BABA YAGA

Once upon a time, deep in the heart of a dark forest, surrounded by a twist of trees, lived a little grandmother in a mishapen hut, hidden high in the hills.

Within her garden grew an abundance of flowers, herbs, fruit and vegetables. Blood red berries sprung along the wooden fence line. Bees buzzed lazily through through the leafy yard, pollinating her secret garden, their hive producing honey for daily oatmeal at breakfast.

Red clover sprung from the rich soil, protecting the earth from erosion and fertilising the ground for next year’s crop. Hens pecked at grasshoppers in her garden, grey lizards skittering across the white pave-way to her front door. A she-goat chewed rested in the stoop, waiting to be milked.

Inside the little grandmother’s kitchen, a soup bubbled in a pot that never left the fire.

When the moon was dark, Baba Yaga tied her flowered scarf under her chin and walked three days to trade with the babushka’s of the neighbouring villages, swapping bushels of herbs, dill and freshly slaughter geese for the pot, thread for making jackets and wool for hats and mittens. Around a fire they shared poppyseed cake and news of their darling children.

Each day, Baba Yaga worked in her garden without fail. Her fingers with gnarled and nails were broken. Her fingers were stained with the juice of weeds yanked from the dirt, calloused and rough. Her face was still fair, but her clothes — well, she no longer cared.

At night she drank a drop or two of St John’s Wort with a little alcohol to lessen the ache in her bones. At night she curled into a bed warmed with a stone from the hearth and a cat purring beside her and a hand stitched silk eiderdown to keep her warm from the winds Grandfather Frost howled from on high at night.

And despite her solitariness, she was happy. It was not an easy life, but she had all she needed. Stars lit her forest through the breaks in the lush tree canopy, warm summer forest floor barely creaking beneath her hard-soled feet.

Late one Midsummer’s Day, a young man — whose name has unfortunately been forgotten unto history, save except for his poor mother’s memory — stumbled upon her garden.

He’d been out on a hunting party and somehow he’d gotten lost. He’d been drinking over night, with a bunch of young men from the village in the valley below, and the effects of the night before hadn’t yet quite worn off.

Anyway, there in the garden was Baba Yaga in her self-stitched tunic, on her hands and knees — ass up — surrounded by a vivd collection of flowers as she weeded the garden.

The young man was suddenly filled with longing.

Of course, he’d had many other women before and planned to have many others yet again.

But there was something different about this woman. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. She wasn’t as comely as the last young maiden he’d snatched from the local village fair. In fact, he was almost revulsed by her coarse hair, rough hands and thick waist. She was worldly. Plump but not pretty. Older. She probably needed a fuck, all that time up there alone in the hills. She’d be grateful. She needed it. He was too good for her. He’d be doing her an act of charity. Of course he didn’t plan to stay.

He was overtaken by his longing.

“I must have her or I’ll die,” he whispered out loud. Somewhere in the fir tree far overhead hooted an owl, with a softly echoed call that sounded something faintly like: “Then die!”

He shivered and then shook it off. The effects of the hangover, he assumed.

He gathered the little bravery he had, and without so much as an “excuse me, may I come in, please to pay my regards?”, the youth flung open the gate and swaggered into the garden without an invite.

“Woman! I have travelled from far away to grant you an audience. But first, show me proper curtesy and make me a sandwich.” And he tugged at the bulge in his pants.

Now Baba Yaga stood up and assessed the lad. She was taller somehow than he’d originally assumed. She almost came up to his shoulder.

“Ahhhh. So you want to be fucked?” She enquired politely

“Aaaaahhhhh,” Stammered the lad, just a little bit. He had not expected her to be so forthright.

“And you’d do anything to fuck me?”, asked the little grandmother.

“Oh yes,” he said. “I’d die to be fucked by you. Fuck me or I’ll die.” And he sniggered slightly to himself, with a slight note of mocking sarcasm.

In truth, he was starting to feel a little silly now.

“Well then,” said Baba Yaga, “…come inside my home and make yourself comfortable. I’m sorry I don’t have any sandwiches. Perhaps a bowl of soup would suffice?”

The youth smelt the rich broth in her cauldron and replied “OOOOoooh, yes please!”

“So shall it be,” said Baba Yaga.

With the great care, she ladled out a bowl of her special hundred-thousand-ingedient-soup, sweet and heavy and fermenting, more a potion than a soup.

“And you’d die for me?”, asked Baba Yaga.

“Of course! Of course! Yes! Give me the soup,” responded the man impatiently.

He lifted the roughly carved wooden spoon to his lips. He took a sip. And then a mouthful. The flavour spread through his throat and bones and blood, filling him with a sense of peace. He suddenly felt content, his belly warm and full… and ever so sleepy.

“Darling boychik,” whispered Baba Yaga as she stroked his tired head. “Soon you’ll have all you ever wished.”

Ivan laid his heavy head upon the table, and as his eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks, he watched the last light slip from the garden through the massive open door, the moonlight streaming across a hundred skulls staked to the fence in the yard.

Baba Yaga sighed. It was alway such a hassle, dealing with these incidents. It didn’t make her happy, but she’d fled a village many decades ago after a pogrom. Hidden in the thatching of a ceiling, she’d watched five horsemen rape her little sister and slit her from belly to throat after they’d finished murdering her parents. And so she’d fled to the mountains.

It has been so long. She’d stayed safe. Her garden, kitchen, bed and life were her own. Hers and only hers.

It was not theirs to take. Not theirs to demand.

And the skulls glowed in the darkness of the yard, gleaming from their eyes like a torch in the dark.

Fucked. Just liked they’d wanted.