The aerie effect was heightened by the two enormous black raptor claws that protruded from the undercarriage of the hut. Like stilts, the scaly legs lifted the copse-like house above the muck. Shiny black talons grasped the ground firmly and appeared as though they might be called upon to crush an intruder or to run very fast and far away from a serious threat. Freya was surprised by the fear the incongruous legs struck in her. The bizarreness of their presence underneath the house filled her with an inexplicable dread. She only knew that her first instinct was to leave and never return. She suspected this is exactly what the witch had in mind when she’d constructed such a dwelling.
Rusty stood from his crouched position. His normal aloof demeanor had returned, but Freya could see an almost imperceptible change in his carriage, a slight downward slope to his back and shoulders. She attributed this to the fact that only a few moments before he had almost drowned in a stinking bog.
“Let’s go,” he said, his misshapen mouth set in a stoic line.
They both stepped forward, slowly, toward the bony gate of the uncanny little house. Freya held her breath as they passed through but nothing happened as their feet touched the barren ground of Baba Yaga’s front yard.
“How do we get up there?” Freya asked.
The long bird legs made it so that Baba Yaga’s door was nearly even with the top of Rusty’s head, but no sooner had she asked then a set of rickety stairs unfolded itself from the tiny porch. The pair looked at each other and then Freya put an uncertain foot on the lowest stair, testing it to see if it would hold her weight. It creaked loudly but seemed sturdy enough. She hurried up the stairs, afraid of what would happen if she lingered too long on their unreliable support. Rusty followed closely behind.
“Should we knock?” Freya wondered out loud.
She stared with trepidation at the black wood door and its disturbing latch constructed from the jawbone of a predator, holding what seemed to be a human vertebrae securely in its toothy mandible. But again, no sooner had she asked than the carnivorous mouth loosed its hold on the skeletal remains and the crooked portal swung open revealing the dreary interior of Baba Yaga’s home.
“Come in, my dears. You’ve certainly earned it.”
It was a voice like no other Freya had ever heard and she was certain she never wanted to hear another like it ever again. It was dry and crisp like fall leaves, but there was no trace of the fragile beauty of fall in it. Instead there was only bleakness, a sour rottenness that permeated the harsh consonants and attenuated vowels of Baba Yaga’s accented voice. Like the swamp she called home, it was clear that there was some terrible degradation at the witch’s core. Freya cringed and it took all her will power not to take flight right then and there before she even set eyes on the vile conjurer of Slavic lore.
Freya held her breath and Rusty’s hand and stepped forward into the gloom beyond the threshold. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the shadowy interior; even the gloomy morn outside was brighter than the confines of Baba Yaga’s hut. The air there was close and warm. The effect was stifling. Freya felt herself gag. She actually found herself longing for the tainted swamp air outside, and she looked for a window, but it appeared that the only opening to the exterior was the doorway they had just passed through. As soon as Rusty cleared its threshold it slammed shut again with a sound that carried the force and finality of a dungeon gate.
“Don’t linger by the door, lyubimaya,” Baba Yaga wheezed. “It’s not polite you know, and you’ve already offended me with your stench. Don’t make it worse. You uplanders always smell of fresh air and the world after a rainstorm. It makes me sick.”
Freya still couldn’t see her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. But slowly she was able to pick out the details of their surroundings. The only light source was an ancient lantern that hung from the crooked rafters on a cobweb-encrusted chain. It seemed to be more decorative than functional as the globe of glass protecting the flame was ensconced in an ornately filigreed metal cage that blocked much of the already scant light. What light did escape fell upon an ancient wooden table and the giant brass samovar it supported. The distended belly of its grotesquely rounded urn, along with its curved spigot, reminded Freya of a lewd imp from a bacchanal.
