Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga by Christina Henry
Author:Christina Henry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Spot Books
Published: 2022-09-06T00:00:00+00:00
HERALD THE KNIGHT
by Mercedes M. Yardley
This is the tale of how Baba Yaga fell in love. Did you know such a thing was possible? Itâs true. The moon has its secrets. The oceans mouth the seashore. Even forces of nature like the ultimate witch are allowed a love story.
Fairy tales are full of clever young boys and beautiful, bewitching girls. The boys are good and strong. They turn into cunning young men, able to outfox the man who wants their head in exchange for gold, or the witch who wants to eat their little sisters. The girls grow into gorgeous blond ingénues. They are kind and good. They weep over the bloodied stumps of their hands until the skin becomes clean and smooth, and the devil himself canât take them.
These young men and dewy-eyed girls always meet. Usually, the girl is kept in a palace or a tower, and the ingenious boy uses his wits to win her. She is given as a trophy, a prize, and they gaze into each otherâs blue, blue eyes while falling madly in love.
This type of story didnât suit Baba Yaga at all. She wasnât interested in tales of simpering love. Love makes you weak. A heart isnât meant for such silly things, but itâs meant to beat, flex like the muscle it is, and strengthen as it works harder and harder to push the blood through the aorta and arteries. A heart is strong. It is thick. It is a piece of meat, and it has the right amount of resistance when you bite down on it with your teeth.
Teeth are also strong, white picket fences. When Baba Yaga looked at a strapping young man or a pretty little thing, she measured them in her mind. She weighed them, seeing how much fat ran around their thighs and whether their calves curved under her hand like the flank of a deer. She checked their eyes for jaundice and the color of their soul. A soul flows through your fingers like sand, like strands of hair, like water. You can pack a voodoo doll with chicken feathers, fingernails, and tattered pieces of soul. You can sew it into a dress. Baba Yaga did all of these things.
Baba Yaga was young and lovely with piercing gray eyes. Her father, when she had a father, told her to lower her gaze.
âYou have the eyes of a man,â he told her. âTheyâre fierce, and I can see fire in them instead of my reflection. What type of man would choose to wed a brazen woman such as yourself?â
Baba Yaga didnât blink. Her eyes were like the finest burnished swords, sharp and cutting.
âI wouldnât want any man that would want me, Father,â she said. âI donât want any man at all. I want to learn the secrets of the universe. I want to know how to stop somebodyâs blood in their veins. I want to know what words to whisper to the stars so they will fall to the ground and do my bidding.
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