya gurgled.

“You think this is a joke?”  Morozko brought his face close to Anya's.  “I could swallow you in one gulp.  Your soul would be all mine to play with.  A trinket I could use to light the banya, hung from the rafters with my other meals.”

Anya reached out and touched Morozko’s nose.

"Guh?"

“Get your grubby hands off me,” Morozko said, clutching the infant close as snow crunched under his boots.  “Forget babushka's dried up hide.  That hag has gone senile.”

He walked through pillars of birch.  Scant clouds brought snow.  Patches in cirrus allowed the moon to shine through.  Morozko's fur coat sheltered him from the falling white.  Snowflakes steamed as they hit his exposed skin.

As a bathhouse spirit Morozko carried the sauna with him.  Anya nestled close to his skin and babbled.  “Eee?”

“Yes Anya, I see your point.”  Morozko softened, peering into her eyes.  “So where exactly did you come from?  Or is that a secret too?”

Anya cried out in hunger.

Morozko thumbed her lips, and she sucked his finger.  Anya nipped the soft flesh under his nail with wet gums.

“I am guessing Baba Yaga did not give you dinner,” Morozko sighed, accidentally jostling the girl as he plucked his finger away.  “She does not have a very good track record with children.  Neither do most nechist.  We either steal them as thralls, eat or drown them - sometimes both - or abduct them to be our brides.  I can’t imagine Dmitri would want a wood wife not yet out of diapers.”

Anya cooed.

Morozko frowned.  “I cannot give you milk, but I might just have something better.”

He reached for a flask at his waist, unscrewed the top, and offered her nectar pressed from fern flowers that bloomed on Ivan Kupalo, or St. John’s Eve, the summer festival of love, beauty, and magic.  The flowers the fern flower bore were rarer than a five-leaf clover.

Anya drank.

“So that is how I get you to shut up, eh?”  He rocked Anya as she nursed.  “Witch’s brew.  There is nothing sweeter, except perhaps your soul,” he teased.

Anya squirmed, burrowed into his coat.  Morozko smoothed her coal-dark curls.

“Eating you would be like killing myself.  You have drunk half my mixer anyways.  Good thing Baba Yaga did not see me steal it from her fridge.  How is that for an introduction, mooncalf?  Alcoholic baby food, Mother Mokosh have mercy.” Morozko adjusted his collar.  He peered into the future, as banniks are wont to do, and got hints of what was to come.  This ability did not often work.  When it did, his visions were clear as crystal lattice icicles.

“You will call me many things: 'Bannik,' 'bastard,' 'terror.'  But however cruel you think me, remember it was I that carried you through the darkness.  The banya now runs through your veins.  Let it cleanse you of human weakness.  I will raise you in the strength of the nechist.  I have taken a liking to the girl who survived Baba Yaga’s hut.”

She burbled.  Morozko clutched her close.

“Anya, you are mine.  I promise to forever protect you, especially from Baba Yaga’s cauldron.”