The floor was mostly lost amid the darkness, but from what Freya could see it appeared to be covered in grime and spotted here and there with dark stains that might have been tar or blood. In a space like this it was impossible to be sure. The walls were crowded with deep shelves that held glass jars and tins. Some appeared to be spices and herbs; others held organic matter of indeterminate origin. None of them looked familiar to Freya, but they all had an insalubrious air about them. Freya imagined they were the ingredients for the nefarious spells and charms of the old witch. She squinted her eyes at the cracked and peeling labels of the containers nearest her but they were scrawled in Cyrillic.
“You made it past my horsemen,” Baba Yaga said. “Impressive, although Dawn and Day are rather easygoing compared to Night. Lucky for you, he’s not due again for another twelve hours or so.”
Freya strained to see where the voice was coming from. She inched forward, afraid of what she might bump into, and as she moved, the far side of the room came into view around the lecherous boiler. There, perched on a pile of soiled cushions heaped high on the floor, was the witch.
She was a travesty of those fairytale peasants with milky skin and bountiful curves, the fair Russian beauties of Eastern lore. The witch was inordinately thin and swathed in layers of filthy fabric covered by an equally grimy sarafan. She held a long, thin pipe in her wizened hands and a slender tongue of smoke curled up from the diminutive bowl at its end to circle, snake-like, around her head.
She regarded Freya impassively with black eyes that shone in the dusky chamber with a malevolent light all their own. Her face was like a raisin, dark and so heavily wrinkled only a millennia of inequity could have etched so many deep creases. She wore a tall kokoshnik on her head with a wide curved top and gold trim. It was perhaps the only thing in the place that could be considered beautiful and perched so close to her face it seemed to intensify the witch’s ugliness.
“Don’t just stand there gawking, child,” the witch said. “Come closer and bring your grotesque friend with you.”
Freya had no desire to be anywhere near the foul creature, but she had even more reason not to make her angry, so she and Rusty shuffled forward cautiously, skirting the table with the samovar and coming within a few short paces of Baba Yaga’s hassock throne.
“That’s close enough. Even covered in mud from my bog your stench is making me feel nauseous. Now I assume you didn’t traipse down here risking life and limb to simply inquire after my health. What is it that you desire?”
Freya cleared her throat and tried to sound brave. “We were told you could provide us with a certain color we need, carmine red.”
“You were told, eh? Sonsa, even I, a humble immigrant to this land, know that the passive voice is a most egregious affront to grammarian and casual speaker alike. Please rephrase your sentence using the active voice so that I may know who has directed you to my modest abode.”
Freya paused. She wasn’t sure if it was wise to implicate Vasilisa as the one who had provided them directions to Baba Yaga’s cache of carmine, but under the current circumstances she was finding it even more difficult than usual to fabricate a convincing lie.
Baba Yaga took a long slow drag from her spindly pipe, holding the acrid smoke in her lungs for a beat longer than seemed necessary and then released it slowly in little puffs that took the shape of perfect spheres. Freya watched, fascinated. Baba Yaga regarded her with disdain.
“I gather from your slack jaw and dull eyes that you do not have the quickest of wits, but really it shouldn’t be that difficult to recall who sent you here, simply because there are very few people who know where to find me. So I presume that it must have been my dear friend Vasilisa who sent you down here. I shall hav
e to thank her for providing me with such amusing company.”
Freya shuddered. Suddenly she understood the haunted look in the girl’s eyes. She closed her own for a moment to pull herself together and then spoke.
“Please, I’m very sorry to disturb you. Don’t take it out on Vasilisa. I made her tell me. It’s very important that we get the color.”
“It always is, isn’t it?” said the witch. “Always some pressing matter you human creatures need to attend to.”
Baba Yaga paused and took another lengthy drag from her pipe, this time exhaling the smoke in concentric circles.
“Don’t worry about my little Vasilka,” she drawled. “She and I have an arrangement, an understanding. She’s been mine for a while now. What you should be worried about is what you can give me.”
“What do you mean?” Freya asked.
