Twelve years old, thirteen winters passed – finally fourteen and with her moon’s blood upon her.  Anya now danced sky clad at Witches Sabbaths.  From her bloody feet, finally, fern flowers sprang in fragrant gore red blossoms.  She pressed them and made tinctures and potions out of the mashed fronds and roots.  Summer turned, and she was between childhood and womanhood, of two ages, belonging not quite anywhere.Anya’s first day of high school had dawned.  She wore a pleated white skirt, a blue blouse and had plaited her long black hair back in a French braid and secured it with a red velvet bow that Elizaveta had sewn.She stood in front of Liliya’s vanity in the vila’s windy room at the top of the inn’s lookout tower, perfect for planning strategic maneuvers and defending Tsar Dmitri’s kingdom.  The room was all white birch bark,  its walls lined with sabers and long swords, whips, and arrow

 Dmitri woke Anya in the hidden away bedroom in the banya bright and early one Saturday morning come spring. “Da?  Ugh.  I was out late last night cheering on the Friday night game.  Please let me sleep just five more minutes.”“Anya, you are spending so much time with your friends and young men, I fear that you are forgetting your family.  That is why today, I am taking you out hunting, just like old times!”“But daaaa, it is nighttime-Dmitri chuckled, a quiver of arrows over his shoulder, handmade bow in his broad blue hands.  “No, my dear, it is eleven in the morning, one of the best times to catch game, when prey are lazing.  Let your old man take you on a hunting trip like we used to before you grew too busy with high school and football games and homework.”Anya groaned, burying her face in her pillow.  “Five more minutes?”&ldq

Anya settled under the covers that night in her small makeshift bed at the foot of Morozko's.  She stared at the ceiling, her firebird feather hung from the rafters to light the room as if by slow-burning moonlight.  Morozko's breathing was measured, the bannik asleep.“Kolya?” Anya said.“Mmm?” he stirred.“Kolya.”“What is it?” he said, groggy.“How do you know if you really like someone?”Morozko rolled over under wolfskin blankets and yawned.  “I do not know.  I suppose there is a certain ache in your chest.  A feeling of moths in the stomach: night things roused in your gut.  It is a simple thing, really.”“I do not think it is as easy as you make it out to be.”  Anya sighed.  She fluffed her pillow, seeking a comfortable position.  “Have you ever liked anybody?”Morozko exhaled heavi

She rose from the bed, pulling Morozko hastily after her.Morozko looked at her skeptically.  “Have you not any care for caution?  For consequences?  There are monsters out there, cherti familiars and vucari and nechist waiting to devour you.  Do not romanticize travel.  It is a dangerous undertaking – getting lost, having your horse broken, your money stolen – everything about it, why, it is treacherous.”  Morozko changed out of his kaftan into red jeans and a white cashmere sweater with embroidery of horse-backed Perun and Veles, flanking Mother Mokosh.  He turned from Anya to give them privacy.Anya laced her combat boots over her leggings.  “Oh please.  You said you had a restless heart.  Well, your fern flower juice infected me with wanderlust.”  Anya zipped her leather jacket.  “If you are really so worried, you can be my sidekick.  I will promote you to sec

Anya's birthday dawned with much celebration, the entire kingdom coming out into the streets.  Dmitri threw a festival in her honor, replete with the finest caviar and buttery champagne and parades through the streets.  The only one who seemed to not enjoy it was Morozko, who insisted he was sick and skipped out on the festivities.  Anya was quite irritated that her guardian had skipped out on the grand festivities.Their family gathered that morning in the rose garden outside the ramshackle library’s bay window to bless Anya.  They passed around a horn of vodka and poured it onto the ground, praising the gods one by one and asking for their gifts to be bestowed upon Dmitri’s precious Anya.  The carved hollow ram horn came to Anya at last.She looked to the rising sun, held the horn high, and said a prayer.“Mother Mokosh, Father Perun, Uncle Veles, let my dreams know fruition.  Let my wanderings be true.  Let