Chapter 5: The Snow Demon

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.”