“I mean I don’t just give my color away for nothing you know. I don’t conjure it out of thin air. It takes time and effort to grow those little beasties and then turn them into paint. So what are you going to give me in exchange for the color, my little bowl of borscht?”
Freya glanced at Rusty. He had remained silent throughout the entire exchange, which was nothing unusual, but Freya noticed that he looked pale and he was leaning heavily on the samovar table for support. He met her eyes and Freya was reassured. There was still strength in them, that inner resolve that helped bolster her own determination. They were weakened but not defeated, but they hadn’t come prepared to bargain. What did they have to offer the witch?
“I’m not sure what we have that you would want,” Freya told the witch.
She reached her hand into her pocket and retrieved a folded twenty-dollar bill. She hated carrying a purse so she usually kept a few bills and her driver’s license in the pocket of her jeans. She stared down at the bill. It wasn’t much but she was desperate.
“This is all I have,” Freya said extending her hand to offer the witch the money.
Baba Yaga peered at her through the darkness.
“What is that?” she asked. Her long hooked nose wrinkled with concentration.
“It’s twenty dollars,” Freya said as the bill quavered in her outstretched hand. “It’s not much but—”
“Money! Ha.” Baba Yaga exclaimed. “What use do I have for your paper money? Perhaps if you had gold or even silver, but money? No, the only currency here, my little pirozhok, is good old-fashioned trade. Your dollars are worthless to me.”
Freya withdrew her hand and stuffed the money quickly back into her pocket, chagrined. She glanced again at Rusty. He looked ill. His eyes were glassy and distant and he leaned even more heavily on the table by his side. Freya felt a tight knot forming in her stomach. She needed to get the color quickly and then get out of this stinking quagmire so Rusty could recover.
“Well, what is it that you would find useful?” she asked tentatively.
Baba Yaga puffed on her pipe and eyed Freya carefully. She evaluated her as one would appraise a cut of meat. Then she trained her predatory eyes on Rusty. Freya felt a cold sweat form on her forehead. The tiny hut was airless and she felt a little lightheaded. She swallowed hard and tried to focus. The witch removed the pipe from between her shriveled lips and smiled. Freya noticed for the first time the disturbing sharpness of her teeth.
“I could eat one of you,” the witch said. She was smiling, but Freya knew she wasn’t joking. “Generally I prefer younger, tenderer flesh, but it’s been awhile since I treated myself to a human. Really, you both have a good amount of meat on your bones, and you are not that old. I’m sure you’d cook up nicely, although he looks a little sickly and you, girl, have a little too much breast meat for my liking.”
“We’d very much prefer not to be eaten,” Freya said. “Is there anything else we can do? Some service maybe?”
“Are you offering to do me a favor?” the witch asked and her eyes narrowed. “Because a favor, now that is something with value.”
Freya hesitated. Baba Yaga’s regard had changed. There was now playfulness mixed in with the rapaciousness of her gaze.
“I suppose it depends,” Freya said. “What kind of favor would we need to do in exchange for the color?”
“Oh, just a trifling really. It will barely put you out at all. You see, I’m an old woman and this swamp is my home; it’s where I belong. Sure, the people from the Old Country keep my story alive above ground. They scare their children and grandchildren with tales of my iron teeth and ravenous appetite, but their beliefs are waning. My story is told less frequently and this New World is no place for fairytales. It has its own kind of bogeymen that are much more insidious than I could ever be. You must understand I’m not all bad. I reward tenacity and pluck. I like to place my bet on the unlikely winner. It makes things more interesting.”
Freya was absorbed with Baba Yaga’s soliloquy but a scuffling noise at her side made her turn her head just in time to see Rusty’s knees buckle underneath him. She quickly flung her arm out and around his huge chest and was able to keep him upright while she eased him to the floor. His breath came quick and shallow but he looked at her with an unwavering resolve. He was a fighter, and he wouldn’t stay down for long. He grasped her hand tightly and used it to haul himself back up to his feet.
