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

Den' awaited Morozko in the parking lot beyond.  The horse-turned-car drove pell mell back to Baba Yaga's.  Baba Yaga was in a rocking chair, smoking a pipe as the moon sailed past.  The smoke formed wisps of worms and inched off into the horizon slowly.Den' shifted into a mare and stooped low so Morozko could dismount.Baba Yaga wrinkled her nose, spotting the red on his teeth.  “I can smell the delicious sweat, blood, and soul of a human on you.  A hapless young woman, as usual?”Morozko shrugged, taking the groceries from the horse's back onto his shoulder.  “I have my dalliances, just like you.  Banniks always love souls, after all.”“Pah.  My dalliances are more of the eating limbs and bone variety, not easy seductions of boring mortal maidens.  You kept me waiting, boy!  My hut is not just a door you can stroll through at your own leisure.  This place is the watcht

Baba Yaga whistled. A stallion red as the sun galloped from the woods to the driveway.   Solntse, Morozko thought.  Baba Yaga’s pride and joy, whose hooves could leave fields aflame in their tempestuous fury.Solntse neighed, shifting into the form of a red VW Bug with a shining Slavic sun decal.  The nechist and Baba Yaga piled into the car haphazardly, with Baba Yaga at the wheel.  She drove like a speed demon past buses and Washingtonians onto the highway and followed the Beltway to Washington, D.C., enchanting her way into not paying at the parking garage. They found themselves strolling along the National Mall, obelisk of the Washington Monument penetrating the sky like a needle. Baba Yaga doted on Anya, pushing her in a stroller.  Anya giggled, pointing at the clouds.  Time spun on its axis, and Baba Yaga pushed her through summer and fall, through winter and spring, round and round the years until Anya

Anya returned the next day in tears and ran straight into Dmitri’s arms in the dining room, her bright pink backpack unzipped: “They made me learn!  My teacher made me learn!  I do not want to learn!  I want to fight Genghis Khan in the woods with my bunnies riding Kolya-the-horse’s back and pick flowers with Liza!  Liliya is a good Genghis Khan.  Why do I have to learn addition and subtraction?  It is awful!”Dmitri bellowed with laughter: “Darling Annushka, tell me, did you make any friends?  And math is important: Someday you shall inherit all my verdant fields and rolling forests.  There will be grain stores and villagers to keep count of, the royal coffers to keep track of-“But da that is so so boring!  Put me down, please.”Dmitri did and sighed.  “I suppose elementary school will take some getting used to then, my dear.” 

Anya grew like a spring shoot, twelve harsh Russian winters old.  The winds molded her into a birch: tall and slender, with skin pale as the white tree's bark.  Her hair came to her waist, black as onyx, and Elizaveta took to braiding it with blood red ribbons.  It swung so beautifully as she danced the khorovod, a circling peasant dance of song and turning seasons, with village youths.  She was like a fishing lure cast into a valley of dreams: one had to watch their feet lest they step on Anya as she ran mad-dash through the world. It was the anniversary of the dozen year truce between Tsar Vladimir the Bent and Tsar Dmitri the Bountiful – two brothers as different in disposition as night and day.  Liliya and Elizaveta cooked for days on end, harvesting the finest caviar from the rivers for stuffed blini, and Morozko was in charge of the vodka freshly brewed from the potato fields behind the inn.  Anya took it upon herself to decorat