“You see!” squealed Baba Yaga. “Look at that. You might not be the smartest, the quickest, the strongest, or the best prepared, but, by god, do you have grit. So, I’m willing to make a little wager. That you just might come out on top in all of this, and even if you don’t, at least you’ll make it interesting.”
The wizened creature hauled herself up from her soiled hassock and, moving with a speed that Freya wouldn’t have thought her capable of, she crossed the short space between them and stood in front of Freya, so close that her hooked nose was mere inches away.
“Here’s the deal,” the witch said, and she wrapped her steely fingers around Freya’s arm. “There’s a monster from the Verge up there who has done me a grievous harm. He has taken from me that which I hold quite dear and I will have my revenge.”
Baba Yaga let go of Freya’s arm and she breathed a sigh of relief. There was something about having her so close that made Freya’s blood run cold. She wondered what the witch had been like in the past in her Old Country when her power had been so much greater.
The witch strode across the filthy floor of her dreary little hut and rummaged around within a particularly grubby cupboard, her head and shoulders nearly disappearing inside of it. When she emerged, she held a ring made of jet-black twigs tied together with a translucent cord that had the smooth quality of catgut bowstrings. Fine silver threads stretched across the organic hoop at irregular intervals, forming a kind of asymmetrical spider web from which dark hunks of unpolished quartz and amber were suspended like so many swollen bugs. Even from across the room Freya could tell it had black magic in it, but when the witch brought it near, the witchcraft it possessed was undeniable.
“It’s a dream catcher,” Baba Yaga said. “Some dark thaumaturge made it in another age and time. I need you to give it to someone. I think you know him. His name is Dakryma.”
“Professor Dakryma?” Freya asked. At the mention of his name she was suddenly filled with dread. After everything that had happened the last couple of days she had completely forgotten her promise to him. She was sure he wouldn’t be pleased, but really, she didn’t owe him anything, and she’d seen enough of the Verge already that his glowing eyes and disappearing act didn’t seem that scary anymore.
“So he’s a professor these days?” the witch said with a laugh. “Sure, just give it to the old pedagogue, won’t you?”
Freya looked at her expectantly. She was anticipating more direction, some kind of instruction as to what she was supposed to do after she handed off the dream catcher to him, but Baba Yaga remained silent. A look of annoyance flashed across her fractious face.
“Devochka, don’t make me doubt my faith in you with that blank stare of yours.
It’s a very simple task I’m asking of you. Just offer him the device. Tell him it’s a gift from me. That ought to do the trick. And don’t worry about finding him. He’ll come to you, I have a feeling. The Verge is stirring. It will be Halloween soon. Anything could happen. I’ll be watching, with interest.”
Freya took the ring from the witch with tentative hands. It felt much heavier than she had imagined, and it was warm to the touch as though heated from within by its own slow-burning furnace. She tucked it into her jacket pocket. It hung there like an anchor.
“Come. I’ll get you the color. Your friend is strong, but even the mighty have their limits.”
Freya took a few steps forward and the dream catcher thumped against her thigh, a solid and forbidding rhythm. Rusty made a move to follow her but the witch put her hand on his shoulder.
“Not you, big man. You stay here. I can’t have an oaf like you passing out in my carmine garden. You’d crush all my hard work. There’s a seat over there against the wall. Why don’t you avail yourself of it while your friend and I gather what she needs.”
Rusty turned toward Freya. He didn’t say anything, but she knew that he was waiting for her okay. She nodded once and pressed her lips into a thin smile. She meant it to be reassuring but she wasn’t sure how successful she’d managed to be. He eyed her warily but limped off toward the dark margins of the hut where a rickety chair stood uncertainly on three legs. Freya returned her attention to Baba Yaga and followed her to where she stood on the opposite side of the room. There was nothing before her but the tangled mass of twigs that made up the circular wall of her tiny home.
Wretched hut that I call home
Wall of branches instead of stone
I seek my garden out on the moor
On the Verge Page 17